It was an honor to recently join Will Crebs on the Under Pressure OutdoorsPodcast to talk about Dark Outdoors® and some of the strange and sometimes dangerous things I’ve investigated over the years.
Will asked a lot of great questions, and I really enjoyed the conversation. It’s always fun to connect with someone who genuinely loves the outdoors and is interested in exploring stories that go beyond the typical hunting and fishing discussion.
One of the things I appreciate about Will’s show is his approach to interviewing people.
“We talk about pretty much anything and everything related to hunting and the outdoors. We have everybody on from regular guys with some great stories to some of the biggest names in the industry, and we try to keep the conversations laid-back and genuine,” Crebs said.
“The idea is that you can listen, learn a thing or two, maybe get a different perspective on something, and have a few laughs along the way,” he said.
That’s exactly the kind of conversation I enjoy.
With Dark Outdoors, my goal has always been to tell stories that are compelling, sometimes unsettling and hopefully make people think a little differently about what can happen in the woods and on the water.
I appreciate Will having me on and giving me the opportunity to share some of that work with his audience.
Be sure to check out Under Pressure Outdoors on your favorite podcast platform, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Will is doing some great things, and I think many Dark Outdoors listeners will enjoy his show.
Halloween is going to be extra special this year as Dark Outdoors® reaches a major milestone: 100 episodes!
To celebrate, I’m launching Dark Outdoors Week, featuring six consecutive days of mysteries, strange encounters, horror movie connections and real-life investigations, beginning Monday, October 26, and concluding on Halloween, October 31.
This special week brings together many of the subjects that have made Dark Outdoors such an exciting journey, from creepy childhood experiences and mysterious figures to real predators and the true stories behind some of horror’s most memorable movies.
Here’s the Dark Outdoors Week lineup:
Monday, October 26 — Blood Road: The Grim Reaper and the Road That Bled. I revisit a mysterious Southeast Texas road and the eerie stories that surrounded it when I was growing up, including my own experiences connected to this unsettling location.
Tuesday, October 27 — When the Real Pamela Voorhees Called Me. I share the remarkable story of my friendship with Friday the 13th actress Betsy Palmer, including the first time she called me while I was walking through the woods beside a lake. We’ll also explore real-life summer camp horrors and the legends associated with them.
Wednesday, October 28 — Real-Life Wolfen: Are Wolves Living Just Beyond the City Lights? Inspired by one of my favorite horror movies, 1981’s Wolfen, I investigate real wolves living near cities, the wolves of Chernobyl and the mysterious ghost wolves of Galveston Island.
Thursday, October 29 — The Werewolf Ritual That Terrified Me as a Kid. When I was in elementary school, I discovered an old book containing a disturbing account of a supposed werewolf ritual. What I read frightened me and left a lasting impression. In this episode, I revisit that childhood experience, investigate the folklore surrounding werewolves and explain why I believe people should be cautious about dabbling in occult practices.
Friday, October 30 — The Hooded Ones: New Accounts and Strange Origins. New firsthand accounts of mysterious hooded figures lead us into an investigation of strange encounters and their possible historical origins.
Saturday, October 31 — Episode 100: The Real Jason: The Phantom Killer’s Legacy. On Halloween, we investigate the terrifying 1946 Texarkana Phantom Killer murders and their connection to The Town That Dreaded Sundown. It’s a fitting subject for our landmark 100th episode.
Daily Giveaways During Dark Outdoors Week!
And there’s more!
I’ll be doing giveaways every day during Dark Outdoors Week on the Chester Moore – Higher Calling Wildlife Facebook page!
Be sure to follow the page and check in daily for opportunities to win prizes as we celebrate this special milestone.
Reaching 100 episodes means a great deal to me. Dark Outdoors has allowed me to investigate fascinating mysteries, share extraordinary experiences and explore the sometimes frightening side of the natural world.
I appreciate everyone who has listened, shared episodes, submitted stories and supported the show along the way.
You can find Dark Outdoors® on all major platforms where you listen to podcasts.
Join me October 26–31 for six days of mystery and real-life horror as we count down to Episode 100 on Halloween!
Chester Moore
Follow Chester Moore and Higher Calling Wildlife® on the following social media platforms
Lyle Blackburn has spent years investigating monsters.
From legendary cryptids and strange creature reports to the dark imagery surrounding his band Ghoultown, Blackburn has built a career exploring the territory where folklore, fear and the unexplained collide.
Now he’s taking on a different kind of monster — one that actually exists.
Blackburn is the latest guest to join Sharks Aren’t So Scary a special public-service campaign from the Gulf Great White Shark Society that brings together horror culture, unusual personalities and shark conservation.
For Dark Outdoors, the connection couldn’t be much better.
When Real Animals Become Monsters
One of the things we regularly explore on Dark Outdoors is the difference between the genuine dangers found in nature and the stories people build around them. Sharks might be one of the greatest examples.
A great white shark is an enormous predatory animal equipped with an incredible sensory system, speed and a mouth full of serrated teeth. There is no reason to pretend an animal like that can’t be dangerous.
But that’s very different from the nearly supernatural monster popular culture has created.
Sharks don’t stalk specific people. They don’t hold grudges. They aren’t plotting their next attack underneath somebody’s fishing boat. Those ideas belong in the same realm as the creature features, horror movies and campfire stories we love discussing.
The real shark is far more interesting.
Enter Lyle Blackburn
That’s what makes Blackburn such a great addition to the campaign.
As an author and cryptid researcher, he has investigated some of America’s most enduring creature legends, including the Fouke Monster and Lizard Man. He’s also the founder and frontman of Ghoultown, whose horror-infused music fits comfortably into the darker world Blackburn has explored throughout his career.
Having someone who spends so much time investigating alleged monsters talk about an animal that has been turned into one by popular culture is a fun twist.
And Blackburn isn’t the first person from the horror world to join the campaign.
Brinke Stevens, Count Drahoon and Sharks
Sharks Aren’t So Scary has already brought some interesting personalities into the Gulf Great White Shark Society’s conservation work.
Horror icon Brinke Stevens, one of the recognizable scream queens to emerge from the 1980s horror scene, participated in the campaign. Long before her career in acting, modeling, writing and directing, Stevens studied marine biology, giving her involvement an interesting connection to the animals themselves.
Horror host Count Drahoon also joined the fun, bringing some old-school creature-feature energy to the project. We even turned him loose on some of the worst shark movies ever made, which is exactly the kind of assignment a horror host deserves.
Now we can add a cryptid researcher and horror musician to the list.
Instead of running away from the horror imagery surrounding sharks, we’re having some fun with it.
We can love Jaws. We can laugh at absurd killer-shark movies. We can enjoy monsters, cryptids, Halloween and everything that comes with horror culture while recognizing that real sharks aren’t movie villains.
That distinction matters.
Dark Outdoors has always operated in similar territory. There are legitimate dangers in wild places. There are also mysteries, legends and stories that become larger with every retelling. Sometimes figuring out which is which is the most fascinating part of the investigation.
Great white sharks don’t need Hollywood’s help to be intimidating.
And they certainly don’t need it to be fascinating.
Watch for more from Lyle Blackburn and the Sharks Aren’t So Scary campaign as we move toward Halloween.
Because the outdoors has a dark side but sometimes we’ve made it darker than it really is.
Chester Moore
Follow Chester Moore and Higher Calling Wildlife® on the following social media platforms
Growing up in the 1980s was an incredible time to be a horror fan.
From classic monster movies and late-night horror television to scary movie magazines, Halloween masks, creepy music and trips to the local video store, horror was everywhere. And I loved it!
My new book, I Was an ’80s Horror Kid, takes readers back to those days through my personal experiences growing up fascinated with monsters, movies and all things spooky.
And now, through Halloween, I’m offering a special deal that brings together two important parts of my creative life: horror storytelling and monster metal.
For just $20, including shipping, you’ll receive a personally signed copy of my new book PLUS a FREE signed copy of the new Freak13® EP,No Longer Living Dead, on CD!
The book is a journey through the horror culture of the 1980s, filled with memories, strange encounters, childhood adventures and stories about how my fascination with monsters eventually helped inspire my music with Freak13.
But there was another side to growing up a horror kid in those days.
The Satanic Panic was sweeping America, and being fascinated with horror sometimes brought unexpected consequences. I share what it was like to experience that atmosphere firsthand, survive some difficult situations and eventually find my own path to faith.
At its heart, this is a book about growing up, discovering who you are and remembering a time when horror was something you found on VHS tapes, magazine racks and late-night television.
FREE Bonus: Freak13 — No Longer Living Dead
As an added Halloween bonus, every book ordered during this promotion comes with a free copy of the new Freak13 EP, No Longer Living Dead, on CD.
Freak13 is my Texas monster metal band, and this new release brings some of our classic material back to life in a different way.
The EP features four Freak13 classics performed unplugged, plus one brand-new studio track.
Track Listing:
New Orleans (Unplugged)
Swamp Devil (Unplugged)
They Don’t See It (Unplugged)
Jackal’s Daughter – Crystal Lake (Unplugged Medley)
No Longer Living Dead (Brand-New Studio Track)
The unplugged recordings offer a different take on songs from the Freak13 catalog, while the title track marks the band’s return with new studio material.
Halloween Special — Only $20 Shipped!
From now through October 31, you can get both the book and CD for one special price.
Your Halloween package includes:
A personally signed copy of I Was an ’80s Horror Kid
A FREE signed No Longer Living Dead Freak13 EP on CD
Shipping included in the $20 price
Please note: This is a preorder offer. Books are expected to arrive by October 25, with orders expected to begin shipping shortly afterward.
Whether you grew up loving horror in the 1980s, enjoy the strange stories featured on Dark Outdoors or appreciate some good old-fashioned monster metal, this is a fun way to celebrate Halloween.
There are images you see as a kid that never completely leave you. For me, one of them came from a strange 1981 shark documentary called Great White Death. I was already fascinated with sharks, and although this movie wasn’t formative for me in the way Jaws or the work of Jacques Cousteau was, it definitely fed that fascination. There were enormous sharks, divers entering dangerous waters, frightening attack accounts and that almost otherworldly mystery surrounding what might be swimming beneath the surface.
Then there was the human skull.
During a segment involving shark-control operations in South Africa, Great White Death shows viewers what the narration says is a human skull recovered from a large shark. The narration describes it as belonging to someone who had died only days earlier. The animal visually associated with the sequence appears to be a tiger shark, although the narration itself does not specifically identify the species.
As a kid, I wasn’t sitting there contemplating documentary ethics, editing or whether something had been reconstructed for the camera. I was looking at a human skull that the movie was telling me had come out of a shark. That’s the kind of thing a kid fascinated with both wildlife and the darker side of the world remembers.
Watching Great White Death decades later raises questions I never thought to ask back then. What exactly were we watching? How much was straightforward documentary footage? How much was reconstructed? And was that human skull really removed from the shark we were being shown?
Welcome to one of the strangest files in shark-film history.
The bizarre history of Great White Death goes beyond the film itself. In a special episode of Dark Outdoors, Chester Moore takes a deeper look at this unusual production, where the blockbuster influence of Jaws collided with the disturbing world of Faces of Death.
Great White Death: When Jaws Met Faces of Death is available now on Dark Outdoors.
Released in 1981, Great White Death was written and directed by Jean-Patrick Lebel and narrated by legendary Hollywood actor Glenn Ford. Ford’s familiar, authoritative voice adds an interesting dimension to the production because even some of the film’s most sensational claims are delivered with the seriousness of a traditional wildlife documentary.
The movie begins with a genuinely intriguing premise. Humanity had reached the moon while vast portions of our own oceans remained mysterious, and sharks are introduced as creatures that have occupied an unusual place in the human imagination, sometimes revered and sometimes feared.
When the great white takes center stage, however, things get considerably darker. The shark is described as an exterminator, monarch and “master pirate of the deep,” while the film repeats claims about enormous 30-foot great whites and emphasizes their ability to inflict devastating injuries. Coming only six years after Jaws turned the great white into perhaps the ultimate real-life horror icon, Great White Death wasn’t shy about tapping into the fear surrounding these animals.
Some of the language sounds extreme today, but the underlying danger should never be dismissed. Great white sharks are potentially dangerous animals. People have been killed, survivors have suffered catastrophic injuries and some have lost limbs. I never want to promote shark conservation in a way that minimizes what attack victims or their families have experienced.
We don’t have to pretend a great white shark is harmless to appreciate one.
The Attack That Needed No Horror Movie
The testimony of diver Henri Bource is one of the most powerful parts of Great White Death precisely because it doesn’t need much embellishment. Bource survived a horrific shark attack in Australia in 1964, and in the film he describes diving around seals when the animals suddenly disappeared. Shortly afterward, a shark struck.
Bource describes the impact as being like getting hit by a train. The shark grabbed him, pulled him underwater and shook him violently before he eventually broke free and made it toward the surface. His leg had been severed.
That’s real-world horror. There is no need for special effects or theatrical blood when a survivor is sitting in front of the camera describing something that actually happened to him. Yet Bource’s story becomes even more interesting because the attack didn’t turn him against the ocean. He recovered and eventually returned to diving because he still loved it.
I think there is something important in that. Acknowledging the tremendous power of sharks doesn’t require hating them, just as appreciating sharks doesn’t require denying their potential danger. Bource knew what a shark could do in a way very few people ever will, and he still returned to the sea.
The Faces of Death Atmosphere
Anyone familiar with the VHS era might notice another resemblance while watching Great White Death. At times, the movie feels like a shark-centered cousin of the notorious Faces of Death, released in 1978. That movie became infamous for combining genuine footage with staged material while presenting it all with documentary authority, creating an experience where viewers weren’t always sure where reality ended and filmmaking began.
Modern descriptions of Great White Death have made the comparison directly, particularly in discussions of apparent recreated shark attacks. I looked for a direct production connection between the two films and couldn’t find one. The available credits indicate different writers, directors and producers, so the connection appears to be stylistic rather than a case of the same filmmakers creating both productions.
That similarity still makes sense. The mondo and death-film style thrived on giving viewers the feeling that they were seeing something forbidden, dangerous and perhaps a little too real. Genuine footage could be mixed with reconstruction and sensational narration without the clear lines audiences might expect from a modern documentary.
Sharks were almost perfect subjects for that treatment. The animals themselves were real, their tremendous predatory capabilities were real and fatal shark attacks were real. Add an ocean where almost everything happening beneath the surface was invisible to the audience, and filmmakers had the perfect environment for building fear.
Then Great White Death shows us a human skull.
The Tiger Shark and the Skull
As noted earlier, during the South African shark-netting sequence, the film shows what its narration claims is the skull of a recently deceased human recovered from a large shark caught in the nets. Visually, the shark associated with the sequence appears to be a tiger shark, although the film’s narration doesn’t identify the species.
Tiger sharks certainly have the biology to make such a story plausible. They are large, tremendously powerful and opportunistic predators and scavengers capable of consuming an extraordinary variety of prey. Human remains being consumed by a large tiger shark is therefore not something that would be biologically impossible.
That doesn’t prove what Great White Death shows us.
I have not found reliable independent documentation identifying the person whose skull appears in the film, establishing all of the circumstances under which it was supposedly recovered or conclusively demonstrating that it came from the particular shark shown on screen. Considering the mondo-style presentation of the film and descriptions of some sequences as recreated, I think those questions are worth asking rather than simply repeating everything the movie says as fact.
At the same time, I haven’t found evidence proving the skull sequence was fabricated either. That’s an important distinction. More than four decades later, there simply isn’t enough documentation available for me to confidently tell you exactly what happened.
And somehow that makes the scene even stranger.
What Exactly Were We Watching?
That uncertainty runs through parts of Great White Death. There is unquestionably genuine wildlife footage in the movie, along with legitimate survivor testimony and real encounters with sharks. Modern descriptions of the production, however, have also characterized portions of its shark-attack imagery as recreations.
Rather than simply labeling the movie fake, I think it’s more interesting to view it within the filmmaking culture that produced it. Documentary footage, reenactments, shocking imagery and dramatic narration could all occupy the same production, particularly within the mondo tradition.
The human skull sequence represents that ambiguity better than anything else in the movie. Watching it as a kid, there was no reason for me to question it. A documentary told me a human skull had been recovered from a shark, showed me a skull and showed me a shark. That was enough.
Today I want to know more.
Was the skull actually recovered from that shark? Was it definitely a tiger shark? Was the sequence presented exactly as it happened, or was footage assembled to create a more dramatic narrative?
Those questions don’t make Great White Death less interesting to me. They make it considerably more interesting.
Then the Movie Starts Defending Sharks
This is where Great White Death takes a turn that people judging it solely by its title might never expect.
After spending much of the film emphasizing attacks, enormous jaws and the frightening capabilities of sharks, the narration begins questioning the idea that sharks are simply mindless killers. It says sharks aren’t indiscriminate killers and eventually discusses their importance to marine ecosystems, even referring to the shark as a “champion environmentalist of the sea.”
For a movie called Great White Death, that’s quite a twist.
The science of shark ecology has advanced tremendously since this film was made, and some of the movie’s individual claims haven’t aged particularly well. The larger concept, however, remains important: sharks have a place in marine ecosystems, and removing predators from those systems can have consequences.
That is a message I strongly support.
Through GulfGreatWhites.com and the Gulf Great White Shark Society, we advocate for shark conservation and for a greater understanding and appreciation of sharks, particularly the great whites and other large species inhabiting the Gulf of Mexico. That doesn’t mean pretending these animals are something they’re not. I believe conservation works best when we’re honest about wildlife, and honesty means acknowledging both the ecological importance of sharks and the potential danger posed by some large species.
Great whites can be dangerous. Tiger sharks can be dangerous. Bull sharks can be dangerous. Those facts do not make them evil, and they do not mean our oceans would be better without them.
Conservation Doesn’t Mean Making Sharks Cuddly
I think that’s an important distinction because conservation messaging can sometimes overcorrect the sensationalism of the past. For decades, sharks were depicted as almost supernatural killing machines, so there is an understandable desire to push back against that image. But we don’t need to replace one exaggeration with another.
Sharks don’t have to become harmless sea puppies for us to conserve them.
A grizzly bear can be ecologically important and potentially deadly. A mountain lion can be magnificent wildlife and capable of attacking a person. A large alligator can deserve protection while possessing enough power to kill a human being. Sharks should be allowed the same complexity.
In fact, that’s part of what makes them fascinating to me. There are still animals on this planet capable of reminding us that human beings aren’t physically dominant everywhere we go. Enter the ocean and we become visitors in an environment where animals are better equipped to survive than we are.
Respecting that reality isn’t anti-shark. I would argue it’s one of the purest forms of shark appreciation.
The World We Have Been Given
There is another element of Great White Death that hits me differently today. During its discussion of environmental damage, the film turns the criticism toward humanity and talks about our responsibility for the world we have been given.
That idea resonates strongly with my approach to conservation.
Stewardship isn’t limited to animals we find cute, useful or safe. The natural world contains predators, venomous animals and creatures powerful enough to kill us. They are still part of creation, and their existence isn’t somehow less valuable because they make us uncomfortable.
Sharks have survived in Earth’s oceans for hundreds of millions of years. Long before there were beach resorts, surfboards, fishing boats or humans swimming beyond the breakers, sharks were part of these ecosystems.
We are the newcomers.
From Horror Icons to Sharks We Can Follow
One of the biggest differences between the world of Great White Death and ours is our ability to follow sharks in ways that would have seemed almost impossible when the movie was released. Satellite and acoustic tagging have allowed researchers to document individual animals moving tremendous distances, while the public can sometimes follow the journeys of particular great whites.
That has helped change the way people relate to sharks. Instead of an anonymous fin suddenly appearing beside a boat, a great white can become an individual animal with a documented movement history. We can see it travel through huge stretches of ocean, including the Gulf of Mexico, and begin to appreciate the scale of its life.
None of that makes the shark less powerful or potentially dangerous. It simply gives us a better picture of what the animal actually does when it isn’t starring in our nightmares.
That may be one of the greatest changes since I first saw Great White Death as a kid. We haven’t discovered that the great white was harmless all along. We’ve discovered that it is far more interesting than the monster we created.
The Image I Never Forgot
And yet, after everything else in the movie, I keep coming back to that tiger shark and the skull.
Maybe it’s because that scene perfectly captures the strange intersection where Dark Outdoors lives: wildlife, danger, death and unanswered questions. The natural world is capable of producing things every bit as disturbing as fiction, while human storytelling has always had a way of making those realities even darker.
Great White Death gave audiences both.
It gave us legitimate shark footage and survivor testimony alongside sensational narration and material that has generated questions about reconstruction. It gave us blood, attacks and what it claimed was a human skull recovered from a shark, yet somehow the same movie ultimately asked viewers to reconsider whether sharks deserved the monster label at all.
Check out our latest shark PSA with horror icon Brinke Stevens.
Near the end, Great White Death argues that sharks are necessary to the sea and reminds viewers that humans entering the ocean are entering an environment sharks inhabited millions of years before us.
More than 40 years later, that’s the part of the movie I appreciate most. At GulfGreatWhite.com, we advocate for shark conservation because these animals deserve to remain part of healthy oceans for generations to come. We can do that while respecting attack victims, acknowledging legitimate danger and refusing to pretend that large sharks are anything other than powerful wild predators.
Great White Death knew how to sell fear. The title alone tells you that. But buried underneath the mondo-film shock, the attacks, the ominous voice of Glenn Ford and that unforgettable image of an alleged human skull recovered from a shark was an idea that has aged considerably better than some of the film’s science.
The ocean needs sharks.
For Dark Outdoors, I can’t think of a more appropriate lesson. The natural world contains things capable of hurting us and, in rare circumstances, killing us. Respecting that darkness doesn’t mean we have to destroy it.
It means understanding why it’s worth protecting.
Chester Moore
Follow Chester Moore and Higher Calling Wildlife® on the following social media platforms
Sharks have inspired some of the greatest horror movies ever made.
They’ve also inspired countless myths, misconceptions and exaggerated fears.
This October, Dark Outdoors is joining the Gulf Great White Shark Society for Sharks Aren’t So Scary, a public education campaign that separates Hollywood fiction from real-life sharks.
Who better to kick things off than horror host Count Drahoon?
After years of celebrating monster movies—including some of the wildest shark films ever made—Count Drahoon reminds us in our official public service announcement that while fictional sharks make for great entertainment, the real animals are far more fascinating than frightening.
Throughout the month, Dark Outdoors will investigate famous shark encounters, explore the history behind shark fears, separate myth from reality and tell the stories that reveal why these incredible predators deserve both our respect and our protection.
Watch Count Drahoon’s official kickoff PSA, then follow the Gulf Great White Shark Society for the science behind the stories and join us all October as we dive into the darker side of shark history—without losing sight of the truth.
Because sometimes the truth is stranger… and far more interesting… than fiction.
Chester Moore
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The 725.8-pound feral hog taken in Southeast Texas has generated a tremendous amount of attention since I first reported on it.
Its incredible size immediately got people’s attention, but then viewers started focusing on something else. The massive animal was black and white, and some questioned whether a hog that looked like this and weighed more than 700 pounds could really be feral.
It was.
This was a free-ranging feral hog, and its weight wasn’t someone’s field estimate. The animal was photographed on a scale registering 725.8 pounds.
But the debate made me connect some dots I hadn’t connected before.
For years, I’ve known about giant domestic hogs being released at different locations in this region. That information takes on a new dimension when you consider an animal like this one and the tremendous variation found among feral hogs.
My new video looks at that history, what actually makes a hog feral and how past releases could potentially help explain some of the enormous and unusual-looking feral hogs roaming Southeast Texas.
WATCH THE NEW VIDEO
There are some important distinctions here.
A feral hog doesn’t have to look like the stereotypical lean, black, long-snouted hog many people picture when they hear the word “feral.” Domestic swine can escape or be released and become feral. Their descendants can also reproduce with other free-ranging hogs, contributing to the tremendous variation in size, coloration and physical characteristics found in feral hog populations.
In other words, domestic characteristics don’t automatically make a free-ranging hog somebody’s pet or a barnyard animal.
And that’s where this story gets much more interesting.
I’ve known for years about giant domestic hogs being released at different locations in this region over a long period of time. I knew about these releases long before this 725.8-pound hog appeared.
What I hadn’t done was connect that history with the larger story of giant feral hogs in Southeast Texas.
I’m not claiming this particular hog came from one of those releases because I don’t have evidence connecting this individual animal to a specific release. What we don’t know is the complete ancestry of this hog.
But that doesn’t change what it was when it was killed.
It was a free-ranging feral hog.
The more intriguing question is whether the history of giant domestic hog releases could help explain some of the extraordinary size, coloration and other characteristics occasionally seen in feral hogs in this region.
Could some of those genetics still be represented in hogs roaming Southeast Texas today?
That’s a question worth investigating, and it’s a much bigger story than simply arguing over what the word “feral” means.
The 725.8-pound weight is documented. The animal was free-ranging. The history of giant domestic hog releases in the region is real.
What we don’t know is exactly how all those pieces fit together.
But I’ve connected enough of the dots to know there’s more to investigate.
And I don’t think we’re finished with the giant hog story yet.
Because the outdoors has a dark side.
Chester Moore Dark Outdoors®
Dark Outdoors investigates terrifying encounters, unsolved mysteries, true crime and dangerous wildlife—because the outdoors has a dark side.
Follow Chester Moore on the following social media platforms
A pair of eyes emerged from the bushes in the darkness. There had recently been a mountain lion sighting in the area, so I raised my rifle and looked through the scope. What I saw wasn’t a mountain lion. It looked like a red wolf.
I lowered the rifle.
That encounter has stayed with me for years, and it opens a new episode of Dark Outdoors®, “The Night I Had a Red Wolf in My Crosshairs.” The episode explores that experience, other strange wild canine encounters and the fascinating story of an animal that once roamed Texas and Louisiana but came perilously close to disappearing forever.
There is another fascinating chapter to this story.
Researchers studying wild canines along the Texas Gulf Coast have discovered animals carrying significant amounts of red wolf ancestry. That raises intriguing questions about whether genetic remnants of the wolves that once inhabited this region have survived within coastal coyote populations.
I explored that story in a video examining Texas coyotes, red wolf genetics and the remarkable possibilities scientists are considering for conserving those genes.
The red wolf (Canis rufus) is one of North America’s great wildlife conservation stories.
Red wolves once occupied portions of the eastern and south-central United States, including Texas and Louisiana. By the 20th century, persecution, habitat changes and hybridization with coyotes helped push them toward extinction in the wild.
A small number of animals were captured along the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast to establish a captive breeding program. Those animals became the foundation for an effort that prevented the red wolf from disappearing completely.
Today, the only recognized wild population exists in eastern North Carolina.
That makes the discovery of red wolf ancestry in Gulf Coast canines especially fascinating. The wolves themselves may have disappeared from Texas, but some of their genetics apparently did not.
What Was in My Crosshairs?
I’m not claiming that the animal I encountered that night was a genetically pure red wolf.
There was no DNA test. I didn’t capture it. I didn’t have a biologist standing beside me.
I can only tell you what happened.
I saw those eyes emerge from the bushes. With a mountain lion recently reported in the area, I raised my rifle. When I got a better look at the animal, what I saw looked like a red wolf.
So I lowered the gun.
Years later, as research began revealing the surprising amount of red wolf ancestry surviving in some Gulf Coast coyotes, encounters like mine became even more interesting.
Could I have encountered an animal carrying substantial red wolf genetics?
I don’t know.
But unlike a lot of mysterious wildlife stories, we now know there really are wild canines along the Texas Gulf Coast carrying genetic echoes of the red wolf.
And that makes this story worth another look.
Hear the Full Story
In the complete Dark Outdoors episode, I tell the story of that night and explore other unusual encounters I’ve had with wild canines over the years.
Listen to “The Night I Had a Red Wolf in My Crosshairs”:
A man walked outside his Texas home and discovered a huge cat inside his chicken coop. It wasn’t a bobcat, and it didn’t look like a mountain lion. The animal he described looked like an African lion.
That encounter is at the center of a new episode of Dark Outdoors®, examining one of the strangest categories of wildlife reports I have investigated over the years: big cats that don’t seem to belong where people are seeing them.
For decades, I have investigated reports of unusual cats in Texas and across the South. Mountain lions are responsible for some of them. Bobcats, especially when seen briefly or under unusual conditions, can account for others. Misidentification is a legitimate part of investigating any unusual wildlife report, and it should always be considered before looking for a more exotic explanation.
But occasionally a report comes along that doesn’t fit comfortably into those categories. The chicken-coop encounter is one of them. The witness described an animal that appeared to be an African lion. That’s an extraordinary claim, and without photographs, DNA or other physical evidence, there is no way to prove exactly what stood inside that coop.
The possibility of an exotic cat appearing in Texas, however, isn’t as impossible as it might initially sound. Texas has a long history of privately held exotic wildlife. Animals escape, and historically some have been deliberately released. In some cases, an exotic animal could potentially survive unnoticed for a period of time, particularly in remote country with abundant cover and prey.
That doesn’t mean every report of an unusual cat is an escaped exotic. It simply means the possibility shouldn’t automatically be dismissed when examining a credible report.
The Giant Tracks
The lion report isn’t the only strange big-cat case I discuss in this episode. I also recount one of my own investigations involving enormous cat tracks that immediately caught my attention because of their size.
Photo by Chester Moore
I’ve spent much of my life around wildlife and studying animal sign, and these tracks appeared far larger than what I expected to find from a native cat in that area. That doesn’t automatically make them evidence of some exotic predator. Tracks can be deceptive. Mud can distort a print, a paw can slip and multiple impressions can overlap.
Those possibilities always have to be considered, but when unusually large tracks begin showing up in the same broader conversation as reports of unusually large cats, the subject becomes much more interesting.
Could Exotic Cats Be Roaming Texas?
Texas is enormous, with millions of acres of forests, swamps, brush country, ranchland and river bottoms where an animal can remain surprisingly difficult to detect. Mountain lions themselves demonstrate how effectively a large predator can move primarily at night, avoid people and cover tremendous distances without being seen by most of the people living around it.
Now consider an escaped exotic cat behaving in much the same way. Could a lion, leopard or another large captive cat survive for some period of time in the wild? Under the right circumstances, it’s certainly possible. The much harder question is whether that possibility explains any particular sighting.
That’s where evidence matters. A witness report can begin an investigation, but tracks, photographs, video, hair, scat or DNA can move a case into an entirely different category.
But unfortunately A.I. has changed this to a large extent because it’s very difficult to believe any photo or video evidence.
The Mystery Cats of the South
Stories of strange cats have circulated through Texas, Louisiana and other parts of the South for generations. Some witnesses report oversized mountain lions. Others describe black cats they call panthers. Still others report animals whose size, coloration or physical appearance doesn’t seem to match any native species.
There is a temptation to put every one of those reports into the same box, but I don’t think that’s useful. Some are undoubtedly misidentifications. Some may involve actual mountain lions appearing in places where people aren’t accustomed to seeing them. Other reports simply don’t contain enough information to reach any conclusion.
Then there are the cases that remain difficult to explain. Those are the ones that have kept me interested in this subject for decades.
Something That Isn’t Supposed to Be There
The goal isn’t to turn every strange animal sighting into a monster story. It’s to investigate what people report and ask the right questions. What did the witness actually see? Does the description match known wildlife? Could an exotic animal have escaped in the area? Are there tracks, photographs, hair, scat or other physical evidence? Have independent witnesses reported something similar?
Those questions are far more interesting than simply declaring every unusual sighting impossible or, on the other extreme, believing every extraordinary claim without evidence. Most wildlife mysteries probably have ordinary explanations.
But every once in a while, somebody walks outside, looks into a chicken coop and sees something that isn’t supposed to be there.
That’s when things get interesting.
Chester Moore
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There is poaching, and then there are wildlife crimes so disturbing they are difficult to comprehend.
Years ago, I traveled to a location where someone had illegally killed a buffalo. The animal had not been taken for meat. Its head had been removed with a chainsaw, and the rest of the massive animal had been left behind to rot.
Seeing something like that changes the way you look at wildlife crime.
That incident is one of several disturbing cases I explore in a new episode of Dark Outdoors, “He Beheaded the Buffalo With a Chainsaw.”
People sometimes use the word “poaching” almost casually. Someone shoots a deer out of season. Someone keeps too many fish. Someone kills an animal without the proper license.
Those are wildlife violations, but after years of covering the outdoors, I have encountered another level of wildlife crime entirely.
These are cases involving people who kill simply to possess a trophy, criminals willing to intimidate the officers investigating them and an international black market capable of turning some of the world’s most magnificent animals into commodities.
The buffalo case was one of my earliest firsthand encounters with that world.
There is something difficult to describe about standing near an enormous animal that has been killed illegally and simply discarded. Whoever did it wanted one thing—the head.
Everything else was waste.
It wasn’t hunting. It wasn’t conservation. And it certainly wasn’t respect for wildlife.
When Game Wardens Become the Targets
One of the things that gets lost in conversations about poaching is the danger faced by the men and women investigating wildlife crimes.
Game wardens often work alone in isolated places, frequently at night and sometimes many miles from immediate backup. They routinely encounter people carrying firearms, and they have to determine whether they are dealing with an ordinary hunter who made a mistake or someone willing to commit much more serious crimes.
In the new Dark Outdoors episode, I discuss one case that has stuck with me for years. It involved shots being fired into a game warden’s home.
On Christmas Eve.
Think about what that means. Someone wasn’t simply trying to avoid getting caught violating a wildlife law. A line had been crossed from wildlife crime into intimidation and violence directed toward the person enforcing those laws.
That is a side of the game warden profession most outdoorsmen will thankfully never experience.
Wildlife Crime Goes Far Beyond Texas
The scale becomes even more disturbing when wildlife trafficking enters the picture.
Wildlife is valuable, sometimes extraordinarily valuable. Rare animals, skins, horns, skulls, teeth, claws and other wildlife parts can move through illegal markets stretching across international borders. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service maintains a specialized law-enforcement presence devoted to combating this kind of trafficking.
And sometimes what investigators discover seems almost unbelievable.
One of the cases I discuss in the podcast involved a coat smuggled into the United States that had been made from jaguar skins.
Not one jaguar.
Five.
That image has never really left me. Jaguars are among the most spectacular predators on Earth. To think of five of them reduced to the material for a single coat says something about the mentality behind the darkest reaches of the wildlife trade.
This Isn’t Hunting
I am a hunter, and I make no apologies about that.
Legal, regulated sport hunting is an important part of wildlife conservation in North America. Hunters provide substantial conservation funding through licenses, permits, excise taxes on firearms and ammunition and direct support of wildlife and habitat programs. Hunting also plays an important role in wildlife management.
But what I am describing here is not hunting.
Poaching is wildlife crime. Killing animals illegally for trophies, money or sheer destruction has nothing to do with the ethical pursuit of game under laws and regulations designed to conserve wildlife.
The distinction becomes especially obvious when an animal is killed merely so someone can cut off its head, when protected wildlife is trafficked for profit or when law-enforcement officers and their families are threatened because someone doesn’t want to face the consequences of his actions.
I have spent much of my life around hunters, anglers, wildlife professionals and conservationists. The people I respect in the hunting community have something in common: respect for the animal matters. Conservation matters. What happens to wildlife tomorrow matters.
Someone who illegally kills a buffalo, removes its head with a chainsaw and leaves the rest of that magnificent animal to rot is operating from an entirely different mindset.
These aren’t hunting stories.
They’re crime stories that happen to involve wildlife.
The Detail I Still Remember
There is another element of the buffalo story that has always stayed with me. It wasn’t simply the brutality of what had been done.
It was the waste.
A buffalo is an enormous animal. Standing there and seeing what remained after someone had taken what they wanted made the crime feel different from reading a citation in a game warden report or hearing about an illegal kill secondhand.
The person responsible apparently saw that animal as little more than a trophy attached to a body that could be discarded.
That is one of the reasons I wanted to tell this story on Dark Outdoors. Wildlife crime can sound abstract until you see the aftermath. Then it becomes very real.
And the deeper you look into these cases, the stranger—and sometimes more dangerous—they become.
There are additional details in the episode about the buffalo case, the threats faced by wildlife officers and some of the bizarre things federal wildlife agents have intercepted that I won’t reveal here.
Listen to “He Beheaded the Buffalo With a Chainsaw” on Dark Outdoors:
The public plays an important role in helping game wardens catch poachers.
In Texas, suspected wildlife, fishing and boating violations can be reported through Operation Game Thief, the state’s wildlife crime-stoppers program.
If you witness a violation, don’t confront the suspect. Observe from a safe distance and gather useful information when it can be done safely—location, vehicle description, license plate, description of the individuals involved and what you witnessed.
Then report it.
Operation Game Thief: 1-800-792-GAME (4263)
Anonymous tips can also be submitted by texting TXOGT followed by the tip information to 847411.
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department says Operation Game Thief dispatchers are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and tipsters may be eligible for rewards when information leads to a conviction.
Wildlife crime doesn’t always happen where a game warden can see it. Sometimes the difference between a poacher getting away and being caught is an outdoorsman, landowner, angler or passerby who decides to make one phone call.
Protecting wildlife isn’t only about protecting animals. Sometimes it means standing against the people who exploit them.
Because the outdoors has a dark side.
Chester Moore
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