- I thought you said you were gonna build a frame for this.
- I'm in the process of working on it.
- You bragged about how you got an A in wood shop,
- Yeah. - how you were gonna
frame all the art.
- But the splinters can be dangerous,
I try to avoid splinters at all costs.
♪ Fire ♪
♪ The fire on the mountain ♪
(lively country music)
- What's going on, Coyote Pack?
And welcome to another episode of Base Camp,
but something's missing. - Mario, we're starting!
Wait. - You know what?
Mario's on vacation right now.
- Oh, that's right.
- He's back down at home, - I knew that.
- in Homestead, Florida,
probably searching for crocodiles and snakes,
but it is a well deserved vacation,
because Mario has been on back to back to back
to back to back trips for over a year,
he's gone a year without taking vacations,
so it's well deserved. - Yeah,
yeah, definitely due for Mario to get out there
and have some him time. - That's right,
every location Mario is on working hard.
Now we've got a little bit of downtime in the office,
we figured, hey, Mario, go do what you do,
when we're out filming and just schlep around.
- Yeah, but Base Camp must go on.
- It must go on, but that's perfect,
because today we're actually featuring an episode,
that Mario actually wasn't even a part of.
- That's right. - So we make sense of it.
- Only a few videos, - Right.
- in the history of the Brave Wilderness channel,
Mario wasn't present for, - Hm-mm.
- this being one of 'em, - This is one of 'em.
- and we thought with all the aquatic news lately
with Blue Wilderness,
why not take a look back at Beyond the Tide.
- That's right, this will be our first
Beyond the Tide episode, that we have featured on Base Camp.
But before we get into the episode,
first we have to look at some Coyote Pack fan art.
- Ooh, this is becoming my favorite part of Base Camp,
- It is. - looking at awesome art.
- Well, what's crazy is that the more we request
the Coyote Pack to send in fan art,
the more they send and the better it is getting.
Now these pieces of art are from Tristan,
- Oh, wow. - check that one out there,
- Nice, look at that. - and then check out this.
- Oh, this is the same artist?
- Same artist, - Wow,
this one has some range. - Seriously, right,
- Look at that. - Look at that spotted hyena,
this is amazing, Tristan,
we may have to start hiring you to do some illustrations
in some of the Brave Adventures books.
Now Tristan's favorite animal is the spotted hyena
and Tristan wants to one day work on a wildlife sanctuary
to help save spotted hyenas and as you know,
the best place to do that is probably South Africa,
so Tristan, good luck taking care of spotted hyenas.
This one's definitely gonna end up on the wall.
- That's frame-worthy,
that's frame-worthy. - Yeah, absolutely.
Now next we have this little ditty.
- [Mark] Oh, wow, there's a lot of animals on there.
- This is from Diana
and Diana has taken particular attention to the animals
we have featured on the Brave Wilderness channel,
including Wilson right up there.
- Man, there's so many on there,
I can't even name them all, but pick your favorite,
which one's your favorite animal there?
- I would say the wolverine,
check out the wolverine right there.
- Wolverine? - Yeah, how about you?
- I'm gonna go with the pine marten
- Okay. - up here in the corner.
- Super cute, also a member of the mustelid family.
Diana, thank you so much for sending this in
and in case you guys wanted to know,
Diana's spirit animal is the black panther,
she wrote that on the back, you know.
Okay, now last but not least is this piece of artwork,
that I have been saving until today,
now this is from the Lewis family,
they actually gave us this piece of artwork,
when we were on the East Coast Tour way back in September,
check that out. - So good.
- Now why have I chosen to select this picture
of me holding the giant black sea hare?
Because today we're going to feature the video
with the giant black sea hare
from Beyond the Tide. - You gave it away.
- Well, you can tell from the picture.
- Usually it's like a cliffhanger moment,
until we watch. - Well,
but the art is so cool
and this is actually the thumbnail from that video.
- Yeah, it is really good, I mean,
I thought you said you were gonna build a frame for this.
- I'm in the process of working on it.
- You bragged about how you got an A in wood shop,
- Yeah. - how you were gonna
frame all the art.
- But the splinters can be dangerous,
I try to avoid splinters at all costs,
but yes, I will eventually build a frame for this
and all of the artwork,
I'm gonna work myself into a corner with that one.
- you heard him, we wanna see some frames.
- Maybe we'll do an episode of Howling With the Pack,
where Coyote does woodworking shop or something like that.
Now if you guys are ready, I know Mark's ready,
let's head back to the West Coast and dive in
to get up close with the giant black sea hare.
- Let's do it, I haven't seen this one in a while.
- [Coyote] Yeah, me neither.
This has 21 million views at this point.
- Really? - Yeah, wow.
- Oh, you got one?
See, what's cool about this is actually
I didn't even find the giant black sea hare,
it was found by Aron Sanchez, - Aron,
who has an amazing YouTube channel,
we're gonna talk about that later.
- [Coyote] Yep, Aron is our marine specialist,
when we do any of our episodes with Beyond the Tide.
- Yeah, that's a cool shot. - Yeah, that was,
and I love this intro for Beyond the Tide,
the Beyond the Tide intro is a little bit more elaborate
than the Dragon Tails, Coyote's Backyard or Breaking Trail.
This is where we really started to get, you know,
super animated with the intros.
- [Mark] Yeah, the octopus arm's coming down.
- Yeah, I love that. - Super cool.
- [Coyote] This is actually one of the first episodes,
where we started using those gimbals
- Yeah. - to get shots.
- [Mark] To get that smooth pan.
One of your specialty shots. - GoPro specialty shot.
What's cool about the West Coast is you don't realize
how diverse the ecosystem is along the coastline,
some areas are just these pristine beaches with no rocks,
but once you get passed the beaches
and into the rocky areas,
there's just so much wildlife to be found.
- [Mark] Yeah.
- [Coyote] The shore crab.
This is where actually I edited this video
and this was where I was really into doing
the multiple shots within a screen to show passage of time
and all the exploring we did, 'cause we explore quite a bit,
before we find anything.
- And this is one of the original Beyond the Tide episodes.
- Hm-mm.
- We filmed a couple of these tide pooling videos
as a Breaking Trail with the prickle backs,
but with Aron, he actually tested out,
but once we realized like how much all of you like them,
we were like, we've gotta make a whole series
about these special creatures. - Yeah.
I would say this is considered, you know,
we don't really break things down into seasons,
but if you were to break something down into seasons,
this was certainly the first season of Beyond the Tide.
- Yeah. - This episode came out
in the fall of 2016, I believe.
But sometimes a wildlife expert joins us.
Oh, there you go, and there's Aron.
- [Mark] Hey Aron, by the way, how are you doing, bud?
Hopefully he's watching us. - Yeah.
Yeah, this is like Aron's playground right here,
Aron knows everywhere to search,
when it comes to the West Coast for marine creatures.
- That's right.
He takes great photos too. - He does.
- Amazing photographer. - His photography
and his cinematography are very excellent,
his YouTube channel, Waterbod, - Hm-mm.
- has got some really cool, - Yeah.
- sort of planet Earth type footage of these creatures,
I love the way that he narrates the stuff, that he does.
He seems like a shy guy on camera,
but when you get him in person,
you're out there in the field,
he's a blast.
- Very knowledgeable. - Yeah.
- He knows everything about these environments
and that's always helpful, when, you know, we're rookies,
- Yeah. - first timers,
he's able to sort of help us navigate around,
warn us about where the slippery spots are,
in fact, that's probably one of the things,
that was most difficult about starting the series
was learning how to walk in this environment,
not only as you can see here, is it super jagged
and awkward to walk over the rocks,
but it's also super slick and if you fall down,
I mean, you can be in big trouble real fast.
- Oh yeah, all those rocks are sharp,
so you slip and fall and you slam your hand down,
I mean, you may be getting a cut so deep,
that you're gonna need stitches at that point,
so it is, it's a really treacherous environment to explore.
- And I know when you're juggling cameras
with the water and everything around,
I remember this specific shoot,
I was pretty nervous going, walking around,
following you and just really taking my time.
- [Coyote] What's interesting about this episode,
you'll notice how gloomy and overcast it is
and when you think of California,
you think, you know, sunshine,
- Yeah. - palm trees,
but we just so happened to be on a day,
that was very overcast, sort of that June gloom,
I believe we shot this in June, June of 2016,
- Yeah. - is when this was filmed.
- [Mark] And generally you're filming
earlier in the day too, - Hm-mm.
- so they had that marine layer.
Let's back up a little bit,
we're talking about the production,
you missed the whole reveal of the animal.
- Well, what's cool about this
is sometimes during the right season for these slugs,
when they're during breeding season
is you can find them anywhere,
but we were passed the breeding season
and this was actually the only one
of these slugs we found this day,
despite the fact that they're relatively common.
- Right, let's pause it there for a second.
We were finding a lot of the smaller slugs,
the brown sea hare, - The brown sea hares.
- you know, we had seen many, many of those
and actually filmed another video on them,
but Aron kept telling us about the giant black sea hare
and how impressive it was and we're like, yeah, yeah,
okay, let's see if it is impressive or not,
if we ever find one and then sure enough,
I think this was like our second to last day
of filming on this trip and then here we go.
- Yep - black sea hare.
Look at that thing. - It's huge.
What's cool is that most people don't realize
is that I would say about 98% of the time,
I'm the one that finds the animals,
but occasionally it does happen,
where the crew spot something, for example,
when you found the velvet worm in Costa Rica,
- Right. - that's a great example
or in this instance, where Aron actually was the one
that spotted the giant black sea hare
and then called me over and I rushed into the scene
and quickly, you know, asked his permission,
made sure I could pick it up
and he said this was one of the largest specimens
he's actually ever found.
- I mean, you look at it, it does look like something
you should just go and pick up.
- I mean, I wouldn't naturally,
most of them, you probably wouldn't even notice
that there's an animal there.
- No.
- That's what's crazy about it.
- Well, you know, this is interesting too,
because of where it was located,
there wasn't a lot of sand
or like pebbles and rocks around it,
'cause we had seen many of these after filming this video
and a lot of times they get covered by things,
so they really blend in well to the environment
for being such a large slug. - Hm-mm.
It looks like a ball of tar or something,
or a rock under the water. - Yeah.
- [Mark] Like how they have the little rabbit ear,
the appendages, which is why they get their name, hare.
- [Coyote] Yep, that's the name, sea hare,
kind of looks like a rabbit of some sort,
a much slimier rabbit, than you would imagine
and they have those front feelers.
- And they're heavy. - They are that,
I would say that was probably
about five to seven pounds in weight.
- Yeah. - Solid creature, very solid.
- So those are like the gills. - Hm-mm.
- I remember, this is one of those videos, you know,
'cause we shot it near where a lot of people live,
you know, in California, - Right.
- and a lot of people wrote in and said,
those live right by us, - Hm-mm.
- those live where I go to the beach,
and you're like, yeah, they do.
It's funny how something like that
can live so close to, you know, urban centers
and the people have no idea it exists.
- Right, and what's interesting about this time of day,
when we shot this too in this location,
is you're right, it is very close to civilization,
I mean, there are houses actually
on the backside of where we were filming,
but you'll notice all the exposed rock,
because this is at low tide,
so a lot of these animals become marooned
in these sliver of water, - Yeah.
- like sliver-shaped pockets of water.
So you know, we had found a brown sea hare
just a few minutes earlier,
so Aron was able to quickly run over,
grab that brown sea hare,
so it was cool to put both of them side by side,
so you can see the size difference between these two slugs,
even the brown sea hare is something
I would consider to be a large slug.
- Yeah, I mean, we've seen other sea slugs elsewhere
and you know, a lot of times, they're very small,
the black sea hare is, that's the question,
is the black sea hare the largest sea slug?
- Yes, I believe it is the largest sea slug species
in the world and the specimen we found, like I said,
Aron said was I think either the second
or third largest specimen he'd ever seen
and he said the biggest one that he ever found
was actually twice the size.
- Whoa! - Yeah,
so we're talking, that's a monster.
Now I've seen other black sea hares after the fact
and remember, we went back
and we found some black sea hares,
we brought them on Conan O'Brien's,
- That's right. - his Late Night show.
- They were nearly this big, but they're still,
I mean, any black sea hare of this size,
it's an admirable creature. - They're impressive
and most people have never seen
one of these creatures, so you show somebody,
I think actually when you handed it to Jeff Goldblum,
he was like, "Whoa!"
- "Oh, I didn't know I was gonna hold this slug!"
- Yeah. - It was pretty crazy.
Okay, so I'm in no danger right now.
So they don't bite, they're not toxic,
they're just slimy. - They are super slimy.
- [Coyote] They are slimy, yeah,
your arm is like covered in slime afterwards,
but that is an important point to note.
Now we never encourage people to go out there
and actually pick up animals on their own,
but if you are curious
and you head out there to the tide pools
and you see one of these creatures,
it's definitely not something to be afraid of
and handling them is completely safe,
as long as you place them right back down into the water
after admiring them for a few minutes.
- [Mark] And the black sea hares don't ink
like the brown sea hare. - They do not.
- [Mark] So you know, you don't get quite as messy.
- No.
Other than the slime, the slime is incredibly sticky,
but you're not gonna get inked.
I don't believe it, this is absolutely amazing.
And I never thought that this video
was going to be as successful as it became,
I mean, we put out this video
as like, oh cool, a giant black sea hare,
we were more focused on the brown ones, because they ink
and we thought that was such a cool, little feature,
which that episode did really fantastically as well,
but in this instance, I mean, the black sea hare,
I mean, there were news articles written about it,
I think people were just so blown away with the fact that,
"Wait a minute, this is a creature that lives right here
"in the United States right on the coast?"
- It was definitely this video being released,
that made us aware of like,
oh, people really like sea creatures,
we've gotta do a lot more of these Beyond the Tides,
- Yep.
- which actually we've got a trip coming up soon,
we're actually gonna do some more Beyond the Tides.
- Right.
Waterbodymedia.com.
Hey guys, check out Aron's Instagram,
what else does he use? - Can we put a link
to his YouTube channel right here,
if you guys wanna check it out.
- Subscribe to Aron. - Give Aron a subscribe,
he's awesome. - Hm-mm.
Oh, we'll have to go back and visit this video with the,
- Oh! - yellow-bellied sea snake.
- [Mark] possibly the most dangerous animal
you've ever held. - People often ask,
"What's the most dangerous animal you've ever held?"
It is that sea snake right there,
but we won't dive too much into that now,
we've got to save it for that episode.
Well, that's pretty cool,
revisiting the giant black sea hare
and you know what's crazy is that after this video came out,
it got a lot of media attention,
there were a lot of articles written,
like I said, we brought these sea hares on Conan,
- You got on your first Late Night Show.
- Got on a Late Night Show, because of the black sea hares,
but I experience a lot of people now
tagging either #BraveWilderness
or @BraveWilderness or @CoyotePeterson
of kids out on the West Coast shores,
once they find these slugs, holding them up for a photo.
- And now they know they're there.
- They know they're there, they know that they're safe,
but again, guys, be very careful in these environments,
because they can be treacherous
and certainly if you're going to handle
one of these animals, only do it for a few minutes
and then place it right back into the environment.
I think that pretty much wraps up
another great Base Camp episode,
but I think revisiting some more
Beyond the Tide episodes is certainly in store,
we'll definitely come back to the yellow-bellied sea snake,
maybe the brown sea hare.
- Ooh, how about the octopus?
- The octopus ones, we've done a couple
of octopus episodes at this point,
- Yeah. - certainly the octopus,
but as we're getting into the phase
of the Blue Wilderness series releasing,
we'll revisit some more of the Beyond the Tide episodes
and then of course we'll revisit some more stings,
before we get to the execution wasp.
- Like you need to tease it anymore,
like every other question I read these days,
when's the executioner wasp gonna happen?
- Well, they're gonna write in the comments section below,
so I'll just remind everybody
that yes, the executioner wasp has been filmed
and it comes out this Holiday Season,
stay tuned, it's definitely coming.
But I think at this point, it's time for an outro,
so that we can get on to the next thing,
sound good? - Yeah.
- I'm Coyote Peterson. - I'm Mark Laivins.
- Be brave.
- Stay wild.
- We'll see you on the next Base Camp adventure.
Talk about one slimy slug,
the black sea hare is one of the most bizarre creatures
we ever featured on the Brave Wilderness channel,
but did you see the episode about its smaller,
ink-shooting cousin, the brown sea hare?
If not, make sure to go back and check it out
and don't forget, subscribe, so you can join
me and the crew on our next big adventure.
(light jungle music)