#1076 - Phil Demers

Phil Demers (0:00)

Legit, legit, I don't sit on wallets, I don't play with wallets, fuck no.

Joe Rogan (0:05)

You ready?

I wasn't sure you got to move cameras around. Phil's show me is, you have a, it's a mini fanny pack. It's very small. It's like you can carry cash.

Phil Demers (0:18)

Everything I need.

Joe Rogan (0:19)

And a small phone.

You can't carry a modern phone. That's like pre-modern phones.

Phil Demers (0:23)

The six fits in there.

Joe Rogan (0:24)

The six plus would be a problem. Maybe. Bang against your deck.

So what's going on, man? So for everybody who hasn't seen you on the podcast before, let's give him a brief synopsis. You were a trainer at one time at Marineland and you, you're known as the Walrus Whisperer. That's your, your handle on Twitter.

Phil Demers (0:45)

Which I didn't select by the way.

Joe Rogan (0:47)

You didn't?

Phil Demers (0:47)

No.

Joe Rogan (0:47)

How'd you get it?

Phil Demers (0:48)

I was on a TV show called Wipeout and it was grassroots as hell in Canada. So basically what they do is they fly out to Argentina.

They sort of, you rent the course. So, and then they, instead of it being, you know, Wipeout, whatever country, this time it's Canada. So it was really grassrootsy. And so they told us, if you guys can like help advertise, so get on your Twitters, get on your this, get on your that. They called me Walrus Whisperer. It just made sense to put it. Otherwise.

Joe Rogan (1:14)

Oh, I see.

Phil Demers (1:15)

I don't particularly love it.

Joe Rogan (1:17)

So it was like for a show.

Phil Demers (1:18)

It was for sure.

Joe Rogan (1:18)

But let's explain, you worked for Marineland. You got fired. You were, you were taking care of this Walrus and it became like a big cause because a lot of people were concerned about the animal safety there. And since then, they've been sighted. Like what has happened with Marineland?

Phil Demers (1:35)

Okay, well, so I'll give you a quick rundown. So I worked at Marineland. I was a killer whale trainer. I was the guy jumping off the killer whales, doing the flips off dolphins, everything else.

I wasn't fired. I quit amidst some duress, a difficult period where, and I'll elaborate, but basically a water disinfection unit broke down and the resolve wasn't so much to fix it. It was to pump it with more and more chlorine. Basically, the way water is disinfected at Marineland, they use an ozone generator, so they use ozone in conjunction with the chlorine, so to mitigate the chlorine use. They elected instead, or rather the soul-controlling mind elected to put off actually fixing it, unless just at night, they're pumping it with chlorine.

Well, you can just imagine the effects. I'm not talking about a little bit of chlorine. So this was a tough time. So I actually quit. I actually quit.

Joe Rogan (2:24)

Imagine the effects. So it hurt the animals.

Phil Demers (2:26)

Oh.

Joe Rogan (2:28)

We talked about this on the earlier shows. The people want to go back in time a few years to when you first appeared on the show.

There was some serious issues, health issues with dolphins, right?

Phil Demers (2:38)

Their skin's peeling off there. They've got ulcers. The sea lions are losing fur in patches, bleeding out. In this case, at least one animal died and things started getting real bad. And of course, my walrus in all of this is there, and she's in the water as well. So this only compounds the issue.

And the thing about the walrus is it's, and I use the word a lot, it's anomalous, my relationship with it. She thinks I'm her mom. It was like a scientific thing that happened. Her brain circuitry opens.

I imprint on her. So my smell, everything I look like, or you know, all of it.

Joe Rogan (3:10)

Because you were there when she was a baby.

Phil Demers (3:11)

Well, she was actually two years old when it happened. That's what makes it kind of...

Joe Rogan (3:14)

That's not a baby?

Phil Demers (3:15)

That's not a baby, no.

Joe Rogan (3:16)

How old is that in the walrus world? Like, is it dog years?

Phil Demers (3:19)

No, she's still young.

Joe Rogan (3:20)

I mean, she's too young. Do you know I have dog years?

Phil Demers (3:22)

She's babyish, yeah.

Joe Rogan (3:24)

But she's fairly young, and you were her caretaker, so she imprinted that you were her parent.

Phil Demers (3:30)

Well, there was sort of a traumatic thing that happened. We were drawing blood from them, because back then, you know, they're not trained to accept the pain of drawing blood.