WEBVTT - Parakeet Panic 0:00:16.115 --> 0:00:29.395 Pushkin the Last Archive, a history of Truth. 0:00:39.475 --> 0:00:44.515 In the nineteen fifties, Americans started getting really into exotic birds. 0:00:44.955 --> 0:00:48.555 We sincerely hope this record will be helpful in teaching 0:00:48.595 --> 0:00:49.955 your parakeet to talk. 0:00:51.595 --> 0:00:56.355 Think tiki bars, pink flamingos, Hawaiian shirts, pet parakeets. 0:00:57.035 --> 0:01:00.715 Remember that your bird is an imitator and learns to 0:01:00.795 --> 0:01:04.635 talk by listening to what you say, not only words 0:01:04.675 --> 0:01:06.955 and sounds, but inflection. 0:01:07.995 --> 0:01:11.035 The birds started flooding into the country sold as pets 0:01:11.075 --> 0:01:14.075 from South America to North In the US, they were 0:01:14.115 --> 0:01:18.595 exotic talking birds. In Argentina, they were an agricultural pest, 0:01:18.955 --> 0:01:21.395 so it was a no brainer, no problem. 0:01:22.395 --> 0:01:25.635 During the first year, your bird should learn from fifty 0:01:25.675 --> 0:01:30.235 to one hundred words and phrases. Always be jettle with 0:01:30.275 --> 0:01:31.075 your parakeet. 0:01:31.755 --> 0:01:32.395 He is a. 0:01:32.315 --> 0:01:36.795 Baby, so treat him like one. Don't say hello Peter, 0:01:38.195 --> 0:01:40.275 say hello Peter. 0:01:41.275 --> 0:01:44.315 The parakeet trade really picked up in the nineteen sixties. 0:01:44.635 --> 0:01:48.315 More than sixty thousand parakeets were imported to North America 0:01:48.435 --> 0:01:52.115 in just three years, But a lot of parakeet buyers 0:01:52.155 --> 0:01:54.835 didn't realize just how much personality they were getting with 0:01:54.875 --> 0:01:57.555 these birds. It was funny at first, that they could talk, 0:01:57.715 --> 0:02:01.155 but then kind of annoying, so people started to set 0:02:01.155 --> 0:02:05.555 their birds loose open the window. Goodbye, Peter. It was 0:02:05.675 --> 0:02:08.835 just a few at first, but then more and more 0:02:08.955 --> 0:02:13.115 and more. Supposedly a shipping crate full of parakeets broke 0:02:13.195 --> 0:02:16.515 open at JFK Airport in nineteen sixty nine and unleashed 0:02:16.555 --> 0:02:23.075 a whole bunch into the wild accident fosters. But certainly 0:02:23.115 --> 0:02:25.155 these South American birds couldn't make it through a New 0:02:25.275 --> 0:02:28.995 York City winter. Nobody made much of it until one 0:02:29.075 --> 0:02:31.835 day in nineteen seventy one, a woman went for a 0:02:31.835 --> 0:02:34.955 walk in a park on Long Island. She saw something 0:02:35.075 --> 0:02:38.275 strange in the grass, a spot of bright green. A 0:02:38.315 --> 0:02:44.035 baby parakeet. Wait a parakeet on Long Island. She called 0:02:44.075 --> 0:02:46.955 the American Museum of Natural History and they sent an 0:02:47.035 --> 0:02:51.035 ornithologist out to the scene. He identified the bird monk parakeet. 0:02:51.715 --> 0:02:54.675 Then he looked up and saw twenty five feet above 0:02:54.755 --> 0:02:58.755 him a nest of twigs in a tree. South American 0:02:58.755 --> 0:03:11.475 parakeets were reproducing in New York State. Peter, Welcome to 0:03:11.515 --> 0:03:13.835 the Last Archive, the show about how we know what 0:03:13.875 --> 0:03:16.035 we know, how we used to know things, and why 0:03:16.075 --> 0:03:18.755 it seems sometimes lately as if we don't know anything 0:03:18.755 --> 0:03:22.235 at all. I'm Ben mat of Haffrey today on the 0:03:22.275 --> 0:03:26.915 show Parakeet Panic. When monk parakeets began to reproduce in 0:03:26.955 --> 0:03:30.675 the United States in the nineteen seventies, people freaked out. 0:03:31.155 --> 0:03:34.475 They thought this bird's population would explode and devastate our 0:03:34.515 --> 0:03:37.955 economy and agriculture. But as you have no doubt noticed, 0:03:38.075 --> 0:03:41.435 we do not live in a post parakeet wasteland. So 0:03:41.795 --> 0:03:45.235 why the panic. I'm glad you asked, because I am 0:03:45.275 --> 0:03:48.395 obsessed with these birds, not just because they're hilarious, but 0:03:48.715 --> 0:03:51.395 because they tell a forgotten story about the founding years 0:03:51.395 --> 0:03:54.595 of the environmental movement and raise a big question about 0:03:54.635 --> 0:03:57.395 the human place in the natural world. Are we a 0:03:57.435 --> 0:04:06.915 species like any other or something entirely different. The early 0:04:06.995 --> 0:04:10.755 nineteen seventies saw the first Earth Day of the Environmental 0:04:10.795 --> 0:04:14.995 Protection Agency. These things, and a whole lot more happened 0:04:15.035 --> 0:04:17.595 because people had come to realize that they were destroying 0:04:17.595 --> 0:04:22.075 the planet. There were rivers catching fire litter everywhere, early 0:04:22.115 --> 0:04:26.155 signs that the temperature was rising. So tropical birds living 0:04:26.155 --> 0:04:28.155 in the Big Apple so far away from where they 0:04:28.195 --> 0:04:31.475 were supposed to live, It just seemed not great humans 0:04:31.515 --> 0:04:35.275 playing with nature. Everybody knows the story about DDT and 0:04:35.315 --> 0:04:38.275 the EPA and Earth Day, but only bird nuts like 0:04:38.315 --> 0:04:41.555 myself know the story about the parakeets. It's obviously not 0:04:41.675 --> 0:04:44.235 on the same scale, and yet it's a glimpse of 0:04:44.235 --> 0:04:48.355 something important hidden in that early environmental movement. And also 0:04:48.875 --> 0:04:54.275 it's just really funny. Monk parakeets are about the size 0:04:54.275 --> 0:04:57.875 of mourning doves or your average sidewalk pigeon, except they're 0:04:57.875 --> 0:05:01.475 bright green with blue wingtips, white bellies, and hooked beaks. 0:05:02.035 --> 0:05:06.955 They're impossible to miss. They're beautiful, gregarious, loud, and incredibly obnoxious. 0:05:07.555 --> 0:05:10.835 Like all parrots, they have a special relationship with humans. 0:05:11.395 --> 0:05:14.795 Birds have been transported around the world for one reason 0:05:14.835 --> 0:05:17.315 or another for two and a half thousand years. 0:05:17.875 --> 0:05:20.755 Stephen prut Jones is a professor of ecology at the 0:05:20.835 --> 0:05:24.715 University of Chicago. He's emeritus now, but he spent decades 0:05:24.755 --> 0:05:27.995 of his career studying monk parakeets, especially the ones that 0:05:27.995 --> 0:05:31.075 wound up in cities across the United States. He zoomed 0:05:31.115 --> 0:05:34.075 into our interview from his basement, wearing a red beanie 0:05:34.235 --> 0:05:37.675 like Jacques Cousteau. Jacques Cousteau, but for parakeets. 0:05:38.475 --> 0:05:42.915 The first record of the rose ringed parakeet being taken 0:05:42.995 --> 0:05:47.835 from Africa to Greece was five hundred BC. 0:05:48.115 --> 0:05:52.115 Approximately Parrots, as you may know, can mimic human speech. 0:05:52.595 --> 0:05:54.795 This has been the source of a lot of fascination 0:05:54.955 --> 0:05:58.435 and weirdness for a very long time. Ancient and medieval 0:05:58.475 --> 0:06:02.115 literature is full of parrots being mistaken for humans, parrots 0:06:02.115 --> 0:06:05.315 helping King Arthur find love, or singing the praises of Caesar, 0:06:05.795 --> 0:06:09.235 or engaging in deep conversation with the Pope. One origin 0:06:09.315 --> 0:06:12.475 story about parrots has it that the grandson of Prometheus, 0:06:12.595 --> 0:06:15.235 the guy who created people out of clay, begged the 0:06:15.275 --> 0:06:17.595 gods to take him out of the human world, and 0:06:17.675 --> 0:06:20.595 so they turned him into a bright green bird. The 0:06:20.635 --> 0:06:24.595 first scientific account of a parrot was Aristotle's History of Animals, 0:06:24.715 --> 0:06:27.635 where he described them as human tongued and noted that 0:06:27.675 --> 0:06:31.355 they become even more outrageous after drinking wine. That's kind 0:06:31.395 --> 0:06:33.995 of been the score on parrots ever since. People are 0:06:34.115 --> 0:06:38.635 enchanted by them and then completely annoyed by them. 0:06:38.755 --> 0:06:41.155 So it's been a bit of a roller coaster. And 0:06:41.195 --> 0:06:44.435 in Argentina there was a bounty put on them, and 0:06:44.475 --> 0:06:46.395 you could go out and kill them, and you'd get 0:06:46.435 --> 0:06:48.755 some amount of money for a pair of legs if 0:06:48.795 --> 0:06:51.595 you brought them in. And I was even told that 0:06:51.675 --> 0:06:54.475 if you were a rancher or a farmer in Argentina 0:06:54.515 --> 0:06:57.995 and you had monk parakeets nesting on your property, you 0:06:58.075 --> 0:07:00.755 were required by a lot of kill them. So there 0:07:00.795 --> 0:07:03.755 was a huge effort to control population numbers. 0:07:04.515 --> 0:07:07.435 In parts of South America, monk parakeets were just called 0:07:07.635 --> 0:07:11.235 la plaga the plague, because reportedly they'd eat up all 0:07:11.275 --> 0:07:13.595 the crops and party all the time in their huge nests. 0:07:13.995 --> 0:07:16.475 But they were pretty, and maybe the part about them 0:07:16.515 --> 0:07:20.875 being outrageously destructive and annoying got lost in translation, because, 0:07:21.035 --> 0:07:23.835 like I said, tens of thousands of them were sold 0:07:23.835 --> 0:07:26.475 to Americans who were intrigued for a moment and then 0:07:26.555 --> 0:07:30.315 soon thought what have I done. There's this kind of 0:07:30.355 --> 0:07:33.915 constant push pull between fascination with the bird and sort 0:07:33.955 --> 0:07:36.435 of hatred of the bird, for you know, parroting is 0:07:36.475 --> 0:07:39.355 a negative term, and I know one of the thoughts 0:07:39.435 --> 0:07:42.035 is that pet owners might have been releasing parakeets because 0:07:42.035 --> 0:07:45.835 they're such loud, rambunctious creatures that they didn't know what 0:07:45.835 --> 0:07:47.515 they were getting into when they bought them. 0:07:47.995 --> 0:07:50.275 I'm sure that's the case. If a pair of amongk 0:07:50.355 --> 0:07:53.275 parakeets cost somebody one hundred dollars and it was ruining 0:07:53.315 --> 0:07:58.475 their life because of loud noise and refusing to learn, 0:07:58.675 --> 0:08:02.875 you know, to mimic human speech, that's something else entirely. 0:08:03.635 --> 0:08:07.155 So when these birds were seen around the United States 0:08:07.195 --> 0:08:10.955 in the late sixties, was that they were going to 0:08:10.995 --> 0:08:13.715 become a huge agricultural past. 0:08:15.195 --> 0:08:17.795 By the time the ornithologists who spotted the parakeet and 0:08:17.835 --> 0:08:20.315 nests back in Long Island brought word to New York City, 0:08:20.595 --> 0:08:24.155 the government was already doing its own bird watching. That 0:08:24.315 --> 0:08:27.875 spring May nineteen seventy one, the US Fish and Wildlife 0:08:27.955 --> 0:08:29.915 Service put out a pamphlet. 0:08:29.835 --> 0:08:33.715 Some exotic plants and animals are extensively useful to man. 0:08:34.715 --> 0:08:39.635 Others cause great damage or serious inconvenience. The monk parakeet 0:08:39.755 --> 0:08:41.075 is such a bird. 0:08:41.755 --> 0:08:44.915 This episode draws heavily from a seven hundred and eighty 0:08:44.955 --> 0:08:47.515 three page archival file I found in the New York 0:08:47.515 --> 0:08:50.035 State Archives, which is page for page some of the 0:08:50.035 --> 0:08:53.435 funniest reading I have ever done. But the last archive 0:08:53.635 --> 0:08:56.075 is not a major emotion picture. This is not an 0:08:56.195 --> 0:08:59.275 ensemble cast. So every time you hear this guy. 0:08:59.835 --> 0:09:02.955 Some of these birds have evidently escaped or been liberated. 0:09:03.475 --> 0:09:06.595 It's the voice of the US government, and they're pretty upset. 0:09:07.195 --> 0:09:11.755 If this species should become abundant, serious damage to agricultural 0:09:11.875 --> 0:09:15.875 and orchard crops can be expected. Common sense clearly indicates 0:09:15.875 --> 0:09:18.875 that this potential pest should be eliminated in the wild 0:09:19.355 --> 0:09:21.195 and its further importation. 0:09:20.795 --> 0:09:24.955 Prohibited Code red. This is not the time for your 0:09:24.995 --> 0:09:28.875 frivolous bird watching. The parakeets are spreading and the government 0:09:28.955 --> 0:09:32.715 wants to kill every last one to avert near certain disaster. 0:09:33.915 --> 0:09:36.835 It was like a trailer for an apocalyptic ego thriller. 0:09:38.155 --> 0:09:42.795 In a world where there's no food, where mankind has 0:09:42.835 --> 0:09:47.995 been wiped down by whatever diseased parokeet to carry, the 0:09:48.155 --> 0:09:57.035 last man faces down his greatest enemy, the monk parakeet. 0:09:59.955 --> 0:10:05.995 And rightly or wrongly, that was the initial idea. We 0:10:06.035 --> 0:10:08.315 should go out and remove them all, or we should 0:10:08.355 --> 0:10:10.275 go out and kill them, because we don't want them 0:10:10.315 --> 0:10:12.195 to become another news starling. 0:10:12.955 --> 0:10:17.955 Ah, yes, the starling situation. Starlings are a bird that 0:10:18.035 --> 0:10:20.395 always comes up when people talk about the dangers of 0:10:20.435 --> 0:10:25.075 invasive species. Here's how the story goes. In eighteen ninety, 0:10:25.315 --> 0:10:28.995 a German immigrant named Eugene Sheeflin wanted to bring birds 0:10:28.995 --> 0:10:31.555 from Europe to the New World so other European immigrants 0:10:31.595 --> 0:10:34.715 would feel more at home. Also, he was supposedly a 0:10:34.755 --> 0:10:37.155 shakespeare nut, and he wanted to make it so that 0:10:37.315 --> 0:10:40.755 every bird mentioned in Shakespeare would live in the wild 0:10:40.875 --> 0:10:43.555 in North America. The logic of this is kind of 0:10:43.595 --> 0:10:45.755 hard to follow. Like you drop a bit of your 0:10:45.795 --> 0:10:48.675 sandwich in the park, get mobbed by starlings, and remember 0:10:48.715 --> 0:10:52.875 that you've never read Henry the Fourth. I don't know Eugene. Also, 0:10:53.075 --> 0:10:56.675 there is only one mention of Starling's in all of Shakespeare, 0:10:56.835 --> 0:10:59.715 and not a very important one. But that didn't stop 0:10:59.715 --> 0:11:02.635 Eugene from taking sixty of the birds out to Central 0:11:02.675 --> 0:11:05.475 Park in March of eighteen ninety, where he unleashed them 0:11:05.475 --> 0:11:08.395 into the wild, setting in motion and infestation that has 0:11:08.435 --> 0:11:11.995 since grown to several hundred hundred million birds across the US, 0:11:12.395 --> 0:11:16.515 doing about eight hundred million dollars in agricultural damage per year. 0:11:17.595 --> 0:11:21.355 That was the Starling situation, or so the story goes, 0:11:22.395 --> 0:11:25.955 an example of just how destructive introduced species can be, 0:11:26.675 --> 0:11:28.795 and so when the monk parakeet showed up in the 0:11:28.875 --> 0:11:33.155 United States. In New York, State officials were dead set 0:11:33.595 --> 0:11:34.755 never again. 0:11:35.355 --> 0:11:38.795 Wanted information relating to escaped alien. 0:11:39.315 --> 0:11:42.235 There are even wanted posters if you. 0:11:42.315 --> 0:11:45.795 See this bird, please report your observation. 0:11:46.955 --> 0:11:49.635 In the spring and summer of nineteen seventy two, there 0:11:49.715 --> 0:11:52.955 was a flurry of meetings in New York. The Audubon Society, 0:11:53.075 --> 0:11:56.235 the Museum of Natural History, the Sierra Club, all of 0:11:56.235 --> 0:11:59.075 them got together to pour over what information existed on 0:11:59.115 --> 0:12:01.955 the monk parakeet and rally around the cause of killing 0:12:02.035 --> 0:12:04.875 every last one. They put out an article in the 0:12:04.915 --> 0:12:08.515 July issue of the Conservationist magazine. There were ads in 0:12:08.595 --> 0:12:12.395 newspapers and on the race sounding the alarm asking people 0:12:12.435 --> 0:12:14.235 to write into the state if they'd seen one of 0:12:14.235 --> 0:12:17.115 the birds in the wild. Some people had actually managed 0:12:17.115 --> 0:12:19.875 to catch the birds and wrote wondering if now that 0:12:19.995 --> 0:12:22.555 meant they had to kill them. Here's a letter that 0:12:22.635 --> 0:12:24.955 I found in the state archives from one tri State 0:12:25.035 --> 0:12:26.515 mom in nineteen seventy two. 0:12:27.875 --> 0:12:30.115 In December of seventy two, my son ne died a 0:12:30.115 --> 0:12:31.195 parrot in our backyard. 0:12:31.755 --> 0:12:33.675 At first we thought it was someone's pet because it 0:12:33.675 --> 0:12:36.315 was very cold, below ten, and we were afraid it 0:12:36.315 --> 0:12:36.755 would die. 0:12:37.595 --> 0:12:40.115 However, the parrot lived and it is doing very well. 0:12:40.595 --> 0:12:42.515 We planned to keep the bird for a while anyhow, 0:12:42.555 --> 0:12:44.275 as my son is very interested in him. 0:12:44.355 --> 0:12:45.315 Then he has no trouble. 0:12:46.475 --> 0:12:49.395 I got curious about these stories, and so I tried 0:12:49.395 --> 0:12:51.555 to track some of the families down to see what 0:12:51.635 --> 0:12:55.475 it actually happened with the recaptured birds. 0:12:54.715 --> 0:12:58.355 What the heck was that is? Where did you find it? 0:12:59.635 --> 0:13:02.595 This is the kid from the letter, John Sime, the 0:13:02.635 --> 0:13:05.555 one who needed the parakeet. He's sixty six and living 0:13:05.555 --> 0:13:08.275 in North Carolina. Now, I looked up the address on 0:13:08.315 --> 0:13:11.235 the envelope his mom sent into the archives. Found his brother, 0:13:11.475 --> 0:13:16.275 got John's number and called him up Department of Parakeet Investigations, 0:13:16.515 --> 0:13:17.115 and I was like. 0:13:17.115 --> 0:13:19.035 Wow, that's amazing. There's a parrot in our back gud. 0:13:19.595 --> 0:13:21.955 I just figured he was gonna die because it was 0:13:22.115 --> 0:13:24.595 it was really cold. I said, I got a crabin 0:13:24.675 --> 0:13:27.715 net down the basement. So I went down the basement 0:13:27.755 --> 0:13:30.555 and I got the crabin neet. Oh no, get real 0:13:30.595 --> 0:13:34.635 close to him, and he was a nasty sucker. He 0:13:34.835 --> 0:13:37.715 was trying to bite through the net. If we reached torn. 0:13:37.795 --> 0:13:40.835 He tried to bite it us. I named him Jackson 0:13:41.595 --> 0:13:45.515 because the expression in the seventies was no way Jackson. 0:13:46.195 --> 0:13:48.315 And as I was running after him with the crabinet, 0:13:48.355 --> 0:13:50.395 I said, no way, Jackson. Did you getting away this time? 0:13:50.995 --> 0:13:51.235 Wait? 0:13:51.275 --> 0:13:52.155 What are you I saying? 0:13:52.195 --> 0:13:54.075 I've never heard of saying no way Jackson? 0:13:54.275 --> 0:13:56.795 No way Jackson, which means and that's not going to happen. 0:13:57.755 --> 0:14:00.635 John got the bird inside. Eventually they got a cage 0:14:00.675 --> 0:14:03.315 and some chicken wire for outside, and the bird warmed 0:14:03.355 --> 0:14:04.235 up to them. 0:14:04.635 --> 0:14:07.835 He got to be one of the family. I took 0:14:07.835 --> 0:14:09.635 a cassette tape and made a loop out of it, 0:14:09.875 --> 0:14:12.595 my sister staying Hi, and he learned to say hi. 0:14:12.875 --> 0:14:15.555 But he was You couldn't handle him. If you reached 0:14:15.675 --> 0:14:17.395 in the cage, he was going to try and bite you. 0:14:17.915 --> 0:14:21.195 My dad had an organ in the house and he 0:14:21.315 --> 0:14:23.315 used to play the organ, and when he would play 0:14:23.315 --> 0:14:28.355 the organ, that bird would go absolutely nuts, saying you 0:14:28.395 --> 0:14:32.435 would dance. He would hang upside down. The doorbell would ring, 0:14:32.475 --> 0:14:34.635 and before the dog would start barking, the bird would 0:14:34.635 --> 0:14:40.875 start go. He'd make this real low, gravelly sound. If 0:14:40.875 --> 0:14:43.795 we were messing around in the house and everybody started laughing, 0:14:43.835 --> 0:14:46.875 the bird would laugh like my mom. 0:14:47.595 --> 0:14:50.235 The bird lived with the family for about ten years. 0:14:50.555 --> 0:14:54.195 Sim is pretty sure Jackson actually wasn't among parakeet at all, 0:14:54.715 --> 0:14:56.835 just some other kind of parrot that had gotten out, 0:14:56.875 --> 0:14:59.395 and much the same way as the parakeets did. Someone 0:14:59.475 --> 0:15:02.835 just threw it away. That's why this is to me 0:15:03.155 --> 0:15:05.915 a kind of parable for the problems the environmental movement 0:15:06.035 --> 0:15:08.715 was trying to solve. This was a living creature that 0:15:08.755 --> 0:15:11.555 we treated like track, and then that set in motion 0:15:11.755 --> 0:15:13.955 a whole chain of events that threatened to throw our 0:15:13.955 --> 0:15:17.555 civilization totally out of whack. And then what was our response? 0:15:18.315 --> 0:15:22.835 Kill them all? Officials gathered up the data, they set 0:15:22.835 --> 0:15:25.275 in motion a plan to track down each of the 0:15:25.275 --> 0:15:28.395 birds reported in the letters, all the nests and all 0:15:28.435 --> 0:15:31.315 the good apple eating spots, to prepare for a showdown, 0:15:31.795 --> 0:15:35.235 one big push to kill every last monk parakeet in 0:15:35.275 --> 0:15:47.915 the United States. The hunt begins after the break. In 0:15:47.955 --> 0:15:51.595 April of nineteen seventy three, the campaign to eradicate the 0:15:51.675 --> 0:15:56.595 monk parakeet began. In a front page story The New 0:15:56.675 --> 0:15:59.795 York Times reported that agents of the newly formed Department 0:15:59.875 --> 0:16:03.915 of Environmental Conservation and the US Fish and Wildlife Services 0:16:04.035 --> 0:16:07.195 would move against the birds by means of live trapping, 0:16:07.635 --> 0:16:11.675 use of steel traps, toxic materials to cyanide gas devices 0:16:11.715 --> 0:16:16.155 to electrocute the birds, and caponization, by which they meant neutering. 0:16:17.595 --> 0:16:21.635 The eradication is a large undertake. It indicates that there 0:16:21.635 --> 0:16:24.995 are some four hundred to six hundred monk parakeets in 0:16:25.115 --> 0:16:28.555 New York. It indicates that these birds are located in 0:16:28.635 --> 0:16:33.315 some thirty four known locations in eleven other states. A 0:16:33.395 --> 0:16:37.515 realistic appraisal must recognize that birds conceivably could be existing 0:16:37.555 --> 0:16:41.155 in anywhere from two to probably an excess of ten 0:16:41.315 --> 0:16:43.275 times the number of known locations. 0:16:43.715 --> 0:16:45.835 The time to act was yesterday. 0:16:46.435 --> 0:16:50.635 Tens of thousands of mandays must be rapidly mobilized. It 0:16:50.715 --> 0:16:53.675 must be taken into account that the population at hundreds 0:16:53.715 --> 0:16:58.635 of known and unknown locations will be reproducing, and that 0:16:58.715 --> 0:17:03.915 a doubling of the existing population could be occurring every second, third, 0:17:04.395 --> 0:17:05.315 or fourth year. 0:17:07.475 --> 0:17:10.355 For public relations purposes, they described with they were doing 0:17:10.475 --> 0:17:14.755 as retrieval rather than eradication. The agents, a core crew 0:17:14.835 --> 0:17:18.755 of six with over seventy additional staff available, set out 0:17:18.755 --> 0:17:21.035 into the field to run down the tips and find 0:17:21.035 --> 0:17:23.515 the birds to kill before they spread wildly out of 0:17:23.515 --> 0:17:26.915 control and ate up all our food. Problem was these 0:17:26.955 --> 0:17:28.875 birds are quite intelligent. 0:17:28.675 --> 0:17:31.475 So it's really hard for example, to go out and 0:17:32.035 --> 0:17:35.315 catch birds in the same way, you know, two days 0:17:35.355 --> 0:17:37.235 in a row, two weeks in a row, even two 0:17:37.275 --> 0:17:38.115 months in a row. 0:17:38.995 --> 0:17:42.315 Elizabeth Hobson runs a lab at the University of Cincinnati 0:17:42.515 --> 0:17:45.515 that studies how birds think. She's made a bunch of 0:17:45.515 --> 0:17:49.315 studies of monk parakeets because it turns out they're really 0:17:49.355 --> 0:17:51.035 smart because. 0:17:50.755 --> 0:17:53.995 They've seen a trap and they are onto you. So 0:17:54.035 --> 0:17:57.115 that makes it frustrating, and I think that that translates 0:17:57.155 --> 0:18:00.035 over into you know, it's been really hard to figure 0:18:00.075 --> 0:18:01.915 out how to mark them or put any kind of 0:18:01.955 --> 0:18:05.595 trackers on them, because they're really good at chewing things off. 0:18:05.595 --> 0:18:06.635 They're very destructive. 0:18:06.875 --> 0:18:10.035 So I, for example, tried to radio track them by 0:18:10.075 --> 0:18:13.595 putting a tracker on a steel cable wire around their necks, 0:18:13.835 --> 0:18:16.195 and they were able to chew through the steel cable 0:18:16.235 --> 0:18:19.075 wire and if they can't reach it, their buddy can 0:18:19.155 --> 0:18:23.395 reach it and get it off. So they're continually outsmarting us. 0:18:23.435 --> 0:18:26.235 And in the lab we actually joke that sometimes we 0:18:26.275 --> 0:18:29.195 feel like they're getting together at night and plodding how 0:18:29.195 --> 0:18:32.195 to ruin our experiments. 0:18:33.035 --> 0:18:35.555 The state agents ran into the same kind of problems 0:18:35.635 --> 0:18:38.915 killing the birds as Hobson faced studying them. There is 0:18:38.955 --> 0:18:41.595 this whole network of state agents writing to each other 0:18:41.635 --> 0:18:45.675 about the birds, swapping tips, tracking leads. One agent in 0:18:45.755 --> 0:18:48.275 New Jersey wrote to New York to share a lovingly 0:18:48.315 --> 0:18:51.155 detailed sketch of a complicated trap he'd been noodling on, 0:18:51.395 --> 0:18:55.235 involving a tall pole, several s'mores, and a decoy monk. 0:18:55.075 --> 0:19:00.475 Parakeet bull trap not yet tested. 0:19:01.195 --> 0:19:03.595 The guys in the monk parakeet brain Trust remind me 0:19:03.635 --> 0:19:06.475 of nothing so much as wiley coyote trying to catch 0:19:06.595 --> 0:19:09.515 road runner. It's like they're ordering these traps from the 0:19:09.515 --> 0:19:12.555 Act Corporation, and they keep blowing up in their faces, 0:19:12.675 --> 0:19:15.675 rocketing them into dangling rocks, or sending them hurtling onto 0:19:15.715 --> 0:19:16.555 canyon floors. 0:19:18.035 --> 0:19:21.595 Dear mister Buono, we have received a report of large 0:19:21.675 --> 0:19:24.075 numbers of monk parakeets on Riker's Island. 0:19:24.995 --> 0:19:27.475 Early in the campaign, the guys at HQ got a 0:19:27.515 --> 0:19:30.715 note from an NYC corrections officer at the infamous jail 0:19:30.795 --> 0:19:33.955 on an island in the East River. He said one 0:19:34.035 --> 0:19:37.875 day he was walking around on patrol and noticed inmates 0:19:37.915 --> 0:19:40.915 throwing bread out the window to a hungry parrot. This 0:19:40.955 --> 0:19:44.075 struck him as strange, so he asked around and learned 0:19:44.075 --> 0:19:46.875 from an inmate that there were one hundreds more parakeets 0:19:46.875 --> 0:19:50.395 in an abandoned house on the island. He called for reinforcements. 0:19:51.115 --> 0:19:53.235 It took the boys at HQ about a year to 0:19:53.275 --> 0:19:55.435 get cleared to come to the island, and they got 0:19:55.475 --> 0:19:59.635 there on two conditions, no guns and no women. So 0:19:59.875 --> 0:20:02.835 ten guys from Fish and Wildlife sailed out to the island, 0:20:02.875 --> 0:20:05.155 presumably with a bunch of nets to chase the birds 0:20:05.155 --> 0:20:07.715 around for a bit and work up a sweat. But 0:20:08.355 --> 0:20:11.915 monk parakeets move fout faster than state bureaucracy, so by 0:20:11.915 --> 0:20:14.675 the time they got there, the birds had moved on. 0:20:17.995 --> 0:20:20.915 As the birds reproduced and spread, the state seemed to 0:20:20.995 --> 0:20:23.675 miss the fact that the worst effects they'd predicted weren't 0:20:23.675 --> 0:20:27.995 coming to pass. The parakeet population wasn't exploding, There wasn't 0:20:28.035 --> 0:20:31.715 really any evidence of agricultural damage. There were no parasites 0:20:31.835 --> 0:20:34.995 or diseases found in testing, but there were some complaints 0:20:35.035 --> 0:20:38.275 about the raucousness, the absolute nuisance of these birds. 0:20:39.075 --> 0:20:43.035 It's usually on the ground when they're foraging, and then 0:20:43.075 --> 0:20:44.595 kind of a fight breaks out. 0:20:45.195 --> 0:20:48.755 Elizabeth Hobson again close scientific associate of the monk. 0:20:48.635 --> 0:20:54.315 Parakeets, And they end up kind of almost like those 0:20:54.355 --> 0:20:56.795 old cartoons, right where there's a dust cloud and there's 0:20:56.875 --> 0:20:58.915 dogs and cats and there's a leg sticking out, though 0:20:58.915 --> 0:21:01.555 there's another leg or a foot or something. And then 0:21:01.755 --> 0:21:04.315 what I'll see in the flight pen is that all 0:21:04.355 --> 0:21:06.755 the other birds that are uninvolved to get very excited. 0:21:06.795 --> 0:21:08.755 They fly down to the ground. They come running over 0:21:08.875 --> 0:21:11.195 and you can see them craning the neck to see 0:21:11.195 --> 0:21:11.835 what's going on. 0:21:12.315 --> 0:21:13.595 And then some birds will jump. 0:21:13.515 --> 0:21:15.075 Into the fight, some will jump. 0:21:14.875 --> 0:21:17.355 Back, and then I'll just calm down, I'll go back 0:21:17.355 --> 0:21:21.595 to foraging. So they are a very feisty species. They 0:21:21.635 --> 0:21:23.675 tend to fight a lot, and they seem to be 0:21:23.755 --> 0:21:26.075 throwing a lot of brain power at these. 0:21:25.875 --> 0:21:29.195 Fights, so they're a loud in cartoonish. But that was 0:21:29.275 --> 0:21:31.915 kind of it. But the main government guy behind the 0:21:31.915 --> 0:21:35.155 parakeet campaign couldn't let it go, just kept pushing it. 0:21:35.475 --> 0:21:38.155 The birds they're still out there. We still need to 0:21:38.235 --> 0:21:41.315 kill them all. Even years later, when just about everyone 0:21:41.315 --> 0:21:43.675 else had moved on his boss sent him a letter 0:21:43.915 --> 0:21:45.835 telling him to give it a rest. 0:21:46.355 --> 0:21:48.795 I find it interesting that you have time to write 0:21:48.835 --> 0:21:52.475 me memos on monk parakeets but cannot find the time 0:21:52.555 --> 0:21:56.315 to complete your reports and make progress on the Wildlife 0:21:56.355 --> 0:22:00.675 Disease Manual. The manual was one of the major justifications 0:22:00.675 --> 0:22:03.715 for creation of the position you now occupy. 0:22:05.395 --> 0:22:08.235 It's hard to predict the future, and introduced species can 0:22:08.275 --> 0:22:11.675 absolutely become real problem. This is true for any number 0:22:11.675 --> 0:22:15.635 of species, including some parakeets. It's not a good thing 0:22:15.715 --> 0:22:18.675 that these birds are reproducing in new places. But what 0:22:18.715 --> 0:22:21.315 I'm interested in is how the response seemed to get 0:22:21.355 --> 0:22:24.075 a little outsized. It was like the guys trying to 0:22:24.115 --> 0:22:26.755 eradicate the parakeets at some point when all captain a 0:22:26.835 --> 0:22:30.075 have in the Great White whale. They so overshot the mark. 0:22:30.395 --> 0:22:34.675 And these were smart people, So why what was really 0:22:34.755 --> 0:22:39.355 going on here in New York? You've got the panic 0:22:39.435 --> 0:22:43.035 about monk parakeet population, but elsewhere at the same time, 0:22:43.355 --> 0:22:46.315 what a lot of environmentalists were really worried about was 0:22:46.395 --> 0:22:50.235 human overpopulation. And it turns out that's always been lurking 0:22:50.275 --> 0:22:54.315 in the background of invasive species panics. So let's take 0:22:54.395 --> 0:22:58.995 another look at the starlink situation. A couple of years ago, 0:22:59.275 --> 0:23:02.715 a paper came out in Duke's Journal of Environmental Humanities 0:23:02.875 --> 0:23:04.795 that took a hard look at that story and how 0:23:04.835 --> 0:23:08.235 it emerged over time. To recap the big points, Shakespeare 0:23:08.315 --> 0:23:11.115