Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we
Speaker 1: are bringing you an emergency substitution vault episode because Rob
Speaker 1: and I and Seth just had the every podcaster's nightmare
Speaker 1: where we had an episode all recorded, uh and and
Speaker 1: ready to have for you tomorrow, and it was lost
Speaker 1: to due to a technical glitch. Uh you should have
Speaker 1: heard the sounds of anguish echoing through my home. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: so instead we are bringing you a vault episode. But
Speaker 1: it's a really good one, so that this should really
Speaker 1: be a treat. This was our interview with Mary Roach
Speaker 1: from last year, originally published on September, and it's about
Speaker 1: her wonderful, funny and fascinating book Fuzz When Nature breaks
Speaker 1: the law. Absolutely, so let's go ahead and dive right
Speaker 1: into it. And Neil's say, the book Fuzz is available
Speaker 1: wherever you get your books. Yes, oh oh, and so
Speaker 1: Whistling Part four, which we were going to have for
Speaker 1: you today, We're gonna have to re record that episode.
Speaker 1: That'll be a strange experience, but we that that should
Speaker 1: be out for you. I believe next Tuesday. We haven't
Speaker 1: had this happen in a very very long time. So
Speaker 1: this this is an exceedingly rare occurrence. So uh yeah,
Speaker 1: it'll be business as usual next week. Can we create
Speaker 1: the illusion? Can we make it feel like the first
Speaker 1: time again? I don't know. We'll see what happens. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In today's
Speaker 1: episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, we have a
Speaker 1: special interview guest. It's science writer Mary Roach. We're gonna
Speaker 1: be chatting with her about her new book Fuzz When
Speaker 1: Nature Breaks the Law, which is out today where where
Speaker 1: you get your books. This is my first Mary Roach book,
Speaker 1: and I love it it. I I feel ashamed now
Speaker 1: that I had never read one of her books before. Um,
Speaker 1: but she has such an infectious and enjoyable prose style
Speaker 1: that really gets in your head. Um. One of the
Speaker 1: things that I wanted to emphasize in the intro here
Speaker 1: because because I had just been thinking about it. In
Speaker 1: terms of subject matter, this book gets into a lot
Speaker 1: of kind of dark and grizzly sounding stuff. But it
Speaker 1: is but despite that it is a really funny book.
Speaker 1: It is like one of the most laugh out loud
Speaker 1: funny books I've read in a long time. Yeah, it's engaging,
Speaker 1: it's weird, it's fun. Um. I was telling my wife
Speaker 1: about the book, and she's read Mary Roach before, and
Speaker 1: my wife was like, well, some of that sounds a
Speaker 1: little dark. I don't know, I want to read that
Speaker 1: right now. But but of course this has always been
Speaker 1: the way with Mary Roach books. There they do get
Speaker 1: into dark territory, but they are always fun and and humorous. Um.
Speaker 1: If you're not familiar out there. Her previous book include
Speaker 1: two thousand three Stiff, which is about cadaver's two thousand
Speaker 1: five Spook, which is about scientific inquiries, especially early scientific
Speaker 1: inquiries into the supernatural, two thousand eights Bunk, which is
Speaker 1: about sexuality, two thousand tens Packing for Mars, which is
Speaker 1: about the science scientific research into UH into into the
Speaker 1: Quest for Space, two thousand thirteens Gulp, which is about
Speaker 1: human digestion uh and then two thousand sixteens book was Grunt,
Speaker 1: which is about military scientific investigations. I've read all of
Speaker 1: these and I think this is the This is the
Speaker 1: fourth time Mary has actually been on stuff to blow
Speaker 1: your mind, as she previously dropped in to talk about
Speaker 1: packing for Mars Gulp and Grunt. She's either our most
Speaker 1: featured guests at this point or she's tied for the honors.
Speaker 1: I can't remember either way, Friend of the Show's status
Speaker 1: is definitely in place. Mary Roach, thanks for joining us today. Cook.
Speaker 1: Could you introduce yourself? Of course, I'm Mary Roach. As
Speaker 1: you said, I have a nonfiction author, and my most
Speaker 1: recent book is called Fuzz SubTime Is When Nature Breaks
Speaker 1: the Law. I have been so enjoying this book. I
Speaker 1: love your dry, humorous prose style in it, and I
Speaker 1: thought before we got any broader questions about about the
Speaker 1: book and what you've learned from writing it, I thought
Speaker 1: it would be good to kick off with an example
Speaker 1: of the kinds of experiences you cover in the book.
Speaker 1: And so I loved the story you cover in the
Speaker 1: very first chapter about the Wildlife Human Attack Response Training
Speaker 1: course you went through in Las Vegas. Could you tell
Speaker 1: us a bit about this conference and and what got
Speaker 1: you there and what it was like? Sure? Sure, yeah.
Speaker 1: It's called uh Wildlife Human Attack Response Training UH or WART,
Speaker 1: which by its founders admission, is a terrible acronym. So
Speaker 1: WART is a five day course which I was lucky
Speaker 1: enough to be able to sit in on, and it's
Speaker 1: most almost entirely attended by people who deal with wildlife
Speaker 1: attacks the aftermath of the attack, and it's basically, you know,
Speaker 1: you're setting up a crime scene and you're doing forensics,
Speaker 1: as you might in the case of a human on
Speaker 1: human killing, uh, and you're trying to trying to take evidence,
Speaker 1: collect evidence, established linkage between the perpetrator and the victim. Um.
Speaker 1: And if they've they've caught an animal that they think
Speaker 1: might be the animal and the DNA doesn't match or
Speaker 1: they don't they're not able to establish that linkage, they'll
Speaker 1: release the animals. So there's these bizarre parallels to the
Speaker 1: human the human criminal justice system. But for me, it
Speaker 1: was just a fascinating five days of hanging out and
Speaker 1: hearing a lot about predator attacks and the aftermath, which
Speaker 1: was both fascinating and often quite grizzly g R. I
Speaker 1: yes's not easy, um and so yeah, And it was
Speaker 1: utterly fascinating to me because I've you know, I've never
Speaker 1: encountered this world and did not know that these crime
Speaker 1: scenes were processed that way and that this work was done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you include some details about like these sessions where
Speaker 1: you would be given a mannequin that had these wounds
Speaker 1: inflicted on it with saws and knives and things, and
Speaker 1: you'd have to establish what type of animal it was
Speaker 1: from the wounds on the mannequin. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: They had these soft touch mannequins. They're not like something
Speaker 1: you'd see in a store window. They were they were
Speaker 1: you know, they're fleshy, I'll say fleshy. And they were
Speaker 1: the people who had created these wounds were people who've
Speaker 1: seen that. I mean, they were based on actual bodies
Speaker 1: and the wounds on the victims of attacks. Some of
Speaker 1: them bear, some of them cougar or mountain lion um
Speaker 1: and uh quite uh quite realistic, I have to say.
Speaker 1: And and so they were, they were. We all had workstations,
Speaker 1: you know, they were about it. There were about eight
Speaker 1: or more, maybe a few more workstations. Each group had uh,
Speaker 1: mock victim. And the idea was, look at these wounds
Speaker 1: and what can you learn And you can pretty quickly,
Speaker 1: uh make a distinction between first of all, human versus
Speaker 1: animal and then uh uh mountain lion versus bag. They
Speaker 1: kill in very different ways. They have very different teeth
Speaker 1: and claws, and the marks on the body and the
Speaker 1: wounds will tell you, um quite readily who the perpetrator
Speaker 1: or what species the perpetrator was UM. And then after
Speaker 1: that is established and you sort of you're moving down
Speaker 1: to more than nitty gritty of looking at saliva, you know,
Speaker 1: matching DNA between the victim and the animal. So you
Speaker 1: might be doing that with saliva on the victim's body
Speaker 1: or blood. You might be looking into the gums of
Speaker 1: the animal to see is their human tissue there and
Speaker 1: does is that? Does that match the victims So you
Speaker 1: just like you might do on you know, C s
Speaker 1: I or one of those shows that I never watched
Speaker 1: with those forensics shows, so uh, super interesting stuff. One
Speaker 1: of the details from the section that really stuck with
Speaker 1: me was in warning to everyone, this is about to
Speaker 1: get gruesome. The idea of since bears tend to when
Speaker 1: they do attack humans, which is rare, but when they do,
Speaker 1: they tend to bite repeatedly at the face that you
Speaker 1: might expect to say, find human facial features like lips
Speaker 1: or something, it's stuck in the bear's teeth or the stomach.
Speaker 1: You would examine the bear's stomach contents and they're you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're uh not necessarily chewing all that thoroughly, and
Speaker 1: so you might find you know, an entire i or
Speaker 1: in one case, a part of the scalp with a
Speaker 1: mohawk haircut and which in fact match the victim's hairstyle.
Speaker 1: So yeah, with bears, because bears, when they attack each other,
Speaker 1: they use their teeth and go for the face. They
Speaker 1: go for each other's face because that's lightly furred and
Speaker 1: they can inflict more damage. And that's the sets. They're
Speaker 1: kind of Achilles heel, which is in there on their head,
Speaker 1: not their foot. Uh, so they're u that's kind of
Speaker 1: what they do and when that which makes for some
Speaker 1: pretty horrible injuries. Also you see that also um with
Speaker 1: with cougars because they they're biting at the neck um.
Speaker 1: But sometimes you know when um, I use the comparison
Speaker 1: again rather grizzly, but when you think of biting into
Speaker 1: a very ripe plum, how when you bite into it,
Speaker 1: the skin pulls away. So so what you sometimes have
Speaker 1: is kind of these scalpings as at work. Was that
Speaker 1: you know, if you if you try if you're an
Speaker 1: animal and you're trying to get your jaw around a
Speaker 1: human head, you're hitting bone right away, and then you
Speaker 1: close your jaws and it pulls the skin away. So
Speaker 1: some of these um mannequins were really a little tough
Speaker 1: to tough to see, and I can imagine coming upon
Speaker 1: the real thing would be pretty disturbing. But one of
Speaker 1: the interesting things that is this is a takeaway from
Speaker 1: observing all these different kinds of wounds, is that almost
Speaker 1: all of them indicate that we are not really what
Speaker 1: this animal has evolved to use its jaws or claws on.
Speaker 1: And so like you described with the with the cougars
Speaker 1: biting the back of the head or bears attacking humans,
Speaker 1: the bites almost reveal the strangeness of this encounter between
Speaker 1: the human and the animal. Right a bear bears eating
Speaker 1: I mean they're they're mostly eating nuts, berries, fruit, um,
Speaker 1: if sometimes fish, grasses. So they have molars that they
Speaker 1: have a jaw that goes side to side, and they
Speaker 1: got molars for crushing and grinding um. So there, so
Speaker 1: the bites on a human, it's a it's it's messy,
Speaker 1: is the way it was put. It's kind of a
Speaker 1: messy affair. Whereas uh, a mountain line and as does
Speaker 1: a leaps attacks secures, the pride does a killing bite.
Speaker 1: So these puncture wounds, these triangular puncture wounds, it's a
Speaker 1: less messy death, if you will. So, yeah, you can
Speaker 1: really see how the animals equipped to gather its food
Speaker 1: and uh. And with mountain lions, yeah, they do tend
Speaker 1: to they pounce and kill. They are predators and true carnivores,
Speaker 1: but they're not in true we're not on the menu
Speaker 1: they like deer or wild pigs or they're not they're
Speaker 1: not going after humans. Very very rarely a whole decade.
Speaker 1: We'll go buy in California where we don't have a
Speaker 1: single mountain lion fatality. It's just a very unusual occurrence. Now,
Speaker 1: speaking of bears, I sually, I really enjoyed the how
Speaker 1: not only with the bear chapter, but you know, multiple
Speaker 1: chapters in the book. You you kind of you turn
Speaker 1: our pre existing notions of these animals kind of on
Speaker 1: their head, even if we think that our pre existing
Speaker 1: notions are kind of you know, well informed. Uh, but
Speaker 1: with the with the bear in particular, when you're talking
Speaker 1: about the break ins that are perpetrated by bears, and
Speaker 1: in these cases, how it seems like the bear is
Speaker 1: such a contradiction. Can you speak to like some of
Speaker 1: those some of those details about like how how reckless
Speaker 1: they can be, but then so how just almost hauntingly precise. Sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I spent some time in um Picken County, Colorado, on
Speaker 1: the outskirts of downtown Aspen, up in the hills. Um
Speaker 1: and this is a ski resort town. We're up in
Speaker 1: the mountains. We are in bear territory. Uh, and so
Speaker 1: uh the bears are the bears start to realize nuts
Speaker 1: and berries, these are great, grab apples, choke cherry, this
Speaker 1: is great. But these humans, these humans seem to have
Speaker 1: some really good stuff inside their homes. And a bear
Speaker 1: that kind of realizes that surprisingly adept at popping a
Speaker 1: window or even turning. They call the bear handles their
Speaker 1: French door handles, which just pushed down on and pushed
Speaker 1: the door and it opens quite easily. So bears are
Speaker 1: find it very easy to to get into two people's
Speaker 1: homes and people are sometimes surprised. And it depends on
Speaker 1: the bear. But some bears, like the break in that
Speaker 1: where I went to the aftermath of this break in
Speaker 1: and the bear had gone through a downstairs, through a
Speaker 1: deck leading to a bedroom downstairs and then up to
Speaker 1: the kitchen. Didn't knock anything over. Uh, didn't even leave
Speaker 1: footprints sun bears. Um. The guy who the wildlife invested
Speaker 1: was Colorado Fishing, Game and Fish and Wildlife that he
Speaker 1: was talking about how they they will sometimes reach in,
Speaker 1: like take out a carton of eggs and inside, or
Speaker 1: or take out things that they don't want to put
Speaker 1: them aside. One bear allegedly opened hers she's kiss, opened
Speaker 1: the foil her, she's kiss uh, and and ate that.
Speaker 1: So they're there. Yeah, they there. While they can create,
Speaker 1: you know, awful mess, whether it's on a body or
Speaker 1: in someone's kitchen, sometimes they're surprisingly um precise and laid back.
Speaker 1: It's it's interesting how different their person individual personalities are.
Speaker 1: Was it from uh, the person you were speaking with
Speaker 1: the Colorado Fish and Wildlife that you got that fact about,
Speaker 1: or at least the allegation that some of these bears
Speaker 1: apparently have brand preferences when it comes to ice cream,
Speaker 1: like they really like Hoggin Dawes, but they don't like
Speaker 1: the store brand. Yes, it was it was. It was
Speaker 1: a woman from the neighboring town is it's Snowmass. I
Speaker 1: think the it's a it's a again a mountain resort
Speaker 1: ski and mountain biking resort town. Tina White I believe
Speaker 1: her name was, and she said that the black bears
Speaker 1: in the area they prefer premium brands. They will not
Speaker 1: touch Western Family ice cream, which I guess is like
Speaker 1: a low rent brand that they have in Colorado and
Speaker 1: they're like, no, no, no, thank you. I gotta say
Speaker 1: the parts of that chapter where you were talking about
Speaker 1: the bears getting into the trash, the unsecured trash outside
Speaker 1: of fancy restaurants, that was really making me hungry when
Speaker 1: you were listing all the foods they were stabbing their
Speaker 1: snouts into, so the rotten barata cheese and the and
Speaker 1: the sustainable scuna salmon, and exactly if they were like
Speaker 1: this is some good than let's see. Let's let's go
Speaker 1: a little broader for a second here and just talk
Speaker 1: about the book itself, which again is fuzz when when
Speaker 1: nature breaks the law. I was just wondering, how how
Speaker 1: long have you been planning this particular book, and is
Speaker 1: there is there anything in particular that you can point
Speaker 1: to as being like the inspiration point that led you
Speaker 1: down this road. Oh, I wish I had a great
Speaker 1: origin story because people people often ask about that, and
Speaker 1: um I came to it this one. And it's a
Speaker 1: really kind of circuitous roundabout, not necessarily all that interesting. Half.
Speaker 1: I had originally gotten interested in wildlife crime scene forensics,
Speaker 1: but not when the animals are the perpetrators, but when
Speaker 1: the animals are the victims. Uh So, I was up
Speaker 1: at this forensics lab that the Fish and Wildlife Department has,
Speaker 1: talking to this woman who was an expert in how
Speaker 1: to tell counterfeit versus genuine dried tiger penis, because of
Speaker 1: course it's illegal to traffic in animal endangered animal parts
Speaker 1: and uh, as it turns out, almost always was being
Speaker 1: passed off as tiger penis is deer or horse or cow,
Speaker 1: partly because those are easier to come by and they're
Speaker 1: bigger and more impressive. And if you're trying to quote
Speaker 1: unquote cure erectile dispon or make yourself more virile, a
Speaker 1: little tiger penis doesn't. It doesn't have the right optics. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's a long winded way of saying I was up
Speaker 1: at this lab the Fish and Wildlife National Wildlife Forensics Laboratory,
Speaker 1: and I thought, well, this, this could be an interesting area.
Speaker 1: But as it turns out, I was not going to
Speaker 1: be able to follow any open investigations. I wasn't to
Speaker 1: be able to tag along with investigators and do the
Speaker 1: kind of thing I really have to do for my
Speaker 1: books to make it interesting for myself hopefully for the reader.
Speaker 1: So that was a dead end, and I kind of
Speaker 1: various other things happened. But I eventually thought, well, what
Speaker 1: if I turned it around, and what if the animals
Speaker 1: were the perpetrators and the people are the victims, and
Speaker 1: and you know what, what would what's to be done there?
Speaker 1: And I learned that there's in fact a whole science
Speaker 1: that's devoted to this, called human wildlife conflict and the
Speaker 1: science of human wildlife conflict, and there's conventions and scientists
Speaker 1: and researchers. So I thought that could be an interesting
Speaker 1: world to step into. So it was a circuitous path,
Speaker 1: it wasn't. It wasn't. I have not been attacked, or
Speaker 1: not until the book, by any animals. You were you
Speaker 1: were robbed by a monkey, I was mugged by mcc Yes,
Speaker 1: I was. So when I when I picked up the
Speaker 1: book and was getting into it. You know, I expected
Speaker 1: a lot of it, of course, to be happening in
Speaker 1: a contemporary setting and dealing with our modern world, thinking like, okay,
Speaker 1: this is where the legal system has led, and this
Speaker 1: is where you know, the growth of human populations and
Speaker 1: expansion has led. So I was really surprised and interested
Speaker 1: when you mentioned a book from nineteen o six, The
Speaker 1: Criminal Prosecution and Punishment of Animals. But I believe E. P. Evans,
Speaker 1: can you talk a little bit about this? Sure, That's
Speaker 1: something I came upon very early on and also pushed
Speaker 1: me towards this topic. A bizarre book. This is a
Speaker 1: book detailing the things that human societies used to do
Speaker 1: to deal with animals and insects that were committing crimes
Speaker 1: against them, crimes in the sense of the following our laws,
Speaker 1: you know, stealing or or committing manslaughter, and what used
Speaker 1: to happen is that they were uh, criminally prosecuted. The
Speaker 1: example I've given the book is this case. It's from
Speaker 1: sixteen fifty nine and Northern le A province in northern Italy,
Speaker 1: and um caterpillars were eating a lot of the crops, lettuces,
Speaker 1: whatever they were and these caterpillars will do they're hungry.
Speaker 1: They've got, you know, bulk up for their little transition.
Speaker 1: And so the community that the um whoever, the magistrate
Speaker 1: or the head person was posted summons legal summons on
Speaker 1: the trees in the area requesting that the caterpillars appear
Speaker 1: in court on a set date, at which point, the
Speaker 1: summons said they would be assigned legal representation and a
Speaker 1: trial would ensue. And of course the caterpillars did not
Speaker 1: appear at court, but by that time had pupated, weren't
Speaker 1: causing any problems anymore. But but that's this book. It's
Speaker 1: like four hundred pages of well documented situations and cases.
Speaker 1: There were, you know, livestock, some of it pigs, pigs
Speaker 1: killing small children. Not don't care about that happening much today,
Speaker 1: but apparently used to have, and with some frequency, the
Speaker 1: pigs being tried, executed, sometimes imprisoned. And I thought this,
Speaker 1: I almost thought this was a hoax because it was
Speaker 1: so so bizarre. But the bat the appendix as a
Speaker 1: number of these documents and UM in some detail in
Speaker 1: Latin a lot of the times sometimes French. Uh, And
Speaker 1: so it was it was real, and it was not
Speaker 1: that there were just simple minded people. It was the way,
Speaker 1: the way the author explained it. It was a way
Speaker 1: to um display the breadth of your powers as as
Speaker 1: a legal entity or as a leader. You know, even
Speaker 1: nature must follow my rules and you will be punished.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of a display, kind of ludicrous, but
Speaker 1: a display of dominion and power and I control all so.
Speaker 1: But but the the details were quite quite amazing. I mean,
Speaker 1: people ritz w r I t rits of ejectment that
Speaker 1: were stuffed into the burrows of rats like you must
Speaker 1: leave them. They get the premises under genalty of law. Honestly,
Speaker 1: legal system not the best approach of the animals. They
Speaker 1: don't read, they don't care. They just want a place
Speaker 1: to have a nest or get something to eat, and
Speaker 1: we offer that and they take advantage of it. These
Speaker 1: are crimes of opportunity for the most part. Anyway, that
Speaker 1: that book is a fascinating I thought particularly easy to
Speaker 1: get through, but a fascinating read. Nineteen o six when
Speaker 1: that book was published, do you think these kinds of
Speaker 1: legal actions were at all um based on a certain
Speaker 1: theological understanding of law. I don't recall any mention of
Speaker 1: this in the book. But you know, was there an
Speaker 1: idea that maybe if you issued a certain kind of legitimate,
Speaker 1: uh sanctioned by the court, that somehow God would enforce
Speaker 1: it or something. Yeah, yes, there there definitely was a
Speaker 1: religious element. There was this sense that this belief that
Speaker 1: these plagues and these um actions of these animals were
Speaker 1: being or a punishment on the people themselves, that that
Speaker 1: God was punishing us by sending these creatures. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that was that was tied into it. There was a
Speaker 1: belief that we the community are being punished and so
Speaker 1: you know, we will I mean, I don't know that's
Speaker 1: exactly what you're asking, but that was that was definitely
Speaker 1: part of the part of the belief. But but on
Speaker 1: the subject of theology and religion, you do, and later
Speaker 1: in the book get into that a bit, talking to
Speaker 1: individuals about like what is what is one's religious responsibility
Speaker 1: towards these animals that we may think of as vermin. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I spent some time in India, which has quite a
Speaker 1: different attitude and relationship attitude toward animals and relationship with them,
Speaker 1: partly because a lot a lot of the deities and
Speaker 1: Hinduism are animals, where there you know, they appear as
Speaker 1: animals or the spouse as an animal, or they ride
Speaker 1: around on an well they themselves like Onunt him on
Speaker 1: is you know, the monkey head and Gunnash the elephant
Speaker 1: cows are considered sacred. So it's a when when those
Speaker 1: animals start to cause problems. Um, people are not as
Speaker 1: quick to rush in to calling the authorities to exterminate
Speaker 1: them or call them. Uh, there's a there's a stigma
Speaker 1: attached to that. You know, New Delhi the tremendous problems
Speaker 1: of macaques, troops of not just not just Deli, all
Speaker 1: over cities in northern India. Macaques cause a lot of problems.
Speaker 1: And uh, one of the things that's done in Na
Speaker 1: Delhi is to catch them and transport them down to
Speaker 1: this large sanctuary in the southern part of the city.
Speaker 1: It used to be a mine and now it's reallywilded
Speaker 1: and is a place where the maccaques are let loose.
Speaker 1: And it's very very hard for the authorities to hire
Speaker 1: monkey catchers. I mean, that's is this just you would
Speaker 1: you would be looked at a scance if you were
Speaker 1: somebody who was trapping and man handling macaques because of
Speaker 1: the religious significance of these animals. The other thing going
Speaker 1: on while their pests and nuisances to people that people
Speaker 1: are also they gather at temples, these monkeys because they
Speaker 1: know people will and offerings. They will not only inside
Speaker 1: the temple or you know, the more conventional um offerings
Speaker 1: are made, but when they go outside, they see the
Speaker 1: monkey and they will give the monkey, you know, fruit
Speaker 1: or little packets of soda or whatever. Then they'll they'll
Speaker 1: So they're they're both encouraging the animal and then also
Speaker 1: being harassed by it. So it's a sticky problem there.
Speaker 1: The reli the religious the religious elements make it more
Speaker 1: complicated when when it comes to finding some sort of solution.
Speaker 1: There are several examples in the book where you discuss
Speaker 1: animals that in some way interact or have conflict with,
Speaker 1: or live alongside humans, and how there might be a
Speaker 1: sort of emergent evolutionary pressure on animals that know how
Speaker 1: to exploit human and just like just to the right
Speaker 1: extent without overstepping and then being being dealt with violently.
Speaker 1: Like you talked about this in the chapter with the bears,
Speaker 1: which I thought was really interesting, how there there could
Speaker 1: be a kind of evolutionary advantage for what are called
Speaker 1: the fat Albert bears and bears that are you know,
Speaker 1: get in and get a lot of calories out of
Speaker 1: your fridge, but are less likely to have a scary
Speaker 1: conflict with a person or less likely to damage the house. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the the fat fat Albert was a bear that, uh
Speaker 1: was quite good at breaking into people's cabins and homes.
Speaker 1: This is again Colorado. But people would marvel afterwards, like,
Speaker 1: came in here, didn't damage anything. Maybe we're kind of impressed,
Speaker 1: you know, okay, rated the fridge took some stuff, didn't
Speaker 1: break anything. So so not as likely to be angry
Speaker 1: or to perceive this creature as a threat and to
Speaker 1: call uh Colorado Parks and Wildlife and and you know,
Speaker 1: request something be done about the bear. So so then
Speaker 1: you know, the more at Alberts, the more these bears
Speaker 1: persist and survived to breeding age, the more you're going
Speaker 1: to sort of see more hopefully more fat Alberts. Because
Speaker 1: the bears that are very aggressive, uh, that are aggressive
Speaker 1: toward people or their pets, and that break in and
Speaker 1: cause a lot of damage. They to use the phrasing
Speaker 1: of the person I was talking to, they're gonna get
Speaker 1: whacked fast like some people are going to be feel threatened,
Speaker 1: They're going to complain, They're going to call the agency.
Speaker 1: Agency is going to come out set a big covert
Speaker 1: trap and that animal will be destroyed. So uh, possibly, yes, possibly,
Speaker 1: you know, the fat alberts will be seeing more and
Speaker 1: more of them and fewer and fewer of the aggressive
Speaker 1: ones and that could be a good thing over time. Now,
Speaker 1: in your your section, in your in Fuzz dealing with
Speaker 1: animals on the highways, you discuss self driving car solutions
Speaker 1: to animal strikes. Uh. And I found this very fascinating
Speaker 1: as well. How does it seem that self driving cars
Speaker 1: are likely to react to animal on the road in
Speaker 1: the future. Well, right now, there's something called a large
Speaker 1: animal detection system. So an animal that kin a long legged,
Speaker 1: tall animal. Uh, anything that comes into the path, the
Speaker 1: beam of the detector that fits that visual profile will
Speaker 1: cause the car to stop that I mean, the brakes
Speaker 1: will be applied. H And the reason is a large
Speaker 1: animal detection system. What they're hoping to prevent is collisions
Speaker 1: with a moose and elk or an elk, because those
Speaker 1: animals are tall enough that if the car strikes them,
Speaker 1: it strikes them in the legs, and the entire torso
Speaker 1: and head and antler's cart whales back over the car.
Speaker 1: And these animals are tall enough that that that they
Speaker 1: come through the windshield and land on the driver and
Speaker 1: or the passenger. And um the result is often a
Speaker 1: broken neck, death or or or paralysis. So um, it's
Speaker 1: quite different than just hitting a deer. On the deers,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's gonna be a lot of damage to
Speaker 1: the car and to the deer, but often the person's
Speaker 1: the person survives without serious injury, unless, of course they
Speaker 1: swerved and hit a tree and went off the road. Um.
Speaker 1: So a self driving car, uh, the ones that I
Speaker 1: heard about I called, UM. I think I've talked to
Speaker 1: someone at Volvo Volvo and SB because there's they're sold
Speaker 1: a lot in northern regions. Are have concerns about moose
Speaker 1: hitting moose because there's a lot of fatalities. But when
Speaker 1: it I got curious about small animals, like how does
Speaker 1: the car decide when it should just plow forward because
Speaker 1: it's safer to hit a pet than it is to swerve,
Speaker 1: or how you know how Uh if you stop short
Speaker 1: for a small animal, then the car behind now smashes
Speaker 1: into you. How do you how does a car make
Speaker 1: those decisions? You know, at what point is it's safer
Speaker 1: for the human for the driver to just go ahead
Speaker 1: and hit the raccoon um, instead of serving to save
Speaker 1: the animal's life. And I tried to get an interview
Speaker 1: with someone at Weymo UH and a couple of other places,
Speaker 1: and they don't They didn't want to talk about that.
Speaker 1: They don't want to They didn't want to engage on
Speaker 1: the topic, which leaves me to think they haven't quite
Speaker 1: worked out worked out what to do, because it's it's
Speaker 1: it's situation by situation, UM. The worst thing to do
Speaker 1: in the case of a small animal on the road
Speaker 1: with you know, if there's trees and things on the
Speaker 1: side of the road, you know, to swerve sharply um
Speaker 1: and and put yourself at risk of going off the
Speaker 1: road and hitting a tree or a rock or a barrier. Um.
Speaker 1: That that's not what you want to do. But but
Speaker 1: it's also to say, well, our cars will just go
Speaker 1: ahead and plow into your dog or cat or recoon
Speaker 1: to save your life. We will just be just plowing
Speaker 1: right on through without even breaking or even blinking an eye.
Speaker 1: So that you know, that the optics of that are
Speaker 1: kind of awful too. So that's a question that I
Speaker 1: have that I that as far as I know, hasn't
Speaker 1: really been answered. I think that the priorities right now
Speaker 1: and they've got so many other things to figure out
Speaker 1: before they get down to what do we do about
Speaker 1: someone's beagle? Yeah, I mean it reminds me of stuff
Speaker 1: I've read recently just related in general to self driving cars.
Speaker 1: They're just about all the things we do sometimes just
Speaker 1: nonsensical risks that we cake be a you know, a
Speaker 1: risky left hand turn, or the fact that yet that,
Speaker 1: like I'm driving to pick my kid up from school,
Speaker 1: I might swerve around the chipmunk in the road, and
Speaker 1: it was in retrospect it was dangerous, But also in retrospect,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I would have done anything else, you know,
Speaker 1: And how do you translate or improve upon that that
Speaker 1: kind of decision making and the machine right, and how
Speaker 1: do you tell a small animal from a kid on
Speaker 1: a small bicycle, And how do you i mean, those
Speaker 1: those fine grain distinctions, how do you trust the car
Speaker 1: to make those? It's it's really it is really tricky
Speaker 1: on um. Yeah, and even you know, I have a
Speaker 1: a new issue, a new edition of Stiff coming out
Speaker 1: and with an epilogue where I went back and I
Speaker 1: talked to me like what's new in these topics, And
Speaker 1: one of the things that came up was passenger safety
Speaker 1: in a self driving car. If you you don't need
Speaker 1: to be at the steering wheel in a set position,
Speaker 1: if you can now sit sideways or or you know not,
Speaker 1: you're not confined as you were as a driver. Well,
Speaker 1: now in an impact, how do you keep that person safe?
Speaker 1: Where do you put the air bags? If somebody people
Speaker 1: can kind of sit across from each other and you know,
Speaker 1: you freed people up in the interior of the car,
Speaker 1: how do you keep them How do you keep them safe?
Speaker 1: Where does the airbag go? How do you you know,
Speaker 1: how do you configure the seatbelt? So all of that
Speaker 1: has to be a rethought and probably, you know, the
Speaker 1: small animal portion of it will be pretty far down
Speaker 1: the list. Is there? Is there a date for the
Speaker 1: new edition of Stiff? Yeah, this this week, I think that,
Speaker 1: I think August thirty one, the new edition with a
Speaker 1: snazzy new cover comes out. Yeah, this is of course
Speaker 1: your your your first big book that that that kicked
Speaker 1: it off. Yeah. My first book, kind of Stiff, came
Speaker 1: out in three I think it was. Yeah, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've I've read that, I've read I've read all of
Speaker 1: your books that have come out. They're always always thank you, jeez.
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear that. So one thing I found
Speaker 1: interesting about um the sections of the book involving humans
Speaker 1: and animals that come into violent conflict UM, is that, well,
Speaker 1: you so you have a chapter about leopards in India
Speaker 1: that intentionally stalk humans as prey. Repeatedly they become habituated
Speaker 1: to this, and you got me wondering, what are some
Speaker 1: of the broad truths about the difference between animals that
Speaker 1: sort of stumble into hapless encounters with humans that might
Speaker 1: turn violent, versus animals deliberately stalk humans as prey. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the broad truth is that it's very uncommon for an
Speaker 1: animal that can easily attack and kill a human to
Speaker 1: do that. We are not really on the typically, we
Speaker 1: are not on the menu. Something has to change. And
Speaker 1: in the Middle Himalaya, where I was in India, a
Speaker 1: couple of things happened. One the theory that Jim Corbett,
Speaker 1: who was brought into hunt down some of these kind
Speaker 1: of famous man eaters, as he called them. His theory
Speaker 1: was that during the pandemic of nineteen seventeen, there were
Speaker 1: so many people dying that the traditional ritual of you know,
Speaker 1: taking the body to the river and building a pyre,
Speaker 1: and you know that wasn't happening, and they would, um
Speaker 1: it came up with a more expedient ritual, which is
Speaker 1: to put a hot coal in the mouth and send
Speaker 1: the body off down the hill towards the river, not
Speaker 1: to actually the track and do the whole ritual. And
Speaker 1: so there were a lot of bodies that were now
Speaker 1: available and leopard will scavenge. And the US belief was
Speaker 1: that they developed a taste for human meat that way,
Speaker 1: and that they then went on to incorporate human meat
Speaker 1: into their diet going forward. Um, that's a that's a
Speaker 1: theory that may well be true. Um. The theory of
Speaker 1: the researcher that I traveled with was had to do
Speaker 1: with what's going on in that part of the world,
Speaker 1: which is a lot of farming communities. Um, the men
Speaker 1: have given up farming and gone to look for work
Speaker 1: in the cities, and so there's a lot of rewilding land.
Speaker 1: It's it's occupied by people. Are a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: women and children left behind there. But there's cover now
Speaker 1: for and there's a lot of brush around homes and
Speaker 1: communities and which leopards need to hunt. They will sneak
Speaker 1: up and then you know, cover the last distance in
Speaker 1: a burst of speed and a pounds. So they tend
Speaker 1: to need to have of earth. Also, livestock there isn't
Speaker 1: being as well tended, so it's kind of be it
Speaker 1: falls prey to the leopards and the people, the people
Speaker 1: who are watching the livestocks. Sometimes there kids and uh
Speaker 1: of the individuals killed by leopards in that region in
Speaker 1: this once this researcher study were kids under ten. Uh,
Speaker 1: So there's opportunities that weren't there for for animals that
Speaker 1: hunt and and and sadly a human or a child
Speaker 1: there or the or people's pets. They're they're easier to
Speaker 1: catch than a deer or a wild pig. So part
Speaker 1: of it maybe leopards just realizing this is an easy dinner.
Speaker 1: It seems like a lot of these uh, these stories
Speaker 1: in some way involve um rapid changes or modification to
Speaker 1: the landscape done by humans. Yeah, yeah, it does. Yeah
Speaker 1: that the situation there with elephants againssing to me anyway,
Speaker 1: number of deaths five deaths a year caused by human
Speaker 1: deaths caused by elephants UM. And what's happening there is
Speaker 1: there's there's this elephant corridor as it's called. The elephants
Speaker 1: tend to move along this path looking for food. UM.
Speaker 1: It's across northern India to the border with Nepal, and
Speaker 1: these regions are seeing an influx of refugees and also
Speaker 1: Terry has felt several establishments. There's roads coming through and
Speaker 1: the elephants are getting this is the term pocketed, stuck
Speaker 1: in little pockets, and elephants eat a lot they travel
Speaker 1: and sizable herds and they are turning to the farmers
Speaker 1: crops for food because they don't have enough food and
Speaker 1: they're stuck. They can't keep moving on the way they
Speaker 1: used to. And so then that's when you have conflict
Speaker 1: because you have these um villagers who they're they're depending
Speaker 1: on this food to survive. You know, it's it's subsistence farming.
Speaker 1: And so you know, a troop of elephants that comes through,
Speaker 1: even if they don't eat what you're growing, they're gonna trample,
Speaker 1: you know, you get the seven or eight elephants are
Speaker 1: going to cause a tremendous amount of damage. So people
Speaker 1: see the elephants coming onto their land and they'll run
Speaker 1: out and they'll try you know, they're they're angry and
Speaker 1: they're upset, and they tend to they tend to be
Speaker 1: deaths from getting trampled or knocked over or I mean
Speaker 1: the elephant even if they're that's not the elephant's intent.
Speaker 1: It's a very big animal and it's just knocks you
Speaker 1: with its trunk. It can kill you. And um, so
Speaker 1: so yes, it's it's humans moving into the territory and
Speaker 1: and changing the landscape in ways that Steiny's their their
Speaker 1: natural behaviors and they're there their way of surviving and
Speaker 1: getting food. You see that also, you know highways, interstate
Speaker 1: highways in this country, sometimes they're put in without taking
Speaker 1: a look at, well, what what animals migrate seasonally to
Speaker 1: get food, go to a different elevation to get food
Speaker 1: or to breede, and are we cutting them off? You know?
Speaker 1: That's so that's um that's a problem. And you can
Speaker 1: build an over asked but that's an expensive thing to
Speaker 1: do and you know, much better to look at that
Speaker 1: beforehand saying, you know, what is the situation here in
Speaker 1: this this sloth of land. What kind of wildlife do
Speaker 1: we have? And how did they move each year seasonally? Um?
Speaker 1: Is there is this a bad idea? Correct me if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong. But I think another example of that kind
Speaker 1: of thing about um modification of the landscape and and
Speaker 1: the problems that causes is like poor choices about the
Speaker 1: relationship between different types of plants or fruit bearing plants,
Speaker 1: especially and settled areas. Like I think you give the
Speaker 1: example of was it an aspen or somewhere else in
Speaker 1: Colorado that the city was planting crab apple trees within
Speaker 1: the city even while they're trying to solve their bear problem.
Speaker 1: But then the other thing that stuck with me was
Speaker 1: I think you were talking about um cabins being like sited.
Speaker 1: Somebody buy a plot of land and build a cabin
Speaker 1: right in the middle of a bunch of natural berry trees,
Speaker 1: so that would be the place where like the bears
Speaker 1: would already be habituated to. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: The crab apples and downtown aspen Um they mean crab
Speaker 1: apple if you I mean, if you've seen a crab
Speaker 1: apple tree it's they're tiny crab apples, but their own sect,
Speaker 1: their clusters of them kind of like grapes, and the
Speaker 1: bears just sort of like opens its mouth, you know,
Speaker 1: and like pulls its mouth down the branch and gets
Speaker 1: these big mouthfuls. I mean, the crab apple tree is
Speaker 1: just heaven't you know, if you're an animal looking to
Speaker 1: get a concentrated food source and lots of calories to
Speaker 1: put on weight before you hibernate crab apple tree. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the fact that those are planted in downtown, Um,
Speaker 1: they're pretty when they blew. Yeah, that's true. They are
Speaker 1: lovely in the spring, but creating creating some issues there
Speaker 1: and and there was even efforts to get them the
Speaker 1: city to take them out and they resisted that, which
Speaker 1: this seems a little it was a little ill advised.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, I mean here in the in the
Speaker 1: Bay area, a lot up in the hills in Berkeley
Speaker 1: and Oakland, a lot of deer. So it really behoo
Speaker 1: as you when you do your landscaping, to plant plants
Speaker 1: that deer are not interested in. That is something any
Speaker 1: good landscape or here will do is suggest plants that
Speaker 1: deer I don't like. Otherwise you won't have much landscaping
Speaker 1: very soon. And of course that this all leads to
Speaker 1: some people might might jump to the conclusion, well, don't
Speaker 1: don't we need to kill more of these animals, And
Speaker 1: that's that's something you discuss quite a bit, like this
Speaker 1: idea that if sometimes these just elaborate efforts to remove
Speaker 1: the animals that then just backfire for for reasons that
Speaker 1: you get into in the book. Um And at one
Speaker 1: point you you refer to quote the inside out history
Speaker 1: of conservation in America, which which I think I love
Speaker 1: the way you put that there, because yeah, dealing with
Speaker 1: how conservation in America is often not tied up in
Speaker 1: these also these eradication movements or in the hunting movement.
Speaker 1: Can you speak to some of that that complexity there? Well, sure,
Speaker 1: concert conservation, wilderness conservation came out of a desire to
Speaker 1: set aside these large pristine tracts of wilderness so that
Speaker 1: hunters would have a place to hunt. Essentially, they were
Speaker 1: they were hunt and fish and they're still, I mean,
Speaker 1: to this day, we have a lot of government land
Speaker 1: that is managed by wildlife agencies, and wildlife agencies are
Speaker 1: funded still by hunting licenses and taxes on equipment. So
Speaker 1: there's it. There is this link. I mean, on the
Speaker 1: one hand, it is fabulous that these these were set aside,
Speaker 1: that they didn't become agricultural land. I live in in
Speaker 1: California and if you go out to the Central Valley
Speaker 1: Um there are these little pockets of California as it
Speaker 1: used to be, these wetlands with these tremendous diversity of
Speaker 1: bird life that you know, bird bird stopping over and
Speaker 1: during migration. You know, you have you know, ducks, gadwalls, geese,
Speaker 1: just dozens of species. It's the birders paradise. But there's
Speaker 1: also a little hunt tea cabins for duck hunters who
Speaker 1: come and the land was set aside by and for hunting,
Speaker 1: but it's also something you know, for hikers and and birders.
Speaker 1: And it's a weird it is. You know, I, as
Speaker 1: a bird watcher used to go out there. I never
Speaker 1: knew about the little hunters cabins. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: this sort of secret reality of that that area and
Speaker 1: those wetlands. But it really struck me, you know, driving
Speaker 1: home going from this really beautiful kind of verdant swath
Speaker 1: of California, leaving that behind and going out into the
Speaker 1: more typical Central Valley California, which is just a big
Speaker 1: flat expanse of big agriculture, you know, of crops, and so,
Speaker 1: you know, I felt very grateful towards the people who
Speaker 1: had set this land aside. And you know, there is
Speaker 1: this sort of distance of hunters and birders now, uh
Speaker 1: and uh, but it is it is strange to think
Speaker 1: about the fact that some of our um park lands
Speaker 1: and wilderness areas were originally set aside for people who
Speaker 1: love to hunt. But of course there's still the funding
Speaker 1: issue here, right, And that's something you get into in
Speaker 1: the in the book that you have these conservation efforts
Speaker 1: that are still still funded by hunting, funded uh, by phishing, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And I guess you know, in a perfect world that
Speaker 1: would all balance out, but there are cases, it seems
Speaker 1: like where it raises the question is this the right approach?
Speaker 1: Should there not be you know, more federal funding for conservation? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think that there tends to be a mistrust. You know,
Speaker 1: if the money is coming from hunting and fishing, um,
Speaker 1: isn't there temptation on the agency's part to put the
Speaker 1: desires of those of their constituents first, you know, can
Speaker 1: we trust them to be unbiased and neutral saviors of
Speaker 1: the land. Um so, and there is there is there
Speaker 1: has been talk of of of separating separating, making the
Speaker 1: funding for some of these conservation efforts federal funding, making
Speaker 1: it into pendant of hunting and fishing, you know, creating
Speaker 1: some sort of body or pool of money that would
Speaker 1: would be earmarked for conservation and and AND's just sort
Speaker 1: of creating some distance between the two. So so, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is a concern. And and I think it would
Speaker 1: be great too for that to happen. Thank So here's
Speaker 1: a question that might be a little odd, but I
Speaker 1: wonder if you have thoughts about it. How do you
Speaker 1: think about motive, the concept of motive differently in a
Speaker 1: criminal justice context when the perpetrator of a crime is
Speaker 1: not human, because a big part of human criminal justice
Speaker 1: is about understanding and establishing motive, treating crimes differently based
Speaker 1: on what the motive was or what the perpetrator's understanding was. Uh.
Speaker 1: The thing about the internal brain states that motivate the
Speaker 1: attacks of non human animals, it seems like you could
Speaker 1: think about them either as like less complex than their
Speaker 1: human equivalence. And thus may be easier to understand. Often
Speaker 1: and animal is just feeling threatened in some way or
Speaker 1: might be hungry or you could think about them is
Speaker 1: maybe more obscure because animals are more alien to our
Speaker 1: experience and they can't explain their motives in language. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the question of motive, it's interesting. In India, that's factored in. Uh,
Speaker 1: the cases are treated differently. Um. If it's if it's
Speaker 1: um a predatory attack versus a defensive attack. UM. So
Speaker 1: that's if there's if there's a series, there's kind of
Speaker 1: a you know, three strikes rule. You know, if if
Speaker 1: this if the animal is coming in and praying on
Speaker 1: intentionally praying on livestock or or people. You know, that's
Speaker 1: that's different from a defensive attack. That with leopards, there are,
Speaker 1: as we've talked about before, there are predatory attacks where
Speaker 1: the animal is specifically and intentionally going after a human.
Speaker 1: But there are tremendous numbers of If you go further
Speaker 1: south into the tea growing regions, which I also spent
Speaker 1: some time the in the in the tea on the
Speaker 1: tea plantations, Lepers sometimes sleep under the tea plants because
Speaker 1: it's shady air and it's cooler, and the tea workers,
Speaker 1: the pluckers, people plucking the leaves will sometimes surprise an animal.
Speaker 1: The animal will like leap up. Sometimes there's an injury,
Speaker 1: rarely a fatality, but that's a that's a that's that's
Speaker 1: a defensive just an altercation that happened because the person
Speaker 1: surprised the animal and it felt threatened. So those are
Speaker 1: considered differently than a predatory attack. So there is that
Speaker 1: distinction made. Um. You know, here in the US, when
Speaker 1: an animal harms a person, it's it's it's considered a
Speaker 1: public health threat, and it's it's typically that's that it
Speaker 1: has crust a line. Regardless of whether the bear was
Speaker 1: surprised and was defending itself, we tend to not make
Speaker 1: that same distinction. If it harms or if it kills
Speaker 1: a person, it will be destroyed. Even if it was
Speaker 1: the person had a dog, the dog ran at the bear,
Speaker 1: the bear got upset, the person sort of tried to intervene.
Speaker 1: The bear turned and attack the person. You know that
Speaker 1: there's no trial where we can we can set forth
Speaker 1: the reality of the situation and why the bear might
Speaker 1: have done it, and what the what the situation created
Speaker 1: and in a sense kind of come out a motive
Speaker 1: or lack of motive. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. So in
Speaker 1: the American context, um, the way we react to conflict
Speaker 1: with animals is maybe less understanding of whether or not
Speaker 1: they might be justified, and it is more just kind
Speaker 1: of a pure utilitarian You know, if if an animal
Speaker 1: has harmed a human or or or a pet or something,
Speaker 1: it's just thereafter considered probably dangerous and thus usually is
Speaker 1: dealt with violently. Well, yeah, it's a it's a public
Speaker 1: safety issue. When the public safety is threatened that you
Speaker 1: know that that's gonna the people are going to be
Speaker 1: the priority, not the animal. I mean, I did talk
Speaker 1: to this a bear, a bear researcher who had spent
Speaker 1: some time I believe it was in Nepal where they
Speaker 1: have God. Now I'm forgetting which species it is. I
Speaker 1: think there bears there bears that come in and they
Speaker 1: raid the property and they they sometimes get into altercations
Speaker 1: where someone is injured. And he said to the person
Speaker 1: in the community who responds to when these attacks happened,
Speaker 1: he said, if you saw a bear on a person,
Speaker 1: would you shoot the bear? And the guy said, it's
Speaker 1: not up to me. To decide which life is more important.
Speaker 1: It was just a different you know, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a it's a very different mindset of you know, the
Speaker 1: value and the rights of animals versus humans. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not I mean, it doesn't surprise me that we
Speaker 1: in the United States have the rules that we do.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's public safety. You know, it's if you
Speaker 1: if your family is being you know, is in harms,
Speaker 1: then that there's gonna be agencies that will come in
Speaker 1: and try to mitigate that threat. That's what we do.
Speaker 1: So again, the book is is fuzz When Nature Breaks
Speaker 1: the Law by by Mary Roach And I want to
Speaker 1: stress that we we didn't ask about anywhere close to
Speaker 1: all of the animals or scenarios or topics that you
Speaker 1: discussed in the book. It's just it's it's it's it's
Speaker 1: just so I would like each chapter. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it impressed me. There's so much discussed in the book.
Speaker 1: It's an unsecured garbage can overflowing the trees. Oh, I
Speaker 1: love that. Can I use that as a blurb on
Speaker 1: the paperback? Yes? Well, but but I thought, just just
Speaker 1: for anyone out there, like what if you were to
Speaker 1: summarize like, what does the big take come you want
Speaker 1: people to have from reading fuzz Uh? You know what
Speaker 1: what would that be? Well, first of all, I know,
Speaker 1: I want I want people to know it's a fun read.
Speaker 1: It's not. I mean sometimes talking about these things it
Speaker 1: can seem like a bit of a downer. It's animals
Speaker 1: there sometimes ending up being destroyed. But now I try,
Speaker 1: I try to keep things entertaining and light, and there's
Speaker 1: lots of room for that in this book. Um. But
Speaker 1: as a as a takeaway, um, you know, I just
Speaker 1: hope that people because people have a tendency to just
Speaker 1: especially since we use the words pest and nuisance, and
Speaker 1: I do use the word nuisance in the book as well.
Speaker 1: We have this tendency to immediately when we've got an
Speaker 1: animal coming onto our property doing something we don't want
Speaker 1: it to do. We want to just pick up the
Speaker 1: phone and call someone and make it go away. And
Speaker 1: there's the way, there's there's things that prevent any further damage.
Speaker 1: There's there's you know, you can exclude the animal, you
Speaker 1: can call someone who actually has the welfare of the
Speaker 1: animal in mind. And the Humane Society of the United
Speaker 1: States is a great web page, species by species, here's
Speaker 1: some things to do to solve resolve the problem without
Speaker 1: harming or killing the animals. So I just I just
Speaker 1: not not to be all on a soapbox or anything,
Speaker 1: which just just to try to to calm down and
Speaker 1: think about think about what you might do before you
Speaker 1: call the wildlife control operator to set a trap and
Speaker 1: let it go in a park and which is not
Speaker 1: supposed to do, etcetera, or set a trap and um
Speaker 1: or put out a very glue trap. I can't believe
Speaker 1: they even sell those anymore. So that's not a very
Speaker 1: short takeaway, is it. But that's that's what I guess.
Speaker 1: I'd like people to just to think before they act
Speaker 1: a little bit right. Well, and I do want to
Speaker 1: concur that the book book is is very fun and
Speaker 1: very funny, uh like all your books. I laughed, but
Speaker 1: I also I also felt sad at times. It made
Speaker 1: me think about things in a new way. So I
Speaker 1: essentially I felt all the fields as the as the
Speaker 1: young people say fully concur, well, thanks thank you, oh
Speaker 1: thank you, thanks for taking time out of your data
Speaker 1: to come on the show and discuss the book totally.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, most welcome. Thank you all right, well,
Speaker 1: thanks once more to Marry Roach for taking time out
Speaker 1: of her day to come on the show and chat
Speaker 1: with us. Her website if you want to learn more
Speaker 1: about her and her work is Mary roach dot net.
Speaker 1: And as mentioned in the episode, there's also this new
Speaker 1: edition of Stiff out now as well with new cover arts,
Speaker 1: so so look for that if you've never read it,
Speaker 1: this will be a great Halloween season to pick it
Speaker 1: up or or Spook for that matter, both of those
Speaker 1: I think would make for tremendous Halloween seasonal reads. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, if you would like to check out other
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you can find
Speaker 1: us wherever you get your podcast look for the Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind podcast feed. We have core science
Speaker 1: episodes on Tuesday and Thursday, Artifact episodes on Wednesday, uh
Speaker 1: listener mail on Monday's. Friday is our time to cut
Speaker 1: loose and talk about a weird film with Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 1: and then on the weekend you get a rerun. Huge
Speaker 1: thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feed, act on this episode or any other to
Speaker 1: suggest topic for the future, just to say hello. You
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production
Speaker 1: of I heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you're listening to your favorite shows.