WEBVTT - From the Vault: "Fuzz" with Mary Roach 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.520 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind. My name 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:12.319 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:17.919 are bringing you an emergency substitution vault episode because Rob 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:22.000 and I and Seth just had the every podcaster's nightmare 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:25.560 where we had an episode all recorded, uh and and 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:28.800 ready to have for you tomorrow, and it was lost 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:32.239 to due to a technical glitch. Uh you should have 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:36.559 heard the sounds of anguish echoing through my home. Uh. So, 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:39.040 so instead we are bringing you a vault episode. But 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:41.400 it's a really good one, so that this should really 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:44.120 be a treat. This was our interview with Mary Roach 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:50.159 from last year, originally published on September, and it's about 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:55.480 her wonderful, funny and fascinating book Fuzz When Nature breaks 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:58.400 the law. Absolutely, so let's go ahead and dive right 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:01.720 into it. And Neil's say, the book Fuzz is available 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:04.680 wherever you get your books. Yes, oh oh, and so 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:07.240 Whistling Part four, which we were going to have for 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:09.720 you today, We're gonna have to re record that episode. 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:12.360 That'll be a strange experience, but we that that should 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:15.479 be out for you. I believe next Tuesday. We haven't 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:17.800 had this happen in a very very long time. So 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:21.200 this this is an exceedingly rare occurrence. So uh yeah, 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:24.759 it'll be business as usual next week. Can we create 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:26.960 the illusion? Can we make it feel like the first 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:33.199 time again? I don't know. We'll see what happens. Welcome 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:36.160 to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:44.720 Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:48.320 name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In today's 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:49.720 episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, we have a 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:53.559 special interview guest. It's science writer Mary Roach. We're gonna 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:56.840 be chatting with her about her new book Fuzz When 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:00.160 Nature Breaks the Law, which is out today where where 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:03.080 you get your books. This is my first Mary Roach book, 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:07.440 and I love it it. I I feel ashamed now 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:10.440 that I had never read one of her books before. Um, 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:14.959 but she has such an infectious and enjoyable prose style 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:17.480 that really gets in your head. Um. One of the 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:19.880 things that I wanted to emphasize in the intro here 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:22.680 because because I had just been thinking about it. In 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:25.359 terms of subject matter, this book gets into a lot 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:29.440 of kind of dark and grizzly sounding stuff. But it 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:32.720 is but despite that it is a really funny book. 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:34.880 It is like one of the most laugh out loud 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:38.320 funny books I've read in a long time. Yeah, it's engaging, 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.320 it's weird, it's fun. Um. I was telling my wife 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:44.600 about the book, and she's read Mary Roach before, and 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:46.679 my wife was like, well, some of that sounds a 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:47.920 little dark. I don't know, I want to read that 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:50.120 right now. But but of course this has always been 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:52.240 the way with Mary Roach books. There they do get 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:57.360 into dark territory, but they are always fun and and humorous. Um. 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:00.600 If you're not familiar out there. Her previous book include 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:04.800 two thousand three Stiff, which is about cadaver's two thousand 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:09.799 five Spook, which is about scientific inquiries, especially early scientific 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:13.400 inquiries into the supernatural, two thousand eights Bunk, which is 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:17.359 about sexuality, two thousand tens Packing for Mars, which is 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:23.440 about the science scientific research into UH into into the 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:26.560 Quest for Space, two thousand thirteens Gulp, which is about 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:32.120 human digestion uh and then two thousand sixteens book was Grunt, 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:37.440 which is about military scientific investigations. I've read all of 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:39.840 these and I think this is the This is the 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:42.200 fourth time Mary has actually been on stuff to blow 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:45.000 your mind, as she previously dropped in to talk about 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:48.280 packing for Mars Gulp and Grunt. She's either our most 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:50.960 featured guests at this point or she's tied for the honors. 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:54.120 I can't remember either way, Friend of the Show's status 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:59.920 is definitely in place. Mary Roach, thanks for joining us today. Cook. 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:05.960 Could you introduce yourself? Of course, I'm Mary Roach. As 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:09.360 you said, I have a nonfiction author, and my most 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:13.000 recent book is called Fuzz SubTime Is When Nature Breaks 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:17.479 the Law. I have been so enjoying this book. I 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:20.920 love your dry, humorous prose style in it, and I 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:24.760 thought before we got any broader questions about about the 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:27.200 book and what you've learned from writing it, I thought 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:28.919 it would be good to kick off with an example 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:31.480 of the kinds of experiences you cover in the book. 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:34.039 And so I loved the story you cover in the 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:37.719 very first chapter about the Wildlife Human Attack Response Training 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:40.960 course you went through in Las Vegas. Could you tell 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:44.120 us a bit about this conference and and what got 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:47.400 you there and what it was like? Sure? Sure, yeah. 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:53.640 It's called uh Wildlife Human Attack Response Training UH or WART, 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:58.120 which by its founders admission, is a terrible acronym. So 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:01.320 WART is a five day course which I was lucky 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:04.080 enough to be able to sit in on, and it's 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:09.520 most almost entirely attended by people who deal with wildlife 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:13.240 attacks the aftermath of the attack, and it's basically, you know, 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:15.839 you're setting up a crime scene and you're doing forensics, 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:17.400 as you might in the case of a human on 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:22.479 human killing, uh, and you're trying to trying to take evidence, 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:27.479 collect evidence, established linkage between the perpetrator and the victim. Um. 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:31.200 And if they've they've caught an animal that they think 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:33.919 might be the animal and the DNA doesn't match or 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:36.960 they don't they're not able to establish that linkage, they'll 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:41.320 release the animals. So there's these bizarre parallels to the 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:45.520 human the human criminal justice system. But for me, it 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:48.080 was just a fascinating five days of hanging out and 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:51.720 hearing a lot about predator attacks and the aftermath, which 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:57.680 was both fascinating and often quite grizzly g R. I 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:01.440 yes's not easy, um and so yeah, And it was 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:05.080 utterly fascinating to me because I've you know, I've never 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.560 encountered this world and did not know that these crime 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:11.880 scenes were processed that way and that this work was done. Yeah, 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:15.560 so you include some details about like these sessions where 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:18.160 you would be given a mannequin that had these wounds 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:20.839 inflicted on it with saws and knives and things, and 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:23.840 you'd have to establish what type of animal it was 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:27.360 from the wounds on the mannequin. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:30.360 They had these soft touch mannequins. They're not like something 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.200 you'd see in a store window. They were they were 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:36.560 you know, they're fleshy, I'll say fleshy. And they were 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:40.400 the people who had created these wounds were people who've 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:42.640 seen that. I mean, they were based on actual bodies 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:46.800 and the wounds on the victims of attacks. Some of 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:50.320 them bear, some of them cougar or mountain lion um 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:54.679 and uh quite uh quite realistic, I have to say. 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:58.000 And and so they were, they were. We all had workstations, 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:00.440 you know, they were about it. There were about eight 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:05.960 or more, maybe a few more workstations. Each group had uh, 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:09.480 mock victim. And the idea was, look at these wounds 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:12.400 and what can you learn And you can pretty quickly, 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:16.360 uh make a distinction between first of all, human versus 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:20.600 animal and then uh uh mountain lion versus bag. They 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.480 kill in very different ways. They have very different teeth 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:26.040 and claws, and the marks on the body and the 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:30.400 wounds will tell you, um quite readily who the perpetrator 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:34.600 or what species the perpetrator was UM. And then after 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:38.160 that is established and you sort of you're moving down 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:42.440 to more than nitty gritty of looking at saliva, you know, 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:45.280 matching DNA between the victim and the animal. So you 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:48.280 might be doing that with saliva on the victim's body 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:53.400 or blood. You might be looking into the gums of 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:56.360 the animal to see is their human tissue there and 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:59.840 does is that? Does that match the victims So you 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:02.880 just like you might do on you know, C s 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:06.280 I or one of those shows that I never watched 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:11.000 with those forensics shows, so uh, super interesting stuff. One 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:13.160 of the details from the section that really stuck with 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:15.440 me was in warning to everyone, this is about to 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:19.200 get gruesome. The idea of since bears tend to when 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:21.680 they do attack humans, which is rare, but when they do, 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.360 they tend to bite repeatedly at the face that you 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:28.600 might expect to say, find human facial features like lips 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:32.240 or something, it's stuck in the bear's teeth or the stomach. 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:37.400 You would examine the bear's stomach contents and they're you know, 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:41.560 they're they're uh not necessarily chewing all that thoroughly, and 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:44.640 so you might find you know, an entire i or 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:48.360 in one case, a part of the scalp with a 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:52.320 mohawk haircut and which in fact match the victim's hairstyle. 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:57.560 So yeah, with bears, because bears, when they attack each other, 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:00.280 they use their teeth and go for the face. They 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:02.559 go for each other's face because that's lightly furred and 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:05.280 they can inflict more damage. And that's the sets. They're 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:08.720 kind of Achilles heel, which is in there on their head, 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:12.840 not their foot. Uh, so they're u that's kind of 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:16.200 what they do and when that which makes for some 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:23.439 pretty horrible injuries. Also you see that also um with 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:26.719 with cougars because they they're biting at the neck um. 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:29.640 But sometimes you know when um, I use the comparison 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:33.040 again rather grizzly, but when you think of biting into 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:36.080 a very ripe plum, how when you bite into it, 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:39.840 the skin pulls away. So so what you sometimes have 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:43.120 is kind of these scalpings as at work. Was that 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:45.120 you know, if you if you try if you're an 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:47.560 animal and you're trying to get your jaw around a 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:50.679 human head, you're hitting bone right away, and then you 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:54.200 close your jaws and it pulls the skin away. So 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:58.680 some of these um mannequins were really a little tough 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:02.040 to tough to see, and I can imagine coming upon 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:05.000 the real thing would be pretty disturbing. But one of 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:08.440 the interesting things that is this is a takeaway from 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:11.080 observing all these different kinds of wounds, is that almost 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:15.199 all of them indicate that we are not really what 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:18.719 this animal has evolved to use its jaws or claws on. 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:21.960 And so like you described with the with the cougars 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:24.160 biting the back of the head or bears attacking humans, 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:28.800 the bites almost reveal the strangeness of this encounter between 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:33.440 the human and the animal. Right a bear bears eating 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:38.959 I mean they're they're mostly eating nuts, berries, fruit, um, 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:43.880 if sometimes fish, grasses. So they have molars that they 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:45.800 have a jaw that goes side to side, and they 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:50.040 got molars for crushing and grinding um. So there, so 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:53.960 the bites on a human, it's a it's it's messy, 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:56.360 is the way it was put. It's kind of a 0:10:56.440 --> 0:11:00.480 messy affair. Whereas uh, a mountain line and as does 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:04.839 a leaps attacks secures, the pride does a killing bite. 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:08.599 So these puncture wounds, these triangular puncture wounds, it's a 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:12.160 less messy death, if you will. So, yeah, you can 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:15.840 really see how the animals equipped to gather its food 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:18.560 and uh. And with mountain lions, yeah, they do tend 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:23.000 to they pounce and kill. They are predators and true carnivores, 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:25.520 but they're not in true we're not on the menu 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:29.040 they like deer or wild pigs or they're not they're 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:32.840 not going after humans. Very very rarely a whole decade. 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:35.280 We'll go buy in California where we don't have a 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:40.600 single mountain lion fatality. It's just a very unusual occurrence. Now, 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:44.920 speaking of bears, I sually, I really enjoyed the how 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:46.640 not only with the bear chapter, but you know, multiple 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:51.199 chapters in the book. You you kind of you turn 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:53.520 our pre existing notions of these animals kind of on 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:55.560 their head, even if we think that our pre existing 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:59.000 notions are kind of you know, well informed. Uh, but 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:01.040 with the with the bear in particular, when you're talking 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:04.959 about the break ins that are perpetrated by bears, and 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:08.599 in these cases, how it seems like the bear is 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:10.680 such a contradiction. Can you speak to like some of 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:14.200 those some of those details about like how how reckless 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:18.920 they can be, but then so how just almost hauntingly precise. Sure. Yeah, 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:23.520 I spent some time in um Picken County, Colorado, on 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:27.440 the outskirts of downtown Aspen, up in the hills. Um 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:31.400 and this is a ski resort town. We're up in 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:34.520 the mountains. We are in bear territory. Uh, and so 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:40.120 uh the bears are the bears start to realize nuts 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:42.960 and berries, these are great, grab apples, choke cherry, this 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:45.480 is great. But these humans, these humans seem to have 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:49.640 some really good stuff inside their homes. And a bear 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:53.920 that kind of realizes that surprisingly adept at popping a 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:58.040 window or even turning. They call the bear handles their 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:01.480 French door handles, which just pushed down on and pushed 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:04.480 the door and it opens quite easily. So bears are 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.360 find it very easy to to get into two people's 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:11.880 homes and people are sometimes surprised. And it depends on 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:14.199 the bear. But some bears, like the break in that 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:17.160 where I went to the aftermath of this break in 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:22.200 and the bear had gone through a downstairs, through a 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:24.800 deck leading to a bedroom downstairs and then up to 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:29.040 the kitchen. Didn't knock anything over. Uh, didn't even leave 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:33.960 footprints sun bears. Um. The guy who the wildlife invested 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:37.800 was Colorado Fishing, Game and Fish and Wildlife that he 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:40.400 was talking about how they they will sometimes reach in, 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:43.200 like take out a carton of eggs and inside, or 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:45.160 or take out things that they don't want to put 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:50.800 them aside. One bear allegedly opened hers she's kiss, opened 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:54.680 the foil her, she's kiss uh, and and ate that. 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:59.160 So they're there. Yeah, they there. While they can create, 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:02.080 you know, awful mess, whether it's on a body or 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:07.640 in someone's kitchen, sometimes they're surprisingly um precise and laid back. 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:12.000 It's it's interesting how different their person individual personalities are. 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:15.760 Was it from uh, the person you were speaking with 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:18.880 the Colorado Fish and Wildlife that you got that fact about, 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:21.760 or at least the allegation that some of these bears 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:24.680 apparently have brand preferences when it comes to ice cream, 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:27.440 like they really like Hoggin Dawes, but they don't like 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:30.840 the store brand. Yes, it was it was. It was 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:34.920 a woman from the neighboring town is it's Snowmass. I 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:38.800 think the it's a it's a again a mountain resort 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:42.520 ski and mountain biking resort town. Tina White I believe 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:45.880 her name was, and she said that the black bears 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:49.360 in the area they prefer premium brands. They will not 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:52.480 touch Western Family ice cream, which I guess is like 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:55.320 a low rent brand that they have in Colorado and 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:59.880 they're like, no, no, no, thank you. I gotta say 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:02.440 the parts of that chapter where you were talking about 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:06.040 the bears getting into the trash, the unsecured trash outside 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:08.680 of fancy restaurants, that was really making me hungry when 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:10.640 you were listing all the foods they were stabbing their 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:13.720 snouts into, so the rotten barata cheese and the and 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:18.800 the sustainable scuna salmon, and exactly if they were like 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:28.840 this is some good than let's see. Let's let's go 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:31.200 a little broader for a second here and just talk 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:34.720 about the book itself, which again is fuzz when when 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:37.160 nature breaks the law. I was just wondering, how how 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:39.920 long have you been planning this particular book, and is 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:42.280 there is there anything in particular that you can point 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:44.480 to as being like the inspiration point that led you 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:46.760 down this road. Oh, I wish I had a great 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:50.720 origin story because people people often ask about that, and 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:53.960 um I came to it this one. And it's a 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:58.640 really kind of circuitous roundabout, not necessarily all that interesting. Half. 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:04.920 I had originally gotten interested in wildlife crime scene forensics, 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:07.320 but not when the animals are the perpetrators, but when 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:10.080 the animals are the victims. Uh So, I was up 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:13.480 at this forensics lab that the Fish and Wildlife Department has, 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:16.760 talking to this woman who was an expert in how 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:22.880 to tell counterfeit versus genuine dried tiger penis, because of 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:26.760 course it's illegal to traffic in animal endangered animal parts 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:30.280 and uh, as it turns out, almost always was being 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:33.160 passed off as tiger penis is deer or horse or cow, 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:36.080 partly because those are easier to come by and they're 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:38.640 bigger and more impressive. And if you're trying to quote 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:44.960 unquote cure erectile dispon or make yourself more virile, a 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:49.160 little tiger penis doesn't. It doesn't have the right optics. Anyway, 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:51.320 that's a long winded way of saying I was up 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:56.720 at this lab the Fish and Wildlife National Wildlife Forensics Laboratory, 0:16:57.120 --> 0:16:59.280 and I thought, well, this, this could be an interesting area. 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:01.280 But as it turns out, I was not going to 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:04.080 be able to follow any open investigations. I wasn't to 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:06.320 be able to tag along with investigators and do the 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:08.720 kind of thing I really have to do for my 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:12.119 books to make it interesting for myself hopefully for the reader. 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:15.000 So that was a dead end, and I kind of 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:17.679 various other things happened. But I eventually thought, well, what 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:20.320 if I turned it around, and what if the animals 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.200 were the perpetrators and the people are the victims, and 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:27.080 and you know what, what would what's to be done there? 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:29.760 And I learned that there's in fact a whole science 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:34.240 that's devoted to this, called human wildlife conflict and the 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:38.080 science of human wildlife conflict, and there's conventions and scientists 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:40.679 and researchers. So I thought that could be an interesting 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:45.160 world to step into. So it was a circuitous path, 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:48.760 it wasn't. It wasn't. I have not been attacked, or 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:53.240 not until the book, by any animals. You were you 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:56.160 were robbed by a monkey, I was mugged by mcc Yes, 0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:58.920 I was. So when I when I picked up the 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:00.960 book and was getting into it. You know, I expected 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:03.760 a lot of it, of course, to be happening in 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:07.119 a contemporary setting and dealing with our modern world, thinking like, okay, 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:09.320 this is where the legal system has led, and this 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:11.840 is where you know, the growth of human populations and 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:15.320 expansion has led. So I was really surprised and interested 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:18.119 when you mentioned a book from nineteen o six, The 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:22.080 Criminal Prosecution and Punishment of Animals. But I believe E. P. Evans, 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:24.800 can you talk a little bit about this? Sure, That's 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:28.560 something I came upon very early on and also pushed 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:32.040 me towards this topic. A bizarre book. This is a 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:37.280 book detailing the things that human societies used to do 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:42.160 to deal with animals and insects that were committing crimes 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:46.119 against them, crimes in the sense of the following our laws, 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:50.360 you know, stealing or or committing manslaughter, and what used 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:55.600 to happen is that they were uh, criminally prosecuted. The 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:57.800 example I've given the book is this case. It's from 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:01.520 sixteen fifty nine and Northern le A province in northern Italy, 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:08.240 and um caterpillars were eating a lot of the crops, lettuces, 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:11.119 whatever they were and these caterpillars will do they're hungry. 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:13.919 They've got, you know, bulk up for their little transition. 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:19.840 And so the community that the um whoever, the magistrate 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:23.320 or the head person was posted summons legal summons on 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:26.879 the trees in the area requesting that the caterpillars appear 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:30.080 in court on a set date, at which point, the 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:35.199 summons said they would be assigned legal representation and a 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:38.919 trial would ensue. And of course the caterpillars did not 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:42.639 appear at court, but by that time had pupated, weren't 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:46.320 causing any problems anymore. But but that's this book. It's 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:51.640 like four hundred pages of well documented situations and cases. 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:54.879 There were, you know, livestock, some of it pigs, pigs 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:58.680 killing small children. Not don't care about that happening much today, 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:01.840 but apparently used to have, and with some frequency, the 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:07.240 pigs being tried, executed, sometimes imprisoned. And I thought this, 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:09.639 I almost thought this was a hoax because it was 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:13.040 so so bizarre. But the bat the appendix as a 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:16.639 number of these documents and UM in some detail in 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:20.680 Latin a lot of the times sometimes French. Uh, And 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:22.199 so it was it was real, and it was not 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:26.280 that there were just simple minded people. It was the way, 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:28.399 the way the author explained it. It was a way 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:34.080 to um display the breadth of your powers as as 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:36.520 a legal entity or as a leader. You know, even 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:39.440 nature must follow my rules and you will be punished. 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:42.000 So it's kind of a display, kind of ludicrous, but 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:48.200 a display of dominion and power and I control all so. 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:52.639 But but the the details were quite quite amazing. I mean, 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:56.760 people ritz w r I t rits of ejectment that 0:20:56.800 --> 0:20:59.560 were stuffed into the burrows of rats like you must 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:04.720 leave them. They get the premises under genalty of law. Honestly, 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:08.680 legal system not the best approach of the animals. They 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:11.879 don't read, they don't care. They just want a place 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:15.119 to have a nest or get something to eat, and 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:17.320 we offer that and they take advantage of it. These 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:20.719 are crimes of opportunity for the most part. Anyway, that 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:24.040 that book is a fascinating I thought particularly easy to 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:27.960 get through, but a fascinating read. Nineteen o six when 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:30.320 that book was published, do you think these kinds of 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:34.520 legal actions were at all um based on a certain 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:39.000 theological understanding of law. I don't recall any mention of 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:41.719 this in the book. But you know, was there an 0:21:41.720 --> 0:21:45.360 idea that maybe if you issued a certain kind of legitimate, 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:49.840 uh sanctioned by the court, that somehow God would enforce 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:52.760 it or something. Yeah, yes, there there definitely was a 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:56.480 religious element. There was this sense that this belief that 0:21:56.560 --> 0:22:00.480 these plagues and these um actions of these animals were 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:04.639 being or a punishment on the people themselves, that that 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:08.600 God was punishing us by sending these creatures. So yeah, 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:10.919 that was that was tied into it. There was a 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:15.000 belief that we the community are being punished and so 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:17.560 you know, we will I mean, I don't know that's 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:20.880 exactly what you're asking, but that was that was definitely 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:26.080 part of the part of the belief. But but on 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:29.760 the subject of theology and religion, you do, and later 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:32.480 in the book get into that a bit, talking to 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:36.879 individuals about like what is what is one's religious responsibility 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:40.600 towards these animals that we may think of as vermin. Well, yeah, 0:22:40.600 --> 0:22:43.479 I spent some time in India, which has quite a 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:48.720 different attitude and relationship attitude toward animals and relationship with them, 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:51.840 partly because a lot a lot of the deities and 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:55.959 Hinduism are animals, where there you know, they appear as 0:22:56.000 --> 0:22:59.080 animals or the spouse as an animal, or they ride 0:22:59.080 --> 0:23:01.760 around on an well they themselves like Onunt him on 0:23:02.480 --> 0:23:05.800 is you know, the monkey head and Gunnash the elephant 0:23:06.040 --> 0:23:11.040 cows are considered sacred. So it's a when when those 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:15.040 animals start to cause problems. Um, people are not as 0:23:15.119 --> 0:23:19.600 quick to rush in to calling the authorities to exterminate 0:23:19.640 --> 0:23:23.600 them or call them. Uh, there's a there's a stigma 0:23:23.640 --> 0:23:26.480 attached to that. You know, New Delhi the tremendous problems 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:30.200 of macaques, troops of not just not just Deli, all 0:23:30.240 --> 0:23:34.400 over cities in northern India. Macaques cause a lot of problems. 0:23:34.480 --> 0:23:37.159 And uh, one of the things that's done in Na 0:23:37.200 --> 0:23:39.840 Delhi is to catch them and transport them down to 0:23:39.920 --> 0:23:43.120 this large sanctuary in the southern part of the city. 0:23:43.160 --> 0:23:45.440 It used to be a mine and now it's reallywilded 0:23:45.520 --> 0:23:47.840 and is a place where the maccaques are let loose. 0:23:48.080 --> 0:23:52.000 And it's very very hard for the authorities to hire 0:23:52.680 --> 0:23:54.840 monkey catchers. I mean, that's is this just you would 0:23:54.920 --> 0:23:57.680 you would be looked at a scance if you were 0:23:57.720 --> 0:24:01.600 somebody who was trapping and man handling macaques because of 0:24:01.640 --> 0:24:05.280 the religious significance of these animals. The other thing going 0:24:05.320 --> 0:24:09.200 on while their pests and nuisances to people that people 0:24:09.240 --> 0:24:12.240 are also they gather at temples, these monkeys because they 0:24:12.280 --> 0:24:17.040 know people will and offerings. They will not only inside 0:24:17.040 --> 0:24:20.560 the temple or you know, the more conventional um offerings 0:24:20.560 --> 0:24:22.639 are made, but when they go outside, they see the 0:24:22.720 --> 0:24:24.879 monkey and they will give the monkey, you know, fruit 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:28.680 or little packets of soda or whatever. Then they'll they'll 0:24:28.920 --> 0:24:31.960 So they're they're both encouraging the animal and then also 0:24:32.520 --> 0:24:35.560 being harassed by it. So it's a sticky problem there. 0:24:36.119 --> 0:24:38.920 The reli the religious the religious elements make it more 0:24:39.040 --> 0:24:43.040 complicated when when it comes to finding some sort of solution. 0:24:43.440 --> 0:24:45.680 There are several examples in the book where you discuss 0:24:46.359 --> 0:24:49.840 animals that in some way interact or have conflict with, 0:24:50.040 --> 0:24:53.720 or live alongside humans, and how there might be a 0:24:53.800 --> 0:24:58.680 sort of emergent evolutionary pressure on animals that know how 0:24:58.680 --> 0:25:01.680 to exploit human and just like just to the right 0:25:01.720 --> 0:25:05.480 extent without overstepping and then being being dealt with violently. 0:25:05.600 --> 0:25:08.359 Like you talked about this in the chapter with the bears, 0:25:08.359 --> 0:25:10.640 which I thought was really interesting, how there there could 0:25:10.640 --> 0:25:13.240 be a kind of evolutionary advantage for what are called 0:25:13.280 --> 0:25:15.840 the fat Albert bears and bears that are you know, 0:25:15.920 --> 0:25:17.639 get in and get a lot of calories out of 0:25:17.680 --> 0:25:20.680 your fridge, but are less likely to have a scary 0:25:20.720 --> 0:25:25.760 conflict with a person or less likely to damage the house. Right, Yeah, 0:25:25.840 --> 0:25:28.479 the the fat fat Albert was a bear that, uh 0:25:29.000 --> 0:25:32.120 was quite good at breaking into people's cabins and homes. 0:25:32.560 --> 0:25:37.040 This is again Colorado. But people would marvel afterwards, like, 0:25:37.760 --> 0:25:41.080 came in here, didn't damage anything. Maybe we're kind of impressed, 0:25:41.400 --> 0:25:44.399 you know, okay, rated the fridge took some stuff, didn't 0:25:44.400 --> 0:25:47.680 break anything. So so not as likely to be angry 0:25:47.760 --> 0:25:50.560 or to perceive this creature as a threat and to 0:25:50.680 --> 0:25:55.679 call uh Colorado Parks and Wildlife and and you know, 0:25:55.720 --> 0:25:59.240 request something be done about the bear. So so then 0:25:59.280 --> 0:26:02.280 you know, the more at Alberts, the more these bears 0:26:02.320 --> 0:26:06.479 persist and survived to breeding age, the more you're going 0:26:06.520 --> 0:26:08.960 to sort of see more hopefully more fat Alberts. Because 0:26:08.960 --> 0:26:12.200 the bears that are very aggressive, uh, that are aggressive 0:26:12.200 --> 0:26:14.199 toward people or their pets, and that break in and 0:26:14.240 --> 0:26:17.440 cause a lot of damage. They to use the phrasing 0:26:17.440 --> 0:26:19.360 of the person I was talking to, they're gonna get 0:26:19.359 --> 0:26:22.000 whacked fast like some people are going to be feel threatened, 0:26:22.040 --> 0:26:24.520 They're going to complain, They're going to call the agency. 0:26:25.080 --> 0:26:27.600 Agency is going to come out set a big covert 0:26:27.640 --> 0:26:33.200 trap and that animal will be destroyed. So uh, possibly, yes, possibly, 0:26:33.800 --> 0:26:35.720 you know, the fat alberts will be seeing more and 0:26:35.760 --> 0:26:37.680 more of them and fewer and fewer of the aggressive 0:26:37.720 --> 0:26:42.880 ones and that could be a good thing over time. Now, 0:26:42.920 --> 0:26:45.919 in your your section, in your in Fuzz dealing with 0:26:45.960 --> 0:26:50.320 animals on the highways, you discuss self driving car solutions 0:26:50.400 --> 0:26:54.080 to animal strikes. Uh. And I found this very fascinating 0:26:54.080 --> 0:26:57.960 as well. How does it seem that self driving cars 0:26:58.080 --> 0:27:00.600 are likely to react to animal on the road in 0:27:00.600 --> 0:27:05.800 the future. Well, right now, there's something called a large 0:27:05.840 --> 0:27:11.080 animal detection system. So an animal that kin a long legged, 0:27:11.119 --> 0:27:15.639 tall animal. Uh, anything that comes into the path, the 0:27:16.119 --> 0:27:19.920 beam of the detector that fits that visual profile will 0:27:19.960 --> 0:27:23.280 cause the car to stop that I mean, the brakes 0:27:23.320 --> 0:27:26.080 will be applied. H And the reason is a large 0:27:26.119 --> 0:27:30.280 animal detection system. What they're hoping to prevent is collisions 0:27:30.280 --> 0:27:33.000 with a moose and elk or an elk, because those 0:27:33.040 --> 0:27:36.800 animals are tall enough that if the car strikes them, 0:27:36.840 --> 0:27:39.440 it strikes them in the legs, and the entire torso 0:27:39.520 --> 0:27:43.639 and head and antler's cart whales back over the car. 0:27:43.720 --> 0:27:46.240 And these animals are tall enough that that that they 0:27:46.320 --> 0:27:50.000 come through the windshield and land on the driver and 0:27:50.200 --> 0:27:54.399 or the passenger. And um the result is often a 0:27:54.480 --> 0:27:59.679 broken neck, death or or or paralysis. So um, it's 0:27:59.760 --> 0:28:02.399 quite different than just hitting a deer. On the deers, 0:28:02.440 --> 0:28:03.960 I mean, there's gonna be a lot of damage to 0:28:04.000 --> 0:28:07.600 the car and to the deer, but often the person's 0:28:07.840 --> 0:28:10.679 the person survives without serious injury, unless, of course they 0:28:10.760 --> 0:28:13.640 swerved and hit a tree and went off the road. Um. 0:28:13.760 --> 0:28:17.040 So a self driving car, uh, the ones that I 0:28:17.119 --> 0:28:19.439 heard about I called, UM. I think I've talked to 0:28:19.480 --> 0:28:23.040 someone at Volvo Volvo and SB because there's they're sold 0:28:23.040 --> 0:28:27.960 a lot in northern regions. Are have concerns about moose 0:28:28.040 --> 0:28:30.800 hitting moose because there's a lot of fatalities. But when 0:28:30.800 --> 0:28:36.200 it I got curious about small animals, like how does 0:28:36.280 --> 0:28:40.080 the car decide when it should just plow forward because 0:28:40.080 --> 0:28:43.120 it's safer to hit a pet than it is to swerve, 0:28:43.760 --> 0:28:46.960 or how you know how Uh if you stop short 0:28:47.040 --> 0:28:50.600 for a small animal, then the car behind now smashes 0:28:50.640 --> 0:28:52.880 into you. How do you how does a car make 0:28:52.920 --> 0:28:55.479 those decisions? You know, at what point is it's safer 0:28:55.520 --> 0:28:58.040 for the human for the driver to just go ahead 0:28:58.040 --> 0:29:01.320 and hit the raccoon um, instead of serving to save 0:29:01.360 --> 0:29:04.960 the animal's life. And I tried to get an interview 0:29:05.440 --> 0:29:10.200 with someone at Weymo UH and a couple of other places, 0:29:10.400 --> 0:29:12.920 and they don't They didn't want to talk about that. 0:29:13.400 --> 0:29:15.920 They don't want to They didn't want to engage on 0:29:15.960 --> 0:29:18.640 the topic, which leaves me to think they haven't quite 0:29:18.640 --> 0:29:21.600 worked out worked out what to do, because it's it's 0:29:21.640 --> 0:29:25.760 it's situation by situation, UM. The worst thing to do 0:29:25.800 --> 0:29:27.600 in the case of a small animal on the road 0:29:27.960 --> 0:29:29.560 with you know, if there's trees and things on the 0:29:29.600 --> 0:29:33.000 side of the road, you know, to swerve sharply um 0:29:33.120 --> 0:29:35.080 and and put yourself at risk of going off the 0:29:35.160 --> 0:29:38.960 road and hitting a tree or a rock or a barrier. Um. 0:29:39.480 --> 0:29:41.160 That that's not what you want to do. But but 0:29:41.200 --> 0:29:43.520 it's also to say, well, our cars will just go 0:29:43.600 --> 0:29:46.720 ahead and plow into your dog or cat or recoon 0:29:48.000 --> 0:29:50.880 to save your life. We will just be just plowing 0:29:50.960 --> 0:29:53.640 right on through without even breaking or even blinking an eye. 0:29:53.680 --> 0:29:55.640 So that you know, that the optics of that are 0:29:55.720 --> 0:29:58.720 kind of awful too. So that's a question that I 0:29:58.800 --> 0:30:01.280 have that I that as far as I know, hasn't 0:30:01.360 --> 0:30:04.560 really been answered. I think that the priorities right now 0:30:04.600 --> 0:30:07.440 and they've got so many other things to figure out 0:30:08.080 --> 0:30:10.520 before they get down to what do we do about 0:30:10.600 --> 0:30:14.280 someone's beagle? Yeah, I mean it reminds me of stuff 0:30:14.280 --> 0:30:18.360 I've read recently just related in general to self driving cars. 0:30:18.400 --> 0:30:21.120 They're just about all the things we do sometimes just 0:30:21.200 --> 0:30:24.960 nonsensical risks that we cake be a you know, a 0:30:25.040 --> 0:30:27.760 risky left hand turn, or the fact that yet that, 0:30:27.920 --> 0:30:30.240 like I'm driving to pick my kid up from school, 0:30:30.280 --> 0:30:33.840 I might swerve around the chipmunk in the road, and 0:30:34.160 --> 0:30:36.760 it was in retrospect it was dangerous, But also in retrospect, 0:30:36.800 --> 0:30:39.280 I'm not sure I would have done anything else, you know, 0:30:39.720 --> 0:30:43.160 And how do you translate or improve upon that that 0:30:43.240 --> 0:30:46.440 kind of decision making and the machine right, and how 0:30:46.520 --> 0:30:50.880 do you tell a small animal from a kid on 0:30:50.960 --> 0:30:52.760 a small bicycle, And how do you i mean, those 0:30:52.840 --> 0:30:56.480 those fine grain distinctions, how do you trust the car 0:30:56.680 --> 0:30:59.520 to make those? It's it's really it is really tricky 0:31:00.040 --> 0:31:04.360 on um. Yeah, and even you know, I have a 0:31:04.360 --> 0:31:06.680 a new issue, a new edition of Stiff coming out 0:31:06.680 --> 0:31:08.440 and with an epilogue where I went back and I 0:31:08.440 --> 0:31:11.040 talked to me like what's new in these topics, And 0:31:11.080 --> 0:31:14.640 one of the things that came up was passenger safety 0:31:14.680 --> 0:31:17.080 in a self driving car. If you you don't need 0:31:17.120 --> 0:31:19.560 to be at the steering wheel in a set position, 0:31:19.960 --> 0:31:23.600 if you can now sit sideways or or you know not, 0:31:24.280 --> 0:31:26.760 you're not confined as you were as a driver. Well, 0:31:26.800 --> 0:31:29.800 now in an impact, how do you keep that person safe? 0:31:29.800 --> 0:31:31.840 Where do you put the air bags? If somebody people 0:31:31.880 --> 0:31:34.120 can kind of sit across from each other and you know, 0:31:34.160 --> 0:31:36.280 you freed people up in the interior of the car, 0:31:36.320 --> 0:31:38.560 how do you keep them How do you keep them safe? 0:31:38.640 --> 0:31:40.280 Where does the airbag go? How do you you know, 0:31:40.320 --> 0:31:43.040 how do you configure the seatbelt? So all of that 0:31:43.080 --> 0:31:45.320 has to be a rethought and probably, you know, the 0:31:45.680 --> 0:31:48.520 small animal portion of it will be pretty far down 0:31:48.520 --> 0:31:50.840 the list. Is there? Is there a date for the 0:31:50.840 --> 0:31:54.920 new edition of Stiff? Yeah, this this week, I think that, 0:31:55.080 --> 0:31:57.440 I think August thirty one, the new edition with a 0:31:57.480 --> 0:32:01.560 snazzy new cover comes out. Yeah, this is of course 0:32:01.600 --> 0:32:04.680 your your your first big book that that that kicked 0:32:04.680 --> 0:32:07.360 it off. Yeah. My first book, kind of Stiff, came 0:32:07.360 --> 0:32:11.320 out in three I think it was. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, 0:32:11.320 --> 0:32:12.960 I've I've read that, I've read I've read all of 0:32:13.000 --> 0:32:17.920 your books that have come out. They're always always thank you, jeez. 0:32:19.480 --> 0:32:29.120 I'd love to hear that. So one thing I found 0:32:29.160 --> 0:32:33.040 interesting about um the sections of the book involving humans 0:32:33.040 --> 0:32:37.040 and animals that come into violent conflict UM, is that, well, 0:32:37.080 --> 0:32:39.360 you so you have a chapter about leopards in India 0:32:39.560 --> 0:32:45.120 that intentionally stalk humans as prey. Repeatedly they become habituated 0:32:45.520 --> 0:32:48.720 to this, and you got me wondering, what are some 0:32:48.800 --> 0:32:53.320 of the broad truths about the difference between animals that 0:32:53.400 --> 0:32:57.160 sort of stumble into hapless encounters with humans that might 0:32:57.200 --> 0:33:03.120 turn violent, versus animals deliberately stalk humans as prey. Yeah, 0:33:03.200 --> 0:33:07.920 the broad truth is that it's very uncommon for an 0:33:07.920 --> 0:33:12.040 animal that can easily attack and kill a human to 0:33:12.320 --> 0:33:15.520 do that. We are not really on the typically, we 0:33:15.560 --> 0:33:18.880 are not on the menu. Something has to change. And 0:33:19.120 --> 0:33:22.400 in the Middle Himalaya, where I was in India, a 0:33:22.480 --> 0:33:26.640 couple of things happened. One the theory that Jim Corbett, 0:33:26.680 --> 0:33:29.920 who was brought into hunt down some of these kind 0:33:29.920 --> 0:33:34.320 of famous man eaters, as he called them. His theory 0:33:34.360 --> 0:33:38.800 was that during the pandemic of nineteen seventeen, there were 0:33:38.800 --> 0:33:44.040 so many people dying that the traditional ritual of you know, 0:33:44.080 --> 0:33:46.800 taking the body to the river and building a pyre, 0:33:46.880 --> 0:33:50.720 and you know that wasn't happening, and they would, um 0:33:51.080 --> 0:33:53.640 it came up with a more expedient ritual, which is 0:33:53.680 --> 0:33:56.600 to put a hot coal in the mouth and send 0:33:56.640 --> 0:33:59.200 the body off down the hill towards the river, not 0:33:59.280 --> 0:34:02.200 to actually the track and do the whole ritual. And 0:34:02.240 --> 0:34:04.120 so there were a lot of bodies that were now 0:34:05.120 --> 0:34:09.640 available and leopard will scavenge. And the US belief was 0:34:09.680 --> 0:34:12.880 that they developed a taste for human meat that way, 0:34:13.040 --> 0:34:17.239 and that they then went on to incorporate human meat 0:34:17.280 --> 0:34:21.480 into their diet going forward. Um, that's a that's a 0:34:21.520 --> 0:34:25.160 theory that may well be true. Um. The theory of 0:34:25.160 --> 0:34:28.920 the researcher that I traveled with was had to do 0:34:29.000 --> 0:34:30.720 with what's going on in that part of the world, 0:34:30.719 --> 0:34:33.440 which is a lot of farming communities. Um, the men 0:34:33.600 --> 0:34:36.560 have given up farming and gone to look for work 0:34:36.600 --> 0:34:39.960 in the cities, and so there's a lot of rewilding land. 0:34:40.120 --> 0:34:42.520 It's it's occupied by people. Are a lot of you know, 0:34:42.760 --> 0:34:46.399 women and children left behind there. But there's cover now 0:34:46.440 --> 0:34:48.400 for and there's a lot of brush around homes and 0:34:48.560 --> 0:34:52.520 communities and which leopards need to hunt. They will sneak 0:34:52.640 --> 0:34:55.160 up and then you know, cover the last distance in 0:34:55.200 --> 0:34:57.959 a burst of speed and a pounds. So they tend 0:34:58.000 --> 0:35:02.520 to need to have of earth. Also, livestock there isn't 0:35:02.520 --> 0:35:05.000 being as well tended, so it's kind of be it 0:35:05.040 --> 0:35:08.359 falls prey to the leopards and the people, the people 0:35:08.360 --> 0:35:11.319 who are watching the livestocks. Sometimes there kids and uh 0:35:12.840 --> 0:35:16.600 of the individuals killed by leopards in that region in 0:35:16.680 --> 0:35:20.920 this once this researcher study were kids under ten. Uh, 0:35:21.040 --> 0:35:25.400 So there's opportunities that weren't there for for animals that 0:35:25.520 --> 0:35:30.400 hunt and and and sadly a human or a child 0:35:30.800 --> 0:35:34.120 there or the or people's pets. They're they're easier to 0:35:34.200 --> 0:35:37.359 catch than a deer or a wild pig. So part 0:35:37.360 --> 0:35:41.400 of it maybe leopards just realizing this is an easy dinner. 0:35:41.880 --> 0:35:44.840 It seems like a lot of these uh, these stories 0:35:45.080 --> 0:35:50.640 in some way involve um rapid changes or modification to 0:35:50.760 --> 0:35:56.000 the landscape done by humans. Yeah, yeah, it does. Yeah 0:35:56.040 --> 0:36:01.000 that the situation there with elephants againssing to me anyway, 0:36:01.120 --> 0:36:05.720 number of deaths five deaths a year caused by human 0:36:05.760 --> 0:36:09.400 deaths caused by elephants UM. And what's happening there is 0:36:10.160 --> 0:36:12.920 there's there's this elephant corridor as it's called. The elephants 0:36:12.920 --> 0:36:16.239 tend to move along this path looking for food. UM. 0:36:16.280 --> 0:36:20.000 It's across northern India to the border with Nepal, and 0:36:20.480 --> 0:36:23.880 these regions are seeing an influx of refugees and also 0:36:24.640 --> 0:36:28.000 Terry has felt several establishments. There's roads coming through and 0:36:28.040 --> 0:36:31.640 the elephants are getting this is the term pocketed, stuck 0:36:32.120 --> 0:36:35.480 in little pockets, and elephants eat a lot they travel 0:36:35.520 --> 0:36:41.160 and sizable herds and they are turning to the farmers 0:36:41.239 --> 0:36:43.719 crops for food because they don't have enough food and 0:36:43.760 --> 0:36:46.600 they're stuck. They can't keep moving on the way they 0:36:46.680 --> 0:36:49.520 used to. And so then that's when you have conflict 0:36:49.560 --> 0:36:54.040 because you have these um villagers who they're they're depending 0:36:54.080 --> 0:36:59.520 on this food to survive. You know, it's it's subsistence farming. 0:36:59.600 --> 0:37:01.880 And so you know, a troop of elephants that comes through, 0:37:01.920 --> 0:37:04.880 even if they don't eat what you're growing, they're gonna trample, 0:37:05.239 --> 0:37:07.080 you know, you get the seven or eight elephants are 0:37:07.080 --> 0:37:09.400 going to cause a tremendous amount of damage. So people 0:37:09.440 --> 0:37:11.960 see the elephants coming onto their land and they'll run 0:37:11.960 --> 0:37:14.080 out and they'll try you know, they're they're angry and 0:37:14.120 --> 0:37:17.399 they're upset, and they tend to they tend to be 0:37:17.680 --> 0:37:21.279 deaths from getting trampled or knocked over or I mean 0:37:21.320 --> 0:37:24.080 the elephant even if they're that's not the elephant's intent. 0:37:24.280 --> 0:37:26.880 It's a very big animal and it's just knocks you 0:37:26.920 --> 0:37:30.280 with its trunk. It can kill you. And um, so 0:37:30.280 --> 0:37:34.719 so yes, it's it's humans moving into the territory and 0:37:34.719 --> 0:37:37.600 and changing the landscape in ways that Steiny's their their 0:37:37.680 --> 0:37:41.920 natural behaviors and they're there their way of surviving and 0:37:41.960 --> 0:37:45.440 getting food. You see that also, you know highways, interstate 0:37:45.520 --> 0:37:48.760 highways in this country, sometimes they're put in without taking 0:37:48.760 --> 0:37:51.360 a look at, well, what what animals migrate seasonally to 0:37:51.400 --> 0:37:53.800 get food, go to a different elevation to get food 0:37:53.880 --> 0:37:56.400 or to breede, and are we cutting them off? You know? 0:37:56.480 --> 0:37:59.200 That's so that's um that's a problem. And you can 0:37:59.239 --> 0:38:01.799 build an over asked but that's an expensive thing to 0:38:01.880 --> 0:38:04.160 do and you know, much better to look at that 0:38:04.239 --> 0:38:07.040 beforehand saying, you know, what is the situation here in 0:38:07.120 --> 0:38:10.160 this this sloth of land. What kind of wildlife do 0:38:10.200 --> 0:38:13.680 we have? And how did they move each year seasonally? Um? 0:38:14.120 --> 0:38:17.480 Is there is this a bad idea? Correct me if 0:38:17.520 --> 0:38:19.719 I'm wrong. But I think another example of that kind 0:38:19.719 --> 0:38:23.319 of thing about um modification of the landscape and and 0:38:23.440 --> 0:38:28.439 the problems that causes is like poor choices about the 0:38:28.480 --> 0:38:32.200 relationship between different types of plants or fruit bearing plants, 0:38:32.320 --> 0:38:34.840 especially and settled areas. Like I think you give the 0:38:34.880 --> 0:38:37.400 example of was it an aspen or somewhere else in 0:38:37.440 --> 0:38:41.120 Colorado that the city was planting crab apple trees within 0:38:41.200 --> 0:38:43.880 the city even while they're trying to solve their bear problem. 0:38:43.960 --> 0:38:46.320 But then the other thing that stuck with me was 0:38:46.360 --> 0:38:50.280 I think you were talking about um cabins being like sited. 0:38:50.520 --> 0:38:52.520 Somebody buy a plot of land and build a cabin 0:38:52.680 --> 0:38:55.400 right in the middle of a bunch of natural berry trees, 0:38:56.080 --> 0:38:58.320 so that would be the place where like the bears 0:38:58.320 --> 0:39:01.759 would already be habituated to. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:39:01.800 --> 0:39:05.560 The crab apples and downtown aspen Um they mean crab 0:39:05.640 --> 0:39:07.480 apple if you I mean, if you've seen a crab 0:39:07.480 --> 0:39:10.399 apple tree it's they're tiny crab apples, but their own sect, 0:39:10.520 --> 0:39:13.719 their clusters of them kind of like grapes, and the 0:39:13.760 --> 0:39:15.759 bears just sort of like opens its mouth, you know, 0:39:15.760 --> 0:39:18.080 and like pulls its mouth down the branch and gets 0:39:18.120 --> 0:39:20.799 these big mouthfuls. I mean, the crab apple tree is 0:39:20.840 --> 0:39:23.319 just heaven't you know, if you're an animal looking to 0:39:23.320 --> 0:39:26.600 get a concentrated food source and lots of calories to 0:39:26.640 --> 0:39:30.200 put on weight before you hibernate crab apple tree. Yeah. 0:39:30.600 --> 0:39:33.600 So the fact that those are planted in downtown, Um, 0:39:33.640 --> 0:39:36.600 they're pretty when they blew. Yeah, that's true. They are 0:39:36.719 --> 0:39:41.319 lovely in the spring, but creating creating some issues there 0:39:41.320 --> 0:39:43.520 and and there was even efforts to get them the 0:39:43.600 --> 0:39:47.160 city to take them out and they resisted that, which 0:39:48.280 --> 0:39:50.920 this seems a little it was a little ill advised. 0:39:50.960 --> 0:39:53.200 But yeah, yeah, I mean here in the in the 0:39:53.239 --> 0:39:56.200 Bay area, a lot up in the hills in Berkeley 0:39:56.200 --> 0:40:00.000 and Oakland, a lot of deer. So it really behoo 0:40:00.040 --> 0:40:03.480 as you when you do your landscaping, to plant plants 0:40:03.480 --> 0:40:07.000 that deer are not interested in. That is something any 0:40:07.040 --> 0:40:09.920 good landscape or here will do is suggest plants that 0:40:10.040 --> 0:40:15.200 deer I don't like. Otherwise you won't have much landscaping 0:40:15.800 --> 0:40:18.840 very soon. And of course that this all leads to 0:40:18.960 --> 0:40:21.080 some people might might jump to the conclusion, well, don't 0:40:21.120 --> 0:40:23.440 don't we need to kill more of these animals, And 0:40:23.440 --> 0:40:26.759 that's that's something you discuss quite a bit, like this 0:40:26.840 --> 0:40:30.640 idea that if sometimes these just elaborate efforts to remove 0:40:30.680 --> 0:40:33.680 the animals that then just backfire for for reasons that 0:40:33.719 --> 0:40:36.440 you get into in the book. Um And at one 0:40:36.480 --> 0:40:39.880 point you you refer to quote the inside out history 0:40:39.920 --> 0:40:43.399 of conservation in America, which which I think I love 0:40:43.560 --> 0:40:46.960 the way you put that there, because yeah, dealing with 0:40:47.000 --> 0:40:49.719 how conservation in America is often not tied up in 0:40:49.760 --> 0:40:52.720 these also these eradication movements or in the hunting movement. 0:40:52.719 --> 0:40:55.480 Can you speak to some of that that complexity there? Well, sure, 0:40:56.480 --> 0:41:01.520 concert conservation, wilderness conservation came out of a desire to 0:41:01.680 --> 0:41:06.440 set aside these large pristine tracts of wilderness so that 0:41:06.560 --> 0:41:10.240 hunters would have a place to hunt. Essentially, they were 0:41:09.960 --> 0:41:13.879 they were hunt and fish and they're still, I mean, 0:41:13.880 --> 0:41:17.640 to this day, we have a lot of government land 0:41:17.880 --> 0:41:22.040 that is managed by wildlife agencies, and wildlife agencies are 0:41:22.040 --> 0:41:26.480 funded still by hunting licenses and taxes on equipment. So 0:41:26.520 --> 0:41:28.279 there's it. There is this link. I mean, on the 0:41:28.280 --> 0:41:32.400 one hand, it is fabulous that these these were set aside, 0:41:32.400 --> 0:41:35.400 that they didn't become agricultural land. I live in in 0:41:35.440 --> 0:41:38.160 California and if you go out to the Central Valley 0:41:38.480 --> 0:41:42.719 Um there are these little pockets of California as it 0:41:43.239 --> 0:41:47.200 used to be, these wetlands with these tremendous diversity of 0:41:47.320 --> 0:41:50.040 bird life that you know, bird bird stopping over and 0:41:50.320 --> 0:41:54.000 during migration. You know, you have you know, ducks, gadwalls, geese, 0:41:54.600 --> 0:41:58.959 just dozens of species. It's the birders paradise. But there's 0:41:58.960 --> 0:42:02.279 also a little hunt tea cabins for duck hunters who 0:42:02.320 --> 0:42:06.240 come and the land was set aside by and for hunting, 0:42:06.280 --> 0:42:10.400 but it's also something you know, for hikers and and birders. 0:42:10.840 --> 0:42:13.359 And it's a weird it is. You know, I, as 0:42:13.400 --> 0:42:15.200 a bird watcher used to go out there. I never 0:42:15.280 --> 0:42:17.400 knew about the little hunters cabins. It's kind of like 0:42:17.440 --> 0:42:20.960 this sort of secret reality of that that area and 0:42:21.000 --> 0:42:24.480 those wetlands. But it really struck me, you know, driving 0:42:24.520 --> 0:42:28.720 home going from this really beautiful kind of verdant swath 0:42:28.800 --> 0:42:32.400 of California, leaving that behind and going out into the 0:42:32.440 --> 0:42:35.680 more typical Central Valley California, which is just a big 0:42:35.719 --> 0:42:41.200 flat expanse of big agriculture, you know, of crops, and so, 0:42:41.400 --> 0:42:44.799 you know, I felt very grateful towards the people who 0:42:44.800 --> 0:42:47.279 had set this land aside. And you know, there is 0:42:47.320 --> 0:42:51.000 this sort of distance of hunters and birders now, uh 0:42:51.040 --> 0:42:53.759 and uh, but it is it is strange to think 0:42:53.800 --> 0:42:57.240 about the fact that some of our um park lands 0:42:57.280 --> 0:43:01.680 and wilderness areas were originally set aside for people who 0:43:01.719 --> 0:43:04.080 love to hunt. But of course there's still the funding 0:43:04.120 --> 0:43:06.239 issue here, right, And that's something you get into in 0:43:06.239 --> 0:43:09.880 the in the book that you have these conservation efforts 0:43:09.920 --> 0:43:14.600 that are still still funded by hunting, funded uh, by phishing, etcetera. 0:43:14.960 --> 0:43:17.120 And I guess you know, in a perfect world that 0:43:17.120 --> 0:43:20.120 would all balance out, but there are cases, it seems 0:43:20.160 --> 0:43:23.160 like where it raises the question is this the right approach? 0:43:23.160 --> 0:43:27.279 Should there not be you know, more federal funding for conservation? Yeah? 0:43:27.360 --> 0:43:31.640 I think that there tends to be a mistrust. You know, 0:43:31.840 --> 0:43:36.600 if the money is coming from hunting and fishing, um, 0:43:36.840 --> 0:43:40.319 isn't there temptation on the agency's part to put the 0:43:40.360 --> 0:43:43.520 desires of those of their constituents first, you know, can 0:43:43.600 --> 0:43:47.680 we trust them to be unbiased and neutral saviors of 0:43:47.719 --> 0:43:51.560 the land. Um so, and there is there is there 0:43:51.560 --> 0:43:56.040 has been talk of of of separating separating, making the 0:43:56.120 --> 0:43:59.600 funding for some of these conservation efforts federal funding, making 0:43:59.600 --> 0:44:03.360 it into pendant of hunting and fishing, you know, creating 0:44:03.440 --> 0:44:07.120 some sort of body or pool of money that would 0:44:07.320 --> 0:44:10.480 would be earmarked for conservation and and AND's just sort 0:44:10.480 --> 0:44:14.640 of creating some distance between the two. So so, yeah, 0:44:14.640 --> 0:44:16.919 that is a concern. And and I think it would 0:44:16.920 --> 0:44:26.600 be great too for that to happen. Thank So here's 0:44:26.600 --> 0:44:29.000 a question that might be a little odd, but I 0:44:29.000 --> 0:44:31.360 wonder if you have thoughts about it. How do you 0:44:31.400 --> 0:44:36.000 think about motive, the concept of motive differently in a 0:44:36.000 --> 0:44:39.440 criminal justice context when the perpetrator of a crime is 0:44:39.480 --> 0:44:43.320 not human, because a big part of human criminal justice 0:44:43.360 --> 0:44:48.120 is about understanding and establishing motive, treating crimes differently based 0:44:48.160 --> 0:44:52.560 on what the motive was or what the perpetrator's understanding was. Uh. 0:44:52.680 --> 0:44:55.440 The thing about the internal brain states that motivate the 0:44:55.440 --> 0:44:58.840 attacks of non human animals, it seems like you could 0:44:58.920 --> 0:45:01.960 think about them either as like less complex than their 0:45:02.000 --> 0:45:04.760 human equivalence. And thus may be easier to understand. Often 0:45:04.760 --> 0:45:07.800 and animal is just feeling threatened in some way or 0:45:07.880 --> 0:45:10.560 might be hungry or you could think about them is 0:45:10.719 --> 0:45:14.200 maybe more obscure because animals are more alien to our 0:45:14.239 --> 0:45:18.319 experience and they can't explain their motives in language. Yeah, 0:45:18.320 --> 0:45:24.120 the question of motive, it's interesting. In India, that's factored in. Uh, 0:45:24.239 --> 0:45:28.359 the cases are treated differently. Um. If it's if it's 0:45:28.920 --> 0:45:33.680 um a predatory attack versus a defensive attack. UM. So 0:45:33.800 --> 0:45:36.400 that's if there's if there's a series, there's kind of 0:45:36.400 --> 0:45:38.919 a you know, three strikes rule. You know, if if 0:45:38.920 --> 0:45:42.640 this if the animal is coming in and praying on 0:45:43.160 --> 0:45:47.480 intentionally praying on livestock or or people. You know, that's 0:45:47.520 --> 0:45:50.439 that's different from a defensive attack. That with leopards, there are, 0:45:50.880 --> 0:45:53.680 as we've talked about before, there are predatory attacks where 0:45:53.719 --> 0:45:57.440 the animal is specifically and intentionally going after a human. 0:45:57.760 --> 0:45:59.879 But there are tremendous numbers of If you go further 0:46:00.320 --> 0:46:03.879 south into the tea growing regions, which I also spent 0:46:04.000 --> 0:46:08.080 some time the in the in the tea on the 0:46:08.080 --> 0:46:13.359 tea plantations, Lepers sometimes sleep under the tea plants because 0:46:13.360 --> 0:46:16.800 it's shady air and it's cooler, and the tea workers, 0:46:16.840 --> 0:46:19.760 the pluckers, people plucking the leaves will sometimes surprise an animal. 0:46:20.040 --> 0:46:22.400 The animal will like leap up. Sometimes there's an injury, 0:46:22.480 --> 0:46:25.960 rarely a fatality, but that's a that's a that's that's 0:46:26.080 --> 0:46:30.479 a defensive just an altercation that happened because the person 0:46:30.600 --> 0:46:33.080 surprised the animal and it felt threatened. So those are 0:46:33.360 --> 0:46:37.040 considered differently than a predatory attack. So there is that 0:46:37.120 --> 0:46:41.919 distinction made. Um. You know, here in the US, when 0:46:41.920 --> 0:46:46.640 an animal harms a person, it's it's it's considered a 0:46:46.680 --> 0:46:51.239 public health threat, and it's it's typically that's that it 0:46:51.320 --> 0:46:54.680 has crust a line. Regardless of whether the bear was 0:46:54.719 --> 0:46:58.359 surprised and was defending itself, we tend to not make 0:46:58.400 --> 0:47:01.799 that same distinction. If it harms or if it kills 0:47:01.800 --> 0:47:04.640 a person, it will be destroyed. Even if it was 0:47:04.719 --> 0:47:06.759 the person had a dog, the dog ran at the bear, 0:47:06.840 --> 0:47:10.240 the bear got upset, the person sort of tried to intervene. 0:47:10.280 --> 0:47:13.440 The bear turned and attack the person. You know that 0:47:13.480 --> 0:47:16.920 there's no trial where we can we can set forth 0:47:17.400 --> 0:47:20.839 the reality of the situation and why the bear might 0:47:20.880 --> 0:47:24.480 have done it, and what the what the situation created 0:47:24.719 --> 0:47:27.240 and in a sense kind of come out a motive 0:47:27.600 --> 0:47:30.279 or lack of motive. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. So in 0:47:30.320 --> 0:47:33.880 the American context, um, the way we react to conflict 0:47:33.920 --> 0:47:38.680 with animals is maybe less understanding of whether or not 0:47:38.760 --> 0:47:40.640 they might be justified, and it is more just kind 0:47:40.680 --> 0:47:43.360 of a pure utilitarian You know, if if an animal 0:47:43.440 --> 0:47:46.040 has harmed a human or or or a pet or something, 0:47:46.080 --> 0:47:49.920 it's just thereafter considered probably dangerous and thus usually is 0:47:49.960 --> 0:47:52.760 dealt with violently. Well, yeah, it's a it's a public 0:47:52.840 --> 0:47:57.080 safety issue. When the public safety is threatened that you 0:47:57.120 --> 0:47:58.759 know that that's gonna the people are going to be 0:47:58.760 --> 0:48:00.879 the priority, not the animal. I mean, I did talk 0:48:00.920 --> 0:48:04.279 to this a bear, a bear researcher who had spent 0:48:04.400 --> 0:48:08.239 some time I believe it was in Nepal where they 0:48:08.320 --> 0:48:12.840 have God. Now I'm forgetting which species it is. I 0:48:12.840 --> 0:48:14.719 think there bears there bears that come in and they 0:48:14.800 --> 0:48:19.560 raid the property and they they sometimes get into altercations 0:48:19.560 --> 0:48:22.320 where someone is injured. And he said to the person 0:48:22.600 --> 0:48:25.680 in the community who responds to when these attacks happened, 0:48:25.719 --> 0:48:28.560 he said, if you saw a bear on a person, 0:48:29.000 --> 0:48:32.359 would you shoot the bear? And the guy said, it's 0:48:32.400 --> 0:48:35.759 not up to me. To decide which life is more important. 0:48:36.400 --> 0:48:38.200 It was just a different you know, it's a it's 0:48:38.200 --> 0:48:41.120 a it's a very different mindset of you know, the 0:48:41.239 --> 0:48:46.480 value and the rights of animals versus humans. And you know, 0:48:46.520 --> 0:48:49.239 I'm not I mean, it doesn't surprise me that we 0:48:49.320 --> 0:48:51.080 in the United States have the rules that we do. 0:48:51.160 --> 0:48:56.360 I mean, it's public safety. You know, it's if you 0:48:56.440 --> 0:48:59.800 if your family is being you know, is in harms, 0:49:00.200 --> 0:49:02.799 then that there's gonna be agencies that will come in 0:49:02.800 --> 0:49:06.720 and try to mitigate that threat. That's what we do. 0:49:07.160 --> 0:49:09.840 So again, the book is is fuzz When Nature Breaks 0:49:09.880 --> 0:49:12.080 the Law by by Mary Roach And I want to 0:49:12.080 --> 0:49:15.759 stress that we we didn't ask about anywhere close to 0:49:15.920 --> 0:49:19.640 all of the animals or scenarios or topics that you 0:49:19.680 --> 0:49:22.600 discussed in the book. It's just it's it's it's it's 0:49:22.800 --> 0:49:25.400 just so I would like each chapter. Uh, you know, 0:49:25.480 --> 0:49:28.359 it impressed me. There's so much discussed in the book. 0:49:28.680 --> 0:49:33.000 It's an unsecured garbage can overflowing the trees. Oh, I 0:49:33.040 --> 0:49:37.440 love that. Can I use that as a blurb on 0:49:37.440 --> 0:49:41.839 the paperback? Yes? Well, but but I thought, just just 0:49:41.880 --> 0:49:44.640 for anyone out there, like what if you were to 0:49:44.640 --> 0:49:46.719 summarize like, what does the big take come you want 0:49:46.719 --> 0:49:50.200 people to have from reading fuzz Uh? You know what 0:49:50.200 --> 0:49:52.719 what would that be? Well, first of all, I know, 0:49:52.920 --> 0:49:54.719 I want I want people to know it's a fun read. 0:49:54.760 --> 0:49:57.200 It's not. I mean sometimes talking about these things it 0:49:57.239 --> 0:50:00.760 can seem like a bit of a downer. It's animals 0:50:00.800 --> 0:50:05.080 there sometimes ending up being destroyed. But now I try, 0:50:05.080 --> 0:50:08.200 I try to keep things entertaining and light, and there's 0:50:08.239 --> 0:50:11.239 lots of room for that in this book. Um. But 0:50:11.320 --> 0:50:14.200 as a as a takeaway, um, you know, I just 0:50:14.239 --> 0:50:17.600 hope that people because people have a tendency to just 0:50:18.000 --> 0:50:20.759 especially since we use the words pest and nuisance, and 0:50:20.880 --> 0:50:22.919 I do use the word nuisance in the book as well. 0:50:23.480 --> 0:50:27.960 We have this tendency to immediately when we've got an 0:50:28.000 --> 0:50:31.080 animal coming onto our property doing something we don't want 0:50:31.080 --> 0:50:32.880 it to do. We want to just pick up the 0:50:32.920 --> 0:50:34.960 phone and call someone and make it go away. And 0:50:35.000 --> 0:50:39.680 there's the way, there's there's things that prevent any further damage. 0:50:39.719 --> 0:50:42.120 There's there's you know, you can exclude the animal, you 0:50:42.120 --> 0:50:44.120 can call someone who actually has the welfare of the 0:50:44.160 --> 0:50:46.760 animal in mind. And the Humane Society of the United 0:50:46.760 --> 0:50:49.640 States is a great web page, species by species, here's 0:50:49.640 --> 0:50:52.520 some things to do to solve resolve the problem without 0:50:52.719 --> 0:50:55.799 harming or killing the animals. So I just I just 0:50:56.960 --> 0:50:59.120 not not to be all on a soapbox or anything, 0:50:59.120 --> 0:51:03.560 which just just to try to to calm down and 0:51:04.200 --> 0:51:08.400 think about think about what you might do before you 0:51:08.440 --> 0:51:11.160 call the wildlife control operator to set a trap and 0:51:11.239 --> 0:51:13.560 let it go in a park and which is not 0:51:13.560 --> 0:51:16.960 supposed to do, etcetera, or set a trap and um 0:51:17.080 --> 0:51:19.840 or put out a very glue trap. I can't believe 0:51:19.840 --> 0:51:23.960 they even sell those anymore. So that's not a very 0:51:24.000 --> 0:51:27.799 short takeaway, is it. But that's that's what I guess. 0:51:27.840 --> 0:51:31.680 I'd like people to just to think before they act 0:51:31.719 --> 0:51:34.040 a little bit right. Well, and I do want to 0:51:34.040 --> 0:51:36.640 concur that the book book is is very fun and 0:51:36.760 --> 0:51:40.680 very funny, uh like all your books. I laughed, but 0:51:40.719 --> 0:51:43.879 I also I also felt sad at times. It made 0:51:43.880 --> 0:51:45.960 me think about things in a new way. So I 0:51:46.120 --> 0:51:48.239 essentially I felt all the fields as the as the 0:51:48.280 --> 0:51:54.719 young people say fully concur, well, thanks thank you, oh 0:51:54.840 --> 0:51:56.560 thank you, thanks for taking time out of your data 0:51:56.640 --> 0:51:59.120 to come on the show and discuss the book totally. 0:51:59.200 --> 0:52:04.279 Thank you so much, most welcome. Thank you all right, well, 0:52:04.320 --> 0:52:06.640 thanks once more to Marry Roach for taking time out 0:52:06.640 --> 0:52:08.640 of her day to come on the show and chat 0:52:08.719 --> 0:52:11.359 with us. Her website if you want to learn more 0:52:11.360 --> 0:52:14.120 about her and her work is Mary roach dot net. 0:52:14.440 --> 0:52:16.960 And as mentioned in the episode, there's also this new 0:52:17.120 --> 0:52:20.160 edition of Stiff out now as well with new cover arts, 0:52:20.160 --> 0:52:22.520 so so look for that if you've never read it, 0:52:22.960 --> 0:52:24.880 this will be a great Halloween season to pick it 0:52:24.960 --> 0:52:26.959 up or or Spook for that matter, both of those 0:52:27.040 --> 0:52:32.160 I think would make for tremendous Halloween seasonal reads. In 0:52:32.200 --> 0:52:33.960 the meantime, if you would like to check out other 0:52:33.960 --> 0:52:36.120 episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you can find 0:52:36.200 --> 0:52:38.160 us wherever you get your podcast look for the Stuff 0:52:38.200 --> 0:52:40.920 to Blow your Mind podcast feed. We have core science 0:52:40.960 --> 0:52:45.640 episodes on Tuesday and Thursday, Artifact episodes on Wednesday, uh 0:52:45.800 --> 0:52:49.080 listener mail on Monday's. Friday is our time to cut 0:52:49.120 --> 0:52:51.360 loose and talk about a weird film with Weird House Cinema, 0:52:51.400 --> 0:52:53.920 and then on the weekend you get a rerun. Huge 0:52:53.960 --> 0:52:57.520 thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. 0:52:57.880 --> 0:52:59.520 If you would like to get in touch with us 0:52:59.520 --> 0:53:01.560 with feed, act on this episode or any other to 0:53:01.600 --> 0:53:04.000 suggest topic for the future, just to say hello. 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