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Speaker 1: Tiger tiger burning bright in the forests of the night.

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Speaker 1: What immortal hand or I could frame thy fearful symmetry?

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Speaker 1: In what distant deeps or skies burnt the fire of

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Speaker 1: thine eyes? On What wings dare he aspire? What the

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Speaker 1: hand dare seize the fire? And what shoulder? And what

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Speaker 1: art could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when

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Speaker 1: thy heart began to beat? What dread hand? And what

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Speaker 1: dread feet? What the hammer? What the chain? In what

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Speaker 1: furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? What dread grasp?

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Speaker 1: Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down

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Speaker 1: their spears and water'd heaven with their tears, did he

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Speaker 1: smile his work to see? Did he who made the

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Speaker 1: lamb make thee tiger? Tiger burning bright in the forests

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Speaker 1: of the night? What immortal hand or I dare frame

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Speaker 1: thy fearful symmetry? Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind

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Speaker 1: from how Stuffworks dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to

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Speaker 1: Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm

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Speaker 1: Joe McCormick. And that was The Tiger by William Blake.

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Speaker 1: That's right, classic poem and one that ties into today's episode,

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Speaker 1: because we're going to be talking about predators like the tiger,

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Speaker 1: and I do think some of the initials, initial concerns

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Speaker 1: that we're gonna be discussing here, the initial questions about

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Speaker 1: the nature of predators um are closely mirrored in this

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Speaker 1: poem and some of the questions it's asking. So here's

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Speaker 1: a this weekend strange religious beliefs, Robert, have you ever

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Speaker 1: heard about the There is a Young Earth creationist idea

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Speaker 1: among some Young Earth creationist Christians, an idea that the

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Speaker 1: Tyranno source Rex was a her before. Have you ever

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Speaker 1: encountered this before among Young Earth creationists or their literature.

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Speaker 1: I don't mean personal now. I make it a point

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Speaker 1: to avoid younger creationist thoughts on dinosaurs and prestricked creatures,

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Speaker 1: to the point that I found such a book in

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Speaker 1: a lending library once, and I took great pleasure in

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Speaker 1: moving it directly from the lending library to the garbage

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Speaker 1: where it belongs. Well, I mean, that's in some ways

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Speaker 1: a noble task. This is a book peddling lies to children,

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Speaker 1: but often with great illustrations. Well it makes them even

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Speaker 1: more effective. But yeah, so so you're saying, like say,

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Speaker 1: what now Tarrannosaurus rex was a her before that just

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Speaker 1: runs countered everything that I've I've ever read. Now, I

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Speaker 1: want to be clear, I don't want to be unfair. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This is not generally a belief held among Christians or

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Speaker 1: anything like this. This is specifically a subset of Young

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Speaker 1: Earth creationists who believe this. But if you just google it,

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Speaker 1: you'll find all kinds of fundamentalist literature arguing that the

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Speaker 1: t rex and all other dinosaurs were herbivores. They ate

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Speaker 1: exclusively plants, And to be very clear, this is false.

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Speaker 1: All evidence points to the tarrannisa is Rex having a

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Speaker 1: meat based diet. There's some debate actually over whether the

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Speaker 1: t rex was primarily a hunter predator or was primarily

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Speaker 1: a scavenger of dead animals, and we can come back

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Speaker 1: to that in a minute. But morphological analysis of the

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Speaker 1: t rex skull alone will tell you very clearly that

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Speaker 1: this is a meat eating animal. It's got the teeth

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Speaker 1: of a meat eating animal, it's got the skull and

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Speaker 1: jaw shape of a meat eating animal. It looks like

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Speaker 1: it was built for applying crushing bites to prey animals

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Speaker 1: and then powerfully pulling its head to move the animal's

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Speaker 1: body or to rip away flesh. Now, as for the

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Speaker 1: question of whether these mighty therapod dinosaurs were primarily hunter,

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Speaker 1: predators or scavengers, we discussed one strong piece of evidence

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Speaker 1: that the therapod relative of the t rex, the Alisaurus,

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Speaker 1: was a predator in our Kimbodian Stegasaurus episode. You remember

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Speaker 1: that it was another weird intersection between religious beliefs and dinosaurs.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, in that episode we talked about the allosaurus

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Speaker 1: who clearly died from an injury in a fight with

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Speaker 1: a stegosaur. It got a thagon miser spike right to

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Speaker 1: the crotch, and the way the bone has been preserved,

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Speaker 1: it's clear that that's what happened. This is the opinion

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Speaker 1: of the paleontologist Robert backer Um that that it died

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Speaker 1: in a fight with the stegasaur it and so of

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Speaker 1: course that really makes it look like the allosaurus was

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Speaker 1: a predator. It seems like it would be unlikely that

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Speaker 1: a scavenger would get thagomized in the crotch like that,

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Speaker 1: so it was trying to attack pray. But anyway, the

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Speaker 1: question is why would somebody, for religious reasons believe that

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Speaker 1: meat eating dinosaurs were actually herbivores. Like, I don't remember

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Speaker 1: anything in the Bible about the t rex. Uh. So

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Speaker 1: I've tried to look up the reasoning behind people who

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Speaker 1: believe this, and it seems to be sort of a

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Speaker 1: consequence of other beliefs. So the people who have written

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Speaker 1: on this, they sometimes refer to a passage in the

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Speaker 1: first chapter of the Book of Genesis. It's Versus thirty,

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Speaker 1: and it says, quote, and God said, see, I have

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Speaker 1: given you every herb that yields seed, which is on

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Speaker 1: the face of the earth, and every tree whose fruit

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Speaker 1: yield seed to you, it shall be for food. Also

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Speaker 1: to every beast of the earth, to every bird of

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Speaker 1: the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth

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Speaker 1: in which there is life. I have given every green

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Speaker 1: herb for food. And it was so. So that's a

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Speaker 1: verse that generally says, hey, animals, time to eat some vegetables.

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Speaker 1: And then, of course, also there seems to be more

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Speaker 1: broadly a widespread belief that meat eating would represent some

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Speaker 1: kind of compromise to the idea of the original creation

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Speaker 1: of the world as perfect. It would imply that Eden

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Speaker 1: was not truly a perfect paradise. Well, I guess it

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Speaker 1: is kind of an interesting theological question, right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: could could Eve have really messed things up all that much?

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Speaker 1: If prior to the fall there were predators feeding on

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Speaker 1: other creatures young, or you had parasite induced blindness occurring,

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Speaker 1: or even something as victimless as a buzzard tearing into

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Speaker 1: a dead antelope. These are I think, because these are

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Speaker 1: nasty images, people tend to assume that like, oh well,

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Speaker 1: if that were to take place, it would definitely foul

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Speaker 1: the balance of creation. Yeah, if there were tigers in

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Speaker 1: the garden, and then we can't possibly envision them as anything,

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Speaker 1: but then to to try and imagine, say a tiger,

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Speaker 1: Try to imagine a tiger in the garden of Eden.

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Speaker 1: If it's doing anything other than what tigers do, then

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Speaker 1: it just doesn't make sense. We we can't possibly imagine

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Speaker 1: the tigers anything but what it is, because everything they

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Speaker 1: are is a meat eater. To envision an herbivore tiger

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Speaker 1: is to envision either a possible like downstream evolutionary form,

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Speaker 1: something on the level of say a giant panda, or

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Speaker 1: something so far back in evolution that it scarcely resembles

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Speaker 1: a cat at all, like to put it in a

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Speaker 1: frame of reference, here, the first terrestrial herbivore probably appeared

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Speaker 1: on land about two two million years ago, and it

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Speaker 1: would not have looked like a tiger. Now, to come

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Speaker 1: back to the tiger by William Blake, one of the

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Speaker 1: ideas that he's asking is just like to to be

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Speaker 1: very literal with the poem, is how can the same

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Speaker 1: god who made the lamb, the sweeten lamb also make

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Speaker 1: this ferocious tiger? Did he smile his work to see?

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Speaker 1: Did he who made the lamb make the um? The

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Speaker 1: side note um for Blake, here we the humans kind

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Speaker 1: of made the lamb, like we domesticated that that's kind

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Speaker 1: of kind kind of our thing, whereas the tiger is

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Speaker 1: really ultimately of the two animals, the more perfect, you know,

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Speaker 1: vision of creation. If you want to get technical, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's a good point. But but I think this is

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Speaker 1: basically this poem and some of these younger creationist ideas

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Speaker 1: are kind of emerging from the same thing, like how

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Speaker 1: do we square carnivorous biology? How do we square predation

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Speaker 1: in this kind of idealized version of life? Right? Well,

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Speaker 1: the implication of this belief, whether stated or unstated, is

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Speaker 1: that a perfect world would be a world without meat eating, right,

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Speaker 1: no predators, no scavengers. Now, this is not going to

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Speaker 1: be primarily an episode about the ethics of human meat eating.

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Speaker 1: I think there are questions to ask about, you know,

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Speaker 1: humans who know better, like what would be the correct

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Speaker 1: choice of how to live? But I wanted to talk

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Speaker 1: about this issue because I want to make the case

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Speaker 1: for the practical necessity of carnivori in nature. How in reality,

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Speaker 1: a world without predators and scavengers would not be a

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Speaker 1: perfect world. It would probably be a much worse world,

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Speaker 1: a world that we would not like at all for

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Speaker 1: many reasons, and perhaps even worthy of being called a

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Speaker 1: herbivorous hell. Predators and scavengers are important. They play an

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Speaker 1: important role in food chains and ecosystems, and they play

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Speaker 1: a role that we have plenty of evidence directly benefits

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Speaker 1: human beings on Earth. We would not like this planet

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Speaker 1: without predators and scavengers. But if you just observe the

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Speaker 1: way we talk about them, the way they feature in

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Speaker 1: our narratives, and the way we treat them in reality,

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Speaker 1: you wouldn't know this was the case, right, No, No,

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Speaker 1: you just did assume, yeah, that the tiger is this threat.

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Speaker 1: I mean, clearly, it's the villain of the Jungle Book.

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Speaker 1: How else are we supposed to feel about it? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And it's all there in our mythology. I mean, there's

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Speaker 1: always like some kind of evil predatory animal or a

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Speaker 1: monster that's some kind of bigger, messed up version of

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Speaker 1: a predatory animal. Uh, and that we vilify and we

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Speaker 1: cast as a thing that must be killed in order

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Speaker 1: for us to survive. Yeah, I mean to go back

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Speaker 1: to our episode on the first monster. What is arguably

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Speaker 1: the first monster depicted in human artifacts, but a lion

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Speaker 1: headed human. Yeah, exactly, it takes on. It's a human

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Speaker 1: who has the characteristics of a predatory animal. And there

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Speaker 1: are plenty of good reasons that predators and scavengers are

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Speaker 1: often feared and that they do really frustrate people. And

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Speaker 1: it goes way beyond just direct attacks on humans. I mean,

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Speaker 1: one of the biggest problems, if you're going to consider

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Speaker 1: real problems caused by predatory animals in the world, one

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Speaker 1: of the biggest problems is livestock depredation. You know, as

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Speaker 1: soon as we had animal agriculture, predators could prey on

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Speaker 1: the herds of domesticated animals that we created, and that's

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Speaker 1: a real like loss of wealth from the humans who

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Speaker 1: maintain those herds. But then also we you know, there

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Speaker 1: are other things like attacks on pets and hosting diseases

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Speaker 1: and parasites, and these are real things that our motivation

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Speaker 1: for humans. But we want to stress again today, a

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Speaker 1: world without predators is not a world you want. So

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Speaker 1: what happens when we intentionally or inadvertently, you know, wage

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Speaker 1: a war of extinction against our betters in the food chain?

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Speaker 1: Are betters? Yeah, and in many cases are betters. Let's

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Speaker 1: explore a few examples with the caveat here that we're

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Speaker 1: going to ignore cases in which humans have dealt with

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Speaker 1: invasive predators, which is which of course can be difficult

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Speaker 1: in and of itself, but he's ultimately an attempt to

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Speaker 1: kind of balance the scales that we upset. Right by

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Speaker 1: introducing a predator into a range where it's not originally been,

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Speaker 1: we might be upsetting an ecosystem that was stable on

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Speaker 1: its own. So in most cases, predator eradication efforts or

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Speaker 1: general predator culling or control efforts, they stem from this

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Speaker 1: human unbalancing of the natural environment, and it usually goes

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Speaker 1: down about like this. So you have predators and prey

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Speaker 1: and they live in an involved balance. Then humans come along,

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Speaker 1: they move into the area. What do they do well,

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Speaker 1: they start building stuff and expanding. That leads to habitat

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Speaker 1: loss for the the natural organisms that live in the area,

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Speaker 1: including the predators. And then predators are killed or driven

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Speaker 1: off when they encroach upon human territory. And then humans

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Speaker 1: are raised domesticated food species, and then predators are drawn

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Speaker 1: to those food species, the lambs that that we have

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Speaker 1: framed exactly. And then uh, and then the predators are

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Speaker 1: killed or driven off as a result of it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it creates a tough situation. I mean, we can look

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Speaker 1: to two examples of it in today's world. For instance,

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Speaker 1: in modern Botswana. Uh, there's this need to protect both

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Speaker 1: valuable cattle and threatened lions species. Local cattle farmers frequently

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Speaker 1: resort to violent retaliation against the predators. Uh. And then again,

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Speaker 1: the lions themselves are endangered. They are only about thirty

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Speaker 1: thousand lions left in the wild, right, so conservationists don't

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Speaker 1: want to see the lions killed. But then again, if

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Speaker 1: you're a farmer and lions are attacking your cattle, you

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Speaker 1: can very well understand why the farmer feels that way, right. Uh. Now, incidentally,

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Speaker 1: there's a there's a really interesting up potential solution. I

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Speaker 1: don't know if you called a solution as much as

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Speaker 1: maybe a band aid for the scenario that has been explored,

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Speaker 1: but a conservation biologist, Dr Neil Jordan's has actually rolled

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Speaker 1: out a program to paint eyes on the rear ends

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Speaker 1: of cattle to help to rely on attacks. Uh not

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Speaker 1: unlike anti tiger masks that you sometimes see in belief

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Speaker 1: parts of India or also just sort of the naturally

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Speaker 1: evolved use of eye spots on various insects. And there's

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Speaker 1: evidence this is actually effective. Yes, there is some evidence.

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Speaker 1: Uh Um. I reported on it, I want to say,

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Speaker 1: like a year a year and a half ago, so

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Speaker 1: I haven't checked in to see what the latest data is.

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Speaker 1: But at the time, the data was encouraging that it

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Speaker 1: was at least in the I mean at least for

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Speaker 1: the short term, cutting down on some of these predation instances.

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Speaker 1: That's really interesting. I mean that goes along with some

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Speaker 1: of the advice that I know this is this is

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Speaker 1: probably not blanket advice, so don't use this as your

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Speaker 1: survival tactics. But I know, at least in some discussions

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Speaker 1: about how to deal best with encounters of wild editors,

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Speaker 1: like if you encounter I think maybe a bear or

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Speaker 1: a mountain lion or something like that out in the wild.

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Speaker 1: I've definitely heard advice before that you should not turn

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Speaker 1: your back and run because that can very easily trigger

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Speaker 1: you know, chase impulses. So what you want to do

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Speaker 1: is remain facing the animal, make it clear that you

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Speaker 1: can see it, and try to put distance between you

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Speaker 1: and it, you know, backing away. Uh And and that

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Speaker 1: sort of makes sense. I mean, an animal should be

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Speaker 1: able to see where other animals are looking, and if

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Speaker 1: it thinks you're not looking at it, that is a

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Speaker 1: chance for an attack. Now, another good example or wolves.

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Speaker 1: Wolves have face and continue to face a similar plight

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Speaker 1: in North America. So humans trot out all of these

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Speaker 1: domesticated prey species organisms that are really in many ways

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Speaker 1: trapped in a perpetual adolescence, which is key because in

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Speaker 1: the natural world that is where you see a lot

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Speaker 1: of the predation. You see the predators preying upon the

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Speaker 1: young or you know, the sick. But through domestication, we've

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Speaker 1: made sure that these species are main ideal prey for us.

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Speaker 1: So it's uh, you know, it's not a huge mysteries

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Speaker 1: as to why their ideal prey for various obligate carnivores

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Speaker 1: out there. Yeah, so the American gray wolf is this

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Speaker 1: is I found this super interesting. It is the modern

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Speaker 1: American wolf. Now what does that mean? So, as Carl

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Speaker 1: Zimmer pointed out in a two thousand sixteen New York

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Speaker 1: Times article on the subject, genomic evidence reveals that the

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Speaker 1: Eastern wolf and the red wolf, previously you know, considered

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Speaker 1: to be two separate varieties of wolf, those are actually

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Speaker 1: just mixtures of wolf and coyote d nat so they're

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Speaker 1: just their hybrids. But the one true wolf is the

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Speaker 1: gray wolf. Well, I mean, it's been interesting to see

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Speaker 1: as urbanization has happened throughout the United States, especially in

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Speaker 1: the twentieth century, the way that wild carnivorous canids have

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Speaker 1: adapted to human spaces. I mean, we we talked in

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Speaker 1: our Urban Evolution episode about the coyotes of American cities.

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Speaker 1: They're all over the place, and they they find ways

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Speaker 1: of surviving alongside us that we barely even detect. So,

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Speaker 1: as of two thousand seventeen, this is the most recent

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Speaker 1: data as of this recording. Uh, they're roughly five thousand,

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Speaker 1: six hundred and eighty gray wolves remaining in the lower

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Speaker 1: forty eight states. That don't sound like that many. Now

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Speaker 1: Alaska has between UM seventy seven hundred and eleven thousand,

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Speaker 1: two hundred, but kind of lupus. The gray wolf once

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Speaker 1: ranged from the Rockies to New England, and it's been

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Speaker 1: victim been victim to antipredation efforts to protect livestock, um hunting, trapping, baiting,

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Speaker 1: and some pretty pervasive scare tactics about the nature of

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Speaker 1: the wolves themselves. Now, to be clear, wolf attacks have

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Speaker 1: occurred in North America, but they are rare, and even

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Speaker 1: when they do occur, Uh, there, you know they're not

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Speaker 1: There's not just one type of wolf attack. You can,

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Speaker 1: for instance, chalk some of them up to defensive attacks,

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Speaker 1: and then also rabies could be a factor as well

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Speaker 1: in some of these cases. Yeah, absolutely, But I mean

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Speaker 1: the wolf is a perfect test case for people, uh

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Speaker 1: to they can see what the danger of being near

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Speaker 1: a wolf is. Like if you're told there's a wolf

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Speaker 1: in your neighborhood, you can immediately envision like, oh, I

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Speaker 1: can see how that could go bad. I could be

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Speaker 1: out in the yard and a wolf could attack me.

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Speaker 1: But you don't understand or easily visualize the other side

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Speaker 1: of the equation what the downsides can be if there's

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Speaker 1: not a wolf in your neighborhood. And indeed, there are

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Speaker 1: many neighborhoods where they're they're not being no wolves, and

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Speaker 1: sometimes those neighborhoods are something like Yellowstone National Park. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It's an interesting case, and this was outlined by a

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Speaker 1: science writer and rewilding advocate, George monbiat Uh. He points

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Speaker 1: out that wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park in

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Speaker 1: a Yellowstone that by that point was overrun by deer

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Speaker 1: without predators to control their numbers, and the results were

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Speaker 1: pretty amazing, he lays out, So they introduced the wolves

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Speaker 1: back into into the park. The wolves, of course killed

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Speaker 1: some deer, as would be expected, but then this also

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Speaker 1: changed the behavior of the deer. The deer started avoiding

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Speaker 1: essentially dangerous areas of the park, areas that were not

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Speaker 1: a good place to to hang out in if there

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Speaker 1: were wolves about, and these places began to grow again

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Speaker 1: to regenerate. Tree hid here increased dramatically in some areas,

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Speaker 1: he says, Uh, certain bird species moved back in uh,

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Speaker 1: beavers and beaver numbers increased. And between the wolves changing

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Speaker 1: the essentially the prey species landscape here and the beavers

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Speaker 1: altering the ecosystem as well, UH, they both work to

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Speaker 1: make room for other species to thrive. Wolves killed coyotes

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Speaker 1: and and this allowed rabbit and mice populations to begin

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Speaker 1: to rise, bringing in hawks, weasels, foxes, badgers carrying birds

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Speaker 1: to discavenge. After all of this, bear populations also arose,

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Speaker 1: in part because they were now more berries from the

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Speaker 1: shrubs that actually were able to grow. And this is

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Speaker 1: often expressed in terms of a top predator in an

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Speaker 1: ecosystem being a keystone species is a species that's sort

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Speaker 1: of like necessary to allow the rest of the ecosystem

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Speaker 1: to thrive as it normally would exactly. And so in

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Speaker 1: this example of what happens when you put a predator

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Speaker 1: back in to an environment, we're essentially seeing environmental collapse

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Speaker 1: in reverse. UH. What what we're talking about here is

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Speaker 1: widespread trophic cascades. These are ecological changes that start at

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Speaker 1: the top of a food chain, UH, and the spiral

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Speaker 1: all the way down. So yeah, apex predators are not

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Speaker 1: just monsters that live atop you know, a mountain of

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Speaker 1: bones and feast on the you know, the riches of

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Speaker 1: the things that it preys upon, and like some sort

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Speaker 1: of storybook monster. Now that the mountain wilds have have

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Speaker 1: evolved with it, and then for everything depends on the

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Speaker 1: predators for balance. Yeah, there is a sort of mythological

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Speaker 1: model of the predator as oppressor. It's almost like the

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Speaker 1: predator is the tyrant king of the animal kingdom because

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Speaker 1: it preys on other animals. But really the the oppressor,

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Speaker 1: the tyrant ruler of the animal kingdom is the finitude

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Speaker 1: of energy, is the scarcity of resources, and the predator

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Speaker 1: is subject to that too. And you remove the predator,

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Speaker 1: it's not the case that all other organisms necessarily do

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Speaker 1: well if the predator is gone. Instead of what you

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Speaker 1: find is that the tyrnt of energy scarcity and food

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Speaker 1: resource scarcity and all of that expresses itself in new ways,

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Speaker 1: begins to to oppress organisms in ways that didn't happen

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Speaker 1: when the predator was there. Yeah. I mean, as we've

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Speaker 1: touched on before, it's not like if you're they've ex predator,

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Speaker 1: it's just fat city. Um. You know, the life of

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Speaker 1: a predator also is filled with challenges and has a

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Speaker 1: fragility to it. Yeah. I mean when you when you

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Speaker 1: see an image of a predator chasing prey, you should

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Speaker 1: think the praise life is on the line, but the

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Speaker 1: predator's life is also very likely on the line. The

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Speaker 1: predator needs that energy to to survive, and if they

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Speaker 1: don't make a catch soon, they might not survive the

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Speaker 1: next winter exactly. And that's not even taking into account

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Speaker 1: humans hunting you towards extinction or making you know, exploited

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Speaker 1: movies about you attacking you know, um um nude bathers

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Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, I mean, I think about the vilification

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Speaker 1: of sharks. Uh. I often think of the vilification of

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Speaker 1: sharks as a thing in the past, you know. I think, like, okay,

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Speaker 1: jaws came out, and then there was a brief period

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Speaker 1: in which people saw sharks as these horrible human eaters

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Speaker 1: that had to be destroyed. But I guess my general

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Speaker 1: impression is things have gotten better in more recent years.

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Speaker 1: A conservation mindset is caught on. People know better than

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Speaker 1: to suggest we should just run around killing sharks and

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Speaker 1: other marine predators. But that's not always the case, even recently,

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Speaker 1: even beyond just pure poaching there have been public campaigns

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Speaker 1: against shark populations and intentional efforts to kill sharks in

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Speaker 1: certain areas. Robert, have you ever read about shark drum

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Speaker 1: lines before this? No, but they sound pretty groovy. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're not so groovy. This is the thing I didn't

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Speaker 1: know about before I was reading about this. But it's

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Speaker 1: uh so it's a lead ethal trap to capture and

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Speaker 1: kill sharks. Just one example is I was looking at

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Speaker 1: a paper from about how in the government of Western

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Speaker 1: Australia decided that sharks represented a threat to human safety

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Speaker 1: to swimming around beaches, so they elected to put out

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Speaker 1: these drum lines to kill the sharks in those areas

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Speaker 1: and protect human bathers. And basically the way it works

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Speaker 1: is that you have an anchored buoy, and then the

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Speaker 1: anchored buoy is connected to what's known as a drum

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Speaker 1: line buoy, a floating buoy that itself has a a

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Speaker 1: triggering magnet um and then it's got a hook that's

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Speaker 1: baited and so the sharks go and bite the hook

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Speaker 1: and then they get stuck, and then it sends off

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Speaker 1: a signal to let people know, Okay, we've caught one.

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Speaker 1: Uh And so yeah, there were just these traps set up,

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Speaker 1: and there was a great controversy about it in Australia

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Speaker 1: because there was obviously, you know, people were saying, like

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Speaker 1: we we don't need to be killing sharks. Maybe it

402
00:21:57,240 --> 00:21:59,280
Speaker 1: would be better to change the place as we swim

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Speaker 1: than to just kill all these animals. Yeah, that does

404
00:22:01,840 --> 00:22:05,320
Speaker 1: not sound good. I I was thinking of shark drum circles.

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Speaker 1: That would be a different scenario. Well wait, now, if

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Speaker 1: it's a drum line in that, in that like marching band,

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Speaker 1: like marching drums, Yeah, well that would be good too,

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Speaker 1: but not very groovy. That's more. You know, it's a

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Speaker 1: little it's a little more straight laced. Yeah, you gotta

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Speaker 1: be worried when sharks start doing military formations. But whether

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Speaker 1: I mean, whether due to deliberate human persecution or not.

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Speaker 1: Lots of predators and scavengers we know, have seen drastic

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Speaker 1: declining populations in the past few hundred years. According to

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Speaker 1: a study we're about to talk about by O'Brien and

415
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Speaker 1: and co authors, leopards have vanished from about seventy eight

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Speaker 1: percent of their historic range. African lions are on the

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Speaker 1: decline outside of protected areas of twenty two vulture species

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Speaker 1: on Earth seventeen or in decline due to human activities.

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Speaker 1: So predators and scavengers are having a tougher time than

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Speaker 1: they've ever had, which is dangerous. And one of the

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Speaker 1: key points really this episode is that, yeah, you can't.

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Speaker 1: It's not just the monster disappearing from but it kind

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Speaker 1: of is you take the monster out of a story,

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Speaker 1: and then how much of a story do you really have?

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Speaker 1: If you take Grendel out of Bowolf? What do you have?

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Speaker 1: You're left with just kind of a boring story about

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Speaker 1: a rampaging psychopath. But if you and likewise, if you

428
00:23:16,119 --> 00:23:18,880
Speaker 1: take the the apex predators out of the scenario here,

429
00:23:19,160 --> 00:23:21,880
Speaker 1: then it then it results in this kind of environmental

430
00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:24,360
Speaker 1: collapse that we've discussed. Well, here's what I'd like to say.

431
00:23:24,359 --> 00:23:26,760
Speaker 1: I'd like to see an alternate version of Beowulf like

432
00:23:26,880 --> 00:23:32,160
Speaker 1: John Gardner's Grendel. Except what happens is after Beowulf kills Grendel, uh,

433
00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:36,080
Speaker 1: the deer that Grendel normally eat overpopulate the forest and

434
00:23:36,119 --> 00:23:38,159
Speaker 1: they spread a lot of disease, and everybody in her

435
00:23:38,200 --> 00:23:40,440
Speaker 1: off cars meat Hall dies because they all get tick

436
00:23:40,520 --> 00:23:45,920
Speaker 1: born diseases. Right it, man, that's the realistic outcome. Well,

437
00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:48,400
Speaker 1: maybe we'll explore examples like that when we come back

438
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:52,919
Speaker 1: from a break. Thank alright, we're back, all right. So

439
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:55,520
Speaker 1: I was looking at a paper in Nature, Ecology and

440
00:23:55,520 --> 00:23:59,359
Speaker 1: Evolution published this year called the Contribution of Predators and

441
00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:04,880
Speaker 1: Scavengers to Human well Being by Christopher J. O'Brien, Alexander Braskowski,

442
00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:10,359
Speaker 1: Hawthorne Bear, Neil Carter, James Watson, and Eve McDonald madden.

443
00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:13,399
Speaker 1: And so the basic idea of this paper is that

444
00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:16,439
Speaker 1: it's a huge literature review. It looks at papers from

445
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:18,440
Speaker 1: you know, all over the place to try to find

446
00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:23,359
Speaker 1: documented examples of ways that predators and scavengers make human

447
00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:27,639
Speaker 1: life better or removing them demonstrably makes human life worse.

448
00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:30,399
Speaker 1: And so they start off talking about how predators and

449
00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:33,679
Speaker 1: scavengers provide lots of benefits to humankind and we rarely

450
00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:37,439
Speaker 1: recognize this, like humans and wild predators have undergone a

451
00:24:37,560 --> 00:24:41,080
Speaker 1: process of coadaptation in the past few thousand years, with

452
00:24:41,200 --> 00:24:43,840
Speaker 1: some beneficial outcomes for both. But this state of co

453
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:48,520
Speaker 1: adaptation depends on human tolerance of these animals, and as

454
00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:51,119
Speaker 1: we've seen, this tolerance is not given a lot of times.

455
00:24:51,119 --> 00:24:54,480
Speaker 1: We'll put out the drum lines will do wolf culling uh,

456
00:24:54,520 --> 00:24:58,359
Speaker 1: and without predators and scavengers our world would be much

457
00:24:58,520 --> 00:25:01,959
Speaker 1: much worse. Ecological research has shown this in many ways.

458
00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:07,399
Speaker 1: So for example, predators regulate the populations of herbivores below

459
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:10,320
Speaker 1: them on the food chain, which if allowed to grow unchecked,

460
00:25:10,400 --> 00:25:14,639
Speaker 1: could easily overgraze and destroy plant species important to human life.

461
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:18,879
Speaker 1: Another thing is that scavengers consume and dispose of animal

462
00:25:18,960 --> 00:25:23,399
Speaker 1: carcasses and organic ways that we do not want piling up. Uh.

463
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:27,000
Speaker 1: The loss of predators and scavengers can destroy ecosystems by

464
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:31,000
Speaker 1: causing quote a loss of plant species, diversity, biomass, and

465
00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:35,959
Speaker 1: productivity that in turn effect disease dynamics, carbon sequestration, and

466
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:38,639
Speaker 1: wildfire risk and Robert this seems to be along the

467
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:40,600
Speaker 1: lines of what you were talking about with the wolves

468
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:45,199
Speaker 1: and Yellowstone. And then also sometimes you can estimate the

469
00:25:45,359 --> 00:25:48,560
Speaker 1: health of an entire ecosystem simply by looking at how

470
00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:51,600
Speaker 1: the top predators and scavengers are doing like they will

471
00:25:51,640 --> 00:25:53,879
Speaker 1: be They will sometimes almost be like a data sheet

472
00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:56,720
Speaker 1: you can check out to see what everything else on

473
00:25:56,760 --> 00:25:59,119
Speaker 1: the food chain is looking like. And yet, as we

474
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:02,359
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, lots of predator and scavenger species around the

475
00:26:02,359 --> 00:26:05,160
Speaker 1: world are still in decline due to human behavior, including

476
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:09,679
Speaker 1: everything from poaching to culling, to ecosystem destruction and to

477
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 1: climate change. And there are actually documented cases where people

478
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:18,280
Speaker 1: intentionally tolerate predators and scavengers, especially scavengers, because they're aware

479
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:21,800
Speaker 1: of their benefits. Like the authors talk about how uh scavenger,

480
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:25,560
Speaker 1: the scavenger of the Egyptian vulture. This is a bird

481
00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:28,000
Speaker 1: species that's suffering and decline around the world, but there

482
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:31,959
Speaker 1: are places in Socotra, Yemen where they're doing well because

483
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:34,920
Speaker 1: the people are aware of the benefits they provide, specifically

484
00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:38,640
Speaker 1: removing livestock and human waste, which if not removed, can

485
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:42,480
Speaker 1: cause water contamination. And that's no joke. The risks of

486
00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:45,639
Speaker 1: water contamination due to waste runoff are serious, and this

487
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:48,520
Speaker 1: type of contamination is not just something that say, happens

488
00:26:48,520 --> 00:26:50,840
Speaker 1: in Yemen. It can happen all over the world and

489
00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 1: often does. I found a New York Times article from

490
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:56,720
Speaker 1: two thousand nine by Charles do Hig about how the

491
00:26:56,800 --> 00:27:01,879
Speaker 1: residents around Morrison, Wisconsin were sickened contamination of water resources

492
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:06,720
Speaker 1: from agricultural waste basically manure breeds, parasites and bacteria which

493
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:09,880
Speaker 1: flow into the groundwater. And to read a quote from

494
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:13,000
Speaker 1: that article quote in Morrison, more than a hundred wells

495
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:16,480
Speaker 1: were polluted by agricultural runoff within a few months, according

496
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:20,920
Speaker 1: the local officials, as parasites and bacteria seeped into drinking water,

497
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:26,080
Speaker 1: residents suffered from chronic diarrhea, stomach illnesses, and severe ear infections.

498
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:29,160
Speaker 1: And then they quote a woman living in the area

499
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:31,680
Speaker 1: who said, sometimes it smells like a barn coming out

500
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:34,959
Speaker 1: of the faucet. Now, that's that's not always as much

501
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:36,800
Speaker 1: of a bad sign. Robert, have you ever smelled like

502
00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:41,399
Speaker 1: kind of FARTI smelling water from a faucet somewhere? Um,

503
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess sometimes you know, you're at the

504
00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:45,800
Speaker 1: beach and the you know, beech water can have a

505
00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:47,520
Speaker 1: certain odor. I'm not sure if I would say it's,

506
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:50,680
Speaker 1: you know, like a barn smell or anything, but I'm

507
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:52,639
Speaker 1: trying to remember the last place I was where the

508
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:55,280
Speaker 1: tap water was like that. But I've definitely smelled it before.

509
00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:57,920
Speaker 1: It is a little disconcerting, even if you know it's

510
00:27:57,960 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: probably safe. Like you go to brush your teeth and

511
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:03,560
Speaker 1: and it smells like toots for real. Zase has haunted

512
00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:06,200
Speaker 1: your bathroom. I can't believe he's summoned toots for realities.

513
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:09,399
Speaker 1: But now, of course the reverse is also true. There

514
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:13,639
Speaker 1: are places where the water certainly seems appetizing, but it's

515
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:16,840
Speaker 1: not actually drinkable exactly. So anything you can do to

516
00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 1: manage runoff of dangerous waste running into water sources is big,

517
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:25,280
Speaker 1: and so a lot of times predators and scavengers, particularly

518
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 1: scavengers can do that. Another example is the Tigray region

519
00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:33,520
Speaker 1: of Ethiopia, which has spotted hyenas, and the humans of

520
00:28:33,520 --> 00:28:36,480
Speaker 1: this region tend to tolerate them because the hyenas eat

521
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 1: the carcasses of dead livestock as well as unburied human corpses,

522
00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:43,160
Speaker 1: which reduces the risk of disease and the settlements, And

523
00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:45,600
Speaker 1: so disease and human settlements is a big part of

524
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:49,200
Speaker 1: the benefits provided by predators and scavengers. Some of the

525
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:53,320
Speaker 1: biggest diseases were worried about in the world are zoonotic diseases,

526
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 1: diseases that have animal vectors like the zekeovirus UH, strains

527
00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 1: of flu you know, avian flu, swine flu UH, the

528
00:29:00,800 --> 00:29:04,680
Speaker 1: Ebola virus, lime disease, and so there are several ways

529
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:08,760
Speaker 1: predators can reduce chances that we catch diseases from animals,

530
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:11,440
Speaker 1: and one of them is by reducing the density of

531
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:15,880
Speaker 1: host populations. And so the way that works is this, um, say,

532
00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:18,480
Speaker 1: it's flu season. You want to avoid catching the flu?

533
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 1: Uh what? What what's a good day look like if

534
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 1: you want to avoid catching the flu? Is it like

535
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:26,520
Speaker 1: going out to the cannibal corpse concert and washing in

536
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 1: the pit? Or is it going for a walk in

537
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 1: the woods by yourself? Uh? Well, if you don't want

538
00:29:31,400 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 1: to catch the flu, yeah, go in the woods by yourself. Yeah, exactly.

539
00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:39,240
Speaker 1: I mean density, literal population density, how much organisms of

540
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:42,960
Speaker 1: the conspecifics spend, how much time they spend around each other,

541
00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:46,040
Speaker 1: how close they get, how much they contact the same surfaces,

542
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:48,920
Speaker 1: and all that that's directly related to the spread of

543
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:51,800
Speaker 1: the disease. And so if you reduce the density of

544
00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:56,400
Speaker 1: a population, you reduce the rate at which the disease spreads. So, so,

545
00:29:56,440 --> 00:30:00,200
Speaker 1: to go back to our our Yellowstone example, like, if

546
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 1: you have the deer just um, just unopposed by predators,

547
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: they're just hanging out all over with each other, and

548
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:10,480
Speaker 1: that that creates a more potential for something like this

549
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:14,360
Speaker 1: to take off. But if they're if they're patrolled by predators,

550
00:30:14,600 --> 00:30:17,120
Speaker 1: then they're going to be perhaps more fragmented and fewer

551
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:19,960
Speaker 1: in number because of the members of their uh their

552
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:22,720
Speaker 1: species that are picked off by the predators. Exactly, thinning

553
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 1: out the population of deer could potentially limit the spread

554
00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:30,720
Speaker 1: of dearborn diseases. And then, of course there's also the

555
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:33,360
Speaker 1: more direct effect that if you limit the population of

556
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:36,920
Speaker 1: an animals ay dear, it will be less likely that

557
00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 1: any given human in the area is exposed to a deer,

558
00:30:40,080 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 1: and thus less likely the disease spreads from the deer

559
00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 1: to the person. Just a few examples cited by the authors.

560
00:30:45,800 --> 00:30:48,760
Speaker 1: One is that around Sanjay Gandhi National Park in India,

561
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 1: leopard predation on dogs has greatly reduced the frequency of

562
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:55,440
Speaker 1: dog bites in the region and thus lowered the incidents

563
00:30:55,480 --> 00:31:00,280
Speaker 1: of rabies transmission to humans. Researchers think that generalist predators

564
00:31:00,360 --> 00:31:03,280
Speaker 1: like foxes can help protect people from lime disease by

565
00:31:03,320 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 1: controlling populations of mice, since mice or a primary reservoir

566
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:10,920
Speaker 1: for ticks carrying the disease, and then we don't think

567
00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 1: to be thankful to frog tadpoles, but tadpoles probably play

568
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:17,520
Speaker 1: a really important role in limiting the worldwide risk of

569
00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:21,760
Speaker 1: mosquito born diseases like dingay fever because they eat mosquito eggs.

570
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:24,520
Speaker 1: Of course, I mean we've we've kind of looked at

571
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:26,600
Speaker 1: this and from the opposite direction that like, you know,

572
00:31:26,680 --> 00:31:29,520
Speaker 1: why do we have mosquito as well, because actually mosquito

573
00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:33,000
Speaker 1: larva are an important part of many, uh many diets

574
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:35,600
Speaker 1: out there, And yeah, it makes sense too that you'd

575
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:38,520
Speaker 1: want the animals that eat those larva otherwise explosion of

576
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:42,840
Speaker 1: mosquitoes exactly. But also predators and scavengers can reduce our

577
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:46,719
Speaker 1: disease risk through a mechanism known as competitive exclusion, and

578
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:51,080
Speaker 1: this is basically out competing disease hosts for resources or territory.

579
00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:54,560
Speaker 1: So an example here would be vultures sometimes outcompete stray

580
00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:58,120
Speaker 1: dogs for the main scavenging niche in and around human settlements,

581
00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:00,280
Speaker 1: and this can be a good thing for reducing stray

582
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:03,640
Speaker 1: dog bites on human and human exposure to rabies. And

583
00:32:03,680 --> 00:32:07,960
Speaker 1: then sometimes removing natural predators and scavengers from a native

584
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:12,720
Speaker 1: ecosystem can lead to their automatic replacement by other predators

585
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:15,760
Speaker 1: and scavengers, which might be much worse for human health.

586
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 1: For example, the author's right that scavengers can replace vultures,

587
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:23,240
Speaker 1: and the ones that replace them can include gulls, rats,

588
00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:26,120
Speaker 1: and invasive foxes, all of which can pose risks to

589
00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:30,040
Speaker 1: humans and can themselves be disease hosts because of its nature.

590
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:32,840
Speaker 1: If there's a meal to be had, something is going

591
00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:34,960
Speaker 1: to get in and eat it, And if you wipe

592
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:38,520
Speaker 1: out the predator that's most highly evolved to deal with it,

593
00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:40,800
Speaker 1: then somebody else is going to take a shot at it.

594
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:43,760
Speaker 1: Wouldn't you rather the the predator that's there to eat

595
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:46,320
Speaker 1: the meal be the one that the ecosystem is already

596
00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:49,959
Speaker 1: adapted around, unless there's stability to the ecosystem. So there

597
00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:53,200
Speaker 1: are tons of ways that predators and scavengers limit human

598
00:32:53,280 --> 00:32:57,960
Speaker 1: exposure to diseases. But another thing that's interesting is the

599
00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:02,040
Speaker 1: way that predators apparently increase agricultural output. I mean, a

600
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:06,200
Speaker 1: huge amount of agricultural wealth every year is lost to

601
00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:10,360
Speaker 1: pest species that consume crops. The author is a side

602
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:15,320
Speaker 1: to study estimating that ten of global financial losses and

603
00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 1: agricultural wealth are due to animal species that come and

604
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:20,840
Speaker 1: eat the crops, and that that's a huge amount of

605
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:24,400
Speaker 1: lost wealth over the whole globe, and so current methods

606
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:27,280
Speaker 1: of preventing that kind of loss are not always great, right.

607
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:31,960
Speaker 1: They often consist of chemical pesticides, which frankly are something

608
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:34,560
Speaker 1: that that we're still studying and we don't know all

609
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:37,600
Speaker 1: of the negative effects of, you know, many years down

610
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:41,080
Speaker 1: the road. Yeah, but but I mean ultimately that the uh,

611
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:43,920
Speaker 1: the argument here is pretty simple, like, if something is

612
00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:47,840
Speaker 1: eating your crops, what better way to prevent that from

613
00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:52,000
Speaker 1: happening than having a naturally occurring predator to drive them off. Exactly,

614
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:54,560
Speaker 1: I'm trying to keep birds from eating all the figs

615
00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:56,880
Speaker 1: in my fig tree, and all I have is like

616
00:33:56,920 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 1: a fake owl to set up there next to which,

617
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:02,560
Speaker 1: Oh you have a scare owl? I do? Yeah? Or

618
00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:05,240
Speaker 1: wait to scarecrow. You have a scarecrow owl? Yes, it's

619
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:07,640
Speaker 1: it's not a replican owl like the Fabulous Woman having

620
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:10,160
Speaker 1: Blade Runner. That one was too expensive, minds the ten

621
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 1: dollar model. Its head doesn't even bob. But quick poll,

622
00:34:14,080 --> 00:34:17,719
Speaker 1: do you have a favorite killer scarecrow movie? Oh? I

623
00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:21,759
Speaker 1: mean they're all kind of terrible, aren't they. That's a

624
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 1: subgenre that never really caught on, Like you might think, well,

625
00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:26,800
Speaker 1: there's a lot of potential. They're they're they're they're so creepy.

626
00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:29,000
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I love the scarecrow batman villain

627
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:31,480
Speaker 1: if he counts. Oh yeah, he's a good one. Yeah

628
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:34,759
Speaker 1: he was. Well, I liked him in the animated series. Yes,

629
00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:36,680
Speaker 1: he was a lot of fun in that too. Yeah.

630
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:39,399
Speaker 1: I guess there's some some scarecrow movies coming to mind,

631
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:42,960
Speaker 1: but I feel like it was a little icky. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,

632
00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:45,080
Speaker 1: that's the main one that sticks. They often tend to be.

633
00:34:45,120 --> 00:34:48,440
Speaker 1: I what I'd much rather have is an actual owl, though,

634
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:51,400
Speaker 1: that would just live in my backyard and uh and

635
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:54,359
Speaker 1: scare away, you know, an appropriate number of predators. They

636
00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:56,400
Speaker 1: can have some of the figs. I'm not greedy. I

637
00:34:56,440 --> 00:34:57,920
Speaker 1: just want to make sure that I have some too well.

638
00:34:57,960 --> 00:34:59,840
Speaker 1: I mean, predators like that are important not just for

639
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:02,920
Speaker 1: your own personal figs, but for for the crops that

640
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:06,160
Speaker 1: sustain economies and that that feed people and that are

641
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:08,600
Speaker 1: turned into animal feed and all that kind of stuff that,

642
00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:13,279
Speaker 1: you know, the backbone of an agricultural economy. Like it

643
00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:17,440
Speaker 1: has often been speculated by by researchers that species like

644
00:35:17,600 --> 00:35:23,200
Speaker 1: bats and some birds are the most economically important non

645
00:35:23,239 --> 00:35:27,160
Speaker 1: domesticated animals on Earth, and this is because of all

646
00:35:27,200 --> 00:35:29,880
Speaker 1: of the pest control that they naturally do in the

647
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:33,520
Speaker 1: wild on pests that would otherwise eat all of our crops.

648
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:36,960
Speaker 1: And so the author's site research that indicates like the

649
00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:40,680
Speaker 1: densities of pests like the corn earworm or the cucumber

650
00:35:40,719 --> 00:35:44,880
Speaker 1: beetle can be suppressed by almost sixty percent by back communities,

651
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:47,320
Speaker 1: and bats can also help suppress the spread of fungus

652
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:50,359
Speaker 1: in corn crops, and so this leads to like real

653
00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 1: dollars saved and and predatory birds do similar things. They've

654
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:57,359
Speaker 1: been shown to be valuable in cocao plantations, saving more

655
00:35:57,400 --> 00:36:00,680
Speaker 1: than thirty percent of crop output. Speaking of owls, the

656
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:04,279
Speaker 1: barn owl is a huge lifesaver when it comes to

657
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:08,520
Speaker 1: saving agricultural output um. Apparently, according to the authors quote,

658
00:36:08,520 --> 00:36:11,920
Speaker 1: the barn owl Tito alba has a diet made up

659
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:18,920
Speaker 1: of about agricultural pest species in agricultural fields of California. Wow,

660
00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 1: barn owls are a great species to bring up in

661
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:24,920
Speaker 1: this because the barn owl, of course is normally going

662
00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 1: to set up shop and nest in um and it's

663
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:31,000
Speaker 1: essentially like a hollowed out tree or tree trunk kind

664
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:34,520
Speaker 1: of in a situation. But now they're co adapted. But

665
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:37,560
Speaker 1: that's right, they they they also are fine with sant

666
00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:42,239
Speaker 1: abandoned barn because this also perfectly replicates the environment they need.

667
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:45,839
Speaker 1: But it's kind of a domino effect though, right as

668
00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:48,880
Speaker 1: as humans expand, suddenly that there are fewer places for

669
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:51,359
Speaker 1: them to naturally build their nest. And if you don't

670
00:36:51,400 --> 00:36:54,160
Speaker 1: have you know, empty barn sitting around, then they also

671
00:36:54,200 --> 00:36:56,520
Speaker 1: don't have a place to build their nests. But this

672
00:36:56,560 --> 00:36:59,919
Speaker 1: has led to many people to put up nesting box

673
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:03,759
Speaker 1: is for barn owls, which is essentially just a uh

674
00:37:03,920 --> 00:37:06,760
Speaker 1: what it sounds like a box, like a mini portion

675
00:37:06,800 --> 00:37:08,880
Speaker 1: of a barn that you can just put in the

676
00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:11,200
Speaker 1: top of a tree to encourage them to roost their

677
00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:13,600
Speaker 1: nice I've never heard of that. Yeah, there's a children's

678
00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:16,200
Speaker 1: book about it that's reading it about it about it

679
00:37:16,200 --> 00:37:18,279
Speaker 1: the other day with my son. Now, I will say

680
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:22,200
Speaker 1: I think probably barn owls are not vilified as much

681
00:37:22,239 --> 00:37:24,719
Speaker 1: as some animals like wolves or Yeah, I think they're

682
00:37:24,719 --> 00:37:28,319
Speaker 1: mainly suffering from you know, incidental habitat loss, which can

683
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:32,239
Speaker 1: be sufficient enough to eradicate a species. But yeah, they're

684
00:37:32,239 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 1: not having a deal on top of that, with people,

685
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:37,640
Speaker 1: you know, essentially raising their pitchforks against the owls. But

686
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:41,000
Speaker 1: I mean when it comes to other noticeable larger predators

687
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:45,960
Speaker 1: like dingoes, even they apparently increase agricultural output, they help

688
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:49,239
Speaker 1: our farmers too, Like lots of animal. Ranchers obviously don't

689
00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:52,360
Speaker 1: like carnivores like dingoes because sometimes they prey on their herds,

690
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:57,359
Speaker 1: but sometimes wild carnivores actually protect herds in pastures where

691
00:37:57,400 --> 00:38:01,680
Speaker 1: there are also wild herbivores cause the dingoes or the

692
00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:04,680
Speaker 1: other animals like that reduced the number of wild herbivores

693
00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:08,880
Speaker 1: and thus reduce competition for grazing. So, for example, research

694
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:11,720
Speaker 1: in Australia is shown that the presence of dingoes can

695
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:16,560
Speaker 1: increase agricultural production by reducing populations of red kangaroo, which

696
00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:19,600
Speaker 1: compete with livestock for grazing land. And a lot of

697
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:22,840
Speaker 1: times cattle farmers don't realize this and they'll kill dingoes,

698
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:27,320
Speaker 1: but it has been estimated the dingoes significantly increase output

699
00:38:27,400 --> 00:38:30,160
Speaker 1: biomass per hectare of land. If you give rid of

700
00:38:30,200 --> 00:38:32,400
Speaker 1: all the dingoes, then you're gonna have to deal with

701
00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:34,480
Speaker 1: all these kangaroos. And what are you gonna do? Just

702
00:38:34,600 --> 00:38:37,759
Speaker 1: keep killing and killing. Well, yeah, probably that's kind of

703
00:38:37,760 --> 00:38:39,719
Speaker 1: what humans do. I guess it could be. Hey, when

704
00:38:39,800 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 1: it comes to your garden. They signed a study by

705
00:38:41,719 --> 00:38:44,920
Speaker 1: the way that says research has shown that skunks reduced

706
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:47,840
Speaker 1: pests in North American gardens and increase the yields of

707
00:38:47,840 --> 00:38:51,040
Speaker 1: those gardens. So you need to get yourself some skunks. Well,

708
00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:54,279
Speaker 1: I've certainly heard the argument for possums based in a

709
00:38:54,360 --> 00:38:57,320
Speaker 1: large part on the number of I believe it's ticks

710
00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:01,520
Speaker 1: that that that the average possible will eat, so they

711
00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:03,840
Speaker 1: meant be much to look look at. But if you

712
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:06,680
Speaker 1: have a possum in your yard, it's potentially cutting down

713
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:09,640
Speaker 1: on on some of the pests you would have to

714
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:11,840
Speaker 1: deal with. Oh man, anything that will get rid of ticks.

715
00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:16,279
Speaker 1: The enemy of my enemy is my friend, even if

716
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:22,200
Speaker 1: it's a possum. Uh. But what about the enemy of

717
00:39:22,200 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 1: my enemy of my enemy, which is your dog or cat? Well,

718
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:29,080
Speaker 1: you know, collateral damage, I guess. But now this is

719
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:31,160
Speaker 1: a good point. This is why one of the reasons

720
00:39:31,160 --> 00:39:34,720
Speaker 1: why my cat lives indoors. Now, yeah, I love dogs

721
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:37,160
Speaker 1: and cats, but I mean it is certainly true that

722
00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:40,400
Speaker 1: that domesticated dogs and cats can really mess up an

723
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:42,719
Speaker 1: ecosystem if released upon the wild. Yeah, I think about

724
00:39:42,760 --> 00:39:44,279
Speaker 1: this a lot. In our neck of the woods, we

725
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:47,759
Speaker 1: have a lot of feral cats, pretty common occurrence, I think,

726
00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:50,960
Speaker 1: uh in North America. And yet yeah, they're they are

727
00:39:51,440 --> 00:39:53,920
Speaker 1: they are super, They're little super predators are there in

728
00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:56,520
Speaker 1: their own way, like they are able to just ravage,

729
00:39:56,680 --> 00:40:00,440
Speaker 1: especially the bird population. When we had Jason or the

730
00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:03,239
Speaker 1: local Atlanta Bird Exploding podcast, he talked to us a

731
00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:06,160
Speaker 1: lot about the damage done by just releasing cats and

732
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:09,600
Speaker 1: letting them go outside. They're driving off our possums and

733
00:40:09,640 --> 00:40:12,839
Speaker 1: they're not eating any of the ticks. It's a disgusting part.

734
00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 1: That's a good point. Why don't the cats just eat

735
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:18,320
Speaker 1: the ticks directly? That would be great, But of course

736
00:40:18,320 --> 00:40:23,800
Speaker 1: they'll never comply anyway, So uh, we don't stop there. Okay.

737
00:40:23,800 --> 00:40:28,240
Speaker 1: So predators and scavengers clearly reduced disease risk and disease

738
00:40:28,239 --> 00:40:32,319
Speaker 1: spread among animals and among humans. They benefit agriculture, They

739
00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:36,400
Speaker 1: apparently actually benefit human life in urban areas in plenty

740
00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:39,080
Speaker 1: of ways. Like so, so there are plenty of things

741
00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:42,239
Speaker 1: that cause humans and wild animals to come into contact.

742
00:40:42,520 --> 00:40:45,960
Speaker 1: Of course, expanding human settlements and habitat destruction would be

743
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:47,839
Speaker 1: a big part of that. Yeah, do is to go

744
00:40:47,960 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 1: hand in hand. But then, of course animals are often

745
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:53,880
Speaker 1: attracted to high calorie foods and shelter, and those are

746
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:57,400
Speaker 1: available in abundance and human settlements. But there are tons

747
00:40:57,400 --> 00:41:01,040
Speaker 1: of ways that predators and scavengers in urban areas, even

748
00:41:01,080 --> 00:41:05,600
Speaker 1: within human settlements, are beneficial, including removing waste and carcasses

749
00:41:05,719 --> 00:41:08,600
Speaker 1: that this happens all the time, like golden jackals in

750
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:13,000
Speaker 1: Serbia apparently removed just tons of animal waste, including road

751
00:41:13,080 --> 00:41:16,319
Speaker 1: killed animals and stuff like that. And then also you've

752
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:19,440
Speaker 1: got the fact that in many urban areas, natural predators

753
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:25,120
Speaker 1: control populations of other animals that directly cause harm to humans. Uh,

754
00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:28,319
Speaker 1: here's a big one. You might not consider natural predators

755
00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:32,640
Speaker 1: reduce wildlife vehicle collisions. Oh, this makes sense as well,

756
00:41:32,680 --> 00:41:35,880
Speaker 1: because what are all these excess prey animals doing but

757
00:41:36,200 --> 00:41:39,040
Speaker 1: running in front of my car? They often are, so

758
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:42,200
Speaker 1: the author's right quote. One study found that the potential

759
00:41:42,239 --> 00:41:45,279
Speaker 1: recolonization of cougars over a thirty year period in the

760
00:41:45,320 --> 00:41:49,560
Speaker 1: Eastern USA would reduce dear populations and thereby curtail dear

761
00:41:49,760 --> 00:41:53,799
Speaker 1: vehicle collisions by twenty two percent. The authors estimated that

762
00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:56,360
Speaker 1: this reduction and collisions would result in a hundred and

763
00:41:56,440 --> 00:42:00,520
Speaker 1: fifty five fewer human deaths, twenty one thousand four fewer

764
00:42:00,600 --> 00:42:04,920
Speaker 1: human injuries, and two thirteen billion dollars in saved costs.

765
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:08,719
Speaker 1: If those estimates are right, that's a heck of a

766
00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:10,759
Speaker 1: lot of damage just caused by deer getting in front

767
00:42:10,760 --> 00:42:13,200
Speaker 1: of your car. Yeah, and I have been in I

768
00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:15,920
Speaker 1: have been in the vehicle, if I remember correctly, on

769
00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:18,920
Speaker 1: two different incidents when I've the vehicle has hit a deer,

770
00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:21,360
Speaker 1: there's some way, shape or form. In one case, the

771
00:42:21,360 --> 00:42:22,880
Speaker 1: deer had already been hit and it was just like

772
00:42:22,920 --> 00:42:25,279
Speaker 1: coming over a hill and there it was, and like

773
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:28,279
Speaker 1: the car went right over it. But uh, yeah, I

774
00:42:29,239 --> 00:42:31,560
Speaker 1: feel like this is a this is an increasingly common

775
00:42:31,600 --> 00:42:34,480
Speaker 1: occurrence if you're doing any amount of driving outside of

776
00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 1: an urban environment, and even even with within an urban environment,

777
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:41,920
Speaker 1: you're still facing the risk of those squirrels or you know,

778
00:42:42,040 --> 00:42:44,439
Speaker 1: various stray animals that may be running out in front

779
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:46,760
Speaker 1: of your vehicle. Well, depending on what kind of urban

780
00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 1: environment it is there, there are still sometimes even deer.

781
00:42:49,719 --> 00:42:52,320
Speaker 1: I mean, I think about how often you see deer

782
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:56,080
Speaker 1: in some cities in Tennessee. Certainly, one funny note that

783
00:42:56,120 --> 00:42:59,560
Speaker 1: I that was in this paper was that apparently reintroducing

784
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:03,600
Speaker 1: predator ters can even reduce auto insurance premiums and affected

785
00:43:03,640 --> 00:43:06,359
Speaker 1: areas because they, you know, reduce the risk. I wonder

786
00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:10,600
Speaker 1: if I can contact my my insurance companies say, look,

787
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:15,600
Speaker 1: I introduced we introduced a mountain lion into my neighborhood. Up,

788
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:18,640
Speaker 1: can you bring my my premium down a bit? Plan

789
00:43:18,760 --> 00:43:23,600
Speaker 1: on releasing wolves? How will that affect my rate? No?

790
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:27,279
Speaker 1: I bet they won't do it on an individual basis, unfortunately.

791
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:29,680
Speaker 1: But yeah, so we've got this issue where we know

792
00:43:29,840 --> 00:43:33,960
Speaker 1: that predators and scavengers provide immense benefits to humans. Of course,

793
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:36,880
Speaker 1: they provide benefits to the ecosystems themselves, but they provide

794
00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:41,359
Speaker 1: immense benefits to human economies, to human public health, all

795
00:43:41,440 --> 00:43:44,239
Speaker 1: of that. And yet we are going to continue to

796
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:47,799
Speaker 1: have these conflicts because predators are sometimes ferocious. They will

797
00:43:47,920 --> 00:43:51,839
Speaker 1: sometimes attack our domesticated animals and all that, they will

798
00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:54,319
Speaker 1: sometimes attack humans as long as they're going to be

799
00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:58,799
Speaker 1: humans and predators and scavengers in these shared zones, these

800
00:43:58,840 --> 00:44:02,880
Speaker 1: sort of uh middle zones where both humans and predators

801
00:44:02,920 --> 00:44:06,600
Speaker 1: can inhabit there will be these conflicts, and yet we

802
00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:09,440
Speaker 1: don't want to eliminate them. So part of the question

803
00:44:09,560 --> 00:44:11,919
Speaker 1: is how do you get people to understand that, even

804
00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:15,200
Speaker 1: though occasionally there will be wolf attacks on people and

805
00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 1: stuff like that, that is massively counterbalanced by the benefits

806
00:44:19,600 --> 00:44:22,239
Speaker 1: provided by these creatures. Yeah, you have to have to

807
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:24,840
Speaker 1: weigh all the benefits and not just you know, overreact

808
00:44:24,840 --> 00:44:27,920
Speaker 1: to one media report about uh, you know, a predation

809
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:31,080
Speaker 1: scenario involving a human infant is as shocking and horrible

810
00:44:31,120 --> 00:44:34,839
Speaker 1: as that can be. Um, you know, obviously, I mean,

811
00:44:35,160 --> 00:44:37,239
Speaker 1: it's still not a reason to say set out to

812
00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:40,520
Speaker 1: destroy all crocodiles or all wolves, right, And and part

813
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:43,600
Speaker 1: of the problem is that media reports can just even

814
00:44:43,680 --> 00:44:47,960
Speaker 1: without intending to do it, sensationalized predators. Like the one

815
00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:50,400
Speaker 1: thing I often think about is the type of media

816
00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:54,239
Speaker 1: story that doesn't say we should kill all predators, but

817
00:44:54,320 --> 00:44:57,840
Speaker 1: it just makes a media story out of predators citing

818
00:44:57,840 --> 00:45:00,479
Speaker 1: in a human area, you know, because other a wolf

819
00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:02,600
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood. Yeah, because otherwise, when is the shark

820
00:45:02,719 --> 00:45:05,440
Speaker 1: making the news. It's making the news because it was

821
00:45:05,719 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 1: seen in a human swimming area, a human caught it,

822
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:11,719
Speaker 1: or killed it, or the reverse happened. Of course it

823
00:45:11,800 --> 00:45:14,000
Speaker 1: attacked or killed a human there. Yeah, there is no

824
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:17,520
Speaker 1: story about the thousands of sharks that swam by without

825
00:45:17,560 --> 00:45:20,360
Speaker 1: anybody noticing them. And you make a good point that

826
00:45:20,520 --> 00:45:23,719
Speaker 1: very often the point of conflict here arises because of

827
00:45:23,800 --> 00:45:26,520
Speaker 1: human aggression, not because of the aggression of the animal,

828
00:45:26,880 --> 00:45:29,600
Speaker 1: or even if it's not aggression. It's like if you've

829
00:45:29,880 --> 00:45:32,200
Speaker 1: if we've all heard, you know, do not feed the

830
00:45:32,239 --> 00:45:36,760
Speaker 1: wild animals, which is wonderful advice for a number of reasons,

831
00:45:36,800 --> 00:45:39,200
Speaker 1: but if it's a if it's a prey species, especially

832
00:45:39,200 --> 00:45:42,560
Speaker 1: if it's a species that that could potentially attack a human,

833
00:45:42,920 --> 00:45:46,440
Speaker 1: then you should not do anything to to shrink the

834
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:50,880
Speaker 1: natural distance between our species, right. So, I mean, I

835
00:45:50,960 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 1: think one thing in this space that's important is trying

836
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:58,920
Speaker 1: to find smart strategies, Smart strategies that don't involve just

837
00:45:59,200 --> 00:46:02,560
Speaker 1: killing predators and scavengers outright because we don't like them,

838
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 1: or because there was one unfortunate point of conflict between

839
00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:10,040
Speaker 1: humans and whatever the species is that's local, but finding

840
00:46:10,080 --> 00:46:15,320
Speaker 1: ways to try to reduce encounters between humans and humans

841
00:46:15,320 --> 00:46:18,400
Speaker 1: in their livestock in these species while allowing the species

842
00:46:18,440 --> 00:46:21,040
Speaker 1: to live the example you mentioned earlier with just like

843
00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:23,720
Speaker 1: being able to paint eyes on the back of cattle,

844
00:46:23,760 --> 00:46:26,919
Speaker 1: that that sounds like a brilliant example of a solution there. Yeah,

845
00:46:27,040 --> 00:46:30,680
Speaker 1: make the make the the the the humans cattle less

846
00:46:30,680 --> 00:46:34,279
Speaker 1: appealing slightly as the feeling maybe even. But then the

847
00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:36,640
Speaker 1: reverse is well, the lions that are gonna hopefully go

848
00:46:36,719 --> 00:46:40,760
Speaker 1: eat other things, other prey animals that are still allowed

849
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:44,160
Speaker 1: to reside in the natural environment. Yeah, of course not

850
00:46:44,280 --> 00:46:48,400
Speaker 1: destroying natural habitats helps as well. Yeah, the to whatever

851
00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:51,719
Speaker 1: to the more we unbalance the given environment, like, the

852
00:46:51,760 --> 00:46:54,080
Speaker 1: more complicated it is to try and figure out what

853
00:46:54,160 --> 00:46:56,920
Speaker 1: the new balance is, or certainly to try and achieve

854
00:46:56,960 --> 00:46:59,920
Speaker 1: anything like the old balance. But anyway, if so, summary

855
00:47:00,040 --> 00:47:03,279
Speaker 1: of all that, you've got the disease control, you've got,

856
00:47:03,280 --> 00:47:06,640
Speaker 1: agricultural protection, you've got all these direct benefits on human life,

857
00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:10,520
Speaker 1: like reducing auto collisions or disposing of waste. There are

858
00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:14,320
Speaker 1: just tons of ways that predators and scavengers are benefiting

859
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:17,719
Speaker 1: your life and benefiting human civilization in ways that you

860
00:47:17,800 --> 00:47:21,160
Speaker 1: don't even appreciate or understand that are completely invisible to you.

861
00:47:21,480 --> 00:47:24,120
Speaker 1: But without them the world would be so much worse.

862
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:26,600
Speaker 1: And so I think we should just take a moment

863
00:47:26,640 --> 00:47:30,920
Speaker 1: to appreciate the nasty animals. Indeed, here's to you, nasty animals.

864
00:47:31,280 --> 00:47:33,680
Speaker 1: Let's take a break, and when we come back, you know,

865
00:47:33,719 --> 00:47:36,160
Speaker 1: we'll talk a little bit about the nastiest animal of all.

866
00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:40,280
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank Alright, we're back. So we've been talking

867
00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:44,360
Speaker 1: about how, even despite our mythologies and despite some religious

868
00:47:44,400 --> 00:47:48,040
Speaker 1: beliefs and all, that a world without predation is probably

869
00:47:48,160 --> 00:47:50,719
Speaker 1: not a good world. That's not a place where you'd

870
00:47:50,719 --> 00:47:53,640
Speaker 1: want to live. Predation does so many important things. It

871
00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:56,160
Speaker 1: plays an important ecological role. But I want to think

872
00:47:56,160 --> 00:47:58,920
Speaker 1: about another way that a world without predation is probably

873
00:47:59,000 --> 00:48:01,960
Speaker 1: not a world you want to live in because I

874
00:48:01,960 --> 00:48:05,319
Speaker 1: have a hard time imagining how a planet that never

875
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:11,440
Speaker 1: evolved predation would ever evolve intelligence. Indeed, I mean it's

876
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:15,880
Speaker 1: difficult to imagine a human level or greater intelligence emerging

877
00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:18,520
Speaker 1: in the absence of predation. Our best examples of non

878
00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:21,680
Speaker 1: human intelligence are either predators that have to engage in

879
00:48:21,760 --> 00:48:25,440
Speaker 1: advanced tactics and behaviors to catch prey uh and or

880
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:30,120
Speaker 1: utilize these skills to avoid predation themselves. And curiously enough,

881
00:48:30,360 --> 00:48:33,880
Speaker 1: humans seem to stand as as an example of both. Yeah, exactly.

882
00:48:33,960 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 1: I mean, almost everything we call intelligence, I think has

883
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:43,120
Speaker 1: something to do with time. Right. It has to do

884
00:48:43,160 --> 00:48:47,120
Speaker 1: with the speed at which you your body does something.

885
00:48:47,680 --> 00:48:51,640
Speaker 1: An organism that was able to avoid a you know,

886
00:48:51,680 --> 00:48:54,759
Speaker 1: an oncoming object, but it took a thousand years to

887
00:48:54,800 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 1: do so would you call that intelligence? Maybe? I mean,

888
00:48:58,080 --> 00:49:00,160
Speaker 1: it seems like it'd be hard to do, but it

889
00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:02,759
Speaker 1: seems to me like very much. An important part of

890
00:49:02,800 --> 00:49:05,319
Speaker 1: what intelligence is is that it has to do with

891
00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:09,680
Speaker 1: the speed of solutions to two problems, right, and the

892
00:49:09,719 --> 00:49:11,719
Speaker 1: speed at yeah, the speed at which it needs to

893
00:49:11,760 --> 00:49:15,279
Speaker 1: find a solution to that problem. Because something reacting at

894
00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:17,480
Speaker 1: the level we're talking about, uh, you know, maybe not

895
00:49:17,560 --> 00:49:19,560
Speaker 1: quite the same level, but you can look at an

896
00:49:19,600 --> 00:49:22,439
Speaker 1: oak tree and say, well, the oak tree has its

897
00:49:22,480 --> 00:49:25,919
Speaker 1: reflexes are not nearly as as quick as those of say,

898
00:49:26,200 --> 00:49:30,440
Speaker 1: you know, a feral cat, but they are both effectively

899
00:49:30,719 --> 00:49:34,560
Speaker 1: solving the problems that are necessary to to existing. Yeah,

900
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:37,759
Speaker 1: and speed just pretty much, it seems clear needs to

901
00:49:37,840 --> 00:49:41,480
Speaker 1: exist in the world because predation exists. Right, It's kind

902
00:49:41,480 --> 00:49:44,680
Speaker 1: of this this arms race of speedy reactions. Yeah, you know.

903
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:47,520
Speaker 1: In a fun bit of synchronicity, we recorded this episode

904
00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:50,359
Speaker 1: the same week as our fiftieth anniversary celebration of two

905
00:49:50,400 --> 00:49:53,719
Speaker 1: thousand and one A Space Odyssey. Yeah, and you know,

906
00:49:53,760 --> 00:49:55,840
Speaker 1: the fourth first portion of that film, the Dawn of

907
00:49:55,880 --> 00:49:58,520
Speaker 1: Man that we were discussing, you know, follows a population

908
00:49:58,560 --> 00:50:01,960
Speaker 1: of hominids as they scrap by on hunter gathering existence,

909
00:50:02,440 --> 00:50:05,120
Speaker 1: falling to predation from big cats from time to time,

910
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:08,840
Speaker 1: but then with a little help from an extraterrestrial sentinel,

911
00:50:08,920 --> 00:50:11,600
Speaker 1: they take their first steps towards mastery of the planet

912
00:50:11,640 --> 00:50:14,560
Speaker 1: and the use of weapons. Yeah, the monolith arrives, then

913
00:50:14,600 --> 00:50:17,720
Speaker 1: they suddenly realize, hey, I can use a taper femur

914
00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:20,920
Speaker 1: as a as a club. But before that, the big

915
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:23,440
Speaker 1: cat I believe it's a leopard in the movies, a

916
00:50:23,520 --> 00:50:26,800
Speaker 1: real leopard attacking somebody in a in an ape costume.

917
00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:29,640
Speaker 1: And it's frightening to watch, just and I'm not just

918
00:50:29,719 --> 00:50:32,279
Speaker 1: saying it because I mean on two levels, because on

919
00:50:32,400 --> 00:50:35,040
Speaker 1: one level the scene is very convincing, and then on

920
00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:37,560
Speaker 1: another level, I'm thinking, oh, crap, that's a guy in

921
00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:39,920
Speaker 1: an ape suit in a real carnivore has jumped on him.

922
00:50:40,200 --> 00:50:42,960
Speaker 1: I can't help but have a like a primal response

923
00:50:43,040 --> 00:50:47,920
Speaker 1: to that. Yeah, So fossil evidence does inform us that

924
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:51,320
Speaker 1: early humans fell to cave lions, two savor tooth cats

925
00:50:51,719 --> 00:50:55,160
Speaker 1: and false savor tooth cats, but they were also eaten

926
00:50:55,239 --> 00:51:00,399
Speaker 1: by other animals, including giant hyenas, eagles, snakes, other mates,

927
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:02,919
Speaker 1: and is. Rob Dunn pointed out in a two thousand

928
00:51:02,960 --> 00:51:06,279
Speaker 1: twelve Slate article about about fear, we even felt a

929
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:12,120
Speaker 1: giant predatory kangaroos. Yes, the predatory kangaroos. Yeah, the occult

930
00:51:12,280 --> 00:51:14,839
Speaker 1: occult of data. I believe it's it's called I've never

931
00:51:14,920 --> 00:51:16,719
Speaker 1: even heard of this as far as I remember now.

932
00:51:16,760 --> 00:51:18,600
Speaker 1: I'm embarrassed if you've told me on the show before,

933
00:51:18,640 --> 00:51:21,120
Speaker 1: and I forgot. No, I do not think predatory kangaroos

934
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:23,400
Speaker 1: have come up before. And to call it a kangaroo,

935
00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:25,680
Speaker 1: I've seen illustrations of what it might have looked like.

936
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:28,240
Speaker 1: And it doesn't straight up look like a thinged kangaroo

937
00:51:28,320 --> 00:51:33,960
Speaker 1: or anything, but but still similar creature. So the Ovens

938
00:51:34,000 --> 00:51:36,680
Speaker 1: seems to support the idea that that creatures like this,

939
00:51:37,080 --> 00:51:39,560
Speaker 1: not just the kangaroo, but big cats, et cetera, feasted

940
00:51:39,600 --> 00:51:42,120
Speaker 1: on human flesh so well into the most recent hundred

941
00:51:42,160 --> 00:51:45,280
Speaker 1: thousand years of human history, and we see this reflected

942
00:51:45,320 --> 00:51:48,480
Speaker 1: in the lives of modern primates as well. In places

943
00:51:48,480 --> 00:51:52,719
Speaker 1: where large predators still haunt the shadows of primitive primate habitats,

944
00:51:53,000 --> 00:51:55,759
Speaker 1: the young are still preyed upon, and where humans dwell

945
00:51:55,880 --> 00:51:59,319
Speaker 1: alongside large carnivores, the young and occasionally even adults may

946
00:51:59,360 --> 00:52:02,239
Speaker 1: fall to per day the world. That this world is

947
00:52:02,280 --> 00:52:05,960
Speaker 1: also still reflected in our our our fight or flight responses,

948
00:52:06,440 --> 00:52:09,400
Speaker 1: in the anxieties that we that define our lives, and

949
00:52:09,520 --> 00:52:11,920
Speaker 1: in our nightmares and our fantasies and our fears. I mean,

950
00:52:12,000 --> 00:52:14,520
Speaker 1: really we think back to that that a lion man

951
00:52:14,640 --> 00:52:17,719
Speaker 1: the first monster, Like, it makes so much sense that

952
00:52:17,880 --> 00:52:21,880
Speaker 1: that should be like the early the earliest known uh

953
00:52:22,040 --> 00:52:24,799
Speaker 1: you know, physical manifestation of our fears that we would

954
00:52:24,800 --> 00:52:27,040
Speaker 1: actually like craft that well. I mean, if you go

955
00:52:27,200 --> 00:52:29,640
Speaker 1: by one thing we talked about recently as well as

956
00:52:29,680 --> 00:52:33,279
Speaker 1: the idea of the hyperactive agency detection device, that is

957
00:52:33,320 --> 00:52:36,800
Speaker 1: a hypothesis about you know, where are our a tendency

958
00:52:36,880 --> 00:52:40,320
Speaker 1: to attribute agency to inanimate objects comes from? And but

959
00:52:40,520 --> 00:52:42,680
Speaker 1: that says, you know, the things we really need to

960
00:52:42,719 --> 00:52:46,240
Speaker 1: worry about there are two main things, animals and other humans.

961
00:52:46,800 --> 00:52:49,359
Speaker 1: And if you combine the properties of the two, you've

962
00:52:49,440 --> 00:52:52,320
Speaker 1: essentially got like the ultimate thing to be scared of.

963
00:52:52,960 --> 00:52:56,400
Speaker 1: It's part human, it's part animal predator. It's both of

964
00:52:56,480 --> 00:52:59,520
Speaker 1: the things that worry us the most. Now this is

965
00:52:59,560 --> 00:53:03,040
Speaker 1: interesting too, because when we think about our our ancient ancestors,

966
00:53:03,320 --> 00:53:05,239
Speaker 1: we do tend to think about these two things, right,

967
00:53:05,560 --> 00:53:09,880
Speaker 1: warlike abilities towards self uh and and their ability to

968
00:53:10,040 --> 00:53:12,839
Speaker 1: fight back against predators and of course prey on other beings.

969
00:53:12,880 --> 00:53:15,680
Speaker 1: I mean everything was expressed in that opening uh a

970
00:53:15,840 --> 00:53:18,480
Speaker 1: segment of two thousand and one of Space Odyssey. But

971
00:53:18,719 --> 00:53:23,640
Speaker 1: some anthropologists, such as Robert W. Sussman, the late Robert W. Susman,

972
00:53:23,640 --> 00:53:25,920
Speaker 1: I believe you passedway a few years ago. Uh. He

973
00:53:26,120 --> 00:53:28,120
Speaker 1: argued that it was our that it was possibly not

974
00:53:28,239 --> 00:53:31,520
Speaker 1: our ability uh to wage war against others, but rather

975
00:53:31,600 --> 00:53:34,319
Speaker 1: our ability to cooperate with one another then enabled us

976
00:53:34,360 --> 00:53:38,880
Speaker 1: to survive that era that we lived through as a

977
00:53:38,960 --> 00:53:41,960
Speaker 1: prey species. Oh. I think there's tons of evidence that

978
00:53:42,200 --> 00:53:45,719
Speaker 1: that social cooperation was a major factor in shaping the

979
00:53:45,800 --> 00:53:48,400
Speaker 1: animals we are today. So there we were this this

980
00:53:48,560 --> 00:53:53,760
Speaker 1: prey species barely hanging on, but then developing the social

981
00:53:53,840 --> 00:53:57,840
Speaker 1: connections and the technology to fight back against predators to

982
00:53:58,120 --> 00:54:03,040
Speaker 1: sort of overtime remove ourselves from full participation in the

983
00:54:03,120 --> 00:54:06,680
Speaker 1: food chain. Um. And in doing so, we've become something

984
00:54:07,080 --> 00:54:10,200
Speaker 1: more than just a predator. Uh. We've become kind of

985
00:54:10,280 --> 00:54:14,000
Speaker 1: a super predator. As Sarah Zelinsky pointed out in a

986
00:54:14,040 --> 00:54:17,920
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen Smithsonian dot Com article, humans are unlike

987
00:54:18,040 --> 00:54:21,320
Speaker 1: any other predator on the planet. Uh, and in in

988
00:54:21,640 --> 00:54:23,880
Speaker 1: ways that that one might not instantly think. You know,

989
00:54:23,920 --> 00:54:27,080
Speaker 1: obviously we use guns, and no other creature uses guns.

990
00:54:27,200 --> 00:54:30,080
Speaker 1: You know, we we poison, we do all these other tactics.

991
00:54:30,120 --> 00:54:35,000
Speaker 1: But everywhere else, predators prey upon the young, uh in particular.

992
00:54:35,080 --> 00:54:39,239
Speaker 1: But humans kill healthy adults, especially when it comes to

993
00:54:39,360 --> 00:54:43,000
Speaker 1: land carnivores and fish, and those adults, she she drives

994
00:54:43,040 --> 00:54:46,160
Speaker 1: home in the article, these are the reproductive capital of

995
00:54:46,239 --> 00:54:50,640
Speaker 1: the species. So you know these news stories that talk

996
00:54:50,680 --> 00:54:52,880
Speaker 1: about the tragedy of someone being struck down in the

997
00:54:53,280 --> 00:54:56,080
Speaker 1: prime of their life, Well, that's that's the sob story

998
00:54:56,160 --> 00:55:00,439
Speaker 1: for most of the animals that humans kill. And while

999
00:55:00,520 --> 00:55:03,279
Speaker 1: again that the natural predation model is for things that

1000
00:55:03,360 --> 00:55:06,880
Speaker 1: have not achieved that level um or they have fallen

1001
00:55:06,920 --> 00:55:08,560
Speaker 1: off on the other side, the young or the old,

1002
00:55:08,880 --> 00:55:11,399
Speaker 1: and this is especially destructive for long lived and late

1003
00:55:11,480 --> 00:55:14,560
Speaker 1: producing species. Of course. Yeah. One example of all this

1004
00:55:14,760 --> 00:55:17,640
Speaker 1: that Zelinski brings up is the stickleback. It's a fish

1005
00:55:17,719 --> 00:55:20,520
Speaker 1: that is just surrounded by predators. It just it has

1006
00:55:20,640 --> 00:55:26,279
Speaker 1: all the enemies, but the enemies mostly almost exclusively feed

1007
00:55:26,360 --> 00:55:30,600
Speaker 1: on young fries and subadults. Only five percent of the

1008
00:55:30,840 --> 00:55:34,520
Speaker 1: reproductively valuable adults are preyed upon each year. And that's

1009
00:55:34,560 --> 00:55:38,719
Speaker 1: a sharp contrast to commercial fishing, where fort of the

1010
00:55:38,800 --> 00:55:43,120
Speaker 1: biomass is netted and its predominantly real reproductive adults. So

1011
00:55:43,360 --> 00:55:47,360
Speaker 1: from like an energy and reproductive standpoint, our kind of

1012
00:55:47,520 --> 00:55:50,720
Speaker 1: hunting and trapping and fishing and all that is putting

1013
00:55:50,760 --> 00:55:55,319
Speaker 1: a different pressure on wild populations the normal predation would, yes,

1014
00:55:55,960 --> 00:55:58,719
Speaker 1: and maybe a pressure that those wild populations are not

1015
00:55:59,520 --> 00:56:02,759
Speaker 1: are not a position to sustain. Thomas rhym Chin of

1016
00:56:02,840 --> 00:56:06,279
Speaker 1: the University of Victoria research this uh this topic back

1017
00:56:06,280 --> 00:56:08,839
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies and found that while humans killed

1018
00:56:08,880 --> 00:56:12,239
Speaker 1: adult herbivores at about the same rate as non human

1019
00:56:12,320 --> 00:56:15,680
Speaker 1: predators quote, the harvest of adult carnivores by humans was

1020
00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:19,280
Speaker 1: nine times that of other large carnivores, which were mostly

1021
00:56:19,400 --> 00:56:24,520
Speaker 1: killing each other through competition, and the marine situation, according

1022
00:56:24,560 --> 00:56:27,720
Speaker 1: to Zelensky, is even worse, She says, marine predators harvest

1023
00:56:27,760 --> 00:56:30,920
Speaker 1: about one percent of adult biomass each year. Humans take

1024
00:56:30,960 --> 00:56:34,919
Speaker 1: a median of four and as much as or more

1025
00:56:35,040 --> 00:56:38,440
Speaker 1: in extreme cases. So yeah, technology not only allowed us

1026
00:56:38,520 --> 00:56:41,240
Speaker 1: to sort of escape from the food chain, it allowed

1027
00:56:41,280 --> 00:56:43,960
Speaker 1: us to escape from the limits of the natural prey

1028
00:56:44,080 --> 00:56:48,560
Speaker 1: predator dynamic. That's really interesting. So even while we can

1029
00:56:48,640 --> 00:56:52,120
Speaker 1: make the point that predators are good and predators are

1030
00:56:52,239 --> 00:56:55,480
Speaker 1: very important for ecosystem health and we should not be

1031
00:56:55,600 --> 00:56:58,759
Speaker 1: trying to eliminate them to make the world better, they

1032
00:56:58,800 --> 00:57:01,160
Speaker 1: are also very bad ways to be a predator. I

1033
00:57:01,200 --> 00:57:03,720
Speaker 1: mean you can see that even in non human animals,

1034
00:57:03,840 --> 00:57:06,640
Speaker 1: just when the wrong kind of invasive predator is introduced

1035
00:57:06,680 --> 00:57:09,080
Speaker 1: to an ecosystem and see the havoc at reachs. Right, Yeah,

1036
00:57:09,080 --> 00:57:11,600
Speaker 1: everything's out of balance. Yeah, but there can also be

1037
00:57:11,760 --> 00:57:16,840
Speaker 1: these these worldwide, world ranging super predators like us that

1038
00:57:17,080 --> 00:57:20,240
Speaker 1: just we don't play by the rules, right. We're playing

1039
00:57:20,280 --> 00:57:23,440
Speaker 1: with god code enabled, you know, which means we can

1040
00:57:23,600 --> 00:57:26,440
Speaker 1: just kill every creature on a level and not have to,

1041
00:57:26,600 --> 00:57:29,840
Speaker 1: you know, whereas otherwise the game mechanics would maybe dictate

1042
00:57:29,880 --> 00:57:33,160
Speaker 1: that you could only maybe kill thirty of the enemies

1043
00:57:33,200 --> 00:57:35,200
Speaker 1: on a given level. And actually make it to the

1044
00:57:35,400 --> 00:57:39,280
Speaker 1: end where the real ding goes. Yes, are the real

1045
00:57:39,400 --> 00:57:41,600
Speaker 1: thing goes. But but one of the big questions is,

1046
00:57:41,760 --> 00:57:44,080
Speaker 1: you know, what are we going to to be? You know,

1047
00:57:44,160 --> 00:57:46,400
Speaker 1: can we can we step down from the super threat

1048
00:57:46,720 --> 00:57:52,400
Speaker 1: predator throne? Can we actually uh implement more sustainable ways

1049
00:57:52,760 --> 00:57:57,120
Speaker 1: of of preying upon other animals in our world? And likewise,

1050
00:57:57,160 --> 00:58:00,120
Speaker 1: can we find more sustainable ways to deal with other

1051
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:04,440
Speaker 1: predators that might be threatening the the the the environment

1052
00:58:04,520 --> 00:58:07,880
Speaker 1: that we have already unbalanced with our domesticated animals and

1053
00:58:07,920 --> 00:58:11,200
Speaker 1: our crops and our the expansion of our territory. You know,

1054
00:58:11,280 --> 00:58:13,800
Speaker 1: can we become something that's ultimately more, more humbler and

1055
00:58:13,880 --> 00:58:16,800
Speaker 1: more sustainable ourselves. It's a great question. I mean, how

1056
00:58:17,080 --> 00:58:19,480
Speaker 1: how to be a predator that knows it's a predator

1057
00:58:20,040 --> 00:58:24,240
Speaker 1: and recognizes its power. Yeah. There's a wonderful quote from

1058
00:58:24,480 --> 00:58:27,400
Speaker 1: George Mombia again, and this is from a two thousand

1059
00:58:27,440 --> 00:58:33,280
Speaker 1: fourteen Guardian article titled Destroyer of Worlds. He writes, is

1060
00:58:33,360 --> 00:58:36,160
Speaker 1: this all We are a diminutive monster that can leave

1061
00:58:36,240 --> 00:58:39,720
Speaker 1: no door closed, no hiding place intact, that is now

1062
00:58:39,920 --> 00:58:42,040
Speaker 1: doing to the great beasts of the sea what we

1063
00:58:42,160 --> 00:58:44,600
Speaker 1: did so long ago to the great beasts of the land,

1064
00:58:45,040 --> 00:58:48,160
Speaker 1: or can we stop? Can we use our ingenuity, which

1065
00:58:48,200 --> 00:58:51,800
Speaker 1: for two million years has turned so inventively to destruction,

1066
00:58:52,120 --> 00:58:55,840
Speaker 1: to defy our evolutionary history? I think we obviously can.

1067
00:58:56,000 --> 00:58:59,880
Speaker 1: The question is will we? I mean we we we

1068
00:59:00,040 --> 00:59:04,000
Speaker 1: have the ability to defy our evolutionary imperatives. We do

1069
00:59:04,080 --> 00:59:07,320
Speaker 1: it every time we do something self sacrificing for a stranger,

1070
00:59:07,440 --> 00:59:10,200
Speaker 1: or every time people use contraception or you know anything

1071
00:59:10,240 --> 00:59:12,640
Speaker 1: as so like we we certainly have the power to

1072
00:59:12,760 --> 00:59:15,840
Speaker 1: do more than just what is dictated by our genes.

1073
00:59:16,000 --> 00:59:18,880
Speaker 1: But the you know, in any given situation, will people

1074
00:59:18,960 --> 00:59:21,400
Speaker 1: do it? And that's the challenge. Yeah, that's the challenge today,

1075
00:59:21,440 --> 00:59:24,280
Speaker 1: That's the challenge going forward. But I think the it

1076
00:59:24,440 --> 00:59:26,840
Speaker 1: is important to put the emphasis on today as well,

1077
00:59:27,200 --> 00:59:29,520
Speaker 1: because it's all too easy just to say, well, it

1078
00:59:29,560 --> 00:59:32,440
Speaker 1: sounds like quite a problem. Hopefully somebody will figure that

1079
00:59:32,520 --> 00:59:34,600
Speaker 1: out in the years to come, or yeah, we'll get

1080
00:59:34,600 --> 00:59:36,360
Speaker 1: it where where humans are great, we'll figure it out.

1081
00:59:36,600 --> 00:59:38,920
Speaker 1: Hopefully we will. And I'm going to choose to be

1082
00:59:38,960 --> 00:59:42,920
Speaker 1: hopeful about it, because you know, I can. We can

1083
00:59:42,960 --> 00:59:45,880
Speaker 1: only act as as optimists if we're pestimist about it.

1084
00:59:45,960 --> 00:59:49,360
Speaker 1: Then what can we do? Yeah, and if you want

1085
00:59:49,400 --> 00:59:51,800
Speaker 1: to be optimistic about our future, can a predator like

1086
00:59:52,000 --> 00:59:55,280
Speaker 1: us uh learn to live within its means and reform?

1087
00:59:55,680 --> 00:59:58,240
Speaker 1: You've got to at least acknowledge the base fact that, hey,

1088
00:59:58,440 --> 01:00:01,840
Speaker 1: predators ain't so bad. Yeah, acknowledge that they have an

1089
01:00:01,960 --> 01:00:05,480
Speaker 1: essential role to play in our environment. And scavengers too.

1090
01:00:05,480 --> 01:00:08,520
Speaker 1: We shouldn't leave out scavenger. Yeah, the scavengers are also

1091
01:00:08,840 --> 01:00:11,560
Speaker 1: they are they're the clean up crew. They're less, less glamorous,

1092
01:00:11,680 --> 01:00:15,040
Speaker 1: but maybe even more useful. Yeah. All right, So there

1093
01:00:15,080 --> 01:00:18,680
Speaker 1: you have it, the predator, the scavenger. Uh. Well, hopefully

1094
01:00:18,880 --> 01:00:22,200
Speaker 1: this has UH forced you to re evaluate their roles.

1095
01:00:23,120 --> 01:00:25,160
Speaker 1: As always, check out stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

1096
01:00:25,200 --> 01:00:27,640
Speaker 1: That's where we'll find all the podcast episodes. You just

1097
01:00:27,720 --> 01:00:29,840
Speaker 1: take a journey back through time there and listen to

1098
01:00:30,240 --> 01:00:33,040
Speaker 1: to uh a number of past episodes that have also

1099
01:00:33,160 --> 01:00:38,080
Speaker 1: dealt with biology and environmental issues and the future and

1100
01:00:38,680 --> 01:00:41,720
Speaker 1: past of our species. You also find links out to

1101
01:00:41,760 --> 01:00:43,800
Speaker 1: our verious social media accounts there, and hey, if you

1102
01:00:43,840 --> 01:00:47,080
Speaker 1: want to support the show, we urge you to rate

1103
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Speaker 1: and review it wherever you have the power to do so.

1104
01:00:49,960 --> 01:00:53,920
Speaker 1: Deep thanks, as always to our excellent audio producers Alex

1105
01:00:53,960 --> 01:00:56,680
Speaker 1: Williams and Tory Harrison. If you would like to get

1106
01:00:56,720 --> 01:00:59,080
Speaker 1: in touch with us directly to let us know feedback

1107
01:00:59,120 --> 01:01:02,320
Speaker 1: about this episode or any other suggested topic for the future,

1108
01:01:02,400 --> 01:01:04,680
Speaker 1: or just to say hi, you can email us at

1109
01:01:04,840 --> 01:01:16,800
Speaker 1: blow the Mind at how staff works dot com for

1110
01:01:16,960 --> 01:01:19,240
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it

1111
01:01:19,320 --> 01:01:31,960
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. B