WEBVTT - World Without Predators 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:04.000 Tiger tiger burning bright in the forests of the night. 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:09.480 What immortal hand or I could frame thy fearful symmetry? 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:12.920 In what distant deeps or skies burnt the fire of 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:17.040 thine eyes? On What wings dare he aspire? What the 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:20.360 hand dare seize the fire? And what shoulder? And what 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:24.320 art could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:27.720 thy heart began to beat? What dread hand? And what 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:32.000 dread feet? What the hammer? What the chain? In what 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:36.599 furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? What dread grasp? 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:41.600 Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:45.360 their spears and water'd heaven with their tears, did he 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:48.360 smile his work to see? Did he who made the 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:53.120 lamb make thee tiger? Tiger burning bright in the forests 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:56.960 of the night? What immortal hand or I dare frame 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:04.080 thy fearful symmetry? Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:13.040 from how Stuffworks dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:15.400 Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:18.600 Joe McCormick. And that was The Tiger by William Blake. 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:22.559 That's right, classic poem and one that ties into today's episode, 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:26.120 because we're going to be talking about predators like the tiger, 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:29.480 and I do think some of the initials, initial concerns 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.520 that we're gonna be discussing here, the initial questions about 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:35.520 the nature of predators um are closely mirrored in this 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:38.679 poem and some of the questions it's asking. So here's 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:43.080 a this weekend strange religious beliefs, Robert, have you ever 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:47.600 heard about the There is a Young Earth creationist idea 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:51.080 among some Young Earth creationist Christians, an idea that the 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:53.880 Tyranno source Rex was a her before. Have you ever 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:58.520 encountered this before among Young Earth creationists or their literature. 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:00.240 I don't mean personal now. I make it a point 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:04.800 to avoid younger creationist thoughts on dinosaurs and prestricked creatures, 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:08.239 to the point that I found such a book in 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:11.360 a lending library once, and I took great pleasure in 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:14.480 moving it directly from the lending library to the garbage 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:17.320 where it belongs. Well, I mean, that's in some ways 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:20.080 a noble task. This is a book peddling lies to children, 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:23.320 but often with great illustrations. Well it makes them even 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:27.480 more effective. But yeah, so so you're saying, like say, 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:30.359 what now Tarrannosaurus rex was a her before that just 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:32.840 runs countered everything that I've I've ever read. Now, I 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:35.200 want to be clear, I don't want to be unfair. Uh. 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:38.160 This is not generally a belief held among Christians or 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:41.960 anything like this. This is specifically a subset of Young 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:45.440 Earth creationists who believe this. But if you just google it, 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:49.320 you'll find all kinds of fundamentalist literature arguing that the 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:52.600 t rex and all other dinosaurs were herbivores. They ate 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:56.840 exclusively plants, And to be very clear, this is false. 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:00.680 All evidence points to the tarrannisa is Rex having a 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.920 meat based diet. There's some debate actually over whether the 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:07.359 t rex was primarily a hunter predator or was primarily 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:10.000 a scavenger of dead animals, and we can come back 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:12.960 to that in a minute. But morphological analysis of the 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:15.640 t rex skull alone will tell you very clearly that 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:18.200 this is a meat eating animal. It's got the teeth 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:20.200 of a meat eating animal, it's got the skull and 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:23.360 jaw shape of a meat eating animal. It looks like 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:27.160 it was built for applying crushing bites to prey animals 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:30.280 and then powerfully pulling its head to move the animal's 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:32.679 body or to rip away flesh. Now, as for the 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:36.480 question of whether these mighty therapod dinosaurs were primarily hunter, 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:40.040 predators or scavengers, we discussed one strong piece of evidence 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.520 that the therapod relative of the t rex, the Alisaurus, 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:47.320 was a predator in our Kimbodian Stegasaurus episode. You remember 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:52.080 that it was another weird intersection between religious beliefs and dinosaurs. 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:55.320 But anyway, in that episode we talked about the allosaurus 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:58.040 who clearly died from an injury in a fight with 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:01.200 a stegosaur. It got a thagon miser spike right to 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:03.720 the crotch, and the way the bone has been preserved, 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.040 it's clear that that's what happened. This is the opinion 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:09.040 of the paleontologist Robert backer Um that that it died 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.400 in a fight with the stegasaur it and so of 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:13.440 course that really makes it look like the allosaurus was 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:15.480 a predator. It seems like it would be unlikely that 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:18.640 a scavenger would get thagomized in the crotch like that, 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:22.080 so it was trying to attack pray. But anyway, the 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:26.240 question is why would somebody, for religious reasons believe that 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:30.440 meat eating dinosaurs were actually herbivores. Like, I don't remember 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:34.040 anything in the Bible about the t rex. Uh. So 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:36.800 I've tried to look up the reasoning behind people who 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:38.440 believe this, and it seems to be sort of a 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:41.719 consequence of other beliefs. So the people who have written 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:44.240 on this, they sometimes refer to a passage in the 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:48.000 first chapter of the Book of Genesis. It's Versus thirty, 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:50.760 and it says, quote, and God said, see, I have 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.760 given you every herb that yields seed, which is on 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:56.360 the face of the earth, and every tree whose fruit 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.680 yield seed to you, it shall be for food. Also 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:02.159 to every beast of the earth, to every bird of 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:04.359 the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:07.400 in which there is life. I have given every green 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:11.760 herb for food. And it was so. So that's a 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:15.520 verse that generally says, hey, animals, time to eat some vegetables. 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:18.880 And then, of course, also there seems to be more 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:22.680 broadly a widespread belief that meat eating would represent some 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:26.680 kind of compromise to the idea of the original creation 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:29.160 of the world as perfect. It would imply that Eden 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:32.039 was not truly a perfect paradise. Well, I guess it 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.360 is kind of an interesting theological question, right, I mean, 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:37.440 could could Eve have really messed things up all that much? 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:40.680 If prior to the fall there were predators feeding on 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:45.000 other creatures young, or you had parasite induced blindness occurring, 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:48.800 or even something as victimless as a buzzard tearing into 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:52.200 a dead antelope. These are I think, because these are 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:56.040 nasty images, people tend to assume that like, oh well, 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:58.640 if that were to take place, it would definitely foul 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:01.760 the balance of creation. Yeah, if there were tigers in 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:05.039 the garden, and then we can't possibly envision them as anything, 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:07.640 but then to to try and imagine, say a tiger, 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:10.400 Try to imagine a tiger in the garden of Eden. 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:13.680 If it's doing anything other than what tigers do, then 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:17.840 it just doesn't make sense. We we can't possibly imagine 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:21.280 the tigers anything but what it is, because everything they 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:24.200 are is a meat eater. To envision an herbivore tiger 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:28.400 is to envision either a possible like downstream evolutionary form, 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:31.159 something on the level of say a giant panda, or 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:34.839 something so far back in evolution that it scarcely resembles 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:37.240 a cat at all, like to put it in a 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:41.040 frame of reference, here, the first terrestrial herbivore probably appeared 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.440 on land about two two million years ago, and it 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.200 would not have looked like a tiger. Now, to come 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:51.080 back to the tiger by William Blake, one of the 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:53.560 ideas that he's asking is just like to to be 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:56.360 very literal with the poem, is how can the same 0:06:56.400 --> 0:06:58.880 god who made the lamb, the sweeten lamb also make 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:02.440 this ferocious tiger? Did he smile his work to see? 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:05.120 Did he who made the lamb make the um? The 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:09.400 side note um for Blake, here we the humans kind 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:11.640 of made the lamb, like we domesticated that that's kind 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:14.080 of kind kind of our thing, whereas the tiger is 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:18.360 really ultimately of the two animals, the more perfect, you know, 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:21.240 vision of creation. If you want to get technical, Yeah, 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:23.080 that's a good point. But but I think this is 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:26.520 basically this poem and some of these younger creationist ideas 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:28.120 are kind of emerging from the same thing, like how 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:33.920 do we square carnivorous biology? How do we square predation 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:37.960 in this kind of idealized version of life? Right? Well, 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:41.440 the implication of this belief, whether stated or unstated, is 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:45.200 that a perfect world would be a world without meat eating, right, 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:48.760 no predators, no scavengers. Now, this is not going to 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.800 be primarily an episode about the ethics of human meat eating. 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.240 I think there are questions to ask about, you know, 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:56.400 humans who know better, like what would be the correct 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:59.000 choice of how to live? But I wanted to talk 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:00.800 about this issue because I want to make the case 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:05.520 for the practical necessity of carnivori in nature. How in reality, 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:09.120 a world without predators and scavengers would not be a 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:12.520 perfect world. It would probably be a much worse world, 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:14.560 a world that we would not like at all for 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:18.200 many reasons, and perhaps even worthy of being called a 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:23.800 herbivorous hell. Predators and scavengers are important. They play an 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:27.200 important role in food chains and ecosystems, and they play 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.520 a role that we have plenty of evidence directly benefits 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:33.960 human beings on Earth. We would not like this planet 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:37.320 without predators and scavengers. But if you just observe the 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:39.440 way we talk about them, the way they feature in 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:41.720 our narratives, and the way we treat them in reality, 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:44.120 you wouldn't know this was the case, right, No, No, 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:46.600 you just did assume, yeah, that the tiger is this threat. 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:48.480 I mean, clearly, it's the villain of the Jungle Book. 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:50.160 How else are we supposed to feel about it? Yeah, 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:52.080 And it's all there in our mythology. I mean, there's 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:54.880 always like some kind of evil predatory animal or a 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:57.520 monster that's some kind of bigger, messed up version of 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:01.079 a predatory animal. Uh, and that we vilify and we 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:03.440 cast as a thing that must be killed in order 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:05.319 for us to survive. Yeah, I mean to go back 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:08.080 to our episode on the first monster. What is arguably 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:12.400 the first monster depicted in human artifacts, but a lion 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:16.000 headed human. Yeah, exactly, it takes on. It's a human 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:19.800 who has the characteristics of a predatory animal. And there 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:22.719 are plenty of good reasons that predators and scavengers are 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:26.480 often feared and that they do really frustrate people. And 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:29.719 it goes way beyond just direct attacks on humans. I mean, 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:32.840 one of the biggest problems, if you're going to consider 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:35.760 real problems caused by predatory animals in the world, one 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:38.959 of the biggest problems is livestock depredation. You know, as 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:43.200 soon as we had animal agriculture, predators could prey on 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.360 the herds of domesticated animals that we created, and that's 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:49.640 a real like loss of wealth from the humans who 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:52.880 maintain those herds. But then also we you know, there 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:57.079 are other things like attacks on pets and hosting diseases 0:09:57.120 --> 0:09:59.920 and parasites, and these are real things that our motivation 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.920 for humans. But we want to stress again today, a 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:06.000 world without predators is not a world you want. So 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:09.560 what happens when we intentionally or inadvertently, you know, wage 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:13.320 a war of extinction against our betters in the food chain? 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.520 Are betters? Yeah, and in many cases are betters. Let's 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:19.040 explore a few examples with the caveat here that we're 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:21.160 going to ignore cases in which humans have dealt with 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:25.040 invasive predators, which is which of course can be difficult 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.800 in and of itself, but he's ultimately an attempt to 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:30.840 kind of balance the scales that we upset. Right by 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:34.320 introducing a predator into a range where it's not originally been, 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:37.320 we might be upsetting an ecosystem that was stable on 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:41.120 its own. So in most cases, predator eradication efforts or 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:44.800 general predator culling or control efforts, they stem from this 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:48.160 human unbalancing of the natural environment, and it usually goes 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:50.480 down about like this. So you have predators and prey 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:53.640 and they live in an involved balance. Then humans come along, 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:55.439 they move into the area. What do they do well, 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:59.120 they start building stuff and expanding. That leads to habitat 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:03.320 loss for the the natural organisms that live in the area, 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:06.480 including the predators. And then predators are killed or driven 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:10.120 off when they encroach upon human territory. And then humans 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:13.640 are raised domesticated food species, and then predators are drawn 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:16.720 to those food species, the lambs that that we have 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:20.360 framed exactly. And then uh, and then the predators are 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:22.760 killed or driven off as a result of it. Yeah, 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:25.200 it creates a tough situation. I mean, we can look 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:28.040 to two examples of it in today's world. For instance, 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:32.200 in modern Botswana. Uh, there's this need to protect both 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:37.640 valuable cattle and threatened lions species. Local cattle farmers frequently 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:42.640 resort to violent retaliation against the predators. Uh. And then again, 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:45.960 the lions themselves are endangered. They are only about thirty 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:49.400 thousand lions left in the wild, right, so conservationists don't 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:51.319 want to see the lions killed. But then again, if 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:53.760 you're a farmer and lions are attacking your cattle, you 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:58.679 can very well understand why the farmer feels that way, right. Uh. Now, incidentally, 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:01.800 there's a there's a really interesting up potential solution. I 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:03.360 don't know if you called a solution as much as 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:06.600 maybe a band aid for the scenario that has been explored, 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:10.080 but a conservation biologist, Dr Neil Jordan's has actually rolled 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:13.000 out a program to paint eyes on the rear ends 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:15.920 of cattle to help to rely on attacks. Uh not 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:20.199 unlike anti tiger masks that you sometimes see in belief 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:23.000 parts of India or also just sort of the naturally 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:26.320 evolved use of eye spots on various insects. And there's 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:29.400 evidence this is actually effective. Yes, there is some evidence. 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:32.680 Uh Um. I reported on it, I want to say, 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:34.840 like a year a year and a half ago, so 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:37.320 I haven't checked in to see what the latest data is. 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:40.320 But at the time, the data was encouraging that it 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:43.280 was at least in the I mean at least for 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.520 the short term, cutting down on some of these predation instances. 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:49.640 That's really interesting. I mean that goes along with some 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:51.640 of the advice that I know this is this is 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:54.120 probably not blanket advice, so don't use this as your 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.479 survival tactics. But I know, at least in some discussions 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:00.400 about how to deal best with encounters of wild editors, 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:02.599 like if you encounter I think maybe a bear or 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:05.040 a mountain lion or something like that out in the wild. 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:07.880 I've definitely heard advice before that you should not turn 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:11.720 your back and run because that can very easily trigger 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:13.880 you know, chase impulses. So what you want to do 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:16.640 is remain facing the animal, make it clear that you 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:19.320 can see it, and try to put distance between you 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:22.880 and it, you know, backing away. Uh And and that 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:25.160 sort of makes sense. I mean, an animal should be 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:28.079 able to see where other animals are looking, and if 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:30.720 it thinks you're not looking at it, that is a 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:33.840 chance for an attack. Now, another good example or wolves. 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:36.840 Wolves have face and continue to face a similar plight 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.080 in North America. So humans trot out all of these 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:43.920 domesticated prey species organisms that are really in many ways 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:47.640 trapped in a perpetual adolescence, which is key because in 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:50.160 the natural world that is where you see a lot 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:53.360 of the predation. You see the predators preying upon the 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:58.520 young or you know, the sick. But through domestication, we've 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:02.520 made sure that these species are main ideal prey for us. 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:05.480 So it's uh, you know, it's not a huge mysteries 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:09.000 as to why their ideal prey for various obligate carnivores 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:12.360 out there. Yeah, so the American gray wolf is this 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:15.280 is I found this super interesting. It is the modern 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:17.760 American wolf. Now what does that mean? So, as Carl 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:20.240 Zimmer pointed out in a two thousand sixteen New York 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:23.920 Times article on the subject, genomic evidence reveals that the 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:27.520 Eastern wolf and the red wolf, previously you know, considered 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:30.560 to be two separate varieties of wolf, those are actually 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:33.800 just mixtures of wolf and coyote d nat so they're 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:36.360 just their hybrids. But the one true wolf is the 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:38.840 gray wolf. Well, I mean, it's been interesting to see 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:42.560 as urbanization has happened throughout the United States, especially in 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:47.160 the twentieth century, the way that wild carnivorous canids have 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:50.680 adapted to human spaces. I mean, we we talked in 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:54.360 our Urban Evolution episode about the coyotes of American cities. 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:57.640 They're all over the place, and they they find ways 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:02.040 of surviving alongside us that we barely even detect. So, 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:04.440 as of two thousand seventeen, this is the most recent 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:08.160 data as of this recording. Uh, they're roughly five thousand, 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:10.840 six hundred and eighty gray wolves remaining in the lower 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:14.240 forty eight states. That don't sound like that many. Now 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:19.480 Alaska has between UM seventy seven hundred and eleven thousand, 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:23.680 two hundred, but kind of lupus. The gray wolf once 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:26.560 ranged from the Rockies to New England, and it's been 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:32.880 victim been victim to antipredation efforts to protect livestock, um hunting, trapping, baiting, 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:35.920 and some pretty pervasive scare tactics about the nature of 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:38.920 the wolves themselves. Now, to be clear, wolf attacks have 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:41.960 occurred in North America, but they are rare, and even 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:45.360 when they do occur, Uh, there, you know they're not 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:47.960 There's not just one type of wolf attack. You can, 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:51.320 for instance, chalk some of them up to defensive attacks, 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:54.680 and then also rabies could be a factor as well 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:57.120 in some of these cases. Yeah, absolutely, But I mean 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:00.560 the wolf is a perfect test case for people, uh 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:03.880 to they can see what the danger of being near 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:06.520 a wolf is. Like if you're told there's a wolf 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:10.240 in your neighborhood, you can immediately envision like, oh, I 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:12.240 can see how that could go bad. I could be 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:14.120 out in the yard and a wolf could attack me. 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:18.360 But you don't understand or easily visualize the other side 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:21.280 of the equation what the downsides can be if there's 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:23.400 not a wolf in your neighborhood. And indeed, there are 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:25.760 many neighborhoods where they're they're not being no wolves, and 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:30.880 sometimes those neighborhoods are something like Yellowstone National Park. Uh. 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:33.360 It's an interesting case, and this was outlined by a 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:38.920 science writer and rewilding advocate, George monbiat Uh. He points 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:41.920 out that wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park in 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.040 a Yellowstone that by that point was overrun by deer 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:50.360 without predators to control their numbers, and the results were 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:54.000 pretty amazing, he lays out, So they introduced the wolves 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:57.120 back into into the park. The wolves, of course killed 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.600 some deer, as would be expected, but then this also 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:03.120 changed the behavior of the deer. The deer started avoiding 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:07.000 essentially dangerous areas of the park, areas that were not 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:08.959 a good place to to hang out in if there 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:12.000 were wolves about, and these places began to grow again 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:15.879 to regenerate. Tree hid here increased dramatically in some areas, 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:19.680 he says, Uh, certain bird species moved back in uh, 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:24.560 beavers and beaver numbers increased. And between the wolves changing 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:28.440 the essentially the prey species landscape here and the beavers 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:32.440 altering the ecosystem as well, UH, they both work to 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:36.560 make room for other species to thrive. Wolves killed coyotes 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:40.040 and and this allowed rabbit and mice populations to begin 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:44.640 to rise, bringing in hawks, weasels, foxes, badgers carrying birds 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:49.159 to discavenge. After all of this, bear populations also arose, 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:51.840 in part because they were now more berries from the 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:54.480 shrubs that actually were able to grow. And this is 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:57.479 often expressed in terms of a top predator in an 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:01.040 ecosystem being a keystone species is a species that's sort 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:04.879 of like necessary to allow the rest of the ecosystem 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:07.919 to thrive as it normally would exactly. And so in 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:10.000 this example of what happens when you put a predator 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:14.960 back in to an environment, we're essentially seeing environmental collapse 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:18.600 in reverse. UH. What what we're talking about here is 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:23.199 widespread trophic cascades. These are ecological changes that start at 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:25.960 the top of a food chain, UH, and the spiral 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:29.080 all the way down. So yeah, apex predators are not 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:32.359 just monsters that live atop you know, a mountain of 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:35.080 bones and feast on the you know, the riches of 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:36.960 the things that it preys upon, and like some sort 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:41.080 of storybook monster. Now that the mountain wilds have have 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:44.080 evolved with it, and then for everything depends on the 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:47.720 predators for balance. Yeah, there is a sort of mythological 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:51.240 model of the predator as oppressor. It's almost like the 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:54.760 predator is the tyrant king of the animal kingdom because 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:58.440 it preys on other animals. But really the the oppressor, 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:02.080 the tyrant ruler of the animal kingdom is the finitude 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:06.320 of energy, is the scarcity of resources, and the predator 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:09.400 is subject to that too. And you remove the predator, 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:12.720 it's not the case that all other organisms necessarily do 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:15.199 well if the predator is gone. Instead of what you 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:18.200 find is that the tyrnt of energy scarcity and food 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:22.439 resource scarcity and all of that expresses itself in new ways, 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:26.119 begins to to oppress organisms in ways that didn't happen 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:28.520 when the predator was there. Yeah. I mean, as we've 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:31.800 touched on before, it's not like if you're they've ex predator, 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:35.040 it's just fat city. Um. You know, the life of 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:38.159 a predator also is filled with challenges and has a 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:40.320 fragility to it. Yeah. I mean when you when you 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:43.200 see an image of a predator chasing prey, you should 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:45.600 think the praise life is on the line, but the 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:48.240 predator's life is also very likely on the line. The 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:51.840 predator needs that energy to to survive, and if they 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:53.919 don't make a catch soon, they might not survive the 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:57.360 next winter exactly. And that's not even taking into account 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:01.680 humans hunting you towards extinction or making you know, exploited 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:05.280 movies about you attacking you know, um um nude bathers 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:08.920 or something. Yeah, I mean, I think about the vilification 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:12.600 of sharks. Uh. I often think of the vilification of 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:16.800 sharks as a thing in the past, you know. I think, like, okay, 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:19.040 jaws came out, and then there was a brief period 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:21.919 in which people saw sharks as these horrible human eaters 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:24.560 that had to be destroyed. But I guess my general 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:27.480 impression is things have gotten better in more recent years. 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:31.000 A conservation mindset is caught on. People know better than 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:33.480 to suggest we should just run around killing sharks and 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:38.720 other marine predators. But that's not always the case, even recently, 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:42.480 even beyond just pure poaching there have been public campaigns 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:46.959 against shark populations and intentional efforts to kill sharks in 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:50.359 certain areas. Robert, have you ever read about shark drum 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:54.160 lines before this? No, but they sound pretty groovy. Yeah, 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:56.800 they're not so groovy. This is the thing I didn't 0:20:56.840 --> 0:20:59.040 know about before I was reading about this. But it's 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:01.960 uh so it's a lead ethal trap to capture and 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:05.159 kill sharks. Just one example is I was looking at 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:11.280 a paper from about how in the government of Western 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:15.480 Australia decided that sharks represented a threat to human safety 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:18.320 to swimming around beaches, so they elected to put out 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:21.360 these drum lines to kill the sharks in those areas 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:24.639 and protect human bathers. And basically the way it works 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:28.159 is that you have an anchored buoy, and then the 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:31.280 anchored buoy is connected to what's known as a drum 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:35.080 line buoy, a floating buoy that itself has a a 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:39.080 triggering magnet um and then it's got a hook that's 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:41.639 baited and so the sharks go and bite the hook 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:44.080 and then they get stuck, and then it sends off 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:46.800 a signal to let people know, Okay, we've caught one. 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:50.119 Uh And so yeah, there were just these traps set up, 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:52.520 and there was a great controversy about it in Australia 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:55.119 because there was obviously, you know, people were saying, like 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:57.240