Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show, we're gonna talk about Jane
Speaker 1: good Old Jane Goodall. As you've probably heard, she did
Speaker 1: pass away recently.
Speaker 2: While she was on a speaking tour. She's ninety one,
Speaker 2: still at it, still going.
Speaker 1: On speaking tours, which I mean, she really loved being
Speaker 1: with the Champanzees, so the like, it was kind of
Speaker 1: a sacrifice for her to go on these speaking tours
Speaker 1: because she would much prefer to be, you know, out
Speaker 1: there with the Champanzees, but she really wanted to educate
Speaker 1: the public. Wonderful, wonderful woman, one of the most influential primatologists, So.
Speaker 2: We're gonna talk about her.
Speaker 1: She obviously did a lot of amazing research, and she
Speaker 1: was just also really fun.
Speaker 2: And cool lady.
Speaker 1: Joining me today is comedian and musician host of the
Speaker 1: podcast Coldbrew Got Me Like and whose new record just
Speaker 1: came out.
Speaker 2: I'm your Man, Chris crafton.
Speaker 3: Welcome Chris, Hi, How are you nice to be here? Katie.
Speaker 3: It's been a little while.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's good to have you back.
Speaker 3: It's always fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I'm I'm excited to talk about this. Of course,
Speaker 1: the news is sad, of course, like we we've lost
Speaker 1: We've lost Jane. But I I just she's so she's
Speaker 1: such a cool, positive person. And I mean, obviously her
Speaker 1: contributions to primatology were immense and amazing, So I really
Speaker 1: I just want to kind of celebrate like how fun
Speaker 1: she was. She had an actually really good sense of humor.
Speaker 1: She made some really incredible observations, and I'll give a
Speaker 1: little bit of back ground about her, but yeah, I mean, like,
Speaker 1: what what is your perception of Jane Goodall, Chris, Like,
Speaker 1: how have you? Because she's in I mean, she's so famous,
Speaker 1: she's in all sorts of bits of populace.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I would describe her as like the led Zeppelin
Speaker 3: of primatologists.
Speaker 1: That's like like sort of like you know, like you
Speaker 1: might not know anything about primatologists.
Speaker 3: But you know who Jane Goodall is. That's how much
Speaker 3: she how much she transcended science. And and I think
Speaker 3: a lot of times for people, science is like you know,
Speaker 3: scary or or you know, and so people who cut through,
Speaker 3: like Carl Sagan or these types of people who human,
Speaker 3: like put a human face on science. You know, it's
Speaker 3: such a it makes huge steps forward possible. And so
Speaker 3: I think of her as that like the sort of yeah,
Speaker 3: just like the the rock star of of of one
Speaker 3: of those rock stars.
Speaker 1: Of science kind of absolutely, And you know, I think
Speaker 1: that's a really good observation about how she made science
Speaker 1: very accessible to people, right, she put a human face
Speaker 1: to it. And her story is actually really interesting because
Speaker 1: she didn't. She had a very unusual career path. She
Speaker 1: did not start out as a scientist, like I mean,
Speaker 1: she was doing science at the beginning, but she actually
Speaker 1: had no formal scientific education. She had no bachelor's degree.
Speaker 1: She just loved animals so much that she kept putting
Speaker 1: her foot in the door where she since there was
Speaker 1: an opportunity to be around animals. So like, she had
Speaker 1: no no bachelor's degree, no formal education in primatology, evolutionary biology, nothing,
Speaker 1: but she managed to get herself to Kenya for a
Speaker 1: job as a secretary and she was on this farm
Speaker 1: where she got to be, you know, at least closer
Speaker 1: to these animals that she had grown up really really loving.
Speaker 1: And then she reached out to the Kenyan paleontologist uh
Speaker 1: Louis Leakly uh, and she wanted she was interested in
Speaker 1: working with animals. Leakally at the time was actually really
Speaker 1: interested in getting someone on board to study chimpanzees.
Speaker 2: But he didn't tell her this.
Speaker 1: Uh. He was kind of keeping it. He wasn't sure
Speaker 1: of the plan yet, so he hired her on as
Speaker 1: a secretary. And she just I think that she just
Speaker 1: kind of like, uh, inspired him about her personality about her.
Speaker 1: She had such the this U such an intense love
Speaker 1: for animals and such a great spirit about it. He's like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I actually think you could. You could
Speaker 1: do this despite her not having the the credentials right
Speaker 1: and also being a woman, which at the time was
Speaker 1: a barrier.
Speaker 2: Uh. He said, you know what, I would like you to.
Speaker 1: Make these observational studies champanzees. And she was absolutely, like
Speaker 1: one hundred percent on board.
Speaker 2: This was her dream.
Speaker 3: So she do you know how she got interested in
Speaker 3: in chimps or monkeys in general?
Speaker 2: Was this something she actually so like?
Speaker 1: She said that when she was a kid, she had
Speaker 1: a stuffed animal that her parents got. Instead of a
Speaker 1: teddy bear, they got her chimpanzee, and she just loved
Speaker 1: it and then started loving chimpanzees and animals. And I
Speaker 1: think it's it's I really relate to this, right because
Speaker 1: like when I was a kid, I was very much
Speaker 1: a stuffed animal girl. Like I didn't have a lot
Speaker 1: of dolls, didn't have a lot of barbies.
Speaker 2: I loved stuffed animals though.
Speaker 1: I was fascinated with them, and I would get a
Speaker 1: stuffed animal and I would want to learn more about it, right,
Speaker 1: Like of course, like when I was a kid, that
Speaker 1: we didn't quite have the Internet yet. It was starting,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't like easy to look up stuff online.
Speaker 1: But I would always like watch Animal Planets, so to
Speaker 1: have like my stuffed animals with me watching Animal Planet, and.
Speaker 2: So I really relate to that.
Speaker 1: I think I think she she had this since childhood,
Speaker 1: just a fascination with animals. Uh, you know, she may
Speaker 1: have become interested in chimpanzees regardless, but she didn get
Speaker 1: like a little stuffed chimpanzee that seemed to really capture
Speaker 1: her heart.
Speaker 3: So I wonder if it was curious George, I mean
Speaker 3: curious George probably did a lot, probably activated a lot
Speaker 3: of rhymatologists or something. Yeah, because I had stuffed animals too,
Speaker 3: and I was pretty like attached to them. But I
Speaker 3: never like, I just you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 3: I never well, I never went further with the biological
Speaker 3: Like I was just like, oh, I love my rabbit
Speaker 3: and I love my my bear. But I never like
Speaker 3: got interested in bears. Yeah, I just clung to them. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, because I was frightened.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, I I think I got into it actually because
Speaker 1: of Beatrix Potter, because uh, I had I had all
Speaker 1: those books. Uh And actually my my nursery was apparently
Speaker 1: decorated with a bunch of Beatrix Potter animals. And Beatrix
Speaker 1: Potter is interesting because she makes these very anthropomorphic animals
Speaker 1: right there wearing clothes. I know that was I would say,
Speaker 1: Eel White. Maybe, I'm not sure she did yet. No,
Speaker 1: she did Peter Rabbit and all those other stories. But
Speaker 1: she was actually a really good naturalist illustrator, and so
Speaker 1: she even though the animals would be wearing little like
Speaker 1: waistcoats and dresses and stuff, they were very realistic looking,
Speaker 1: like she didn't make them cartoony, which was I think
Speaker 1: really interesting because for me, that was that made really
Speaker 1: fascinated in them, because like they were these little animals
Speaker 1: wearing clothes, but they were also very realistically portrayed.
Speaker 3: Sure, So.
Speaker 1: For Jane, I think it was just something that she
Speaker 1: had grown up love absolutely loving animals, uh, and it
Speaker 1: just felt, you know, feels like they're some people who
Speaker 1: just kind of like for her, it was like she
Speaker 1: kept putting herself in the position to get closer and
Speaker 1: closer and closer to the animals that she loved, and
Speaker 1: she got there, and she that kind of like patience
Speaker 1: right where like I have this goal and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: like get there. She was really really patient when she
Speaker 1: started to study chimpanzees. So in nineteen sixty she went
Speaker 1: to the old Duvai Gorge in what is now Tanzania
Speaker 1: and started to observe champanzees, which was not easy because
Speaker 1: at first the champanzees are like, who is this lady
Speaker 1: and they would be either really avoidant of her or
Speaker 1: even aggressive, and she had to spend a bunch of
Speaker 1: time just acclimating them to her presence by just sitting
Speaker 1: there and being quiet, which you know, is like that
Speaker 1: is one of the most like she was obviously really
Speaker 1: really smart, but one of the most impressive things about
Speaker 1: her is her monk like patience where she could just
Speaker 1: do that and also endure the threat of these chimpanzees.
Speaker 1: Who a chimpanzee can mess you up, like it's not
Speaker 1: it's not a shy woodland creature like it can.
Speaker 3: No I know about Yeah, we all know about chimpanzees
Speaker 3: from various documentaries that have come out. But I, uh,
Speaker 3: it's funny because I was just overfeeding my sister's cats
Speaker 3: and I have to do a sort of similar thing.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Like cats are very mad at me for
Speaker 4: no reason, and and I have to sit there quietly
Speaker 4: and let them hiss at me and stuff until they
Speaker 4: finally get it out of their system and then they
Speaker 4: let me give them food.
Speaker 2: That's kind of exactly what she had to.
Speaker 3: Do, and that irritates me. And it takes like eight minutes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this took a lot longer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can imagine. No, I would I get it though.
Speaker 1: I would not have the patience. Honestly, I would also
Speaker 1: not have the nerve the first time I trimpancy would
Speaker 1: like run at me, I'd be like, you know what,
Speaker 1: you're right, this is your area. I'll leave goodbye. But no,
Speaker 1: she was she was with She was like patient, She
Speaker 1: had nerves of steel, and she was highly.
Speaker 2: Observant, so she no internet either, no internet, just writing.
Speaker 1: Seeing there, writing down a huge amount of observations.
Speaker 3: So she she.
Speaker 1: Was impressive enough that she was actually able to uh
Speaker 1: uh get her pH d in ethology without having obtained
Speaker 1: her bachelor's degree first. She later got an honorary bachelor's degree,
Speaker 1: but she kind of like just she started out being like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just make these observations, and she was so
Speaker 1: good at it.
Speaker 2: Uh, it was like, actually, yeah.
Speaker 1: You you should get a PhD like the your you're
Speaker 1: you know, even though she received no, no, no, she
Speaker 1: worked for the the for the peace, she had to
Speaker 1: work for it. So she did a lot of work
Speaker 1: for the PhD. The bachelor's degree she got as like
Speaker 1: an honorary degree, but honestly, at that point she had
Speaker 1: already done enough work to have gotten several bachelor's degrees,
Speaker 1: so like, you know.
Speaker 2: She was not she did it was not like the easy,
Speaker 2: the easy way.
Speaker 3: But I'm gonna I'm going for my honorary doctorate in
Speaker 3: most broke musician.
Speaker 1: I think that's you know, I I I think that's
Speaker 1: a very competitive feel, Chris, I think, but yeah, so
Speaker 1: she but she did receive a lot of pushback. I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of it was sexism, but also a
Speaker 1: lot of it was from her perspective, based on her perspective,
Speaker 1: where she sort of she humanized the chimpanzees while also
Speaker 1: making very accurate observations. So what I mean by that
Speaker 1: is that she'd give them all names. She would kind
Speaker 1: of talk about their individual personalities, which the idea that
Speaker 1: animals would have individual personalities was not like a super
Speaker 1: commonly accepted idea in evolutionary biology or primatology, right.
Speaker 3: That, I sure, like I read about that. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: I read that she gave them.
Speaker 1: Names based on their personalities or or like, and she
Speaker 1: would describe them as being different individuals, right, Like some
Speaker 1: of them are really sweet and good natured, some of
Speaker 1: them were bullies.
Speaker 2: And so she was.
Speaker 1: Kind of conducting herself a little bit like an anthropologist.
Speaker 1: And so there was a lot of pushback at the
Speaker 1: time saying, well, this isn't scientific, this is an objective
Speaker 1: But honestly, I think that what was interesting was that
Speaker 1: she wasn't really pretending to be completely impartial and objective, right,
Speaker 1: she was noting her opinions and writing stuff like writing
Speaker 1: down all these observations, which I think, like, there it
Speaker 1: is a bit of a myth that any kind of
Speaker 1: observational science is going to be completely without bias. So
Speaker 1: she kind of like leaned into that, where it's like, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm going to I'm going to make sure that I
Speaker 1: am recording reality, but it's obviously through my own eyes
Speaker 1: and through my own understanding of what's going on. So
Speaker 1: I think that it was a really interesting kind of
Speaker 1: like in a way more honest approach to observational studies,
Speaker 1: where it's like, yeah, like these are I'm certainly like I'm.
Speaker 2: Part of the equation, right, which is a difficult.
Speaker 1: Thing to admit when you're like doing doing science right,
Speaker 1: because it's like, well, we need objectivity. We can't be
Speaker 1: coloring the results, which is a valuable is definitely a
Speaker 1: valuable principle, especially if you're doing like laboratory studies, right,
Speaker 1: But for observational studies, I mean, it's kind of hard
Speaker 1: to avoid. We're human beings, we have our own perspectives,
Speaker 1: and so she kind of, you know, she she leaned
Speaker 1: into it, like, yeah, I named these chimpanzees. I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm friends with them, right, Like she she didn't
Speaker 1: pretend that she wasn't involved, which I think kind of
Speaker 1: helped change people's perception of what, uh what primatology could be,
Speaker 1: what like and in general, what science could be that
Speaker 1: you didn't You couldn't always be like just have you know,
Speaker 1: being a white lab coat have a thing and be
Speaker 1: completely impersonal about it.
Speaker 3: Well, especially with chimpanzees like or primates, because primates are
Speaker 3: it's not like a fish. Like. You know, you could
Speaker 3: sit around in a lab coat around some fish all
Speaker 3: day long and uh, it wouldn't make one. You could
Speaker 3: wear a tuxedo or a lab coat and the fish
Speaker 3: wouldn't mind. Right, But if you wear a tuxedo around
Speaker 3: a chimp, next thing, you know, you're at a dinner park,
Speaker 3: right So you yeah, yeah, you're damn right. I guess
Speaker 3: you know that better than me. But I'm sure, yeah
Speaker 3: it's no good. But uh, I don't know what they eat?
Speaker 3: What do they bark?
Speaker 2: They eat their omnivores. This is great because actually this.
Speaker 1: Was one of Jane's one of her discoveries, which was
Speaker 1: that they're not vegetarians.
Speaker 2: They're omnivores like we are.
Speaker 1: So they do eat vegetation, but they also eat meat
Speaker 1: and insects and basically anything they can find, nuts, fruits.
Speaker 2: Uh So they like us.
Speaker 1: Are omnivores, will actively hunt for meat, and we'll also
Speaker 1: eat insects like termites.
Speaker 2: So yeah, they're they they.
Speaker 1: Have similar palettes to us, except that maybe the specific
Speaker 1: menu is a bit different.
Speaker 3: Right, kind of like macabre trail mix.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, the trail mix would be it would
Speaker 1: be uh yeah, termites, little bits of yeah, a little
Speaker 1: bits of veget Yeah. Yeah, if they can get their
Speaker 1: hands on absolutely, they would show down on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So yeah, I would think there's a social component
Speaker 3: to automatically with dealing with primates that if you tried
Speaker 3: to well, who knows, I don't really, but anyway, there's
Speaker 3: I would imagine it's sort of unique that that you
Speaker 3: know that they're so smart and and that you would
Speaker 3: have to be hard to hide your presence. Yeah, completely, Yeah,
Speaker 3: for sure.
Speaker 1: And I mean it's like, yes, you do become part
Speaker 1: of the equation, but that does allow you to see
Speaker 1: their behaviors with some with someone present, right, So as
Speaker 1: long as you're, in my opinion, as long as you're
Speaker 1: kind of showing your hand in terms of like yes,
Speaker 1: I am here, and yes, my presence influences their behavior.
Speaker 1: You're still learning things about them, right, because you're still
Speaker 1: learning about like how they act, how they act around
Speaker 1: an observer. But because she became so such a common
Speaker 1: sight for them, they did begin to exhibit behaviors where
Speaker 1: they are just like interacting with each other and kind
Speaker 1: of ignoring her. Where she could see their their interactions
Speaker 1: among themselves. And she even though she loved them, uh
Speaker 1: and she empathized with them, she had a pretty unflinching
Speaker 1: look at them, like she didn't shy away from the
Speaker 1: fact that they can be real jerks, like chimpanzees can
Speaker 1: be terribly unpleasant. They can be they can fight each
Speaker 1: other and kill each other. And she would she would
Speaker 1: make these observations, and she wouldn't try to, like, you know,
Speaker 1: make it seem all sunshine and rainbows, right Like it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of a lot of grim reality to
Speaker 1: the chimpanzee life, but she she documented it all. She
Speaker 1: also had, like I said earlier, she had a great
Speaker 1: sense of humor. There's this story that I love because
Speaker 1: I I love Have you do you read, uh, have
Speaker 1: you read a Gary Larson's cartoons?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Far Side exactly.
Speaker 3: Of course. Yeah, I'm like I'm fifty six, so like yeah,
Speaker 3: like like in college and stuff that was like a
Speaker 3: big deal also pre internet, so like yeah, like those
Speaker 3: everybody loved Farside. Farside's so funny.
Speaker 1: I love Farside when I was a kid. I like
Speaker 1: also because he had so many cartoons about animals, right,
Speaker 1: like a lot.
Speaker 2: Of the humans.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, genius, Yes for me as a kid, I
Speaker 1: loved it. I bought a bunch of his, like galleries, right,
Speaker 1: his collections.
Speaker 3: It holds up its insants, it's so good.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so there's this really funny story of between Jane
Speaker 1: Goodall and Gary Larson, so like oh wow, yeah, so
Speaker 1: he uh did a did a comic strip where it's
Speaker 1: like it was one of his one panels, right, he
Speaker 1: loved doing those, just like one panel, the art and
Speaker 1: the text under it, and it's these two chimpanzees female
Speaker 1: grooming a male, and she's got the like she's got
Speaker 1: like the horn rim glasses, you know, like he he
Speaker 1: liked most of the female characters, I know exactly. The
Speaker 1: yeah those granny cat eye glasses. That's the only clothes she's.
Speaker 2: Wearing, right, But she's got those, so you know that.
Speaker 1: Uh and she uh she The caption of the comic
Speaker 1: was the female chimp saying to the male chimp, as
Speaker 1: she's grooming him. Well, well, another blonde hair conducting a
Speaker 1: little more quote research with that. Jane Goodall tramp.
Speaker 2: Uh. Yeah, fantastic funny.
Speaker 1: And then what happened is the Jane Goodall Institute wrote
Speaker 1: into the newspaper and the Jane Goodall Institute called the
Speaker 1: cartoon an atrocity. There was this fear that they were
Speaker 1: gonna sue Gary Larson. Jane Goodall had no idea this
Speaker 1: was happening. When she found out, like someone finally like
Speaker 1: she's got sent this, uh the cartoon, she said, wow, fantastic,
Speaker 1: real famoute last fancy being in a Gary Larson cartoon.
Speaker 1: And it was her favorite thing.
Speaker 2: Like she loved it.
Speaker 1: She was like, oh, maybe I should write to Gary
Speaker 1: Larson and let him know I loved it. But she
Speaker 1: got distracted because chimpanzees and so like. She had no
Speaker 1: idea that this like beef was going on where people
Speaker 1: were like, oh, Jane Goodall hated this cartoon, and when
Speaker 1: she found out, she's like, no, I loved it. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: Of course I don't want to see Gary Larson. And
Speaker 1: so she invited him to her research institute at the
Speaker 1: Gombe National Park, and so he came as a guest,
Speaker 1: and he was really apparently really nervous because he's like, like,
Speaker 1: I was worried that I had maybe offended her, and
Speaker 1: she's like, no, no, of course not. She she loved
Speaker 1: the cartoon. She actually received a bunch of copies of
Speaker 1: it and she couldn't throw any of them out, so,
Speaker 1: like she just had a massive collection of the same
Speaker 1: Gary Larson cartoon and so yeah, she ended up writing
Speaker 1: the forward to one of his collections of cartoons, the
Speaker 1: I think the Far Side Gallery five. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: she like told she like told these stories about Gary
Speaker 1: Larson coming to visit her at the Gombe National Park
Speaker 1: and she introduced him to like she brought him with
Speaker 1: her to go see the chimpanzees. But like it went
Speaker 1: a little awry because there was a this mail chimp
Speaker 1: that she called Frodo, who was actually kind of an asshole,
Speaker 1: a real jerk and a bully, and Frodo saw Gary
Speaker 1: Larson and it was like nerd alert and went over
Speaker 1: and started bullying Gary Larson like pushing him around, kind
Speaker 1: of hitting him. And Jane was really like she was
Speaker 1: projecting calm, right, like trying to remain very calm, trying
Speaker 1: to redirect Frodo's attention from Gary Larson to herself. But
Speaker 1: she was like, I was panicking internally because like what if,
Speaker 1: like I get the world's best cartoonist killed by this chimpanze. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the chimpane Frodo gave up after a while. He
Speaker 1: was just like just like kind of like all right,
Speaker 1: gave you a wedge, he slapped around a little bit.
Speaker 2: All Right, I'm fine, I'm done. Uh so Gary Larson survived.
Speaker 1: And uh yeah, so it's I think it's just one
Speaker 1: of these humanizing moments, right. She's like she's a she
Speaker 1: was a person who had a great sense of humor
Speaker 1: about herself and about her work, and uh yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean like it's the it's very it's also like, uh
Speaker 1: you know, it's a it's so funny to me that
Speaker 1: she's like because she just seems so serene right, like
Speaker 1: like almost like just like like monk like right, but
Speaker 1: then she's like apparently like uh you know, internally panicking
Speaker 1: because she thinks she's gonna get Gary Larson killed by this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think people, I mean, yeah, they people like
Speaker 3: to look at her like as a monk. I think,
Speaker 3: because I don't know why, that's just maybe.
Speaker 2: Because she has calm presence, she.
Speaker 3: Doesn't show off like that doesn't But that doesn't mean
Speaker 3: you're a monk. I mean, I think the comparison now
Speaker 3: is just like you're either a monk or or you're
Speaker 3: Taylor Swift or whatever. Yeah, I mean I think there's
Speaker 3: something in between. But I think people take serious people
Speaker 3: as you know. I just think like you can be
Speaker 3: a serious person but also be fun. I mean, just
Speaker 3: because you have an attention span doesn't mean you're some
Speaker 3: kind of a monk. Yeah, so I think I also
Speaker 3: think that is a I think of everything through the
Speaker 3: lens of like modern attention span versus old time attention span,
Speaker 3: and like it just makes me, I like the idea
Speaker 3: of somebody who has the has the sort of attention
Speaker 3: span where they can be fun and serious at the
Speaker 3: same time, which is just very It's not an either
Speaker 3: or situation, you know, but I do she gets portrayed
Speaker 3: as I don't know. Also, she had like long straight hair.
Speaker 3: They always like to just make her look like, I
Speaker 3: don't know, they make her look serious.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: She actually had a very very good sense of humor.
Speaker 1: I mean you can you can definitely see it when
Speaker 1: you watch interviews with her where she.
Speaker 3: Y she gave a backstage past the chimps, Yeah to
Speaker 3: Gary Larson.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she she she like she in some of
Speaker 1: her interviews. She I mean she finds things very funny,
Speaker 1: because how can you not when you're surrounded by chimps,
Speaker 1: She said.
Speaker 2: She like, well it's fun yeah, Like.
Speaker 1: And she she like talks about chimps laughing at things right,
Speaker 1: like they they have a specific way that they they laugh.
Speaker 1: There was a case where she saw like a mother
Speaker 1: saw like her. This is really funny because like chimp
Speaker 1: humor can be pretty like mean, but like a mother
Speaker 1: like her offspring, her baby was like, uh, you know
Speaker 1: in the like in the young phase where he's like
Speaker 1: able to walk around on his own, but he got
Speaker 1: a little bit lost and he's like sending out this
Speaker 1: kind of like he's like kind of crying because he
Speaker 1: doesn't know where he is. But the mother's like right there,
Speaker 1: but he's not seeing her, and she's laughing at because
Speaker 1: it's so the like because like she finds it funny
Speaker 1: that her her kid is so dumb that he doesn't
Speaker 1: see her like sitting right there in the nearby tree.
Speaker 1: And so Jane's like recounting this, and it's you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's uh, yeah, it's just like she had
Speaker 1: a she had a great way of humanizing the chimps,
Speaker 1: but also making these observations that genuinely changed like our
Speaker 1: understanding of chimpanzees and their behavior.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, the idea of laughing. Yeah, like, you know,
Speaker 3: that's just that's just like something that that I would
Speaker 3: always think is you know, without if I didn't think
Speaker 3: about it too much, I would assume only humans last. Right.
Speaker 3: You know, I saw a video. I don't know if
Speaker 3: it's true or not because it's on the stupid internet,
Speaker 3: But have you seen that. I'm sure you have that
Speaker 3: ant eater that plays around with their trainer. Is that
Speaker 3: a real video?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think that it's I'm not I haven't done a
Speaker 1: lot of investigation into that specifically, but I would believe
Speaker 1: that an ant eater could play around, for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's an ant eater playing around. Yeah, And
Speaker 3: so it just changes. I mean I think we have
Speaker 3: you know, we have all these things we can learn
Speaker 3: and and they do require an open mind and patience,
Speaker 3: which we are not you know, we are not excelling
Speaker 3: in at the moment. So I think it's also nice
Speaker 3: to have a hero like to be reminded of people
Speaker 3: who you know, had patients and and and taught us. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because animals are, like, I mean, really overlooked in this
Speaker 3: really funny way, like I mean, or people. Certainly people
Speaker 3: value certain animals like cats and things, but people don't
Speaker 3: necessarily ever think that an ant eater has any fun.
Speaker 3: And so I was amazed by that, and so like
Speaker 3: and then you see like those videos of chimps like
Speaker 3: getting tricks played on them at the zoo, you know
Speaker 3: those people who do those magic tricks and then they
Speaker 3: fall on the ground and like laugh their heads off,
Speaker 3: Like I mean that's insane.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then yeah, then you might be a little less
Speaker 3: cavalier about cutting down their habitat if you know they're
Speaker 3: in there like crying.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, yeah, I mean like everything from them being
Speaker 1: amused by things to demonstrating grief has all been documented.
Speaker 1: I mean I think that yeah, and this is it's
Speaker 1: definitely part of Jane Goodall's legacy. I think like she's
Speaker 1: certainly not the only one to point out that animals
Speaker 1: feel things in the same way that humans do, but
Speaker 1: she was one of the one of the people that
Speaker 1: really brought it to both the public's attention but also
Speaker 1: introduce these ideas into you know, the scientific literature.
Speaker 3: That makes me think of, you know, like the opposite
Speaker 3: of that, like the opposite of that the part of
Speaker 3: humanity that brings in a chimp to their house and
Speaker 3: feeds them, makes them drink wine and smokes cigars, so
Speaker 3: that it can go too far.
Speaker 1: Humanizing chimps can go too far. Obviously, they're not pets,
Speaker 1: and like Jane Goodle was also very clear about that
Speaker 1: these are not These are not good pets. They're not
Speaker 1: they Yeah, I mean, I think I think it's like this.
Speaker 1: I talk about this a lot on the show, Like
Speaker 1: sometimes we over anthropomorphize animals, like we assume they're just
Speaker 1: like us, that their communication styles, their needs and their
Speaker 1: wants and their emotional landscape is the same as ours,
Speaker 1: or we just think they don't feel stuff at all
Speaker 1: and that they're not at all like us, and it's like, obviously,
Speaker 1: the truth is that, yes, they do feel things, they
Speaker 1: do feel emotions, but they're they're not they're not humans.
Speaker 1: They're not fluffy humans, right, they are chimpanzees or ant
Speaker 1: eaters or you know, all these different animals have their
Speaker 1: own their own needs, their own emotional landscapes, and you know,
Speaker 1: we have to kind of like humble ourselves to understand them,
Speaker 1: meet them where they're at. Not assume that we put
Speaker 1: them in a little three piece suit and give them
Speaker 1: a cigar that they're gonna be happy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, don't make them capitalists.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, oh man, remember the remember the the uh
Speaker 1: what was it the chimpin fts?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, for a minute.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was absurd, God, the worst artwork you've ever
Speaker 1: seen in your life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looked, it.
Speaker 1: Looked worse than something that would have actually been drawn
Speaker 1: by a chimpanzee. And that would actually be cool if
Speaker 1: we could get some.
Speaker 3: Yeah, imagine being one of the hapless owners of one
Speaker 3: of those things because you fell for the marketing that
Speaker 3: happened for ten minutes in twenty nineteen or whatever.
Speaker 2: I weep many tears for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's some people somewhere that paid a million dollars
Speaker 3: or some digital picture.
Speaker 1: I'm very sad for whoever paid a million dollars for
Speaker 1: a digital picture of a chimpanzee And it's.
Speaker 3: All Jimmy Fallons for Yeah, like most.
Speaker 2: Things, everything is mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to take a quick break and when
Speaker 1: we get back, we're going to talk about some of
Speaker 1: the cool discoveries that Jane Goodall made and then also
Speaker 1: how that research led us to more recent observations and
Speaker 1: findings about chimpanzees.
Speaker 2: That are also really really cool cool.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Jane Goodall really forced the field of primatology
Speaker 1: to accept that chimpanzees fashion.
Speaker 2: And use tools.
Speaker 1: This is one of her huge contributions based on her
Speaker 1: observations of them fishing for termites. So I'm sure people
Speaker 1: who lived in the area had been making these observations
Speaker 1: for a long time, but the field of primatology and
Speaker 1: evolutionary biology did not necessarily widely accept this idea that
Speaker 1: chimpanzees would make tools, and Jane Goodall kind of made
Speaker 1: force them to with her observations. So she would see
Speaker 1: them take like a twig, maybe a sturdy blade of
Speaker 1: grass and stick it into termite mounds or rotting logs
Speaker 1: and get at like fish out the termites pull it
Speaker 1: out and like, you know, lick them off like it's
Speaker 1: a little I don't know.
Speaker 2: Little dipsticks or whatever, like fun dip.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly, the stuff you stick the paddle in when.
Speaker 1: You're Yeah, they don't make that anymore like kid sugar, Kids,
Speaker 1: you're missing out. It was a somewhat flavorless white stick
Speaker 1: and you'd lick it and stick it into a bag
Speaker 1: of sugar and then lick it and it was good.
Speaker 2: Fun just didn't make any sense. But they basically that.
Speaker 3: I think it was called fun wasn't right. It was yeah,
Speaker 3: like what a what a? What a like a very
Speaker 3: unambitious candy went through.
Speaker 2: Concept candy went through a weird phase.
Speaker 3: And I don't understand why the paddle tasted like such ship.
Speaker 3: Really the paddle was unnecessarily bland.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was bad. It was supposed to have a flavor,
Speaker 2: but I never tasted it.
Speaker 3: So those chips were using fun dip paddles to the.
Speaker 1: Probably the twigs tasted better, but yeah, they were using
Speaker 1: that to get at uh termite. So she published an
Speaker 1: article called tool using and aimed throwing in a community
Speaker 1: of free living chimpanzees in nineteen sixty four. So at
Speaker 1: the time, it was difficult to get the larger scientific
Speaker 1: community in the public to except that animals could use tools,
Speaker 1: because for the longest time, there.
Speaker 2: Was this idea that.
Speaker 1: Human beings are different from animals, were unique because we
Speaker 1: use tools. And this kind of you know, shattered this
Speaker 1: idea that we were uniquely I mean, we are uniquely intelligent,
Speaker 1: I would say, like we we obviously have a.
Speaker 2: Lot of evidence of that.
Speaker 1: Maybe not always, but like, but tool use is certainly
Speaker 1: not the thing that makes us human, right, And that
Speaker 1: was like an idea before dispelled that idea, And so,
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, she also dispelled the notion that
Speaker 1: chimpanzees were vegetarians.
Speaker 2: They're actually omnivores.
Speaker 1: They eat meat when they can get at it, and
Speaker 1: they actively hunt for it. So so now, like with
Speaker 1: both of these these paradigm shifts that Jane Goodall was
Speaker 1: more or less responsible for, we have a lot of
Speaker 1: really cool observations. So one is that chimpanzees use tools
Speaker 1: in their hunting. So this was an observation of the
Speaker 1: Fongoli site in Senegal, So this is a different site
Speaker 1: from Jane Goodall's research. But again, like she was so
Speaker 1: influential that you know that there are now you know,
Speaker 1: all these other different observations at all these other different sites,
Speaker 1: which is really also interesting because different sites, different groups
Speaker 1: of chimpanzees in different countries, different national parks, have different
Speaker 1: tool use behaviors.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they wear different and they wore different cuts of
Speaker 3: their pants and stuff.
Speaker 1: Essentially essentially it's like that, It is like that if
Speaker 1: they if they could wear pants, it would be like that,
Speaker 1: Like they have different styles of doing things different.
Speaker 3: Whereas bell bottoms, the other ones were Bible wols exactly.
Speaker 1: They're all they're all antless, they're all they all are
Speaker 1: missing the butt so that they can do chimp stuff.
Speaker 2: But like the so they were.
Speaker 1: These these chimpanzees in Senegal were observed to fashion tools
Speaker 1: made out of branches, but not to hunt for termites,
Speaker 1: not to fish for termites, but actually to hunt for meat.
Speaker 1: So what they would do is they would take these branches,
Speaker 1: they would strip them of their leaves, trim the ends,
Speaker 1: and then go to like a tree where they would
Speaker 1: know that a tasty tree is hiding inside. And this
Speaker 1: tasty tree is very very cute. One of my favorite
Speaker 1: animals growing up actually called.
Speaker 2: A bush base be uh.
Speaker 1: I actually I actually received a stuffed bush baby for
Speaker 1: Christmas once, and I fell in love with them. They're
Speaker 1: very very cute.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: They're also apparently delicious for chimpanzees. They're they're they themselves
Speaker 1: are very small primate, but this does not matter. The
Speaker 1: relatedness earns them no favors from the chimpanzees. So they
Speaker 1: use the sticks to like flush like kind of flush
Speaker 1: them out of these these crevices in these trees, and
Speaker 1: then they hunt them and they eat them. So they're
Speaker 1: using tools to hunt for meat, which is both really
Speaker 1: cool and also a little sad when you see a
Speaker 1: picture of a bush baby, because.
Speaker 3: I'm looking up a bush baby right now. Yeah, they're
Speaker 3: they're very cute, baby.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, but oh oh yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, they're very cute. They look like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean the lemurs are also primates, you know,
Speaker 1: it's they're similar.
Speaker 3: Oh, they're so cute. They've got eyes like those those
Speaker 3: little kids and those paintings by.
Speaker 1: That Yeah, the big eyed kids. Yeah yeah, yeah, they
Speaker 1: have giant eyes.
Speaker 3: That's terrible.
Speaker 2: Those chimps should quit quit well, you know, I mean.
Speaker 3: Jane Goodall should have stepped in and been like that's enough.
Speaker 1: We're not they got they got They don't got like
Speaker 1: a McDonald's there though, so they can get bush baby burgers.
Speaker 2: So they got to do it themselves.
Speaker 3: So they like take these like they strip these these
Speaker 3: sticks and stick them down in the tree.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like because like the exactly the bush baby
Speaker 1: will be hiding in the crevice of the tree, and
Speaker 1: then the like they use them as like to root
Speaker 1: them out to get them out of there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: A less uh, a less disturbing tool use is that
Speaker 1: they like to make sponges.
Speaker 2: So they will use leaves.
Speaker 1: Sometimes moss and kind of like bundle it up so
Speaker 1: it's a sponge and they use it. They dip it
Speaker 1: into like pools of water so that they can drink it.
Speaker 1: They can drink water in other ways, but they do
Speaker 1: like to use this technique, particularly because it allows them,
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of pools water that like has
Speaker 1: minerals and stuff that might be kind of hard to
Speaker 1: slurp up when it's a really shallow pool, So they'll
Speaker 1: stick the sponge in that little pool and then like
Speaker 1: suck out the juices. And a lot of chimpanzees use
Speaker 1: sponges and it's a behavior noticed across different chimpanzee troops,
Speaker 1: but this is an example where based on the troop,
Speaker 1: they might do it differently.
Speaker 2: So like in.
Speaker 1: Wow, researchers have actually observed them changing their type of
Speaker 1: sponge if one of them figures out a better way,
Speaker 1: like maybe uses more moss or something, and then the
Speaker 1: rest of the chimpanzees are like, oh, that looks pretty good.
Speaker 1: The sponge looks pretty great, and they'll start doing it too.
Speaker 1: And so we've actually seen in real time chimpanzees developed
Speaker 1: like a specific culture, a sponge culture. It's I mean,
Speaker 1: you know again, humans, like we go through phases where
Speaker 1: like everyone's having Stanley cups right like where we're like, oh,
Speaker 1: this vessel for drinking beverages is really.
Speaker 2: In right now. Remember when everyone Stanley mode? And then
Speaker 2: now everyone has like like what are they called? Like ooh, Wallas.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm actually not super up to date on
Speaker 1: uh water bottle culture anymore, but like we do the
Speaker 1: same thing where like there's a trendy thing to drink
Speaker 1: water in and that seems like a weird thing to
Speaker 1: be trendy, but it happens and we like it instead
Speaker 1: of chimpanzees, Like we're the same.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because if you go to a thrift store now,
Speaker 3: like the whole place is just whatever water bottle it used.
Speaker 2: To be exactly.
Speaker 3: There's a kind of ruined thrift stores because it's seriously
Speaker 3: wall to wall whatever cup went out of fashion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's the Yeah.
Speaker 3: Like hundreds of them, and no one buys them because
Speaker 3: they're all like vaguely afraid that they have germs on them.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, no, I mean it's and also like sometimes
Speaker 1: there's scares of like, oh, don't want this water bottle
Speaker 1: because it actually has lead in it, or it's got
Speaker 1: a plastic in it that's gonna sit and sit inside
Speaker 1: your testicles forever.
Speaker 3: So we I think chimps would probably be like, listen,
Speaker 3: we don't need these cup updates. Yeah, but like we
Speaker 3: need these sponge Yeah.
Speaker 1: Unless it's a new sponge, they'll be like cup updates now,
Speaker 1: like that's stupid, But a new sponge tell me.
Speaker 3: More, right, and that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the this is my favorite story of a
Speaker 1: chimpanzee tool use it's actually not a wild chimp. It's
Speaker 1: in a it's a behavior that was displayed by a
Speaker 1: captive chimp, and it actually makes a lot of sense
Speaker 1: that he would do this given that he was at
Speaker 1: a zoo. Now I'm not anti zoo. I think that
Speaker 1: there are a lot of zoos. I'm obviously anti roadside
Speaker 1: zoo or non accredited zoo where they're not treating the
Speaker 1: animals well, and they're not they don't care about conservation
Speaker 1: and it's all about just extracting entertainment from the animals.
Speaker 1: That's terrible and it does happen to chimpanzees and it's awful.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of zoos that are very much
Speaker 1: focused on rehabilitation, on conservation, and on making sure that
Speaker 1: they have sufficient resources for their animals. It's never completely
Speaker 1: ideal though, right Like animals, behavior is always going to
Speaker 1: be different in a zoo, So any observations you make
Speaker 1: of animal behaviors and a zoo is not necessarily going
Speaker 1: to tell you a lot about what they.
Speaker 2: Do in the wild, but it does tell you what
Speaker 2: they're capable of.
Speaker 1: This is what's kind of interesting to me. It tells
Speaker 1: you what their minds are capable of. Doesn't necessarily show
Speaker 1: you natural behavior, but it shows you what their range
Speaker 1: of potential behavior could be given the right circumstances. So
Speaker 1: this is the story of Santino, a chimp at the
Speaker 1: Swedish Zoo.
Speaker 2: Who decided to take.
Speaker 1: Revenge against onlookers against a zoo visitors. We don't know
Speaker 1: why he wanted vengeance. It could have just been because
Speaker 1: he thought it would be funny. We really don't know.
Speaker 1: It could be as simple as that he thought it
Speaker 1: was a fun game to do this. But what he
Speaker 1: did was premeditated assault on zoo visitors by collecting rocks
Speaker 1: of a very specific sort of like parameter of like
Speaker 1: I can throw this, it's a nice projectile. So he
Speaker 1: would carefully select AMMO and then gather it in a
Speaker 1: pile and like chill out until the zoo visitors came.
Speaker 1: And then when they would get close enough, he'd go
Speaker 1: to his pile, pick one out and run out of
Speaker 1: them and check it at them and try to hit
Speaker 1: these these zoop visitors. So zookeepers had a unfortunately, like
Speaker 1: you know, obviously you have to be careful in terms
Speaker 1: of warning the public, like okay, you could get hit
Speaker 1: with a rock, so please don't get too close. But
Speaker 1: despite the zookeeper's mourning visitors, Santino still enjoyed doing this,
Speaker 1: so he would make hundreds of these rock piles over
Speaker 1: the years, and he he would even start collecting things
Speaker 1: like chunks of concrete that he would find if it
Speaker 1: was the right size and shape, and really give it
Speaker 1: a go, like really.
Speaker 2: Try to nail these zoo visitors.
Speaker 1: And when they would observe him, what was interesting was
Speaker 1: like it was all very calm and premeditated beforehand, so
Speaker 1: like he would find the rocks, he was selective about
Speaker 1: what rocks he would use. He would like gather them
Speaker 1: in a you know, convenient pile. Then when he would
Speaker 1: throw the rocks, he would display sort of a typical
Speaker 1: chimpanzee aggression body language like I'm angry, I'm mad at you.
Speaker 2: But it's also like but he it was all.
Speaker 1: Very calmly and coolly premeditated, like he would collect the rocks, and.
Speaker 2: He was just like, oh, here's a good.
Speaker 1: One for trying to nail Nancy from accounting that I
Speaker 1: see comes to the zoo too.
Speaker 3: So did they so did they get did they Did
Speaker 3: he hurt anybody?
Speaker 2: I don't he never.
Speaker 1: I don't think he ever like actually seriously hurt anyone.
Speaker 2: But he tried. He wanted to the desire was there
Speaker 2: and so did that?
Speaker 3: Was that? Was that? Did that? Was that surprising to people?
Speaker 1: Yes, because this was a case where it's an observation of.
Speaker 2: It's not so much the tool use that it was surprising.
Speaker 1: It was that he made a plan, right, a mischief,
Speaker 1: a plan of mischief long in advance, and he did
Speaker 1: it with it this like kind of calm premeditation. That
Speaker 1: was I think it's like, you know, so like it
Speaker 1: was a premeditated crime. We've never really seen a premeditated
Speaker 1: crime so closely observed and chimpanzees, but you know, it
Speaker 1: was something where it was a pretty clear demonstration that
Speaker 1: he could make a plan, he could think through the plan, right,
Speaker 1: Like he selected rocks based on things he could reasonably throw.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like he would get something too small or
Speaker 1: too large. They're all kind of this like perfect size
Speaker 1: for throwing. Also that he was calculating the distance right like, ah,
Speaker 1: this is a rock that could actually make it far enough, right,
Speaker 1: Like if he had like a stick or a smaller rock,
Speaker 1: it's not going to make it that far. And then
Speaker 1: he also wouldn't choose things that were too big for
Speaker 1: him to throw, So he was like, these are the
Speaker 1: right sides projectiles that I'm estimating are going to reach
Speaker 1: the zoo visitors, collecting them in advance, having them in
Speaker 1: convenient caches, so when he sees someone that pisses him off,
Speaker 1: he can like.
Speaker 2: Easily access it.
Speaker 1: This is all like this, like planning and premeditation that
Speaker 1: it makes sense that chimps.
Speaker 2: Are capable of doing.
Speaker 1: But we like, this is one of the clearer examples
Speaker 1: of one of them doing it, and.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, I want to see this. I want
Speaker 3: to see this happen now. I want to go see him.
Speaker 3: I want to see who he picked and whether he
Speaker 3: picked people with like glasses, washy eyebrows, or hats or whatever.
Speaker 1: He hated the Mets, anyone that had a Mets hat
Speaker 1: right right, wonder But yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know Sweeterish sports.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he uh yeah. It was an amazing observation
Speaker 1: of a chimpanzee planning. And again we were not really
Speaker 1: sure why he did it, like it could it could
Speaker 1: be aggression or I mean, obviously it was aggressive. It
Speaker 1: could be something where he felt defensive or he didn't
Speaker 1: like people. It could also be because he thought it
Speaker 1: was funny, like honestly, I'm not even making a joke, right,
Speaker 1: Like he might have been bored and it was like,
Speaker 1: this is funny when I like throw things. I watched
Speaker 1: people like run Away. I think zoos can be quite
Speaker 1: like one of the more dangerous perils for animals in
Speaker 1: nice zoos is boredom, and so a lot of zoos
Speaker 1: try their best to offer enrichment to their animals, so
Speaker 1: like toys, games, play areas natural puzzles for them to solve,
Speaker 1: like things for them to do that kind of mimics
Speaker 1: the types of problem solving that they have to do
Speaker 1: in the wild. But obviously they can't they can't completely
Speaker 1: compensate for the fact that it's a limited area. It's
Speaker 1: a zoo, it's not actually in wild with all the
Speaker 1: different sort of variables that being out in the wild brings.
Speaker 1: So occasionally you'll get an animal who's bored. And in
Speaker 1: this case, I think Santino was like figured out how
Speaker 1: to keep himself amused, and it was by terrorizing people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's when I go to the zoo.
Speaker 3: If there's ever anything I think about, it's usually I mean,
Speaker 3: I haven't I mean the zoo. I'm thinking about the
Speaker 3: Nashville zoo or or you know zoos that are pretty
Speaker 3: pretty nice, you know, and you just worry about the
Speaker 3: animals being born. I mean, that's that's the thing I
Speaker 3: think of the most, you know, I mean, because they've
Speaker 3: just they have checked out every square inch of their
Speaker 3: you know, quote unquote habitat. Yeah, and then they're like,
Speaker 3: let's throw some rocks these people.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: It's a genuine problem and you have like the like
Speaker 1: intelligent animals in a zoo, and I think zoos do
Speaker 1: their best to address it. But yeah, I mean sometimes
Speaker 1: Champanzee is just gonna be like, all right, I'm sick
Speaker 1: of your these puzzles that you're giving me. Like, I
Speaker 1: think what would be really fun is some uh some
Speaker 1: projectile rock throwing and uh yep.
Speaker 3: I wonder if any of the zoo keepers tried to
Speaker 3: get in there and switch out the piles of rocks
Speaker 3: for like a you know, a pile of banas.
Speaker 1: Then he'd learned, he'd probably learned that's like a currency
Speaker 1: to get bananas. Uh yeah, you know, many knows then
Speaker 1: he knows he can extort them, you would think. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I wish, we I wish we couldn't. Unfortunately we often
Speaker 1: do that's they're threatened. But yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: real smart, so yeah, I mean, uh again, just uh,
Speaker 1: Jane Goodall really like was I think just I think
Speaker 1: what I love about her is she's she was just
Speaker 1: she was an animal lover, and that was like her
Speaker 1: main her main thing. Like she was obviously of unique
Speaker 1: intelligence and patience and persistence, so she was a remarkable individual.
Speaker 1: But she also she also was kind of like us, right,
Speaker 1: someone who just loves animals and and then made mineral
Speaker 1: life about that.
Speaker 3: It's not like everybody could, you know. I think people
Speaker 3: like Grizzly Man probably may have been inspired by someone
Speaker 3: like Jane Goodall, but he didn't have the the right
Speaker 3: temperament for it. He was too manic. Yeah, Like, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, I think that's I always think about that
Speaker 3: documentary when I think about people trying to live with animals,
Speaker 3: you know, and I feel bad for that guy because
Speaker 3: he just I think he was motivated by by something,
Speaker 3: probably sweet, but he was His energy was like it's
Speaker 3: like me going in to feed my sister's cats, Like
Speaker 3: I don't, I don't like now I'm kind of afraid
Speaker 3: of him, and I can't really like because one time,
Speaker 3: Polly like really went off and hissed at me like crazy,
Speaker 3: and I was like like, I just now I'm a
Speaker 3: little bit scared, and so like it makes.
Speaker 2: She and she's just like fear now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and she's just like kind of a bit of
Speaker 3: a bully. I mean she's really Also whenever I'm there,
Speaker 3: it's because the cats are already mad, because because they
Speaker 3: are pissed at my sister for going away, so they're
Speaker 3: already mad at me. Just like we know what you are.
Speaker 3: We know you're the guy who brings us some food,
Speaker 3: but so what we're still pissed and and so you know,
Speaker 3: you better be And I respond to that not in
Speaker 3: a in a you know, a levelheadedche So I would
Speaker 3: imagine that I get I get nervous, and so I
Speaker 3: think that you know, to have a temperamentally.
Speaker 1: While also being respectful of the fact that you're around
Speaker 1: a powerful animal.
Speaker 2: I think that, I mean, yeah, like the I think.
Speaker 1: She she saw the chimpanzees as individuals with feelings and personalities.
Speaker 1: She did not see them as human beings right Like
Speaker 1: she wasn't like, this is a person who is going
Speaker 1: to have the same reactions to things as a person
Speaker 1: would write like she didn't, she didn't underestimate, she didn't
Speaker 1: underestimate them, she respect acted there there being uh, wild
Speaker 1: animals always, which I think was important, right, Like if
Speaker 1: it's it's what it's what makes the difference between someone
Speaker 1: like uh, Chain goodall and then like you know, I
Speaker 1: don't even want I mean, Tiger King's kind of a
Speaker 1: different like you're you're, you're, you're a guy. The King's
Speaker 1: he just sees them as objects.
Speaker 2: He doesn't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's just he's.
Speaker 2: Just he's just a huge shirt.
Speaker 1: But but like no, like the grizzly guy like that
Speaker 1: you're talking about, he thought he could kind of live
Speaker 1: among bears, underestimated that bears are very dangerous and uh,
Speaker 1: yeah he was killed. But I think that that's I
Speaker 1: think this is it is. It is interesting because it's
Speaker 1: obviously the balance is understanding you understanding, and a wild
Speaker 1: animal is a wild animal, understanding their individual there that
Speaker 1: the fact they do have emotions. It's true, they're not
Speaker 1: just mindless monsters, but they're under there that you have
Speaker 1: to meet them where they're at, right, like, uh, and
Speaker 1: they're not going to have the same kind of like oh,
Speaker 1: this guy probably doesn't mean me any harm. I'll be
Speaker 1: chill around them, right. They have a completely different way
Speaker 1: of thinking, even though we have a lot of similarities,
Speaker 1: and so I think, yeah, I think Jingoddle was really
Speaker 1: really good at threading that needle of like, you know, look,
Speaker 1: they are like us.
Speaker 2: But they're not us. They're wild animals. They're like us.
Speaker 1: We can't impose our humanness on them, but they are
Speaker 1: sort of mirrors of our behavior.
Speaker 3: That's a very special talent, I think. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think everybody wishes animals were comfortable around them, at least
Speaker 3: I do, and I do, okay, you know, but I
Speaker 3: used to be frightened of dogs because when I grew up,
Speaker 3: I mean, this is all suburban and you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, Like I don't have any good animals, Like
Speaker 3: I grew up in the suburbs, so the only thing
Speaker 3: you ran to do was like a dog or a
Speaker 3: cat mostly or or maybe a frog. And frogs never
Speaker 3: frightened me, although I didn't like grabbing them. I kind
Speaker 3: of always thought that, like you know, when people, when
Speaker 3: people were catching frogs and stuff, I was like, are
Speaker 3: you sure they don't have any teeth?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was my thought.
Speaker 3: So so I would kind of fake act like I
Speaker 3: wanted to catch them, but I always pulled away with
Speaker 3: one a second because I really didn't want to catch
Speaker 3: the bull. I was afraid it would hurt me. So anyway,
Speaker 3: this is I'm not good for see, I'm not good.
Speaker 3: I'm not good for this kind of job. But like
Speaker 3: it is a it is a very special talent because
Speaker 3: I love animals. It's just I you know, I'm not
Speaker 3: like as insightful about animals as I am about some
Speaker 3: other things. And she obviously was insightful. And you know
Speaker 3: that it's not like anybody could be Jane Goodall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but she did.
Speaker 1: I think she It's true that not not just anyone
Speaker 1: could be Jane Goodall, but she inspired like a bunch
Speaker 1: of people to be like be like that, right.
Speaker 2: Like like she she was.
Speaker 1: It made it clear that this like an at the
Speaker 1: very at the very least, an appreciation for nature and
Speaker 1: an interest in and evolutionary biology was not something inaccessible
Speaker 1: to people. Of course, not everyone can do what she did,
Speaker 1: but she inspired a lot of people to follow in
Speaker 1: her footsteps, and they're like nowadays there are tons of
Speaker 1: people doing a lot of the similar type of observational
Speaker 1: research that she's doing and they're just as you know,
Speaker 1: they're doing work that's like, uh, you know, as important.
Speaker 2: But she really paved the way for that.
Speaker 3: Did you two things? Are you a katie? Are you aware?
Speaker 3: Did she ever wear banana perfume? And the other question
Speaker 3: is is that in anywhere in the thing or in
Speaker 3: her bio? And then the other thing was like when
Speaker 3: I was growing up, I was crazy about music, like
Speaker 3: like like more than animals, you know, so I like
Speaker 3: wore a John Denver T shirt. Did you ever have
Speaker 3: a Jain Goodall T shirt? Or do you have any
Speaker 3: Jane Goodall merch?
Speaker 1: Both good questions. I don't think she ever wore banana perfume.
Speaker 3: The closest thing, then, why is her biography called banana
Speaker 3: perfume for autobio.
Speaker 2: Scent called oh oh do monkey? Uh?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: I I The closest thing was that they.
Speaker 1: Did have sometimes like feeding stations to be able to
Speaker 1: observe chimps more. And that could be sometimes controversial because
Speaker 1: they're saying that, well, then you're not getting the natural behavior.
Speaker 3: She was.
Speaker 1: Her opinion on it really only changed in terms of
Speaker 1: like getting like too close to them with these things
Speaker 1: really only changed when she when they had later found
Speaker 1: out that champanzees can get human diseases.
Speaker 2: Uh, so like she had kind of changed.
Speaker 1: She was like, yeah, actually, because now we know that
Speaker 1: there can be these this pathogenic exchange, we want to
Speaker 1: keep some more distance from them, Like you can still
Speaker 1: you can still observe them, but she would she increased
Speaker 1: her distance with them right like once once because they
Speaker 1: didn't know, like at that point, they didn't know that
Speaker 1: there was potential transfer.
Speaker 2: So she changed that. So I would say no to
Speaker 2: the banana perfume. I actually don't have.
Speaker 1: I didn't have like a lot of Jane Goodall merch
Speaker 1: as a kid.
Speaker 2: I didn't have like A.
Speaker 1: I didn't have like a I think mostly I was
Speaker 1: focused on the animals, to be honest, So I would
Speaker 1: have like images of animals as posters and things, not
Speaker 1: so much of the people, uh doing the research. But
Speaker 1: I remember really really liking her and once being really
Speaker 1: excited because there was like a did you ever were
Speaker 1: you Are you aware of the cartoon The Wild thorn
Speaker 1: Berries or is that that stuff that's like a squarely
Speaker 1: millennial thing.
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like this cartoon about a.
Speaker 1: Girl who could talk to animals and there was like
Speaker 1: an episode where Jane there was a Jane Goodall characters,
Speaker 1: so I was very excited about that. But yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I didn't have much. I didn't really do a lot
Speaker 1: of Jane Goodall merch. Maybe I should, maybe I should
Speaker 1: get she did actually speaking actually merch. So they did
Speaker 1: get permission from Gary Larson. You know the story I
Speaker 1: told you earlier about the comic that got his permission
Speaker 1: to do shirts with that comic printed on it, that
Speaker 1: that benefited their foundation, and it was one of their
Speaker 1: best sellers. So real, it's just she's like she was
Speaker 1: cool with making fun of herself. Their most popular shirt
Speaker 1: was calling Jane Goodall a tramp, which which and she
Speaker 1: loved it and she loved it.
Speaker 3: It's so funny. So yeah, I mean it's so out there,
Speaker 3: it's great.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So before we go, we're gonna play a little game
Speaker 1: called Guess Who's Squawk and the Mystery Animal Sound Game.
Speaker 1: Every week I play Mystery Animal Sound in you the listener.
Speaker 3: I've played Yeah, I've played this before. I've lost a
Speaker 3: lot of money on this.
Speaker 2: He is a Chris is deep in debt.
Speaker 1: To me and I hope you remember always yeah and
Speaker 1: uh yeah, so I will play mister animal sound, and
Speaker 1: you will try to guess who it is. The hint
Speaker 1: for this one is this, you may find these colorful
Speaker 1: animals at zoos, but they're not always behind bars.
Speaker 2: Christy Gotteny guesses.
Speaker 3: Flamingo.
Speaker 2: You're actually close.
Speaker 1: This is a type of bird about the size of
Speaker 1: a flamingo. But this is a peacock.
Speaker 3: Hora. I can't believe I was close.
Speaker 2: Yes, so this is a peacock. They are, at least
Speaker 2: I did get.
Speaker 1: Someone told me that, like, they haven't been at the
Speaker 1: San Diego Zoo recently, but they used to be very
Speaker 1: abundant at the San Diego Zoo and also at other zoos,
Speaker 1: just kind of walking around and they're beautiful birds make
Speaker 1: the most horrific screeching sounds. I got a lot of
Speaker 1: people who wrote in with the correct answers, and honestly, like,
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of you guys. I'm gonna read off
Speaker 1: in the order quite a few names in the order
Speaker 1: of receiving your emails. Con congratulations to Laura W. N. L.
Speaker 1: Craig K, Julie, Penelope and Eleanor T. Carolyn H. Emiliam
Speaker 1: and Julie B. Who described the sound as being like
Speaker 1: a baby being tortured.
Speaker 3: My friend had a peacock like move it on to
Speaker 3: her balcony during the pandemic. Oh yeah, and yeah, and
Speaker 3: they were it was no fun. Yeah, they're loud, they
Speaker 3: make so much noise and they and they like stick
Speaker 3: around forever once they get gone.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, we had when I was a kid, we
Speaker 1: had a stray peacock wander into our yard and I
Speaker 1: was like, this is good and my mom would feed
Speaker 1: it bread, which you're not You shouldn't feed it bread.
Speaker 1: We didn't know, we didn't have internet. We were just
Speaker 1: she was trying to be nice and so she did
Speaker 1: her best. It's not like we knew how to feed it.
Speaker 3: She was no Jane Goodall.
Speaker 2: We just didn't know how to a goddamn peacock. And
Speaker 2: the peacock showed up.
Speaker 1: We didn't go out and acquire a peacock like this
Speaker 1: is this peacock was like hoisted itself upon us and
Speaker 1: we're like, all right, you want I don't know, do
Speaker 1: you want bread?
Speaker 2: Like we don't know?
Speaker 3: And yeah, well, I mean Jane Goodall, when she first
Speaker 3: started out, was making the monkey's omelets, and then they
Speaker 3: told her that was.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Excuse me swear this is this has been such a
Speaker 3: very nice podcast. I keep swearing.
Speaker 2: No, no, it's okay, I'll cuack it all out, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this peacock showed up. We fed it for
Speaker 1: a while. It was like it was just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this yard.
Speaker 2: Is mine now.
Speaker 1: And it would scream every morning, and it would like
Speaker 1: do this thing where it would like get up on
Speaker 1: our fence, scream and then like fly across the yard
Speaker 1: and then scream again. It was like all right, and
Speaker 1: then it was done screaming for the day. For the
Speaker 1: most part, it just had this like ritual of screaming
Speaker 1: every day and flying across the yard. But yeah, it
Speaker 1: was never like super friendly with us. It was more
Speaker 1: like I'm a tenant here, I don't pay rent, and
Speaker 1: you do feed me bread. And then it eventually moved
Speaker 1: on like it was just like okay.
Speaker 2: I'm out.
Speaker 1: Off to visit another person's yard and demand bread from them.
Speaker 3: So that's a loud noise. Yeah, I wonder what they're
Speaker 3: asking for with that noise.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean probably sex, to be honest.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, onto this week's mister animal sound. They may
Speaker 1: look like squirrels, but they're more closely related to us,
Speaker 1: Chrissy getting giesses.
Speaker 3: Donald Duck.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, you got it, doll Duck. He's more like
Speaker 2: us then we know, because he wears the shirt but
Speaker 2: no pants.
Speaker 3: You're right, or maybe it was here we do it
Speaker 3: sounded smaller than Donald Duck, so I'd say hewey do here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the little ones, one of the little nephews. Yeah, no, exactly,
Speaker 1: that's that's right. But if you out there, if you
Speaker 1: out there think you have another a better idea, if
Speaker 1: you've got a better idea than Donald Duck or one
Speaker 1: of his irascable nephews, you can write to me at
Speaker 1: Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com. Thank you guys
Speaker 1: so much for listening. Chris, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: coming on the show. Where can people find you?
Speaker 3: It's always fun. You can unfortunately find me on Instagram
Speaker 3: at the Crofton Show, and you can find my record
Speaker 3: just because that's the most recent thing I've I've put
Speaker 3: out and it's it's I'm so proud of it. It's
Speaker 3: called I'm Your Man. And I don't say I'm proud
Speaker 3: of everything, but this record is is really my whole
Speaker 3: life in the making, and uh, it's just super sweet
Speaker 3: and hopefully inspiring for you know, some stressful times. And
Speaker 3: so I'm Your Man. You can get it. You can
Speaker 3: stream it, or you can buy it on band Camp
Speaker 3: but it's called I'm Your Man and it's yeah, it's
Speaker 3: just fun.
Speaker 1: You Google it comes right up on band Camp. On
Speaker 1: Italian Amazon too, I don't know.
Speaker 2: If you knew that.
Speaker 3: I did not know that. I've not been on Italian
Speaker 3: Amazon in a while. And also Craft, sorry not crafton
Speaker 3: Colebrew got me, Like, is really a great podcast? I
Speaker 3: mean if you look at the summaries, like, I don't
Speaker 3: know if you know about this, Katie, but you probably do.
Speaker 3: Like now Spotify like we'll do chapters against your will,
Speaker 3: They'll they'll have AI do chapters for your podcast, like
Speaker 3: describing what you say, which I can only imagine is
Speaker 3: just for Border Patrol to be able to when you
Speaker 3: say my podcast is fine, you know, and they can
Speaker 3: be like, oh, that's not what it says here, but
Speaker 3: because it makes my podcast sound so dark. But it's fun.
Speaker 3: But it's all about like, you know, politics, So it's
Speaker 3: it's about politics in a way. I mean, I don't
Speaker 3: want to talk about politics. I want to talk about Bigfoot.
Speaker 3: I always say that, but I but I kind of
Speaker 3: got stuck talking about politics. But anyway, I don't look
Speaker 3: at the summary because it makes it sound really like
Speaker 3: it's no fun, and it's it's a pretty fun podcast.
Speaker 3: So Colbrew got me like, is the podcast?
Speaker 1: Check it out.
Speaker 2: Don't believe AI you know lies it lies to you.
Speaker 3: I mean, if I if you, if I showed you
Speaker 3: the description. It's just like the dead End of Capitalism
Speaker 3: chapter one.
Speaker 2: Chapter two, the Ballad true valid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like living under the Thumb of the Internet chapter two.
Speaker 2: It's just like all this miserable detected there.
Speaker 3: It's not as miserable as it looks.
Speaker 1: Well, do check that out, and thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening. If you're enjoying the show and you leave
Speaker 1: a rating or review, I read all the reviews. I
Speaker 1: really take him to heart and it does help the
Speaker 1: podcast to get those, So thank you so much for that.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the Space Classics for their super awesome song.
Speaker 1: Ex So Lumina.
Speaker 2: Creature features a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the.
Speaker 1: One you just heard, vis of the iHeart Radio Abubble
Speaker 1: podcasts or I Guess what wherever you get your favorite show.
Speaker 2: So I'm not your mother. I can't tell you what
Speaker 2: to do. I can tell you though, like, uh, if.
Speaker 1: You're hanging around Jane Goodall and you get a blonde
Speaker 1: hair on you and you're a chimp, your wife will
Speaker 1: find out.
Speaker 2: So have your have your stories straight. See you next Wednesday.
Speaker 3: Thanks Katie,