Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to season three oh nine,
Speaker 1: Episode two of Dally's Guys production of iHeartRadio. This is
Speaker 1: a podcast where we take a deep dive into America's
Speaker 1: shared consciousness. And it's Tuesday, October seventeenth, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Come on, Jack, guess guess one of them? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess. Yes.
Speaker 2: One is something that's like where two full weeks out
Speaker 2: from Halloween.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but there's one. There's one. There's one food.
Speaker 2: That gets a day to day that is just like
Speaker 2: a It's just like a food that everyone eats.
Speaker 1: It's a food and it was stolen.
Speaker 2: In by the Italians from pasta. Yes, okay, National Pasta Day,
Speaker 2: National Mulligan Day, let's see. Oh no, pro life Day
Speaker 2: of Silence are no, sir, I'm going to do that one.
Speaker 2: But we will do this Black Poetry Day, National Pharmacy
Speaker 2: Technician Day, shout out to the homie at the pharmacy
Speaker 2: that cooks up their homebrew WAYGOVI for the people in
Speaker 2: the community.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And also National Edge Day, which I believe is for
Speaker 2: the straight edge.
Speaker 1: People out there, okay, for people who are edging sexually? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: this is frustrated. Although you guys can always do your thing.
Speaker 1: You know we're not getting you don't need a day
Speaker 1: to do to do whatever you need to do. I
Speaker 1: feel good whatever it is you do. Anyways, my name
Speaker 1: is Jack O'Brien aka he got legs that it seems
Speaker 1: to me reminds me of childhood memories. Lyon my mom,
Speaker 1: that's my piss. It's Italian ice. Wow, sweet Jack O'Brian.
Speaker 1: That is courtesy of Laccaroni on the discord. How did
Speaker 1: you find out? Are you talking to my mom about melted? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I went on that roller coaster and came off and
Speaker 1: it's just water's almost water ice call over my dang it. Anyways,
Speaker 1: I'm throwed to be joined as always by my co host,
Speaker 1: mister Miles Gray.
Speaker 2: Miles Gray aka you gotta van mow me.
Speaker 1: You gotta van mow me when eggs ain't that cheap?
Speaker 3: Just remember that I got you Next week twenty bones
Speaker 3: would be sweet because you gotta I thought I knew
Speaker 3: the militia, but it's just enough to get you started.
Speaker 1: That you gotta van moon me doom.
Speaker 2: Shout out to Randa Dixon Art because yeah, eggs are pretty.
Speaker 1: They're kind of going up and down.
Speaker 2: Gas though, Yeah, shout out to Shout out to plug
Speaker 2: in hybrid vehicles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, save you that sweet sweet dough. Shout out to
Speaker 1: Randy Newman for being able to stay on It's meat Live.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: That's one where I'm like, it could be a mulligan, Yeah,
Speaker 2: or it could go not a mulligan, but it could
Speaker 2: be a push.
Speaker 1: It could go either way with me, truly could. He's alive,
Speaker 1: great alive on seventy nine. Good shout out to him.
Speaker 1: I did not like when Susanne Summers passed r P.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, oh damn, I thought never mind. Okay, Miles.
Speaker 1: We are thrilled to be joined by an acclaimed wildlife
Speaker 1: ecologist and conservationist who specializes in researching how human activity
Speaker 1: influences the behavior of wild animals. She's a TV host
Speaker 1: and the host of the PBS Nature podcast Going Wild
Speaker 1: with Doctor ray Wing Grant, which makes sense because she
Speaker 1: is doctor ray Win Grant.
Speaker 4: I'm here here, welcome back.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 4: I really love having so many memories, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we loved having you last time, and we're like,
Speaker 2: now that we're talking to experts, let's talk to it
Speaker 2: let's really digging to a real expert.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I spent some time doing some research and like
Speaker 1: just you know, really square up make ourselves seem extremely smart.
Speaker 1: And that's what we're doing. We put put our brains
Speaker 1: together and have put together a list of some of
Speaker 1: the hardest hitting science based, deeply researched, science based questions
Speaker 1: in your area of expertise.
Speaker 4: This is like my all over again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah it is, and this is on and it's
Speaker 1: going to be on the.
Speaker 4: Record, right right.
Speaker 5: Stakes are highs, incredibly high.
Speaker 1: So we're going to get to that in a moment.
Speaker 1: But before we do, we still like to ask our guests,
Speaker 1: what is something from your search history that's revealing about
Speaker 1: who you are or what you're up to.
Speaker 4: Oh, well, I have something. I hope this can kind
Speaker 4: of be the great equalizer. Perhaps because I'm a scientist, right,
Speaker 4: I'm an environmental scientist, a wildlife ecologist. I have all
Speaker 4: this expertise, and yet ever so often I have to
Speaker 4: google like the simpler things just to make sure that
Speaker 4: I'm explaining it correctly. So two weeks ago, I was
Speaker 4: with a film crew and filming a television show. It's
Speaker 4: called Wild Kingdom. It's great. You can watch it. It's
Speaker 4: on NBC streaming on Peacock. And I was with the
Speaker 4: crew and we were in a place I meant, gotta
Speaker 4: gotta sneak it in. We were in Texas, or in
Speaker 4: Central Texas, in a place that has dinosaur footprints, right,
Speaker 4: Like this part of Central Texas used to be an
Speaker 4: ocean and then at the point that there were these dinosaurs,
Speaker 4: it was like more of a swamp and they sunk
Speaker 4: their giant feet into the mud and then it just
Speaker 4: like there was a drought and they just solidified and
Speaker 4: they're still there. It's amazing. So I'm talking to the
Speaker 4: crew about dinosaurs. This is just like rural central Texas too.
Speaker 4: And somehow we got into the topic of fossil fuels,
Speaker 4: and one of the producers on the show didn't know
Speaker 4: where fossil fuels came from, Like she didn't understand the
Speaker 4: word fossil that's part of fossil frut. So fossil fuels
Speaker 4: are like you know, the gas you put in your
Speaker 4: car is a type of fossil fuel, right right, It's
Speaker 4: what's contributing to climate change. And so I was explained
Speaker 4: to her, like, girl, yeah, it's when dinosaurs lived and
Speaker 4: then they died, their bodies decomposed and sunk into the earth.
Speaker 4: But because it's been millions of years, those decomposed dinosaur
Speaker 4: bodies have liquefied because it's so hot down there and
Speaker 4: turned into essentially like oil that we drill up and
Speaker 4: used to put in our cars and used to you know,
Speaker 4: power stuff, and we've you know, contaminated the whole atmosphere
Speaker 4: because of it. And her mind was blown to the
Speaker 4: point that I started getting like a little bit concerned.
Speaker 4: I was like, that is that right?
Speaker 2: So that what we would sometimes call fossils, those slowly,
Speaker 2: over a course of long decomposition became fuel.
Speaker 4: So just say I was right. I mean I had
Speaker 4: to google it because I was like, I mean, I
Speaker 4: study living animals, not dead runs. But I mean, but
Speaker 4: that is accurate, right, So fossil fuels like scientists throw
Speaker 4: that turn around, politicians thrown around, but it's literally fossils.
Speaker 4: We have them because it's decomposed dinosaurs from under the earth.
Speaker 4: So like the gas you put in your car is
Speaker 4: dinosaur body gas, right that we drive and it combusts
Speaker 4: and you know, makes a dinosaur.
Speaker 1: It's not It's not like plant body or something.
Speaker 4: It's not plants. It's like decomposed animal matter. So it's
Speaker 4: like dinosaurs. It's like all those old crustaceans. And I
Speaker 4: mean it's it's a bunch of stuff that used to live.
Speaker 4: One day humans will be that same liquefied substance and
Speaker 4: people could use.
Speaker 1: Us al Wikipedia, Why does Wikipedia says, are they?
Speaker 4: I think it's like they might be or I might
Speaker 4: be wrong, but I believe it's like if it's plants,
Speaker 4: it's from those like ancient oceans, right.
Speaker 1: That like like not like not like you know, the
Speaker 1: grad Yeah.
Speaker 4: It's all prehistoric from before there were people to take
Speaker 4: down the data of like how it all started and
Speaker 4: what decomposed. It's just like organic matter, but it's a
Speaker 4: lot of it is like really big animals like dinosaurs
Speaker 4: using their bodies.
Speaker 1: I have to apologize to the listeners. I've been calling
Speaker 1: fossil fuels dinosaur farts that were just cooking dinosaur farts
Speaker 1: for our guess, so I'm looking them. I always said,
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, what is that cooking farts? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're cooking them to get our cars started. But yes,
Speaker 1: it's the bodies, not the fart.
Speaker 4: I mean I feel like that's like click baity enough.
Speaker 4: Like a lot of people, you know, you just hear
Speaker 4: this word over and over and you're just like, I
Speaker 4: get I guess that just means like dirty gases that
Speaker 4: go into the atmosphere. But it's like, really, I mean,
Speaker 4: it was interesting to make the connection while looking at
Speaker 4: a dinosaur footprint and like marveling at it to be like, oh,
Speaker 4: I interacted dinosaurs all the time.
Speaker 1: Right, And you're also likely you will have your come
Speaker 1: up in dinosaurs. You will help destroy.
Speaker 4: Our they remain relevant.
Speaker 1: Dinosaur fart to dinosaur fart, as the Bible says, Yeah,
Speaker 1: my my, how I would have searched that. What you
Speaker 1: were just talking about is how dinosaurs footprints Texas? Because
Speaker 1: I only talked to Google in the dumbest phrases.
Speaker 4: But we were in Glen Rose, Texas. If you ever
Speaker 4: go there, you'll be astonished because there are legit huge
Speaker 4: dinosaur footprints, like and it's just there's just out in
Speaker 4: the in the community. It's just it's this rural, rural
Speaker 4: part of central Texas that is like you know kind.
Speaker 2: Of oh, do they have like like dinosaur statues there too?
Speaker 4: They have the other big statues like off the highway
Speaker 4: kind of statues. But it is the country like it
Speaker 4: is like it is not urban, it is a wild place,
Speaker 4: but it's just very accessible. So let me just say,
Speaker 4: dinosaur footprints are super accessibly, just like I got a
Speaker 4: walk upon them.
Speaker 1: Really, I'm looking at a picture from the Smithsonian magazine
Speaker 1: and it has the dinosaur footprints. And then to make
Speaker 1: sure you know that it's Texas, somebody just dropped a
Speaker 1: cowboy hat on top of them. For scale. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: scale scale, Yeah, how many cowboy hats tall? Are you? Jack?
Speaker 1: If we're doing the Texas measurement? That's right? Uh? What
Speaker 1: is something you think is overrated?
Speaker 4: Oh? So this is an unpopular opinion I think, maybe
Speaker 4: not in this group, but overrated, especially right now, like
Speaker 4: all the pumpkin flavorings that we see going on. I think, Okay,
Speaker 4: I know this. When I was a kid, I ate
Speaker 4: an entire pumpkin pie one Thanksgiving and I barfed everywhere.
Speaker 4: And now I can't even think about a pumpkin flavor
Speaker 4: without like getting nauseous. So I can't. I can't handle it.
Speaker 4: So all the you know, like no offfense install the
Speaker 4: pumpkins don't worry about it. And I love me some
Speaker 4: you know, apple cider or whatnot, but I just can't
Speaker 4: do the pumpkin flavor. I can't. I can't. I can't overrated.
Speaker 1: That's wild. How like one bad experience can totally mess
Speaker 1: you up.
Speaker 4: Like some folks have that with candy corn, right, Like,
Speaker 4: eat too much candy corn, you can never eat it again.
Speaker 2: I didn't even eat too much. I just had one
Speaker 2: and I was like, this is disgusting and a joke, like.
Speaker 4: No need to eat wax.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the hatefulness, the anti candy corn. And I personally
Speaker 1: like candy corn and the little freeds because I like
Speaker 1: as much sugar. I like a sugar de treat and
Speaker 1: that that's just giving you pure sugar, like sometimes you
Speaker 1: bite into it and it just like dissolves into a
Speaker 1: pile of sugar in your mouth. But the hatefulness with
Speaker 1: which the candy corn people describe divisive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just have a very strong opinion about what
Speaker 2: I want for Halloween, and I'm only looking at through
Speaker 2: that prism and I'm like, well, I hate this, so
Speaker 2: your back, you know, give me chocolate.
Speaker 4: It's like the people who hand out fruit or something.
Speaker 4: You're like just don't open the door like mad.
Speaker 1: You just fight me instead. Yeah, if you're gonna do that,
Speaker 1: oh a fucking apple. Okay, why just why don't just
Speaker 1: smack my mother? That's with me, and then we can
Speaker 1: just get we can just get there a lot sooner, sir. No,
Speaker 1: I do loose handfuls of loose candy corn in the
Speaker 1: kids bags every year. That's just yeah, just scattered and
Speaker 1: sweaty with your sweaty palms and all some stick. My
Speaker 1: hands are bright yellow and orange by the time, by
Speaker 1: the after by the evening. No that, yeah, I never
Speaker 1: got candy corn in like that was not a problem
Speaker 1: for me, like that people were giving out a significant
Speaker 1: amount of candy corn. I always associate candy corn with,
Speaker 1: you know, just being places where candy wouldn't normally be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's an appropriate replacement for like Reese's
Speaker 1: peanut butter cups prinstance.
Speaker 2: No, candy candy corn is the oh I hit the
Speaker 2: CVS right before I came to your birthday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, candy like it has that energy, like it's like.
Speaker 4: At the like like at the secretary's desk right like
Speaker 4: like in the main office at school.
Speaker 1: Like, Yeah, I think My family just got like a
Speaker 1: bunch of candy corn and pumpkins one year, and I
Speaker 1: was just feasting on them and just have the pumpkins
Speaker 1: in particular.
Speaker 4: They're filling. They're actually they're filling.
Speaker 1: It is like the most sugar that you can get
Speaker 1: in like a single piece of.
Speaker 4: Can wax, Like I keep saying, I'm like, it is
Speaker 4: made of wax.
Speaker 1: I think, is it?
Speaker 5: I think it's like a dinosaur. IX. Tell your kids, Jack,
Speaker 5: tell your kids. Yeah, that's like the thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, the whenever you have a bad experience
Speaker 2: and then you end up, you know, having to vomit after,
Speaker 2: it does put you off. Like and I'm not trying
Speaker 2: to cast dispersions, but one time I had like a
Speaker 2: somebody from Firehouse Subs.
Speaker 1: I can't even fire House Subs anymore, and now we
Speaker 1: can't have them as a sponsor. Sorry.
Speaker 2: Here's another one, Jack, I'm about to completely fuck us
Speaker 2: over with ninety nine bananas. I drank a whole bottle
Speaker 2: in ninety nine bananas, brain liqueur and vomited. Ever, I
Speaker 2: can't even eat bananas anymore, Oh my god.
Speaker 4: But a bottle though, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, somebody some people said there was a mistake starting
Speaker 2: with ninety nine bananas.
Speaker 4: But I had to just the quantity also.
Speaker 1: And I misunderstood what you were describing when you said
Speaker 1: you ate ninety nine bananas, that it made you sick.
Speaker 1: And I tried it myself and just ate ninety nine
Speaker 1: bana and it made me very sad. Yeah, not sick
Speaker 1: enough to not love bananas. I love them always and forever.
Speaker 1: Good for you, doctor Grant. What is something you think
Speaker 1: is underrated?
Speaker 4: Okay? This is like, this is a little eye rolly,
Speaker 4: but this morning. Okay. So I have a girlfriend who
Speaker 4: has four kids. Shout out to Dana if she's listening
Speaker 4: to us, Wow, And she knows how to run a
Speaker 4: house like she is. She's also an attorney, Like she's
Speaker 4: so skilled, but she knows how to run a house.
Speaker 4: And I have two kids and I am constantly like,
Speaker 4: feel like I'm a hot mess. So I reached out
Speaker 4: to my friend and I was like, how do I
Speaker 4: not like lose control by the beginning of the day
Speaker 4: every day? And she's like, you have to wake up
Speaker 4: at five am, Like you have to. That's the only
Speaker 4: way you If you wake up at five am, you'll
Speaker 4: have enough time for yourself imagine that, like you can
Speaker 4: take a shower and get dressed and be a person.
Speaker 4: You can like get a head start on the day.
Speaker 4: You can finish up any work you didn't finish the
Speaker 4: night before, and then you can be ready for the
Speaker 4: kid chaos, and then you can jump into your work day.
Speaker 4: And I was like girl five though like that, like
Speaker 4: like we're old now. I don't know if I could
Speaker 4: do that anyway. So I've been putting this off. I've
Speaker 4: been procrastinating for weeks and this morning I set my alarm,
Speaker 4: I woke up at five. I only hit this news
Speaker 4: button one time. Yeah, and I got up. And So
Speaker 4: what I'm saying is underrated is sunrise? Right, like walking
Speaker 4: the sunrise. I'm kind of like this is underrated. This
Speaker 4: is so peaceful, you know, like I'm like real groggy
Speaker 4: and not real happy. But as soon as like I
Speaker 4: get to experience sunrise and don and I like, wow,
Speaker 4: what a gift, what a blessing? You know. So I'm
Speaker 4: a new person. We'll see what happens tomorrow. But essentially,
Speaker 4: I did that once, and I did it once, and
Speaker 4: I'm here on your show to say, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Did sunrise once. Yeah that sounds nice. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: I will get on a kick of like I gotta
Speaker 1: wake up before these kids because otherwise, like they're just
Speaker 1: all over me. And I also have this thing I
Speaker 1: tell myself that they like have a sixth sense that
Speaker 1: when I'm awake, they will also wake up right right.
Speaker 1: That is a that is a rough couple hours to
Speaker 1: spend with a wide awake five year old. And what's
Speaker 1: going on? What's going on when you're doing out here? Dad?
Speaker 1: What's going exactly? Just sitting there? Well, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: catch up on emails and I'm mad because the sun's
Speaker 1: not up. But yeah, it's it's just so it's so hard.
Speaker 1: Little kids are so hard.
Speaker 4: Little kids are so hard because I mean, but there's
Speaker 4: something so stressful about like the moment you open your eyes,
Speaker 4: you have to be actively parenting. And so this is
Speaker 4: like getting ahead of that. I'm like, even if I
Speaker 4: have ten minutes before, I'm like actively parenting. Like, my
Speaker 4: little list is three and she is a complete maniac. Like, yes,
Speaker 4: she's the wildest kid. I never thought I'd have a
Speaker 4: kid so wilder than.
Speaker 1: Some of the beasts, wilder than the beasts.
Speaker 4: Okay, do you that? Yeah? Before like, how do you like,
Speaker 4: you know, are you ever afraid? I'm like, I can't
Speaker 4: wait to get into the wilderness.
Speaker 2: I would rather face a den of bears, oh my god,
Speaker 2: and I'm holding one of their cubs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, at least I know what to do. I've just
Speaker 1: come around to the idea of like, okay, so I
Speaker 1: am going to be more tired at the end of
Speaker 1: the weekend than at the end of the word. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's okay, That's how it was meant to be
Speaker 1: for for a time.
Speaker 4: There's no t g I f that's not no.
Speaker 1: And I think it took me a while, Like I
Speaker 1: was like, why are my week Why am I not
Speaker 1: like loving these weekends? And it's like and I do
Speaker 1: in spots, but I am very tired. I'm so exhausted. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so sweet. Have you tried the Vietnamese coffee yet? This
Speaker 1: is not going to help me in the long run.
Speaker 1: I wired.
Speaker 2: I've been waiting to hear your report of how you
Speaker 2: had to chain yourself to a radiator in the basement
Speaker 2: because the caffeine is just hitting too hard.
Speaker 1: From the view. Should do it on the Halloween night?
Speaker 4: You can like sip it over the course of the day.
Speaker 2: You.
Speaker 4: I mean that is a good point, Like with one
Speaker 4: of those the Vietnamese coffee with the condensed mell sweet and.
Speaker 1: Drink sip it.
Speaker 4: You sip it over the whole day. Yeah, like a
Speaker 4: sustained fake Wow.
Speaker 2: Okay, I do it in one go and then have
Speaker 2: an existential crisis for the next eight hours.
Speaker 1: So sweat through your chair and then god like it's
Speaker 1: a damp in here. Oh my sweat. Yeah, amazing. All right,
Speaker 1: Well we're going to take a quick break and when
Speaker 1: we come back, we're going to get into the hard
Speaker 1: hitting science. Yeah, and so we'll be right back. And
Speaker 1: we're back. We are, And so we want to take
Speaker 1: this opportunity to check in with you, doctor Grenn, about
Speaker 1: how you, as a scientist, perceive some of the news
Speaker 1: that we cover on a regular basis, and that is
Speaker 1: entering the zeitgeist on a regular basis. As the sign
Speaker 1: in my front yard will attest in this house, we
Speaker 1: believe in science. Okay, no, but we we do believe.
Speaker 1: We don't think COVID was caused by five gen Okay,
Speaker 1: speak for yourself, speak for yourself. We don't think vaccines
Speaker 1: killed every celebrity who has died since twenty nineteen, since
Speaker 1: before the pandemic.
Speaker 4: Yeah for the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, that's good. That's good, but good solid take.
Speaker 1: So I guess you'll be shocked to know Miles is
Speaker 1: not a scientist. But I am also not a scientist.
Speaker 1: How do you think about communicating as a scientist to
Speaker 1: non scientists? Like how strategic are you when communicating with
Speaker 1: with those of us who may not I'm not going
Speaker 1: to confirm that I don't have a PhD in the science.
Speaker 2: Well, look, I think getting I'm on Reddit are slash science,
Speaker 2: so I think I have a good.
Speaker 1: Grasp on things.
Speaker 2: But yes, how how would you in a world of
Speaker 2: contentious information? What's what's it like?
Speaker 1: What do you do? How do you know? You know?
Speaker 4: I gotta say I got to say that I work
Speaker 4: really hard at it and I am also gifted with
Speaker 4: a type of science that I do that is highly
Speaker 4: vis right, Like there are like chemists out there, people
Speaker 4: who study like micro organisms, that it's harder for them
Speaker 4: to show the science as they're doing it right or
Speaker 4: might not aways interesting to look at. But I study
Speaker 4: large animals. I study large carnivores, bears and lions and
Speaker 4: mountain lions and wolves and the science behind setting them
Speaker 4: might be very technical or like you know, very mathy
Speaker 4: or very analytical, but kind of the basics of it
Speaker 4: are fun to look at and highly engaging. So I
Speaker 4: just I get that benefit just automatically that like people
Speaker 4: might tune in if I show like a hibernating bear,
Speaker 4: there's a huge science behind that. But the visual also
Speaker 4: speaks volumes, so there's that. And then I also want
Speaker 4: to just shout out how identity plays a huge role
Speaker 4: into how I approach science communication. And I even think
Speaker 4: how I got into it because as a you know,
Speaker 4: almost at a young black woman, but I should create
Speaker 4: that as a as a millennial.
Speaker 1: No, no, we're young, we're were you?
Speaker 4: That used to mean young? As a millennial black woman,
Speaker 4: I always was a part of my community, right, Like
Speaker 4: my professional community was always so different from my personal,
Speaker 4: my my you know, social community. And because of that,
Speaker 4: I was always telling stories about what I was doing
Speaker 4: to my community, which is predominantly Black women my own age,
Speaker 4: right or maybe their brothers and their husbands or their
Speaker 4: boyfriends or you know, my family. And so because there
Speaker 4: was such a disconnect between like ecologists and the people
Speaker 4: I spend my free time with without really trying, without
Speaker 4: being purposeful, I would talk a lot about what I
Speaker 4: do or where I had been, or why I was
Speaker 4: going these places, or the cool stuff that I found.
Speaker 4: And so I found that just naturally, storytelling or just
Speaker 4: science communication became a thing. And then of course I
Speaker 4: was also like growing up, I was such a nerd.
Speaker 4: So imagine me in college. I went to college in Atlanta,
Speaker 4: and there's this wonderful black community, and I was the
Speaker 4: girl who was like obsessed with recycling, right, like environmental health,
Speaker 4: like picking up litter. I was the recycling coordinator from
Speaker 4: my dorm, right, And so I was also that person
Speaker 4: no matter what my identity was that was like knocking
Speaker 4: on people's dorm rooms and being like it's recycling day,
Speaker 4: Like bring me out of your bottles of ninety nine
Speaker 4: bananas or whatever.
Speaker 1: No, I'm collecting them. I put them up on a
Speaker 1: pyramid out of them next to my gray Goose bottles,
Speaker 1: so they know I at one point could afford great.
Speaker 4: I have class. So so I think that in so
Speaker 4: many of the ways that I've been involved in science,
Speaker 4: there's been also a practice to it that you can see, right,
Speaker 4: you can see someone collecting recycling, right, But there's like
Speaker 4: a science behind why that's important and how it works.
Speaker 4: And you can see someone like hiking in the wildernes
Speaker 4: looking for a bear, and there's a science behind that. So,
Speaker 4: you know, I think that I might have been super
Speaker 4: challenged in other ways, but I've just had this amazing
Speaker 4: benefit of what I do or what I care about,
Speaker 4: and how visual it is and how a person can
Speaker 4: kind of symbolize a lot of that, and so I
Speaker 4: haven't struggled too much. You know, I get like I
Speaker 4: do get the like comments on Facebook I got. I
Speaker 4: recently got an email through my website about someone like
Speaker 4: kind of threatening me to tell a story the right way, right.
Speaker 4: It was really interesting. There's a bird called the Atwater
Speaker 4: prairie chicken in central Texas. It's a highly endangered bird
Speaker 4: that has this terrible name because the word chicken is
Speaker 4: in it. But it's actually one of these like remarkable
Speaker 4: birds in the sage grouse family. So it has these
Speaker 4: like yellow cheeks that puff up really big, and they
Speaker 4: do like one of those mating dances that you'd see
Speaker 4: in all the natural history shows. It's like an incredible bird.
Speaker 4: And this guy sent an email and he was like
Speaker 4: you better like if your shit h does a story
Speaker 4: on the atwater prairie chick, and you better do it
Speaker 4: right because so many other people have done it wrong.
Speaker 4: You know, that's what those things are. I was like,
Speaker 4: you don't even know what we're doing, you know, you know,
Speaker 4: like like there's no context here. But he was like
Speaker 4: threatening me, like little old me about this prairie chicken,
Speaker 4: you know. And so it's just very interesting that I
Speaker 4: do get people who don't like my communication, you know.
Speaker 4: I do get people who find problems in it, usually
Speaker 4: for no good reason, sure, but I don't get a
Speaker 4: lot of deniers when it comes to what I'm communicating.
Speaker 4: And and that is special.
Speaker 2: To continue down this because I think this is it's
Speaker 2: relevant right because we're it's such an era to where
Speaker 2: it's people like I got to see it to believe it.
Speaker 2: For a lot of scientific stuff, like they're like I
Speaker 2: don't know how a vaccine works, and like and I
Speaker 2: remember like the like like was it the CDC's like
Speaker 2: here's a fucking video, man, Yeah, I'm not gonna watch that.
Speaker 2: It's fucking nonsense. But like for things that are measurable, right,
Speaker 2: and like for people like if seeing is believing a
Speaker 2: lot of times, how I guess in that sense, how
Speaker 2: are you seeing climate change? Because this is another thing
Speaker 2: that people are like it's cold today, therefore, like fine,
Speaker 2: shut up, but how are you seeing that sort of
Speaker 2: manifest in the physical world that of like these environments
Speaker 2: of the species that you study, because that's one thing,
Speaker 2: like obviously you're not like an atmospheric scientist, but you
Speaker 2: very much do understand how climate is impacting animals. So
Speaker 2: in that sense, how are you seeing this play out
Speaker 2: like at that scale, because I'm sure that's indicative to
Speaker 2: like the sort of chain reaction that could happen with
Speaker 2: our environmental systems.
Speaker 4: Right. And you know, it's really interesting that you bring
Speaker 4: that up because I kind of want to put this
Speaker 4: disclaimer out that climate change impacts wild animals tremendously in
Speaker 4: a way that's not okay, But I think that we
Speaker 4: need to solve the issues of climate change to help people. First.
Speaker 4: You know, there's a lot of people who like kind
Speaker 4: of care more about animals than people, or they might
Speaker 4: be more convinced to care if there's an animal story
Speaker 4: rather than like, oh, people in this developing nation are
Speaker 4: suffering kind of story.
Speaker 1: But to see how they're how emaciated their dogs are.
Speaker 4: Exactly, no, exactly exactly. So I always want to point out,
Speaker 4: like I like I live and breathe wild animals every day.
Speaker 4: I've dedicated my life to saving them and keeping them
Speaker 4: on this planet. And I think people are more important
Speaker 4: and more urgently need saving, right because climate change is
Speaker 4: devastating entire communities of people right now. With that said, bears, right,
Speaker 4: bears are a perfect example of in studying bears for
Speaker 4: thirteen years and we're seeing how climate change is impacting
Speaker 4: all different kinds of bears. So one of the things
Speaker 4: that we love about bears, as like Americans, is that
Speaker 4: they hibernate in the winter. It gets cold, and they
Speaker 4: go into their den and they hibernate and they sleep
Speaker 4: for you know, two, four or six months at a time. Well,
Speaker 4: they actually need all kinds of environmental cues to enter hibernation, right.
Speaker 4: So it's not like they just like look at a
Speaker 4: calendar and say like, oh my gosh, it's November fifteenth,
Speaker 4: like yeah, time to go, right, It's like their ecosystem
Speaker 4: has to signal to them winter is coming, the temperature drops,
Speaker 4: maybe precipitation, increases, maybe because some snow right the trees
Speaker 4: stop producing food. The other animal species they eat, whether
Speaker 4: it's fish or deer, go away. Everyone is locking down
Speaker 4: and there's nothing to eat. That's when bears chemical balance
Speaker 4: changes and hibernation starts. The actually their metabolism slows down, right,
Speaker 4: that's like body chemistry within them. But that's not going
Speaker 4: to work if it stays warm, right, if the trees
Speaker 4: keep producing, if the bunny rabbits keep hopping around, that
Speaker 4: that doesn't happen. So in some of the places that
Speaker 4: I've studied black bears in the western United States, there
Speaker 4: have been these winters recently where the temperature hasn't dropped
Speaker 4: and the snow hasn't fallen until like February, and so
Speaker 4: the bears have remained active. But then when February comes
Speaker 4: and in one week it's you know, three months of snow,
Speaker 4: and everything shuts down. They're not hibernating already. Their bodies
Speaker 4: haven't gotten into that hibernation state. They might not be
Speaker 4: able to get there in time, and they may starve,
Speaker 4: or they may freeze to death, or they may die,
Speaker 4: or they may come into your garage and look for
Speaker 4: a warm place and some food. So we're finding that
Speaker 4: climate change not only impacts like the bear's perception of
Speaker 4: what season it is and whether or not it's time
Speaker 4: to hibernate, but it could also increase conflicts with people,
Speaker 4: right because they kind of freak out. They're like, all
Speaker 4: I need is some food. It was available last week,
Speaker 4: it's not this week, So where can I find it?
Speaker 4: In your trash can? And that is also a problem.
Speaker 1: It's got to be a heart just like on their
Speaker 1: natural like if they're not getting the rest that they
Speaker 1: had in the past, right like that, that doesn't that
Speaker 1: affect them?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: Are they cranky? They are cranky. Bears are a lot
Speaker 4: like us. They just aren't. They're hungry. They have they're angry.
Speaker 1: I just need three months of sleep in the water.
Speaker 4: They're hangry, like as do I. There are bears in
Speaker 4: warm places where they never hibernate. So there are bears
Speaker 4: in Florida right like in the Everglades. It's swampy, it's warm,
Speaker 4: and they don't hibernate in the winter. But let me
Speaker 4: clarify that setting up a hibernation den is the most
Speaker 4: important and the most critical for surviving periods where there's
Speaker 4: no food, right, So like classic winter when there's no
Speaker 4: food and female bears give birth in hibernation, they need
Speaker 4: to set up a hibernation den. They need to slow
Speaker 4: down their metabolism, they need to go into a hibernation
Speaker 4: state in order to give birth, because when they do,
Speaker 4: they give birth. Every January. Every bear that's ever lived
Speaker 4: in the history of no North American bears has given
Speaker 4: birth in January, every single one. It's the most. It's
Speaker 4: like my.
Speaker 1: Favorite doctor, I'm gonna have to fact check that, check
Speaker 1: it now.
Speaker 4: Like you have my you have my permission. They're born
Speaker 4: in January.
Speaker 1: Let me call it Tim Ferris. Really quick, they realize
Speaker 1: how much better they'd get it, Hockey if they were
Speaker 1: born a little bit later.
Speaker 4: Oh just slightly later.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, you're really going to Malcolm Black, aren't you.
Speaker 4: YEA. When I was doing my PhD research in the
Speaker 4: Lake Tahoe area on black bears, we would just give
Speaker 4: every bear a January first birthday. It was more about
Speaker 4: it was less about when they were born and more
Speaker 4: about what year right, as opposed to like what day
Speaker 4: or what just January, And so the moms and mama
Speaker 4: bears like have to stay in their den for you know,
Speaker 4: sixteen twenty weeks, because they give birth to these one
Speaker 4: pound like hairless, kind of blind little cubs, right like
Speaker 4: they're they're they're little, are huge, right, Bears are bigger
Speaker 4: than people and they give birth to these tiny, little,
Speaker 4: like fist sized cups.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: I mean, I personally am jealous, like human beings should
Speaker 4: be able to do that, right, Like, we are smaller
Speaker 4: and we give birth to these enormous babies and it
Speaker 4: turns us apart. So bears they have these like nice
Speaker 4: little bursts. The babies just slip out right, and then
Speaker 4: they just nurse from their moms and the protection of
Speaker 4: this hibernation den for a couple of months, like two
Speaker 4: or three months, and then they emerge from the den altogether.
Speaker 4: So the mama bear needs to prepare for hibernation by
Speaker 4: packing on the pounds, getting as fat as she possibly
Speaker 4: can in order to not eat, not drink, not urinate,
Speaker 4: not defecate, and justurt birth and nurse some babies for
Speaker 4: several months. And if the climate is not giving her
Speaker 4: that signal that it is time to do that, then
Speaker 4: she won't be ready.
Speaker 1: And the like. If you play it out to the
Speaker 1: worst possible outcome.
Speaker 2: It's that like the cycle gets disrupted, disrupted to the
Speaker 2: point that the the population just begin dwindling.
Speaker 4: That's right, we just stop having births like successful berths.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: So it's less about sometimes people are worried about like
Speaker 4: hunting them, right, like outright killing of them, and it's
Speaker 4: more about like females of reproductive age, like having successful
Speaker 4: berths over and over, and that's if we don't have that,
Speaker 4: then we don't have a future of the species.
Speaker 2: You said something really interesting earlier that I wanted to
Speaker 2: touch back on. They don't And I was always curious
Speaker 2: about this. They don't pooper pee that whole time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, isn't that crazy.
Speaker 1: I always wondered how that. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I remember as a kid hearing that. I'm like, they
Speaker 2: got to poop a little bit, probably.
Speaker 4: They Okay, okay, So let me just say because scientists
Speaker 4: are always going to give a good like, it depends, right,
Speaker 4: So here's my scientist. It depends for accuracy. There haven't
Speaker 4: been a lot of studies done on hibernating bears. You
Speaker 4: can imagine why, right, Like it is very hard to
Speaker 4: study these animals.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it seems so cozy in there. I would
Speaker 1: be all about that. If you need somebody to go
Speaker 1: in there, you can all right, cool, I'll be back
Speaker 1: in a couple hours.
Speaker 4: Like it says, it's like pretty dangerous and like they
Speaker 4: don't want to be bothered, and a lot of these
Speaker 4: things out very important. And then it's hard to study
Speaker 4: hibernation and captive bears like at the zoo because again,
Speaker 4: their food source doesn't go away in the wintertime, and
Speaker 4: so they often don't hibernate because they're like, I'm I'm cool,
Speaker 4: I'm chilling. I have like a heater and a you know,
Speaker 4: person who brings me food. So there aren't a lot
Speaker 4: of studies on this. But what we found is that
Speaker 4: in this metabolic state that they enter, they recycle all
Speaker 4: of their waste and urine, so that's why they don't
Speaker 4: drink anything, and the liquid in their body is being
Speaker 4: recycled like over and over. It's fascinating and there's a
Speaker 4: lot that we can learn about human health and you know,
Speaker 4: biomedicine from studying hibernating bears. In fact, there are some
Speaker 4: hypotheses that they're plasma changes, so we can detect the
Speaker 4: chemical changes down to the blood and the plasma level
Speaker 4: and their organs are actually preserved because the like just
Speaker 4: from recycling molecular components of their plasma changes. I've had
Speaker 4: a researcher come to the field with me in Minnesota
Speaker 4: who was a cardiologist and was studying, you know, human hearts,
Speaker 4: and the idea was that they wanted to take a
Speaker 4: blood sample from a hibernating bear, which we were able
Speaker 4: to do, not without drama, but we were able to
Speaker 4: do it. And they wanted to see if the blood
Speaker 4: of a hibernating bear could preserve human organs because we
Speaker 4: need a way to make organ donors. Organs oh last longer.
Speaker 4: When there's an organ donor and there's a recipient somewhere
Speaker 4: in a hospital waiting for a lung or a heart
Speaker 4: or a kidney, often the organ will die in transport
Speaker 4: because we don't have a good way to keep them alive.
Speaker 4: But apparently bear blood, hibernating bear blood might be the
Speaker 4: thing we need to like if we can replicate it
Speaker 4: to figure out how to preserve organs for double the
Speaker 4: amount of time so that more lives can be saved
Speaker 4: by organ donors.
Speaker 1: That's incredible.
Speaker 2: See this is in learning new stuff too. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: start going poop and pee in the recycling can.
Speaker 4: Yeah right, I mean that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: That is, I think we got what you recycle your
Speaker 1: way to live. I mean, you know, talking about the
Speaker 1: vaccine and you know the like, there is a lot
Speaker 1: of people who had some ideas about how you could
Speaker 1: recycle your own You're protect you from Jack. I think
Speaker 1: you just endorsed that, right, so we can just move along.
Speaker 2: That's the joke stuff, Jack. Why don't you want to
Speaker 2: ask a serious question?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Okay, so you wake up and you're a bear.
Speaker 1: I have an answer to this that I'll get first.
Speaker 1: But like, what's the first thing you're doing? Like, I
Speaker 1: personally feel like showing the other bears water slides would
Speaker 1: be high on. I feel like bears would love water slides.
Speaker 1: And I don't think i've seen a bear like I've
Speaker 1: seen them enjoy a pool. I've seen them enjoy hammocks,
Speaker 1: love a hammock, but like a water slide park, like
Speaker 1: me and my bear friends go ride on water slide park. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds pretty fun. What would what would your be
Speaker 1: other than that?
Speaker 4: What would be the first I guess realistically? Yeah, sure,
Speaker 4: that I do as a bear. I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: they're just so motivated by hunger as am I. So
Speaker 4: I think the first thing I might do is like
Speaker 4: hit up like a buffet, you know, like like a
Speaker 4: good Like what's a good buffet? I mean, Sizzler is classic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just in my family pizza hut salad bar oh.
Speaker 4: From the nineties. Yeah, pizza hut salad bar I thinks
Speaker 4: used to have one. Yeah, okay, yeah, you know, like
Speaker 4: a solid buffet I think would be what I do.
Speaker 4: But I might also, like, you know what's funny is
Speaker 4: that what people talk to me about bears all the time, right,
Speaker 4: And so often they'll bring up like Yogi Bear, right,
Speaker 4: the cartoon, and they'll talk about like picnic baskets and
Speaker 4: like going for a picnic and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 4: And I'm like, maybe that would be cute. Maybe if
Speaker 4: I woke up as a bear, I might be like, Hey,
Speaker 4: let's let's like let's actualize this. Let's like go for
Speaker 4: a picnic at a picnic table in a public park
Speaker 4: and blow people's minds. You know, let's just like screw
Speaker 4: with people and make this whole Yogi Bear story real. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and you know, do that play the part.
Speaker 1: I like that. Sorry, we're just furiously crossing off the
Speaker 1: five Yogi bear questions. Yeah, might not that one. Those
Speaker 1: might come off as hack. Now that's another one.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, So to that point right about you know,
Speaker 2: bears taking a pie off a window sill and things
Speaker 2: like this. So we constantly read stories or I'm constant
Speaker 2: seeing stories of like, you know, black bear shows up
Speaker 2: in a backyard, and you know, the species are increasing.
Speaker 2: The BBC over the summer was like.
Speaker 1: Bears are returning to the Alps.
Speaker 2: Here's what you need to do to avoid, you know,
Speaker 2: having a horrible encounter. We're in how to stay safe
Speaker 2: in bear territory. Some things feel and then other things
Speaker 2: I've read about how I think Louisiana may have a
Speaker 2: bear hunting season for the first time in a long time,
Speaker 2: and that like populations are rising to levels where before
Speaker 2: it seemed like it was pretty fraught with potential of like,
Speaker 2: you know, extinction. Are these stories like are they part
Speaker 2: of a bigger picture? Are there people who are just
Speaker 2: looking at these bear communities being like trying to other
Speaker 2: the bears and make them feel like a threat, and
Speaker 2: how we have to control them or is it something
Speaker 2: that has to be hunted. That's one thing I'm seeing constantly,
Speaker 2: aside from also locally, especially in like La, people who
Speaker 2: live near the Angelus National Forest, increased anecdotes and like
Speaker 2: local news about bears like showing up.
Speaker 1: And I'm curious, from your.
Speaker 2: Perspective, is it like this is a good thing, like right,
Speaker 2: like like conservations working and we're able to like help
Speaker 2: repopulate or this is or it's fine lines?
Speaker 1: Where are we got so.
Speaker 4: Much to say about this? I'm gonna save the hunting stuff, okay,
Speaker 4: because I have a personal opinion about hunting and I
Speaker 4: have a professional opinion, and they're different.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 4: But to answer your first question, I just want here's
Speaker 4: a little anecdote. When I was in grad school, my
Speaker 4: advisor said to me he had been studying carnivores for
Speaker 4: his whole professional career, and he said to me, when
Speaker 4: it comes to carnivores, people think there's either too few
Speaker 4: or too many. They never think there's the right number.
Speaker 4: And man, oh man, does that ring true? Because when
Speaker 4: bears are on the endangered species list, like people are
Speaker 4: like save the bears, We love bears. We got to
Speaker 4: get more bears, bring them back by any means necessary.
Speaker 4: And once we get like a good number of bears
Speaker 4: around and they're like, oh, look, my ancestors used to
Speaker 4: live here. I'm going to come back to this space
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, right like people are ringing the alarm,
Speaker 4: like bears are everywhere they've returned, Like what are you
Speaker 4: to do? They're eating your puppies. So that's like my
Speaker 4: thing I would actually, I would I would call on
Speaker 4: everyone listening to really think about, like, like where do
Speaker 4: you fit in this? Like you do care about wild animals,
Speaker 4: and you care when there's not enough of them, but
Speaker 4: when there's like plenty or when they're doing well, and
Speaker 4: when you see them, does that mean there's too many
Speaker 4: or does that mean you're uncomfortable? Because I think that's
Speaker 4: a huge, huge difference because like, on one hand, when
Speaker 4: it comes to black bears, like we've been doing conservation
Speaker 4: on them for several decades, it's been working pretty well,
Speaker 4: and black bear populations are rebounding. But there's not like
Speaker 4: so many black beers, right, I mean, considering how many
Speaker 4: there used to be before, like you know, the colonization
Speaker 4: of North America, there's a fraction of that number here today. Right,
Speaker 4: there's no habitat for them. I mean, like you know,
Speaker 4: you look at New York City. New York City used
Speaker 4: to have bears before it was New York City, and
Speaker 4: now you're not going to find a bear anywhere you're there.
Speaker 4: So you know, like San Francisco, Los Angeles, grizzly bears
Speaker 4: like walked in those spaces. You're not going to find
Speaker 4: grizzly bears in California. So I have such a strong
Speaker 4: like pushback on people who are like there's so many,
Speaker 4: they're everywhere. They're in my backyard. So it's like, well,
Speaker 4: it's their backyard. Actually, that's like they're in their backyard,
Speaker 4: like they're at their house. It's like they came first.
Speaker 4: Bears existed in North America from what we can tell
Speaker 4: from like the evolutionary timeline. They were here before people,
Speaker 4: before indigenous people, before any human beings walked on the
Speaker 4: continent of North America. As far as we know, black
Speaker 4: bears were here first. And so this is their land
Speaker 4: and we need them right Like they helped to control
Speaker 4: the herbivore population, that helps control the vegetation community, and
Speaker 4: that gives us deeper roots in the soil that prevents erosion,
Speaker 4: and that's a really big issue. I mean, there's a
Speaker 4: lot of reasons we need these predators. Okay, the next
Speaker 4: thing I'll say is that COVID, man oh Man, COVID
Speaker 4: actually plays into this because when the world shut down
Speaker 4: and everyone had to start working from home in twenty twenty,
Speaker 4: we started like noticing shit, Like people started like looking
Speaker 4: out their window and being like, oh my gosh, there's
Speaker 4: a coyote out there. Oh my gosh, have you seen
Speaker 4: how many raccoons are in the trash? Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: The combination of people being home and being able to
Speaker 4: notice what happens in and around their home, and also
Speaker 4: like not going out at night, right Like, we're not
Speaker 4: going to the club, We're not like going to places.
Speaker 4: We're just like watch. We're on bare watch. We can hear.
Speaker 4: We can notice people spending more time in wild places,
Speaker 4: right Like when we were able to travel getting COVID,
Speaker 4: it was safer to be in nature than other places.
Speaker 4: And then technology, everyone has like a ring camera, right
Speaker 4: Like you used to have a doorbell and now you
Speaker 4: have a camera at your door. Everyone is ape and
Speaker 4: they have a camera at the front door, at the
Speaker 4: back door, all around the house. Door cameras, the doorbells
Speaker 4: have cameras, Like there's so much monitoring. There's also like
Speaker 4: I'm flashing my iPhone at y'all because when I first
Speaker 4: started studying bears, we didn't have cameras with phones or
Speaker 4: phones with you know what I'm trying to say, camera phones,
Speaker 4: and now we do. So like the amount of bears
Speaker 4: that I can show that I'm working on today when
Speaker 4: I do field work is an order of magnitude bigger
Speaker 4: than before. So anyone who interacts with a bear in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty three can prove it, can show it, can
Speaker 4: put it on the internet, can spread this information. Whereas
Speaker 4: ten years ago, fifteen years ago, you just had the
Speaker 4: story to tell and it didn't get very far.
Speaker 1: I didn't believe so existed. It was like Bigfoot.
Speaker 4: To me, it was yoking bear and I was like, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1: That's a cartoon, you fools. Sure enough, And then I
Speaker 1: got a cat, sure enough, was one of those real ones.
Speaker 4: So it's like talking to There's like this combination of things, right,
Speaker 4: there's just a combination of things, like, yes, there are
Speaker 4: more bears, there's not very many more bears. Like it's
Speaker 4: going well it's going, well, there's more coyotes. There's not
Speaker 4: that many more coyotes. There's more coyotes caught on your
Speaker 4: nest camera. Right, That's what it is like you just
Speaker 4: didn't know that coyotes are mining their own business on
Speaker 4: your property, you know, five years ago, But now you know,
Speaker 4: and now you have a feeling about it. And so
Speaker 4: there are so many scientists, a lot of folks especially
Speaker 4: I have to highlight like UC Berkeley has this incredible lab,
Speaker 4: the Shell Lab sh e ll, run by a black
Speaker 4: man who's a wonderful wildlife ecologist, and they primarily study
Speaker 4: like urban carnivores, and they are actually using data from
Speaker 4: next door you know that terrible like app of people
Speaker 4: on the sist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, kind of data are they getting? Yeah, those
Speaker 1: people are selling stuff outside on their corner.
Speaker 4: Oh, so like filter out all of the disc m
Speaker 4: minatory like posts on racism and anti homeless rhetoric, and
Speaker 4: you get people talking about animals and they're actually using
Speaker 4: data from next door to kind of measure like are
Speaker 4: people reporting seeing wildlife more often than before? And the
Speaker 4: answer is yes, So we have like a few more animals,
Speaker 4: but a lot more reporting, a lot more discussions, a
Speaker 4: lot of people sharing it and seeing it, and I
Speaker 4: think that's good. I think it normalizes wildlife being around.
Speaker 4: But people got to like stop worrying that they're not
Speaker 4: going to be okay, cause it's like, when was the
Speaker 4: last time a coyote like killed somebody. We don't have that,
Speaker 4: Like that doesn't happen a bear. Yeah, Like it's not
Speaker 4: like you're okay, Like you're safe, you just might not
Speaker 4: feel comfortable.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it gets to your point about awareness, Like
Speaker 2: the more I see it, the more I'm like, I
Speaker 2: actually see more videos of bear encounters where people like
Speaker 2: successfully are just like who know what they're doing and
Speaker 2: like the bear leaves, And that's actually given me a
Speaker 2: little bit more being like, Okay, they're not out here
Speaker 2: to fucking eat our pies.
Speaker 1: You know, they're just doing their thing.
Speaker 2: And if you if you happen to have an encounter,
Speaker 2: there is a way to exit about being like, get
Speaker 2: your fucking.
Speaker 1: Gun tall this bear, all this bear pie fear mongering
Speaker 1: is getting out of hand and it's unbearable.
Speaker 4: Actually, okay, we need to wage your campaign.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we need to take a quick break and then
Speaker 1: we're gonna come back and I want to ask about
Speaker 1: bear videos just generally, because I think you've mentioned it
Speaker 1: a couple of times, but bear videos rule. They probably
Speaker 1: make your job a little bit easier. So we're gonna talk.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back, and we're back. And yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I mean, cat videos is the thing. Everyone's like, the
Speaker 1: internet full of cat videos. Bear videos for me for
Speaker 1: my money better? They rule? So first of all, do
Speaker 1: you like is it annoying to you as somebody with
Speaker 1: the superior animal to cat? Yeah? Like, are you like
Speaker 1: enough with the cat videos? Have you seen these Russian
Speaker 1: guys whose best friends are literally a bear?
Speaker 4: I have to say, I have to say. I don't
Speaker 4: want to offend anybody who's listening. Oh boy, but like
Speaker 4: I get sent so many bear videos and get me
Speaker 4: alone so every day, like whether it's text.
Speaker 1: Hold on, have you seen this one though? Check this
Speaker 1: one out? This is one where the bear catches bread
Speaker 1: yet have you seen this one? First? Sits back? Impressive
Speaker 1: and this is probably not advisable. Bears start waving from no,
Speaker 1: look cat. Have you seen that one? Okay? Okay, how
Speaker 1: about this other one? Uh?
Speaker 4: Impressive?
Speaker 1: Okay, that was impressive.
Speaker 4: Okay, the ketch was impressive the catch was impressive. I'm
Speaker 4: never gonna champion like captive bears like facility, like I
Speaker 4: studied wild bears.
Speaker 1: Okay, but that bear was behind the smallest fence I've
Speaker 1: ever seen. But it was like chicken wire. I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, is okay?
Speaker 4: It's an extremely tame bear.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, okay, I got it. Like I love watching
Speaker 1: bears enjoy a hammock. I particularly feel like that, like
Speaker 1: because they they are perfectly physically expressing the weird, unstable
Speaker 1: feeling of getting in a hammock for the first time,
Speaker 1: like that if you like had a genius comedic actor,
Speaker 1: like doing a routine with a hammock. This is kind
Speaker 1: of like, so this one is too little baby cubs
Speaker 1: doing it, says Woman Records. Rowdy Bear Cup. They're so rowdy.
Speaker 1: They look half like, you know, they're perfectly inhabiting the
Speaker 1: weirdness of being on a hammock, and half they just
Speaker 1: look like if you gave my kids a little bit
Speaker 1: of sugar and let.
Speaker 4: Them and they flipped over.
Speaker 1: That's so real.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, you're right, that's so real. Like hammocks are
Speaker 4: super awkward and they're just having the weirdest time and
Speaker 4: it's like who really spends that much time in a
Speaker 4: hammock because they're like it's just so awkward and you
Speaker 4: never feel totally like like you know, stable.
Speaker 1: But then sometimes they get in there and they're really
Speaker 1: they're soaking it. Yeah yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 4: Bears love to play, you know, especially the cubs. Like
Speaker 4: like baby animals have to play, but the cubs are
Speaker 4: so much like human beings, like we can just see it.
Speaker 4: And when a bear is good and full, it has
Speaker 4: time to play. And so we get a lot of
Speaker 4: those videos of like bears splashing around people's swimming pools
Speaker 4: or like like sitting you know, in their hot tubs,
Speaker 4: or like you know, playing on the hammock or going
Speaker 4: on the swing. Because they're curious and they like to play,
Speaker 4: and that is one of the reasons that they show
Speaker 4: up in the other kind of video, right, like where
Speaker 4: they're trained. That's the reason that like we used to
Speaker 4: see bears in the circus, yeah, right all the time.
Speaker 4: It's like they aren't easily trained. They're really smart animals.
Speaker 4: They are very agile, right, Like their bodies work in
Speaker 4: weighs a lot like ours, and so they they have
Speaker 4: fun as long as they're I'm going to say it again.
Speaker 4: As long as their belly is full honey, like, then
Speaker 4: they can have a good time. And I think that
Speaker 4: is just so endearing about that, right, like relatable, relatable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to I want to show you this
Speaker 1: other one how to. I haven't seen the.
Speaker 2: Video, but as a really freaky title, it says, eighty
Speaker 2: five Bears destroy Patriots.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's it's.
Speaker 2: Just apparently a group watch a group of like eighty
Speaker 2: five bears. I don't know, have you seen?
Speaker 1: Have you?
Speaker 2: Do you know of these specific bears them, there's eighty
Speaker 2: five of them. Apparently one of them is called the
Speaker 2: Refrigerator and then one is called Walter Peyton.
Speaker 4: Yeah a sports team, yes.
Speaker 2: Oh ship, No, okay, this is the this is the
Speaker 2: super Bowl? Never mind, Okay, because I don't want to
Speaker 2: look stupid, but I just.
Speaker 4: Want to point out I think it would be amazing
Speaker 4: one day to like work with athletes to see what
Speaker 4: in fact they know about the animal they're representing, because
Speaker 4: like mascots are always animals. It's like the timber wolves
Speaker 4: or the Eagles and the bears, right, But it's like,
Speaker 4: do these people like have any like knowledge of the animals.
Speaker 4: I should be a consultant. I should just go clearly,
Speaker 4: you don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can live in Chicago. The Bears the Cubs.
Speaker 4: Do a little science communication because everyone comes to a
Speaker 4: football game for science, you know, perfect fit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, So I thought you were going to
Speaker 1: say it would be fun to one day set eighty
Speaker 1: five Bears loose against eighty five self described patriots, because
Speaker 1: that would be have similar results. Yeah, eighty five faral hogs. Yeah, gosh,
Speaker 1: do you think the Christmas episode of the Bear needed
Speaker 1: to be a full hour? Oh?
Speaker 4: I haven't seen the Bear?
Speaker 1: Oh okay, ok wa.
Speaker 4: Wait, this is what I wanted to say before, when
Speaker 4: I was like, I don't want to offend anybody out there,
Speaker 4: because people send me bear stuff all day long, like
Speaker 4: mostly people that I'm friends with, like people my friends
Speaker 4: and family send me bear stuff constantly, Like for gifts.
Speaker 4: I'm always getting like bears as gifts, right, Like I
Speaker 4: want folks to know, like I care about bears so much,
Speaker 4: it is my life. But like after like five PM,
Speaker 4: like I care way less about what bears are doing.
Speaker 4: Like it's like it's like a nine to five and
Speaker 4: like maybe a little bit on the weekends, Like I
Speaker 4: can't be obsessed with bears constantly, Like I like, I can't,
Speaker 4: It's not my identity.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like we only have four and a
Speaker 1: half hours left to keep asking these questions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, how about how about this though, considering the
Speaker 2: fact that you know, bears occupy you'r nine to five,
Speaker 2: what's something scientifically because you do have you know, you're
Speaker 2: around other learned scientists, what's like a scientific breakthrough that
Speaker 2: has caught your attention from you know, like, what's what's
Speaker 2: got you excited when.
Speaker 1: You're around these other scientists? Science in it up? Oh?
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, I have so many friends doing so
Speaker 4: much work. I okay, here's something. Here's something like just
Speaker 4: as a brief departure from bears, Like, wolves are doing
Speaker 4: some amazing stuff and I'm friends with some of the
Speaker 4: researchers who are studying the wolves that are coming into California.
Speaker 4: So like the state of California hasn't had wolves in
Speaker 4: one hundred years or something like that, or maybe over
Speaker 4: one hundred years, and wolf conservation has been going on
Speaker 4: in Oregon, and naturally, like without anyone helping or tempting them,
Speaker 4: they are coming into California and some of them are
Speaker 4: traveling down south. We had a wolf two years ago
Speaker 4: that made it all all the way to La County, Wow,
Speaker 4: from Oregon. That went on as he had a he
Speaker 4: had a GPS collar on, and then it died like
Speaker 4: around the central coast. And unfortunately, the reason we know
Speaker 4: he got so far was because he was hit by
Speaker 4: a car down at l hit by a car after
Speaker 4: that huge journey, But it looks like wolves are repopulating
Speaker 4: where they used to live in California on their own.
Speaker 4: Conservation has done like a little bit in Oregon, but
Speaker 4: not a lot in California. And it's a powerful story
Speaker 4: to me because it's this like triumph and perseverance and
Speaker 4: like you know, a reclamation of like land right that
Speaker 4: was once theirs that they were literally killed off of.
Speaker 4: It's not like people removed them and took them somewhere else.
Speaker 4: They were shot to death and killed and they're coming back.
Speaker 1: Figured the spot.
Speaker 4: This is coming back, Yeah, And you know they're not
Speaker 4: going to be again. They're not going to be like
Speaker 4: in your backyard, but they're gonna be in these forests
Speaker 4: and in these mountains and in these landscapes where they
Speaker 4: used to once live and to me, that's just so special.
Speaker 4: So I'm following that closely. And there's some colleagues of
Speaker 4: mine here in the California kind of academic space that
Speaker 4: are doing that work and I'm a big fan.
Speaker 1: That's cool. Do you have a favorite real bear? Like,
Speaker 1: is there are they to a five guy girl out
Speaker 1: there who you're just like every time I see their
Speaker 1: tracks or their leavings. Yeah, just like doing something cool
Speaker 1: with being a bear.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, like I'm basic, Like this is how I'm
Speaker 4: like basic. I don't know, are we allowed to curse
Speaker 4: on the show? Yeah, okay, so this is where I'm
Speaker 4: like a basic bear bitch right. It's like there's a
Speaker 4: bear called three ninety nine and she's the famous bear.
Speaker 4: Like if you know of individual bears in America, then
Speaker 4: you know who three ninety nine is. If you've never
Speaker 4: thought of this before, I suggest you look up Bear
Speaker 4: three ninety nine. She lives in the Tetons in Wyoming,
Speaker 4: and she's super old. She's fabulous. She's super old, but
Speaker 4: she keeps having litters of cubs and people keep waiting
Speaker 4: for her to die, but she keeps showing up with
Speaker 4: babies and she's just like this incredible mom she's given
Speaker 4: birth to. She's a grizzly bear, I should say, so
Speaker 4: it is also extra special. Grizzly bears are an endangered species.
Speaker 4: So she's a grizzly bear. She's lived in Wyoming for many,
Speaker 4: many years. Three ninety nine. She just keeps having babies, honey, Like,
Speaker 4: she is fertile and fabulous and super old. So she's
Speaker 4: my favorite. And if anyone has a favorite bear out there,
Speaker 4: it's probably three ninety nine.
Speaker 1: That's so wild.
Speaker 2: There's even an there's an ig account called grizzly Bear
Speaker 2: three nulous.
Speaker 4: I am telling you, like fabulous, like get into three.
Speaker 2: Ninety nine, okay, because yeah, out here everybody was all
Speaker 2: about Pete twenty two, you know what I mean, which
Speaker 2: is nan.
Speaker 4: Like he was wonderful. May he rest in peace?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so now we can shift our focus to three
Speaker 2: ninety nine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do we want.
Speaker 2: To probably ask one of our probably like more serious
Speaker 2: questions before you sign off here?
Speaker 1: Yeah? You do? You have one that you're trying to
Speaker 1: get in there? Okay, I figure while we have you here,
Speaker 1: doctor Ray, like, what's like the worst dump you've ever
Speaker 1: seen an animal? Do poop? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Oh, I spend so much time with animal poop right
Speaker 4: right through it with my hands.
Speaker 2: Like Doctor Grant and Jurassic Park see meant to be
Speaker 2: Mexically shout out for that synchronicity.
Speaker 1: There you go, Although it was Laura Darren who really
Speaker 1: dug went up to the hilt, up to the arm,
Speaker 1: up to the shoulder like.
Speaker 4: That glove on. See Laura Darren, if you're listening to this,
Speaker 4: I'm your neighbor. We live close to each other. Come
Speaker 4: find me. Let's talk.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, let's talk about sticking our whole arm into
Speaker 1: big put talk about how I will never not be
Speaker 1: rich from big little eyes.
Speaker 4: So okay, So I just sent a whole bunch of bear, mountain, lion,
Speaker 4: and bobcat poop off to a laboratory to getting analyzed
Speaker 4: to see what these animals are eating, right, Because a
Speaker 4: really good way to figure out like what the bears
Speaker 4: and the lines I'm sending or eating is to like
Speaker 4: look at what's in their poop. And if I can't
Speaker 4: tell you, send it to a lab and they tell you,
Speaker 4: like what's in it. So I'm actually like hoping to
Speaker 4: find some interesting information that, like my bears are eating
Speaker 4: like a lot of wild pigs or like deer or
Speaker 4: you know, like the big awesome stuff. So honestly, like
Speaker 4: I just A'm so desensitized to giant like piles of
Speaker 4: poop from the large animal. I also have a toddler
Speaker 4: at home, right, so it's like it's at work, it's
Speaker 4: at home, Like poop has become.
Speaker 2: My life, okay, but like what's the worst I'm sorry
Speaker 2: to get you like.
Speaker 1: Send it off to the lab with just like a
Speaker 1: nasty written next to it. Nasty.
Speaker 4: So the thing about bears again, there are like a
Speaker 4: lot like people. Maybe this is TMI, but like depending
Speaker 4: on what bears eat, it just shows up in their poop, right,
Speaker 4: So like bear poop can look super different. It could
Speaker 4: be like it could be full of like berry seeds, right,
Speaker 4: like just like totally full of seeds. You could get
Speaker 4: a big pile and it's like red in color because
Speaker 4: it's like they ate all these berries and there's all
Speaker 4: these seeds in it big pile. Or maybe a bear
Speaker 4: like went into a bee hive, right and like ate
Speaker 4: a whole bunch of honey and honeycomb, and then you're
Speaker 4: gonna get a big pile of poop that's like a
Speaker 4: darker color, and it has bees in it, like the
Speaker 4: actual insects are like dead in that they eat the
Speaker 4: bees and it like goes through their system and you'll
Speaker 4: get like little bee butts in the pile of poop.
Speaker 4: And then sometimes bears eat a lot of fish, right,
Speaker 4: Like let's say there's like a river or stream and
Speaker 4: it's fall and the salmon are spawning, and that's when
Speaker 4: it's super gross because it's just like this black, tarry
Speaker 4: poop and it has this like fishy smell and it's
Speaker 4: more liquidy, right, Like you'd think because it was protein,
Speaker 4: it would be firmer, but it's yeah, because I eat
Speaker 4: like the fat, like they eat like the brains of
Speaker 4: the fish and like the cakes. So it's all like
Speaker 4: lucy black. Like yeah, like gross, super gross.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the worst kind of poop is a bear
Speaker 1: that's been eating a bunch of fish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, all right, yeah you're right, Jack. I
Speaker 2: was gonna say it was if they've been eating candy.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, because that's kind of like me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the poops you find that in woods, Like
Speaker 1: people sometimes are like, does a bear poop in the woods?
Speaker 1: And I know the answer to that, And I don't
Speaker 1: quietly have a panic attack because I don't know the
Speaker 1: answer to that, and everybody else seems to. But just
Speaker 1: like in your profession, if you had to get bear bears,
Speaker 1: do pooping them with.
Speaker 4: Bears, poop wherever they are.
Speaker 1: Okay, good, that's so good. Have confirmed. I mean, I've
Speaker 1: always known that. I've always known that, and I was
Speaker 1: not just being falsely confident. Now you can say that
Speaker 1: to your kids with confidence. Jack. Finally, uh, doctor ray
Speaker 1: Win Grant, thank you so much for joining us, for
Speaker 1: putting up with us. My pleasure, What a pleasure? Where
Speaker 1: where can people find you? Follow you here? You see
Speaker 1: you all that good stuff?
Speaker 4: Oh follow me. I'll talk about bears amongst other things.
Speaker 4: I love a good social follow. So all my handles
Speaker 4: are the same at ray Win Grant. That's R A
Speaker 4: E W Y and N G R A n T.
Speaker 4: Check out my website. It's new or it will be
Speaker 4: new in like a week or two, so that's a
Speaker 4: raywind Grant dot com. And check out my podcast, Going
Speaker 4: Wild with Doctor ray Wind Grant. It's on PEP it's
Speaker 4: for PBS Nature. You can get it wherever you listen
Speaker 4: to podcasts, wherever, whatever app you use, that's where you
Speaker 4: can find it. And check out my new television show
Speaker 4: Wild Kingdom, which is on NBC every Saturday and streaming
Speaker 4: on Peacock every single Sunday.
Speaker 1: And I see I've heard of them. They're Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: one of the channel you know notable.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they have SNL and they have my show.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's all you need. Yeah, And is there
Speaker 1: a work of media that you've been enjoying?
Speaker 4: Oh, really love my podcast at my TV show. But
Speaker 4: I will just say, I mean, like if you want
Speaker 4: to know, like who I am after hours, I have
Speaker 4: been loving this show on Netflix. My husband and I
Speaker 4: watch it like together, and maybe this is how I'm
Speaker 4: just like a bear that I'm constantly hungry. But it's
Speaker 4: called American Barbecue Showdown, And like, you never knew a
Speaker 4: show about meat like could be so entertaining. So like,
Speaker 4: my husband and I stay up late and we watch
Speaker 4: American Barbecue Showdown on Netflix, and that is a piece
Speaker 4: of media that I'm enjoying. So I guess I'm just
Speaker 4: just like a bear. I just can't get enough.
Speaker 1: There you go, amazing, Well, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining us. Miles. Where can people find you? Follow you?
Speaker 1: Work a media you've been enjoying.
Speaker 2: At Miles of Gray all over the place where you
Speaker 2: got them in the Angelist National Forest, looking for the
Speaker 2: grossest animal poops imaginable for my other Instagram at worst
Speaker 2: nature Poops. And then you can find us on our
Speaker 2: basketball podcast Miles and Jack got Mad Boosties, where just
Speaker 2: the preseason delivers. I don't know why people are getting
Speaker 2: mad that people look this great in preseason. We're seeing
Speaker 2: something really cool. There are people being like, calm down,
Speaker 2: it's preseason. It's like, I don't care. This is so fun.
Speaker 2: Freaking giants out here wind milling on us all and
Speaker 2: then you can find me on our night on My
Speaker 2: ninety Day Fiance podcast for twenty Day Fiance and also
Speaker 2: The Good Thief that's a true crime one, but it
Speaker 2: doesn't have any killing. It's only about kidnapping millionaires and.
Speaker 1: Giving them money to port people. Pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Let's see tweet I like is from ronyverir at ron
Speaker 2: ue r O n n u. I underscore tweeted Twitter
Speaker 2: ads in twenty twenty one. Try drinking a refreshing pepsi
Speaker 2: when you see a movie. Smiley face Twitter ads in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. My name is Mike the Ratman, and
Speaker 2: I discovered.
Speaker 1: The real pizza hut. It's so fucking true, so I
Speaker 1: just love to tone it out. Amazing tweet. I've been
Speaker 1: enjoying mert at Mert Century tweeted hitting a vape that's
Speaker 1: attached to a desk by one of those chains they
Speaker 1: have on the pens at the bank. You can find
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at Jack Underscore O'Brien. You can find
Speaker 1: us on Twitter at daily Zeikeist. We're at d daily
Speaker 1: Zeikeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook fan page on
Speaker 1: a website daily zeikeist dot com. We'll post our episodes
Speaker 1: and our footnotes. We're going link off to the information
Speaker 1: that we talked about in today's episode, as well as
Speaker 1: a song that we think you might enjoy. Miles, is
Speaker 1: there a song that you think the people might enjoy?
Speaker 1: I think you're gonna like this one.
Speaker 2: This is from a UK rapper in it names bliss
Speaker 2: N A M E, S B L I S s
Speaker 2: uh and a really cool I just first of all,
Speaker 2: I got attracted to. The track is called Iniesta Flow,
Speaker 2: obviously a reference to the great Spanish footballer on DRIs Iniesta,
Speaker 2: but the lyrics.
Speaker 1: Are great and sometimes hearing rap in that beautiful UK accent.
Speaker 2: This is like it's like an entirely new genre, but
Speaker 2: the beat on it is really dope too. So for
Speaker 2: you know, geriatric millennials of a certain age, you're gonna.
Speaker 1: Like this one. It's called any Stuff Through Amazing. Well,
Speaker 1: we will link off to that in the footnotes. The
Speaker 1: Daily is the production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast. Wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows, that's gonna do it for
Speaker 1: us this morning. We're back this afternoon to tell you
Speaker 1: what's trending and we will talk to you all then
Speaker 1: bit by bit