Speaker 1: My welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production
Speaker 1: of My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick. In today's episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 1: we have a special interview guest. It's science writer Mary Roach.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be chatting with her about her new book
Speaker 1: fuzz When Nature Breaks the Law, which is out today
Speaker 1: wherever you get your books. This is my first Mary
Speaker 1: Roach book, and I love it. It. I I feel
Speaker 1: ashamed now that I had never read one of her
Speaker 1: books before. Um, but she has such an infectious and
Speaker 1: enjoyable prose style that really gets in your head. Um.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I wanted to emphasize in
Speaker 1: the intro here because because I've just been thinking about it.
Speaker 1: In terms of subject matter, this book gets into a
Speaker 1: lot of kind of dark and grizzly sounding stuff. But
Speaker 1: it is but despite that, it is a really funny book.
Speaker 1: It is like one of the most laugh out loud
Speaker 1: funny books I've read in a long time. Yeah, it's engaging,
Speaker 1: it's weird, it's fun. Um. I was telling my wife
Speaker 1: about the book and she's read Mary Roach before, and
Speaker 1: my wife was like, well, some of that sounds a
Speaker 1: little dark. I don't know, I want to read that
Speaker 1: right now. But but of course this has always been
Speaker 1: the way with Mary roach books. There. They do get
Speaker 1: into dark territory, but they are always fun and and humorous.
Speaker 1: Um if you're not familiar out there. Her previous books
Speaker 1: include two thousand three Stiff, which is about cadaver's two
Speaker 1: thousand five Spook, which is about scientific inquiries, especially early
Speaker 1: scientific inquiries into the supernatural, two thousand eights Bunk, which
Speaker 1: is about sexuality, two thousand tens Packing for Mars, which
Speaker 1: is about the science scientific research into UH into into
Speaker 1: the Quest for Space, two thousand thirteens Gulp, which is
Speaker 1: about human digestion uh and then two thousands sixteen book
Speaker 1: was Grunt, which is about military scientific investigations. I've read
Speaker 1: all of these, and I think this is the This
Speaker 1: is the fourth time Mary has actually been on stuff
Speaker 1: to blow your mind, as she previously dropped in to
Speaker 1: talk about Packing from Mars, Gulp, and Grunt. She's either
Speaker 1: our most featured guest at this point or she's tied
Speaker 1: for the honors. I can't remember either way. Friend of
Speaker 1: the show's status is definitely in place. Mary Roach, thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us today. Could you introduce yourself? Of course,
Speaker 1: I'm Mary Roach. As you said, I have a nonfiction author,
Speaker 1: and my most recent book is called Fuzz Sometimes When
Speaker 1: Nature Breaks the Law. I have been so enjoying this book.
Speaker 1: I love your dry, humorous prose style in it. And
Speaker 1: I thought, before we got any broader questions about about
Speaker 1: the book and what you've learned from writing it, I
Speaker 1: thought it would be good to kick off with an
Speaker 1: example of the kinds of speriences you cover in the book.
Speaker 1: And so I loved the story you cover in the
Speaker 1: very first chapter about the wildlife Human Attack Response training
Speaker 1: course you went through in Las Vegas. Could you tell
Speaker 1: us a bit about this conference and and what got
Speaker 1: you there and what it was like? Sure? Sure, yeah.
Speaker 1: It's called uh Wildlife Human Attack Response Training UH or WART,
Speaker 1: which by its founders admission, is a terrible acronym. So
Speaker 1: WART is a five day course which I was lucky
Speaker 1: enough to be able to sit in on, and it's
Speaker 1: most almost entirely attended by people who deal with wildlife
Speaker 1: attacks the aftermath of the attack. And it's basically, you know,
Speaker 1: you're setting up a crime scene and you're doing forensics
Speaker 1: as you might in the case of a human on
Speaker 1: human killing, uh, and you're trying to trying to take evidence,
Speaker 1: collect evidence, established linkage between the perpetrator and the victim. Um.
Speaker 1: And if they they caught an animal that they think
Speaker 1: might be the animal and the DNA doesn't match or
Speaker 1: they don't they're not able to establish that language, they'll
Speaker 1: release the animals. So there's these bizarre parallels to the
Speaker 1: human the human criminal justice system. But for me, it
Speaker 1: was just a fascinating five days of hanging out and
Speaker 1: hearing a lot about predator attacks and the aftermath, which
Speaker 1: was both fascinating and often quite grizzly. G R. I. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's not easy. Um. So Yeah, it was utterly fascinating
Speaker 1: to me because I've you know, I've never encountered this
Speaker 1: world and did not know that these prime scenes were
Speaker 1: processed that way and that this work was done. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you include some details about like, uh, these sessions
Speaker 1: where you would be given a mannequin that had these
Speaker 1: wounds inflicted on it with saws and knives and things,
Speaker 1: and you'd have to establish what type of animal it
Speaker 1: was from the wounds on the mannequin. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: They had these soft touch mannequins. They're not like something
Speaker 1: you'd see in a store window. They were. They were
Speaker 1: you know, they're fleshy, I'll say fleshy. And they were.
Speaker 1: The people who had created these wounds were people who've
Speaker 1: seen they I mean, they were based on actual bodies
Speaker 1: and the wounds on the victims of attacks. Some of
Speaker 1: them bear, some of them cougar or mountain lion. Um
Speaker 1: and uh quite uh quite realistic, I have to say.
Speaker 1: And and so they were, they were. We all had workstations,
Speaker 1: you know, they were about it. There were about I
Speaker 1: think eight or more, maybe a few more workstations each
Speaker 1: group had, uh, mock victim. And the idea was, look
Speaker 1: at these wounds and what can you learn? And you
Speaker 1: can pretty quickly, uh make a distinction between first of all,
Speaker 1: human versus animal and then um uh mountain lion versus bag.
Speaker 1: They kill in very different ways. They have very different
Speaker 1: teeth and claws, and the marks on the body and
Speaker 1: the wounds will tell you, um, quite readily who the
Speaker 1: perpetrator or what species the perpetrator was. Um. And then
Speaker 1: after that is established and you sort of you're moving
Speaker 1: down to more than nitty gritty of looking at saliva,
Speaker 1: you know, matching DNA between the victim and the animal.
Speaker 1: So you might be doing that with saliva on the
Speaker 1: victim's body or blood. You might be looking into the
Speaker 1: gums of the animal to see is their human tissue
Speaker 1: there and does is that? Does that match the victim,
Speaker 1: So you'd be just like you might do on you know,
Speaker 1: C S I or one of those shows that I
Speaker 1: never watched, but those forensics shows so uh, super interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: One of the details from the section that really stuck
Speaker 1: with me was in warning to everyone, this is about
Speaker 1: to get gruesome. The idea of since bears tend to
Speaker 1: when they do attack humans, which is rare, but when
Speaker 1: they do, they tend to bite repeatedly at the face
Speaker 1: that you might expect to say, find human facial features
Speaker 1: like lips or something, it's stuck in the bear's teeth
Speaker 1: or the stomach. You would examine the bear's stomach contents
Speaker 1: and they're you know, they're they're not necessarily chewing all
Speaker 1: that thoroughly, and so you might find, you know, an
Speaker 1: entire i or in one case, a part of the
Speaker 1: scalp with a mohawk haircut and which in fact match
Speaker 1: the victim's hairstyle. So yeah, with bears, because bears when
Speaker 1: they attack each other, they use their teeth and go
Speaker 1: for the face. They go for each other's face because
Speaker 1: that's lightly furred and they can inflict more damage. And
Speaker 1: that's the sets. They're kind of Achilles heel, which is
Speaker 1: in there their head, not their foot. Uh So they're
Speaker 1: that's kind of what they do and when that which
Speaker 1: makes for some pretty horrible injuries. Also, you see that
Speaker 1: also um with with cougars because they they're biting at
Speaker 1: the neck. But sometimes you know when um, I use
Speaker 1: the comparison and in rather grizzly, but when you think
Speaker 1: of biting into a very ripe plum, how when you
Speaker 1: bite into it, the skin pulls away. So so what
Speaker 1: you sometimes have is kind of these scalpings as it work.
Speaker 1: Was that you know, if you if you try, if
Speaker 1: you're an animal and you're trying to get your jaw
Speaker 1: around a human head, you're hitting bone right away, and
Speaker 1: then you close your jaws and it pulls the skin away.
Speaker 1: So some of these um mannequins were really a little
Speaker 1: tough to tough to see and I can imagine coming
Speaker 1: upon the real thing would be pretty disturbing. But one
Speaker 1: of the interesting things that is this is a takeaway
Speaker 1: from observing all these different kinds of wounds, is that
Speaker 1: almost all of them indicate that we are not really
Speaker 1: what this animal has evolved to use its jaws or
Speaker 1: claws on. And so like you described with the with
Speaker 1: the cougars biting the back of the head or bears
Speaker 1: attacking humans, the bites almost reveal the strangeness of this
Speaker 1: encounter between the human and the animal. Write a bear
Speaker 1: bears eat, I mean they're they're mostly eating nuts, berries, fruit, um,
Speaker 1: if sometimes fish, grasses. So they have molars that they
Speaker 1: have a jaw that goes side to side, and they've
Speaker 1: got molars for crushing and grinding um. So there, So
Speaker 1: the bites on a human, it's a it's it's messy,
Speaker 1: is the way it was put. It's kind of a
Speaker 1: messy affair. Whereas uh, a mountain lion is does a
Speaker 1: leaps attacks secures, the pride does a killing bite. So
Speaker 1: these puncture wounds, these triangular puncture wounds, it's a less
Speaker 1: messy death, if you will. So, yeah, you can really
Speaker 1: see how the animals equipped to gather its food and uh.
Speaker 1: And with mountain lions, yeah, they do tend to they
Speaker 1: pounce and kill. They are predators and true carnivores, but
Speaker 1: they're not true We're not on the menu they like
Speaker 1: deer or wild pigs or they're not They're not going
Speaker 1: after humans. Very very rarely a whole decade, we'll go
Speaker 1: buy in California where we don't have a single mountain
Speaker 1: lion fatality. It's just a very unusual occurrence. Now, speaking
Speaker 1: of bears, I re really I really enjoyed the how,
Speaker 1: not only with the bear chapter, but you know, multiple
Speaker 1: chapters in the book. You you kind of you turn
Speaker 1: our pre existing notions of these animals kind of on
Speaker 1: their head, even if we think that our pre existing
Speaker 1: notions are kind of you know, well informed. Uh, but
Speaker 1: with the with the bear in particular, when you're talking
Speaker 1: about the break ins that are perpetrated by bears and
Speaker 1: in these cases, how it seems like the bear is
Speaker 1: such a contradiction. Can you speak to like some of
Speaker 1: those some of those details about like how how reckless
Speaker 1: they can be, but then so how just almost hauntingly precise. Sure, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I spent some time in um Picken County, Colorado, on
Speaker 1: the outskirts of downtown Aspen, up in the hills. Um,
Speaker 1: and this is a ski or as or town. We're
Speaker 1: up in the mountains. We are in bear territory. Uh
Speaker 1: and so uh the bears are in. The bears start
Speaker 1: to realize nuts and berries, these are great, grab apples,
Speaker 1: choke cherry, this is great. But these humans, these humans
Speaker 1: seem to have some really good stuff inside their homes.
Speaker 1: And a bear that kind of realizes that surprisingly adept
Speaker 1: at popping a window or even turning. They call the
Speaker 1: bear handles their French door handles, which you just pushed
Speaker 1: down on and pushed the door and it opens quite easily.
Speaker 1: So bears are find it very easy to to get
Speaker 1: into two people's homes and people are sometimes surprised. It
Speaker 1: depends on the bear. But some bears like the break
Speaker 1: in that where I went to the aftermath of this
Speaker 1: break in, and the bear had gone through a downstairs,
Speaker 1: through a deck leading to a bedroom downstairs, and then
Speaker 1: up to the kitchen. Didn't knock anything over. Uh, didn't
Speaker 1: even leave footprint sun bears. Um. The guy who the
Speaker 1: wildlife invested was Colorado Fish and Game and fish and
Speaker 1: wildlife that he was talking about, how they they will
Speaker 1: sometimes reach in like take out a carton of eggs
Speaker 1: and inside, or or take out things that they don't
Speaker 1: want to put them aside. One bear allegedly opened hers
Speaker 1: she's kiss open the foil her. She's kiss uh and
Speaker 1: and ate that. So there there, um, yeah, they there.
Speaker 1: While they can create, you know, a god awful mess,
Speaker 1: whether it's on a body or in someone's kitchen, sometimes
Speaker 1: they're surprisingly um precise and laid back. It's it's interesting
Speaker 1: how different their person individual personalities are. Was it from uh,
Speaker 1: the person you were speaking with the Colorado Fish and
Speaker 1: Wildlife that you got that fact about, or at least
Speaker 1: the allegation that some of these bears apparently have brand
Speaker 1: preferences when it comes to ice cream, like they really
Speaker 1: like Hogin does, but they don't like the store brand. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was. It was. It was a woman from the
Speaker 1: neighboring town is It's Snowmass. I think the it's a
Speaker 1: it's a again a mountain resort ski and mountain biking
Speaker 1: resort town, Tina White I believe her name was, And
Speaker 1: she said that the black bears in the area they
Speaker 1: prefer premium brands. They will not touch Western Family ice Cream,
Speaker 1: which I guess is like a low rent brand that
Speaker 1: they have in Colorado, and they're like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: thank you. I gotta say the parts of that chapter
Speaker 1: where you were talking about the bears getting into the trash,
Speaker 1: the unsecured trash outside of fancy restaurants, that was really
Speaker 1: making me hungry when you were listing all the foods
Speaker 1: they were stabbing their snouts into, so the rotten Barata
Speaker 1: cheese and the and the sustainable sicunas salon, and exactly
Speaker 1: if they were like, this is some good, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank Let's see. Let's let's go a little broader for
Speaker 1: a second here and just talk about the book itself,
Speaker 1: which again is fuzz when when nature breaks the law.
Speaker 1: I was just wondering, how how long have you been
Speaker 1: planning this particular book, and is there is there anything
Speaker 1: in particular that you can point to as being like
Speaker 1: the inspiration point that led you down this road. Oh,
Speaker 1: I wish I had a great origin story because people
Speaker 1: people often ask about that, and um I came to
Speaker 1: it this one and it's a really kind of circuitous
Speaker 1: roundabout not necessarily all that interesting. Half I had originally
Speaker 1: gotten interested in wildlife crime scene forensics, but not when
Speaker 1: the animals are the perpetrators, but when the animals are
Speaker 1: the victims. So I was up at this forensics lab
Speaker 1: that the Fish and Wildlife Department has, talking to this
Speaker 1: woman who was an expert in how to tell counterfeit
Speaker 1: versus genuine dried tiger penis, because of course it's illegal
Speaker 1: to traffic and animal endangered animal parts. And uh, as
Speaker 1: it turns out, almost all as was being passed off
Speaker 1: as tiger penis is deer or horse or cow, partly
Speaker 1: because those are easier to come by, and they're bigger
Speaker 1: and more impressive. And if you're trying to quote unquote
Speaker 1: cure erectile discilation or make yourself more virile, a little
Speaker 1: tiger penis doesn't. It doesn't have the right optics. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's a long winded way of saying. I was up
Speaker 1: at this lab, the Vision Wildlife National Wildlife Forensics Laboratory,
Speaker 1: and I thought, well, this this could be an interesting area.
Speaker 1: But as it turns out, I was not going to
Speaker 1: be able to follow any open investigations. I wasn't to
Speaker 1: be able to tag along with investigators and do the
Speaker 1: kind of thing I really have to do for my
Speaker 1: books to make it interesting for myself hopefully for the reader.
Speaker 1: So that was a dead end, and I kind of
Speaker 1: various other things happened. But I eventually thought, well, what
Speaker 1: if I turned it around, and what if the animals
Speaker 1: were the perpetrators and the people are the victims, and
Speaker 1: and you know what, what would what's to be done there?
Speaker 1: And I learned that there's in fact a whole science
Speaker 1: this devoted to this, called human wildlife conflict and the
Speaker 1: science of human wildlife conflict, and there's conventions and scientists
Speaker 1: and researchers. So I thought that could be an interesting
Speaker 1: world to step into. So it was a circuitous path,
Speaker 1: it wasn't It wasn't. I have not been attacked, or
Speaker 1: not until the book, by any animal. That's right, you were.
Speaker 1: You were robbed by a monkey. I was mugged by
Speaker 1: cac Yes, I was. So when I when I picked
Speaker 1: up the book and was getting into it, you know,
Speaker 1: I expected a lot of it, of course, to be
Speaker 1: happening in a contemporary setting and dealing with our modern world,
Speaker 1: thinking like, okay, this is where the legal system has
Speaker 1: led and this is where you know, the growth of
Speaker 1: human populations and expansion has led. So I was I
Speaker 1: was really surprised and interested when you mentioned a book
Speaker 1: from nineteen o six, The Criminal Prosecution and Punishment of Animals.
Speaker 1: But I believe E. P. Evans, Can you talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about this? Sure, that's something I came upon
Speaker 1: very early on and also pushed me towards this topic.
Speaker 1: A bizarre book. This is a book detailing the things
Speaker 1: that human societies used to do to deal with animals
Speaker 1: and insects that were committing crimes against them. Crimes in
Speaker 1: the sense of following our laws, you know, stealing or
Speaker 1: or committing manslaughter. And what used to happen is that
Speaker 1: they were uh, criminally prosecuted. The example I given the
Speaker 1: book is this case. It's from sixteen fifty nine in
Speaker 1: Northern Italy, a province in northern Italy, and um caterpillars
Speaker 1: were eating a lot of the crops, lettuces, whatever they were.
Speaker 1: And these caterpillars will do they're hungry, They've got, you know,
Speaker 1: bulk up for their little transition. And so the community
Speaker 1: that the um whoever the magistrate or the head person
Speaker 1: was posted summons legal summons on the trees in the area.
Speaker 1: Requesting that the caterpillars appear in court on a set date,
Speaker 1: at which point the summons said they would be assigned
Speaker 1: legal representation and a trial would ensue. And of course
Speaker 1: the caterpillars did not appear in court, but by that
Speaker 1: time had pupated, weren't causing any problems anymore. But but
Speaker 1: that's this book. It's like four hundred pages of well
Speaker 1: documented situations and cases. There were, you know, livestock, some
Speaker 1: of it pigs, pigs killing small children. Not don't care
Speaker 1: about that happening much today, but apparently used to happen
Speaker 1: with some frequency. The pigs being tried, executed, sometimes imprisoned.
Speaker 1: And I thought this, I almost thought this was a
Speaker 1: hoax because it was so so bizarre. But the bat
Speaker 1: be appendix as a number of these documents and um
Speaker 1: in some detail in Latin a lot of the times,
Speaker 1: sometimes French. Uh, And so it was. It was real,
Speaker 1: and it was not that there were just simple minded people.
Speaker 1: It was the way, the way the author explained it.
Speaker 1: It was a way to um display the breadth of
Speaker 1: your powers as as a legal entity or as a leader,
Speaker 1: you know, even nature must follow my rules, and you
Speaker 1: will be punished so it's kind of a display, kind
Speaker 1: of ludicrous, but a display of dominion and power and
Speaker 1: I control all so. But but the the details were
Speaker 1: quite quite amazing. I mean people ritz w r I
Speaker 1: t rits of ejectment that were stucked into the burrows
Speaker 1: of rats like you must leave the must they get
Speaker 1: the premises under penalty of law. Honestly, legal system not
Speaker 1: the best approach of the animals. They don't read, they
Speaker 1: don't care. They just want a place to have a
Speaker 1: nest or get something to eat, and we offer that
Speaker 1: and they take advantage of it. These are crimes of
Speaker 1: opportunity for the most part. Anyway that that book is
Speaker 1: a fascinating it thought particularly easy to get through, but
Speaker 1: a fascinating read. Nineteen o six when the book was published.
Speaker 1: Do you think these kinds of legal actions were at
Speaker 1: all um based on a certain theological understanding of law.
Speaker 1: I don't recall any mention of this in the book,
Speaker 1: but you know, was there an idea that maybe if
Speaker 1: you issued a certain kind of legitimate uh sanctioned by
Speaker 1: the court, that somehow God would enforce it or something. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: there there definitely was a religious element. There was this
Speaker 1: sense that this belief that these plagues and these um
Speaker 1: actions of these animals were being or a punishment on
Speaker 1: the people themselves, that that God was punishing us by
Speaker 1: sending these creatures. So, yeah, that was that was tied
Speaker 1: into it. There was a belief that we the community
Speaker 1: are being punished and so you know, we will I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know that's exactly what you were asking, but
Speaker 1: that was that was definitely part of the part of
Speaker 1: the belief. But that on the subject of theology and religion,
Speaker 1: you do and later the book get into that a bit,
Speaker 1: uh talking to individuals about like what is what is
Speaker 1: one's religious responsibility towards these animals that we may think
Speaker 1: of as vermin. Well, yeah, I spent some time in India,
Speaker 1: which has quite a different attitude and relationship attitude toward
Speaker 1: animals and relationship with them, partly because a lot a
Speaker 1: lot of the deities and Hinduism are animals, where they're
Speaker 1: you know, they appear as animals, or the spouse is
Speaker 1: an animal, or they ride around on an animal, and
Speaker 1: they themselves like hant him on is you know, the
Speaker 1: monkey head and Gunnesh the elephant. Cows are considered sacred.
Speaker 1: So it's a when when those animals start to cause problems, Um,
Speaker 1: people are not as quick to rush in to calling
Speaker 1: the authorities to exterminate them or call them. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a stigma attached to that, you know, a
Speaker 1: new Delhi, the tremendous problems of macaques troops and not
Speaker 1: just not just Deli. All over cities in northern India.
Speaker 1: Macaques cause a lot of problems. And uh, one of
Speaker 1: the things that's done in nadelis to catch them and
Speaker 1: transport them down to this large sanctuary in the southern
Speaker 1: part of the city. It used to be a mine
Speaker 1: and now it's really wilded and is a place where
Speaker 1: the maccaques are let loose. And it's very very hard
Speaker 1: for the authorities to hire monkey catchers. I mean that
Speaker 1: is this just you would you would be looked at
Speaker 1: a scance if you were somebody who was trapping and
Speaker 1: man handling macaques. Because of the religious significance of these animals.
Speaker 1: The other thing going on while their pests and nuisances
Speaker 1: to people that people are also they gather at temples,
Speaker 1: these monkeys because they know people will and offerings. They
Speaker 1: will not only inside the temple where you know the
Speaker 1: more conventional um offerings are made, but when they go outside,
Speaker 1: they see the monkey, and they will give them monkey,
Speaker 1: you know, fruit or little packets of soda or whatever
Speaker 1: they'll they'll, So they're they're both encouraging the animal and
Speaker 1: then also being harassed by it. So it's a sticky
Speaker 1: problem there. The religious the religious elements make it more
Speaker 1: complicated when when it comes to finding some sort of solution.
Speaker 1: There are several examples in the book where you discuss
Speaker 1: animals that in some way interact or have conflict with,
Speaker 1: or live alongside humans, and how there might be a
Speaker 1: sort of emergent evolutionary pressure on animals that know how
Speaker 1: to exploit humans and just like just to the right
Speaker 1: extent without overstepping and then being being dealt with violently.
Speaker 1: Like you talked about this in the chapter with the bears,
Speaker 1: which I thought was really interesting, how there there could
Speaker 1: be a kind of evolutionary advantage for what are called
Speaker 1: the fat Albert bears and bears that are you know,
Speaker 1: get in and get a lot of calories out of
Speaker 1: your fridge, but are less likely to have a scary
Speaker 1: conflict with a person or less likely to damage the house. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the fat fat Albert was a bear that was quite
Speaker 1: good at breaking into people's cabins and homes. This is
Speaker 1: again Colorado, but people would marvel afterwards, like came in here,
Speaker 1: didn't damage anything, and people were kind of impressed, you know, okay,
Speaker 1: rated the fridge, took some stuff, didn't break anything. So
Speaker 1: so not as likely to be angry or to perceive
Speaker 1: this creature as a threat and to call uh, Colorado
Speaker 1: Parks and Wildlife and and you know, request something be
Speaker 1: done about the bear. So so then, you know, the
Speaker 1: more fat Alberts, the more these bears persist and survived
Speaker 1: to breeding age, the more you're gonna sort of see
Speaker 1: more hopefully more fat Alberts. Because the bears that are
Speaker 1: very aggressive, that are aggressive toward people or their pets,
Speaker 1: or that break in and cause a lot of damage.
Speaker 1: They to use the phrasing of the person I was
Speaker 1: talking to, they're gonna get whacked fast, like some people
Speaker 1: are going to be feel threatened. They're going to complain,
Speaker 1: They're going to call the agency. Agency is going to
Speaker 1: come out seat a big colvert trap and that animal
Speaker 1: will be destroyed and so um, possibly, yes, possibly, you know,
Speaker 1: the fat Alberts will be seeing more and more of
Speaker 1: them and fewer and fewer of the aggressive ones, and
Speaker 1: that could be a good thing over time. Now, in
Speaker 1: your your section, in your in Fuzz dealing with animals
Speaker 1: on the highways, you discuss self driving car solutions to
Speaker 1: animal strikes. Uh, and I found this very fascinating as well.
Speaker 1: How does it seem that self driving cars are likely
Speaker 1: to react to animals on the road in the future. Well,
Speaker 1: right now, there's something called a large animal detection system.
Speaker 1: So an animal that kind a long legged, tall animal. Uh,
Speaker 1: anything that comes into the path, the beam of the
Speaker 1: detector that fits that visual profile will cause the car
Speaker 1: to stop. That I mean that the brakes will be applied. H.
Speaker 1: And the reason is a large animal detection system. What
Speaker 1: they're hoping to prevent is illusions with a moose and
Speaker 1: elk or an elk, because those animals are tall enough
Speaker 1: that if the car strikes them, it strikes them in
Speaker 1: the legs, and the entire torso and head and antler's
Speaker 1: cart whales back over the car. And these animals are
Speaker 1: tall enough that that that they come through the windfield
Speaker 1: and land on the driver and or the passenger. And um,
Speaker 1: the result is often a broken neck, death or or
Speaker 1: or paralysis. So, um, it's quite different than just hitting
Speaker 1: a deer or the deers. I mean, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: a lot of damage to the car and to the deer,
Speaker 1: but often the person's the person survives without serious injury, unless,
Speaker 1: of course they swerved and hit a tree and went
Speaker 1: off the road. Um. So a self driving car, uh,
Speaker 1: the ones that I heard about I called, UM, I
Speaker 1: think I've talked to someone at Volvo. Volvo and sad
Speaker 1: because there's they're sold a lot in northern regions. Have
Speaker 1: concerns about moose hitting moose because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: fatalit easy, but when it I got curious about small animals,
Speaker 1: like how does the car decide when it should just
Speaker 1: plow forward because it's safer to hit a pet than
Speaker 1: it is to swerve or how you know? How uh
Speaker 1: if you stop short for a small animal, then the
Speaker 1: car behind now smashes into you. How do you how
Speaker 1: does a car make those decisions? You know? At what
Speaker 1: point is it's safer for the human for the driver
Speaker 1: to just go ahead and hit the raccoon? Um instead
Speaker 1: of serving to save the animal's life. How? And I
Speaker 1: tried to get an interview with someone at weimo UH
Speaker 1: and a couple of other places, and they don't They
Speaker 1: didn't want to talk about that. They don't want to
Speaker 1: They didn't want to engage on the topic. Which leaves
Speaker 1: me to think they haven't quite worked out worked out
Speaker 1: what to do, because it's it's it's situation by situation, um.
Speaker 1: The worst thing to do in the case of a
Speaker 1: small animal on the road with you know, if there's
Speaker 1: trees and things on the side of the road, you know,
Speaker 1: to swerve sharply um and and put yourself at risk
Speaker 1: of going off the road and hitting a tree or
Speaker 1: a rock or a barrier. Um. That that's not what
Speaker 1: you want to do. But but it's also to say, well,
Speaker 1: our cars will just go ahead and plow into your
Speaker 1: dog or cat or recoon to save your life. We
Speaker 1: will just be just plowing right on through without even
Speaker 1: breaking or even blinking an eye. So that you know
Speaker 1: that the optics of that are kind of awful too.
Speaker 1: So that's a question that I have that I that
Speaker 1: as far as I know, hasn't really been answered. I
Speaker 1: think that the priorities right now and they've got so
Speaker 1: many other things to figure out before they get down
Speaker 1: to what do we do about someone's beagle? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it reminds me of stuff I've read recently just
Speaker 1: related in general to self driving cars. They're just about
Speaker 1: all the things we do sometimes just nonsensical risks that
Speaker 1: we take. Be it, um, you know, a risky left
Speaker 1: hand turn, or the fact that yet that, like I'm
Speaker 1: driving to pick my kid up school, I might swerve
Speaker 1: around the chipmunk in the road, and it was in
Speaker 1: retrospect it was dangerous, but also in retrospect, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure I would have done anything else, you know. And
Speaker 1: how do you translate or improve upon that that kind
Speaker 1: of decision making in the machine? Right? And how do
Speaker 1: you tell a small animal from a kid on a
Speaker 1: small bicycle? And how do you I mean, those those
Speaker 1: fine grain distinctions, how do you trust the car to
Speaker 1: make those? It's it's really it is really tricky on um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and even you know, I have a a new issue
Speaker 1: of a new edition of Stiff coming out and with
Speaker 1: an epilogue where I went back and I talked to
Speaker 1: me like what's new in these topics, And one of
Speaker 1: the things that came up was passenger safety in a
Speaker 1: self driving car if you you don't need to be
Speaker 1: at the steering wheel in a set position. If you
Speaker 1: can now sit sideways or or you know not, you're
Speaker 1: not confined as you were as a driver. Well, now
Speaker 1: in an impact, how do you keep that person safe?
Speaker 1: Where do you put the air bags off? Somebody? People
Speaker 1: can kind of sit across from each other, and you know,
Speaker 1: you freed people up in the interior of the car.
Speaker 1: How do you keep them, how do you keep them safe?
Speaker 1: Where does the airbag go? How do you you know,
Speaker 1: how do you configure the seatbelt? So all of that
Speaker 1: has to be a rethought and probably you know, the
Speaker 1: small animal portion of it will be pretty far down
Speaker 1: the list. Is there Is there a date for the
Speaker 1: new edition of Stiff? This? Yeah, this this week? I
Speaker 1: think that. I think August thirty one, the new edition
Speaker 1: with a snazzy new cover comes out. Yeah. This is
Speaker 1: of course your your your first big book that that
Speaker 1: kicked it a off. My first book, kind of Stiff,
Speaker 1: came out in three I think it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've read that. I've read I read all of your
Speaker 1: books that have come out. They're always always thank you, jeez,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear that. Thank so One thing I
Speaker 1: found interesting about UM the sections of the book involving
Speaker 1: humans and animals that come into violent conflict UM, is that, well,
Speaker 1: so you have a chapter about leopards in India that
Speaker 1: intentionally stalk humans as prey repeatedly they become habituated to this,
Speaker 1: and you got me wondering, what are some of the
Speaker 1: broad truths about the difference between animals that sort of
Speaker 1: stumble into hapless encounters with humans that might turn violent,
Speaker 1: versus animals that deliberately stalk humans as prey. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: broad truth is that it's very uncommon for an animal
Speaker 1: that can easily attack and kill a human to do that.
Speaker 1: We are not really on the typically, we are not
Speaker 1: on the menu. Something has to to change. And in
Speaker 1: the Middle Himalaya where I was in India, a couple
Speaker 1: of things happened. One is the theory that Jim Corbett,
Speaker 1: who has brought into hunt down some of these kind
Speaker 1: of famous man eaters as he called them. His theory
Speaker 1: was that during the pandemic of nineteen sevent there were
Speaker 1: so many people dying that the traditional ritual of you know,
Speaker 1: taking the body to the river and building a pyre,
Speaker 1: and you know that wasn't happening, and they would, Um
Speaker 1: it came up with a more expedient ritual, which is
Speaker 1: to put a hot coal in the mouth and send
Speaker 1: the body off sort of down the hill towards the river,
Speaker 1: not to actually make the track and do the whole ritual.
Speaker 1: And so there were a lot of bodies that were
Speaker 1: now available, and leopard will scavenge. And the his belief
Speaker 1: was that they developed a taste for human meat that way,
Speaker 1: and that they then went on to incorporate human meat
Speaker 1: into their diet going forward. Um, that's a that's a
Speaker 1: theory that may well be true. Um. The theory of
Speaker 1: the researcher that I traveled with was it had to
Speaker 1: do with what's going on in that part of the world,
Speaker 1: which is a lot of farming communities. Um, the men
Speaker 1: have given up farming and gone to look for work
Speaker 1: in the cities, and so there's a lot of rewilding land.
Speaker 1: It's it's occupied by people. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, women and children left behind there. But there's
Speaker 1: cover now for and there's a lot of brush around
Speaker 1: homes and communities and which leopards need to hunt. They
Speaker 1: will sneak up and then you know, cover the last
Speaker 1: distance in a burst of speed and a pounds, so
Speaker 1: they tend to need to have cover. Also, livestock there
Speaker 1: isn't being as well tended, so it's kind of be
Speaker 1: it's false prey to the leopards and the people, the
Speaker 1: people who are watching the livestock. Sometimes there kids and
Speaker 1: uht of the individuals killed by leopards in that region
Speaker 1: in this once this researcher study, we're kids underten. Uh
Speaker 1: So there's opportunities that weren't there for for animals that
Speaker 1: hunt and and and sadly a human or a child
Speaker 1: there or the or people's pets, they're they're easier to
Speaker 1: catch than a deer or a wild pig. So part
Speaker 1: of it maybe leopards just realizing this is an easy dinner.
Speaker 1: It seems like a lot of these uh these stories
Speaker 1: in some way involve um rapid changes or modification to
Speaker 1: the landscape done by humans. Yeah, yeah, it does. Yeah
Speaker 1: that the situation there with elephants again surprising to me anyway.
Speaker 1: Number of deaths five deaths a year caused by human
Speaker 1: deaths caused by elephants. Um. And what's happening there is
Speaker 1: there's this elephant corridor as it's called. The elephants tend
Speaker 1: to move along this path looking for food. Um. It's
Speaker 1: across northern India to the border with Nepal, and these
Speaker 1: regions are seeing an influx of refugees and also Terry
Speaker 1: has built several establishments. There's roads coming through and the
Speaker 1: elephants are getting this is the term pocketed, stuck in
Speaker 1: little pockets, and elephants eat a lot they travel and
Speaker 1: sizeable herds and they are turning to the farmer's crops
Speaker 1: for food because they don't have enough food and they're stuck.
Speaker 1: They can't keep moving on the way they used to.
Speaker 1: And so then that's when you have conflict because you
Speaker 1: have these um villagers who they're they're depending on this
Speaker 1: food to survive. You know, it's it's um subsistence farming.
Speaker 1: And so you know, a troop of elephants that comes through,
Speaker 1: even if they don't eat what you're growing, they're gonna
Speaker 1: trample you know, you get the seven or eight elephants
Speaker 1: are going to cause a tremendous amount of damage. So
Speaker 1: people see the elephants coming onto their land and they'll
Speaker 1: run out and they'll try you know, they're they're angry
Speaker 1: and they're upset, and they tend to they tend to
Speaker 1: be deaths from getting trampled or knocked over or I
Speaker 1: mean an elephant even if they're that's not the elephant's intent.
Speaker 1: It's a very big animal and it's just knocks you
Speaker 1: with it's trunk. It can kill you. And um, so
Speaker 1: so yes, it's it's humans moving into the territory and
Speaker 1: and changing the landscape in ways that steiny's their their
Speaker 1: natural behaviors and there there their way of surviving and
Speaker 1: getting food. You see that also, you know highways, interstate
Speaker 1: highways in this country, sometimes they're put in without taking
Speaker 1: a look at, well what what animals migrate seasonally to
Speaker 1: get food, go to a different elevation to get food
Speaker 1: or to breed, and are we cutting them off? You know?
Speaker 1: That's so that's um, that's a problem. And you can
Speaker 1: build an overpast, but that's an expensive thing to do
Speaker 1: and you know, much better to look at that beforehand,
Speaker 1: saying you know, what is the situation here in this
Speaker 1: this swath of land, what kind of wildlife do we
Speaker 1: have and how do they move each year seasonally? Is
Speaker 1: there is this a bad idea? Correct me? If I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: but I think another example of that kind of thing
Speaker 1: about um modification of the landscape and and the problems
Speaker 1: that causes is like poor choices about the relationship between
Speaker 1: different types of plants or fruit bearing plants, especially and
Speaker 1: settled areas. Like I think you give the example of
Speaker 1: was it an aspen or somewhere else in Colorado that
Speaker 1: the city was planting crab apple trees within the city
Speaker 1: even while they're trying to solve their bear problem. But
Speaker 1: then the other thing that stuck with me was I
Speaker 1: think you were talking about um cabins being like sited.
Speaker 1: Somebody buy a plot of land and build a cabin
Speaker 1: right in the middle of a bunch of natural berry trees,
Speaker 1: so that would be the place where like the bears
Speaker 1: would already be habituated to coming. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: The crab apples and downtown aspen um I mean crab
Speaker 1: apple if you I mean, if you've seen a crab
Speaker 1: apple tree, it's they're tiny crab apples, but their own set,
Speaker 1: their clusters of them call like grapes, and the bears
Speaker 1: just sort of like opens its mouth, you know, and
Speaker 1: like pulls its mouth down the branch and gets these
Speaker 1: big mouthfuls. I mean, the crab apple trees just heaven't
Speaker 1: you know, if you're an animal looking to get a
Speaker 1: concentrated food source and lots of calories to put on
Speaker 1: weight before you hibernate crab apple tree. Yeah. So the
Speaker 1: fact that those are planted in downtown, um, they're pretty
Speaker 1: when they blew. Yeah, that's true. They are lovely in
Speaker 1: the spring, but creating creating some issues there and and
Speaker 1: there was even efforts to get them the city to
Speaker 1: take them out and they resisted that, which this seems
Speaker 1: a little it was a little ill advised. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean here in the in the Bay area, a
Speaker 1: lot up in the hills in Berkeley and Oakland, a
Speaker 1: lot of deer. So it really behooves you when you
Speaker 1: do your landscaping to plant plants that deer are not
Speaker 1: interested in. That is something any good landscape or here
Speaker 1: will do, is suggest plants that deer I don't like,
Speaker 1: otherwise you won't have much landscaping very soon. And of
Speaker 1: course that this all leads to some people might might
Speaker 1: jump to the conclusion, well don't don't we need to
Speaker 1: kill more of these animals, And that's that's something you
Speaker 1: discuss quite a bit like this idea that if sometimes
Speaker 1: these just elaborate efforts to remove the animals that then
Speaker 1: just backfire for for reasons that you get into in
Speaker 1: the book. Um And at one point you you refer
Speaker 1: to quote the inside out history of conservation in America,
Speaker 1: which which I think I love the way you put
Speaker 1: that there, because yeah, dealing with how conservation in America
Speaker 1: is often tied up in these also these eradication movements
Speaker 1: or in the hunting movement. Can you speak to some
Speaker 1: of that that complexity there? Well, sure, concert conservation, wilderness
Speaker 1: conservation came out of a desire to set aside these large,
Speaker 1: pristine tracts of wilderness so that hunters would have a
Speaker 1: place to haunt. Essentially, they were they were hunted fish
Speaker 1: and they're still. I mean, to this day we have
Speaker 1: a lot of government land that is managed by wildlife agencies,
Speaker 1: and wildlife agencies are funded still by hunting licenses and
Speaker 1: taxes on equipment. So there's a there is this link.
Speaker 1: I mean, on the one hand, it is fabulous that
Speaker 1: these these were set aside, that they didn't become agricultural land.
Speaker 1: I live in in California, and if you go out
Speaker 1: to the Central Valley. Um, there are these little pockets
Speaker 1: of California as it used to be, these wetlands with
Speaker 1: these tremendous diversity of bird life that you know, bird
Speaker 1: bird stopping over and during migration. You know, you have
Speaker 1: you know, ducks, gadwalls, geese, just dozens of species. It's
Speaker 1: a birders paradise. But there's also a little hunting cabins
Speaker 1: for duck hunters who come and the land was set
Speaker 1: aside by and for hunting, but it's also something you know,
Speaker 1: for hikers and and birders, and it's a weird it is.
Speaker 1: You know, I, as a birdwatcher used to go out there.
Speaker 1: I never knew about the little hunters cabins. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like this sort of secret reality of that that
Speaker 1: area and those wetlands. But it really struck me, you know,
Speaker 1: driving home, going from this really beautiful kind of verdant
Speaker 1: swath of California being that behind and going out into
Speaker 1: the more typical Central Valley California, which is just a
Speaker 1: big flat expanse of big agriculture, you know, of crops,
Speaker 1: and so you know, I felt very grateful towards the
Speaker 1: people who had set this land aside and you know,
Speaker 1: there is this sort of instance of hunters and birders
Speaker 1: now uh and uh, but it is it is strange
Speaker 1: to think about the fact that some of our um
Speaker 1: park lands and wilderness areas were originally set aside for
Speaker 1: people who love to hunt. But of course there's still
Speaker 1: the funding issue here, right, And that's something you get
Speaker 1: into in the in the book that you have these
Speaker 1: conservation efforts that are still still funded by hunting, funded uh,
Speaker 1: by fishing, etcetera. And I guess you know, in a
Speaker 1: perfect world that would all balance out, But there are
Speaker 1: cases it seems like where it raises the question is
Speaker 1: this the right approach? Should there not be you know,
Speaker 1: more federal funding for conservation? Yeah? I think that there
Speaker 1: tends to be mistrust. You know, if the money is
Speaker 1: coming from hunting and fishing, um, isn't there temptation on
Speaker 1: the agency's part to put the desires of those of
Speaker 1: their constituents first, you know, can we trust them to
Speaker 1: be unbiased and neutral saviors of the land? Um? So?
Speaker 1: And there is there is there has been talk of
Speaker 1: of of separating, separating, making the funding for some of
Speaker 1: these conservation efforts federal funding, making it independent of hunting
Speaker 1: and fishing, you know, creating some sort of body or
Speaker 1: pool of money that would would be earmarked for conservation
Speaker 1: and and and just sort of creating some distance between
Speaker 1: the two. So so yeah, that is a concern, and
Speaker 1: and I think it would be great too for that
Speaker 1: to happen. Thank you, thank you, thank so. Here's a
Speaker 1: question that might be a little odd, but I wonder
Speaker 1: if you have thoughts about it. How do you think
Speaker 1: about motive the concept of motive differently in a criminal
Speaker 1: justice context when the perpetrator of a crime is not human,
Speaker 1: because a big part of human criminal justice is about
Speaker 1: understanding and establishing motive, treating crimes differently based on what
Speaker 1: the motive was or what the perpetrator's understanding was. Uh.
Speaker 1: The thing about the internal brain states that motivate the
Speaker 1: attacks of non human animals, it seems like you could
Speaker 1: think about them either as like less complex than their
Speaker 1: human equivalence, and thus may be easier to understand. Often
Speaker 1: an animal is just feeling threatened in some way, or
Speaker 1: might be hungry, or you could think about them is
Speaker 1: maybe more obscure because animals are more alien to our
Speaker 1: experience and they can't explain their motives in language. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the question of motive. It's interesting in India that's factored in. UH,
Speaker 1: the cases are treated differently. UM if it's a if
Speaker 1: it's um a predatory attack versus a defensive attack. M
Speaker 1: So that's if there's if there's a series, there's kind
Speaker 1: of a you know, three strikes rule. You know, if
Speaker 1: this if the animal is coming in and praying on
Speaker 1: intentionally praying on livestock or people, you know, that's that's
Speaker 1: different from a defensive attack. There with leopards, there are,
Speaker 1: as we've talked about before, there are predatory attacks where
Speaker 1: the animal is specifically and intentionally going after a human.
Speaker 1: But there are tremendous numbers of if you go further
Speaker 1: south into the tea growing regions, which I also spent
Speaker 1: some time in the in the tea on the tea plantations,
Speaker 1: lepers sometimes sleep under the tea plants because it's shadier
Speaker 1: and it's cooler, and the tea workers, the pluckers, people
Speaker 1: plucking the leaves, will sometimes surprise an animal. The animal
Speaker 1: will like leap up. Sometimes there's an injury, rarely a fatality,
Speaker 1: but that's a that's a that's that's a defensive just
Speaker 1: an altercation that happened as the person surprised the animal
Speaker 1: and it felt threatened. So those are considered differently than
Speaker 1: a predatory attack. So there is that distinction made. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, here in the US, when an animal harms
Speaker 1: a person, it's it's it's considered a public health threat,
Speaker 1: and it's it's typically that's that it has crust the line.
Speaker 1: Regardless of whether the bear was surprised and was defending itself,
Speaker 1: we tend to not make that same distinction. If it
Speaker 1: harms or if it kills a person, it will be destroyed.
Speaker 1: Even if it was the person had a dog, The
Speaker 1: dog ran at the bear, the bear got upset, the
Speaker 1: person sort of tried to intervene, the bear turned and
Speaker 1: attacked the person. You know that there's no trial where
Speaker 1: we can we can set forth the reality of the
Speaker 1: situation and why the bear might have done it, and
Speaker 1: what the what the situation created and in a sense
Speaker 1: kind of come out a motive or lack of motive. Yeah, yeah, things.
Speaker 1: So in the American context, Um, the way we react
Speaker 1: to conflict with animals is maybe less understanding of whether
Speaker 1: or not they might be justified, and it is more
Speaker 1: just kind of a pure utilitarian you know, if if
Speaker 1: an animal has harmed a human or or or a
Speaker 1: pet or something, it's just thereafter considered probably dangerous and
Speaker 1: thus usually is dealt with violently. Well, yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a public safety issue. And when the public safety
Speaker 1: is threatened that you know that that's gonna the people
Speaker 1: are gonna be the priority, not the animal. I mean,
Speaker 1: I did talk to this a bever, a bever researcher
Speaker 1: who had spent some time I believe it was in
Speaker 1: Nepal where they have Oh god, now I'm forgetting which
Speaker 1: species it is. I think there bears. There bears that
Speaker 1: come in and they raid the property and they they
Speaker 1: sometimes get into altercations where someone is injured. And he said,
Speaker 1: to the person in the community who responds to when
Speaker 1: these attacks happened, he said, if you saw a bear
Speaker 1: on a person, would you shoot the bear? And the
Speaker 1: guy said, it's not up to me to decide which
Speaker 1: life is more important. Was it's a different you know,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a it's a very different mindset of
Speaker 1: you know, the value and the rights of animals versus humans.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm not I mean, it doesn't surprise
Speaker 1: me that we in the United States have the rules
Speaker 1: that we do. I mean, it's public safety, you know,
Speaker 1: the beats. If you if your family is being you know,
Speaker 1: is in harm's way, then that there's going to be
Speaker 1: agencies that will come in and try to mitigate that threat.
Speaker 1: That's what we do. So again, the book is is
Speaker 1: Fuzz When Nature Breaks the Law by by Mary Roach
Speaker 1: And I want to stress that we we didn't ask
Speaker 1: about anywhere close to all of the animals or scenarios
Speaker 1: or topics that you discuss in the book. It's just
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's it's just so would like each chapter, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, impressed me. There's so much discussed in the book.
Speaker 1: It's an unsecured garbage can, overflowing trees. Oh, I love that.
Speaker 1: Can I use that as a blurb on the paperback? Yes,
Speaker 1: But but I thought, just just for anyone out there,
Speaker 1: like what if you were to summarize, like, what is
Speaker 1: the big take come you want people to have from
Speaker 1: reading Fuzz? Uh you know what what would that be? Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, I know, I want I want people
Speaker 1: to know it's a fun read. It's not. I mean
Speaker 1: sometimes talking about these things it can seem like a
Speaker 1: bit of a downer. It's it's animals there sometimes ending
Speaker 1: up being destroyed. But now I try, I try to
Speaker 1: keep things entertaining and light, and there's lots of room
Speaker 1: for that in this book. Um. But as a as
Speaker 1: a takeaway, um, you know, I just hope that people
Speaker 1: because people have a tendency to just especially since we
Speaker 1: use the words pest and nuisance, and I do use
Speaker 1: the word nuisance in the book as well, we have
Speaker 1: this tendency to immediately when we've got an animal coming
Speaker 1: onto our property doing something we don't want it to do.
Speaker 1: We want to just pick up the phone and call
Speaker 1: someone and make it go away. And there's the way,
Speaker 1: there's there's things that prevent any further damage. There's there's
Speaker 1: you know, you can exclude the animal, you can call
Speaker 1: someone who actually has the welfare of the animal in mind.
Speaker 1: And the Humane Society of the United States is a
Speaker 1: great web page, species by species, here's some things to
Speaker 1: do to solve resolve the problem without harming or killing
Speaker 1: the animals. So I just I just not not to
Speaker 1: be all on a soapbox running which just to just
Speaker 1: to try to calm down and think about think about
Speaker 1: what you might do before you call the wildlife control
Speaker 1: operator to set a trap and let it go in
Speaker 1: a park and which is not supposed to do, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Or set a trap and um or put out a
Speaker 1: glue trap. I can't believe they even sell those anymore.
Speaker 1: So that's not a very short takeaway, is it. But
Speaker 1: that's that's what I guess. I'd like people to just
Speaker 1: to think before they act a little bit. Well, And
Speaker 1: I do want to concur that the book book is
Speaker 1: very fun and very funny. Uh like all your books
Speaker 1: that I've I laughed, but I also I also felt
Speaker 1: sad at times. It made me think about things in
Speaker 1: a new way. So I essentially I felt all the
Speaker 1: fields as the as the young people say fully concur
Speaker 1: Oh thanks, thank you, oh yeah, thank you. Thanks for
Speaker 1: taking time out of your data to come on the
Speaker 1: show and discuss the book. Totally. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: most welcome. Thank you all right, Well, thanks once more
Speaker 1: to Marry Roach for taking time out of her day
Speaker 1: to come on the show and chat with us. Her
Speaker 1: website if you want to learn more about her and
Speaker 1: her work, is Mary Roach dot net. And as mentioned
Speaker 1: in the episode, there's Also, this new edition of Stiff
Speaker 1: out now as well with new cover arts, so so
Speaker 1: look for that. If you've never read it, this will
Speaker 1: be a great Halloween season to pick it up or
Speaker 1: or Spook for that matter, Both of those I think
Speaker 1: would make for tremendous Halloween seasonal reads. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you would like to check out other episodes of
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you can find us wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcast look for the Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind podcast feed. We have core science episodes on
Speaker 1: Tuesday and Thursday, Artifact episodes on Wednesday. Uh listener mail
Speaker 1: on Monday's. Friday is our time to cut loose and
Speaker 1: talk about a weird film with Weird House Cinema, and
Speaker 1: then on the weekend you get a rerun. Huge thanks
Speaker 1: as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other to suggest
Speaker 1: topic for the future, just to say hello, you can
Speaker 1: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind's production of I
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Speaker 1: First Part