Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology.
Speaker 1: Today on the show, I am interviewing wildlife expert, biologist
Speaker 1: and filmmaker Forrest Galante. Welcome.
Speaker 2: Hey, how's it Gallan. Good to see U.
Speaker 1: I'm very excited to talk to you because you deal
Speaker 1: with a lot of personal interaction with wildlife, which is
Speaker 1: way more bold than I've ever been willing to be with.
Speaker 1: I'm sort of a I'm a binoculars type person. I
Speaker 1: like to observe from a distance, I would say, but
Speaker 1: you are very drawn to getting right in there. So first,
Speaker 1: just describe a bit for people what you do in
Speaker 1: terms of your videos and your work in wildlife education
Speaker 1: in biology.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sure, so, I'm a wildlife biologist who primarily focuses
Speaker 2: on critically endangered edge of extinction species. I work with
Speaker 2: a plethora of wild animals, from those that most people
Speaker 2: have never heard of to things like elephants and lions,
Speaker 2: and you know, we do a lot of different stuff
Speaker 2: from basically the ultimate game of hide and seek, which
Speaker 2: is figuring out whether or not some of these animals
Speaker 2: are actually extinct and or if they've just you know,
Speaker 2: been overlooked for a number of years. To a lot
Speaker 2: of human wildlife conflict mitigation, which is something that I've
Speaker 2: worked on a lot, where we translocate animals that are
Speaker 2: in human wildlife conflict zones, come up with creative solutions
Speaker 2: like basically any non lethal mitigation methods. And then you know,
Speaker 2: another field that I work on is invasive species figuring
Speaker 2: out eradication efforts, how to calmbat invasive species areas in
Speaker 2: which invasive species are harming native flora and fauna and ecosystems,
Speaker 2: And you know, it's a lengthy combination of stuff, and
Speaker 2: a lot of that stuff can be seen on Discovery
Speaker 2: channel Animal Planet. I recently launched a YouTube channel that
Speaker 2: is growing like Gangbusters, which is a lot of fun
Speaker 2: where I get to do sort of more intimate, less polished,
Speaker 2: more just kind of fun stuff that I want to
Speaker 2: do in the vein of those three categories. And you know,
Speaker 2: anything with wildlife is what I like doing and communicating.
Speaker 1: One of the things that is so difficult in terms
Speaker 1: of human interactions with wildlife is the there's when you
Speaker 1: have an ecosystem, you have like this very delicate balance.
Speaker 1: In the past maybe fifty one hundred years, we've just
Speaker 1: kind of come to understand like how much our behavior
Speaker 1: has impacted wildlife, including things like, hey, maybe we should
Speaker 1: stop taking mongy's and throwing them at snakes to make
Speaker 1: them kill the snakes, because that actually has a negative
Speaker 1: impact on the environ I mean, we've done so many
Speaker 1: things that has been you know, unintentionally harmful, sometimes intentionally
Speaker 1: harmful where we're just like, hey, we want to wipe
Speaker 1: out these animals because we're annoyed by them. And so
Speaker 1: do you think nowadays, do people really in general have
Speaker 1: like an understanding of how their behavior impacts animal species
Speaker 1: or is it's still sort of sometimes a struggle to
Speaker 1: communicate to communities like hey, like we actually, yes, this
Speaker 1: is just like a tiny fish that maybe is not
Speaker 1: very charismatic, but we do need to protect it.
Speaker 2: I think the general understanding, the general perception has certainly
Speaker 2: shifted substantially from where it used to be. You know,
Speaker 2: the idea of introducing cane toads to eat beetles and
Speaker 2: mongeese to quell rat populations and things like that, that's
Speaker 2: a thing of the past. We now understand the massive
Speaker 2: ramifications negative ramifications that human induced introductions like that have,
Speaker 2: and I think, you know, generally public perception has changed.
Speaker 2: I think it's become a little pendulous where it's probably
Speaker 2: swung too far in the wrong direction a little bit,
Speaker 2: and then it will end up getting back to neutrality.
Speaker 2: And what I mean by that is, you know, now
Speaker 2: if you open up Instagram, you go on I kind
Speaker 2: of go on my Instagram without seeing a gorgeous gallon
Speaker 2: of bikini swimming next to a great white shark, which
Speaker 2: is probably also not something we should be encouraging, right Like,
Speaker 2: it's sort of it's swung a little bit too far,
Speaker 2: and they're all you know, the same thing with people
Speaker 2: from PTA that go out and get your grocery store
Speaker 2: lobster and dump them into the wrong ocean because they
Speaker 2: think they're doing good for the world. You know that
Speaker 2: they're not. They're actually harming the world. So I think
Speaker 2: the pendulum went from two extreme in one direction to
Speaker 2: probably too extreme in the other, and now it's starting
Speaker 2: to backshift to a place of better understanding, more neutrality.
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what we need, you know, we don't
Speaker 2: need people out there just destroying and consuming and throwing
Speaker 2: out invasive species for the heck of it. We also
Speaker 2: don't need people that are eco terrorists in the sense
Speaker 2: of robbing grocery stores to inter deduce main lobster into
Speaker 2: southern California, you know, because yeah's good for the individual lobster.
Speaker 2: We need we need a nice like everything in life,
Speaker 2: we need something in the middle where we go, Okay,
Speaker 2: we have a good understanding of this. Here are the
Speaker 2: good things to do, here are the bad things to do,
Speaker 2: and here's how we can manage it, and we're okay.
Speaker 2: We're in a We're in a time and place in
Speaker 2: human history, and I don't foresee that changing, certainly not
Speaker 2: in our lifetime, where pretty much all wildlife and ecosystems
Speaker 2: have to be managed. At this point, there are so
Speaker 2: many people on the planet, there's so much development construction.
Speaker 2: We don't have the luxury of just being like, leave
Speaker 2: it alone, let it be like that. That that's the
Speaker 2: thing of the past. For the majority of wild spaces
Speaker 2: in the planet. Most of it has to be managed
Speaker 2: today by human beings, and so we need to be
Speaker 2: good dosins of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I I of the uh releasing lobsters into their
Speaker 1: non native habitats. I've seen videos of people buying goldfish
Speaker 1: from pet stores and then releasing them into their like
Speaker 1: local pond. Don't absolutely do not do that. The goldfish
Speaker 1: does not yearn for freedom. The goldfish is not going
Speaker 1: to be a native species of carp to whatever local
Speaker 1: water system you have, and it's could devastate the local
Speaker 1: species there. The best thing you can do for a
Speaker 1: pet store goldfish, if you feel sorry for it, is
Speaker 1: to get it a nice, big tank and not overfeed it.
Speaker 1: But I think people like they'll see something like that,
Speaker 1: like a pet store goldfish, and think like this, this
Speaker 1: poor thing is sad, and so I need to do something.
Speaker 1: And I think there's also like a lot of with
Speaker 1: social media, there's sometimes this like reward that you get,
Speaker 1: like if you do some stunt like that and you
Speaker 1: get a lot of views, and so people want to
Speaker 1: do that. It's like if I've seen these horrible videos
Speaker 1: where it's like clear that someone set up some situation
Speaker 1: where they're like quote unquote saving an animal, but they're not.
Speaker 1: But they're not a wildlife expert, they're not a veterinarian,
Speaker 1: they don't know what they're doing, but they've created this
Speaker 1: scenario where it's like, well, I'm now holding this like
Speaker 1: wild animal, and then you get all this attention on
Speaker 1: social media. But on the other hand, I think there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people who genuinely desire to have positive,
Speaker 1: safe interactions with wildlife in a non destructive way. Do
Speaker 1: you have any advice for people who may see your
Speaker 1: videos or something and like they recognize like, well, I'm
Speaker 1: not an expert and I don't want to harm the
Speaker 1: environment at all, but I also really want to have
Speaker 1: this like personal relationship with wildlife. I want to get
Speaker 1: in there and go on hikes or go on excursions
Speaker 1: and like get as close to wildlife as I can
Speaker 1: without hurting it. Like what advice would you have for people?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Do it. I mean I think that the best
Speaker 2: way to learn is hands on learning, you know. But
Speaker 2: I'm not saying go out and pick up a rattlesnake
Speaker 2: because you saw someone on YouTube. Do it. Everything you
Speaker 2: do in life. It's just like driving a car. Right.
Speaker 2: Just because you see somebody in a movie on the
Speaker 2: fast and furious jumping a car off a skyscraper and
Speaker 2: landing in a helicopter doesn't mean you should take your
Speaker 2: ninety three Toyota, Tacoma, and go try jumping off a skyscraper, right, Like,
Speaker 2: you need to learn about driving and get a driver's license.
Speaker 1: Write that down just to remember that for the future.
Speaker 2: But yes, go on, you need to, you know, learn
Speaker 2: what driving is, study it. Go and get a driver's license,
Speaker 2: you know, go slowly and then before you go on
Speaker 2: the freeway. You know. It's the same thing with wildlife
Speaker 2: and every and basically anything in life you do. And
Speaker 2: the point of what I'm saying is education is key. Right.
Speaker 2: The only reason that I'm able to actively do the
Speaker 2: wildlife work that I do and share that on social
Speaker 2: media is because I have a long standing background in
Speaker 2: an education in it, and I'm never just harassing wildlife
Speaker 2: for the sake of harassing it. You know, if you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: I want to go out there and mess with animals,
Speaker 2: it's like, well, you shouldn't do that. But if you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: I really want to work with animals, great, go and
Speaker 2: get a job or volunteer. There's a bazillion citizen science
Speaker 2: programs that would love your help, you know, pulling babyca
Speaker 2: turtles out of the eggs and hatching them and letting
Speaker 2: them go onto the beach, or collecting snakes for counts,
Speaker 2: or the list goes on and on and on invasive species,
Speaker 2: blah blah blah blah blah. So do it. I think
Speaker 2: people should absolutely do it. But you cannot just go
Speaker 2: out there because somebody saw something on YouTube or because
Speaker 2: you just think it's the right thing to do and
Speaker 2: just start messing with animals. Quite frankly, you're gonna end
Speaker 2: up getting hurt. So the animals, of course, are going
Speaker 2: to have a bad time, but you're gonna end up
Speaker 2: getting hurt. You know. If you're an amateur and you
Speaker 2: just decide to go start messing with venomous snakes or
Speaker 2: trying to trap stuff or catch it, you're gonna get hurt.
Speaker 2: There's no point to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean, I think the citizen science aspect
Speaker 1: is really exciting because if you know, people might think like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I really want to go out there and
Speaker 1: like really come face to face with these wild animals.
Speaker 1: But I don't have like a whole backgrounded and I
Speaker 1: don't see any entry point for it. But like, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of citizens science programs where you don't
Speaker 1: necessarily have to be a trained biologist, but you go
Speaker 1: and you volunteer and they will train you and then
Speaker 1: you can do surveys, you can do work like I
Speaker 1: used to do bird watching that actually would contribute to
Speaker 1: a census of the local birds. So it was one
Speaker 1: of my favorite things bird watching. Plus I got to
Speaker 1: help out. So it's like being able to be out
Speaker 1: in nature and you know, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: these these things where it's like, hey, you can like
Speaker 1: actually go and try to catalog these from anything from
Speaker 1: fish to small mammals to megafauna anything. And you know,
Speaker 1: you don't have to be an expert, but if you
Speaker 1: look at where they need volunteers, they can teach you
Speaker 1: like what to do on these surveys and you can
Speaker 1: actually help and have that really awesome experience.
Speaker 2: You purpose, which is a nice thing. You know. I
Speaker 2: hate hiking, Katie. Most people wouldn't believe it because if
Speaker 2: you watch me, I'll basically always have a backpackage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard for me to hard for me to
Speaker 1: kind of understand that, given that it seems like most
Speaker 1: of what you do is hiking.
Speaker 2: Well, I hate it though. I've never understood people that
Speaker 2: hike for the sake of hiking. I just don't understand
Speaker 2: I don't see the enjoyment in it. But if I'm
Speaker 2: out on a bird survey, if I'm looking for her,
Speaker 2: if I know that at the end of that long
Speaker 2: hike there's an incredible lake with an endemic species of
Speaker 2: fish or turtle, I'll hike for weeks. Like that's a
Speaker 2: motivator that has purpose to it. But hiking just to hike,
Speaker 2: I've never personally understood. And while not everybody has to
Speaker 2: share that sentiment, I think that people that do find
Speaker 2: purpose in their wildlife work will find it far more
Speaker 2: rewarding than just being like a lookie lou. Basically, I
Speaker 2: mean like, oh, that's cool, look at that. If you're
Speaker 2: if you're doing the LOOKI loo with purpose, it really
Speaker 2: adds a lot of value to what you're doing and
Speaker 2: you feel good about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, I've found that to be the case, especially
Speaker 1: with like taking photographs of species, Like you can upload
Speaker 1: photos that you've taken to like eye naturalists, to these
Speaker 1: citizen science programs, like even from like you don't even
Speaker 1: have to be out in the wilderness. You can be
Speaker 1: in your own backyard and you take a photo of
Speaker 1: something interesting and you send it into these these organizations.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you can even catch like an invasive species and
Speaker 1: say like, oh, I found this in my backyard at
Speaker 1: this time, at this date, in this location, and that's
Speaker 1: really helpful, and it feels like almost like you're catching pokemon,
Speaker 1: but for the sake of the local ecology exactly, exactly right.
Speaker 1: So I am really interested in the topic of invasive species.
Speaker 1: And so why is it so important to keep track
Speaker 1: of invasive species? Since like they are you know, they're
Speaker 1: generally animals or their plants too. So why is it
Speaker 1: important for us to care whether there is some animal
Speaker 1: that you know isn't native to the area who seems
Speaker 1: to be doing really well. For instance, like if you
Speaker 1: have a species of fish, say that is now becoming
Speaker 1: more populous, that was actually not from the area that
Speaker 1: was introduced somehow, why is that of importance?
Speaker 2: Uh? Yeah, I mean mostly because of the habitat destructed
Speaker 2: because of not habitat, but the destruction that they cause.
Speaker 2: I mean, for the most part, when you introduce and
Speaker 2: this is not always the case. Some some invasive species
Speaker 2: are pretty benign. They don't do a whole lot of damage.
Speaker 2: But most of the time, I'd say, you know, don't
Speaker 2: quote me on this ninety percent or greater of the time.
Speaker 2: An animal that is displaced and released into a new
Speaker 2: ecosystem that successfully reproduces is a big problem for a
Speaker 2: native animal because if that little species of fish is
Speaker 2: put into a new pond where it's never been before
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden is pre and thriving, that
Speaker 2: means that it's out competing with the existing species that
Speaker 2: are there for resources. That resource can be food, that
Speaker 2: resource can be space, and ultimately what that means is
Speaker 2: the native inhabitants of that ecosystem will be edging closer
Speaker 2: and closer to extinction. Because if you take let's just say,
Speaker 2: a largemouth bass and you throw it in a pond
Speaker 2: that historically has only had you know, California roaches in it,
Speaker 2: which is a native fish we have here in California, Well,
Speaker 2: those largemouth bass are going to out compete it for space.
Speaker 2: They're going to start eating up all the roaches, and
Speaker 2: over time there will be no roaches left, and there'll
Speaker 2: be a bunch of really big fat bass. But guess what, eventually,
Speaker 2: when the bass have eaten all the roaches and there's
Speaker 2: nothing but big fat bass left, all the bass are
Speaker 2: then going to die because there's no food left for them,
Speaker 2: there's nothing else left for them to survive. This is
Speaker 2: an oversimplified version of what happens, but if you think
Speaker 2: about it like that, ultimately those largemouth bass will collapse
Speaker 2: and you'll have a big dead zone where a hell,
Speaker 2: the population and an ecosystem used to thrive. So that's
Speaker 2: why we have to monitor it. We can't just let
Speaker 2: species go run rampant all over and chuck stuff everywhere
Speaker 2: we want it to be. And a perfect example of
Speaker 2: that is Florida. Right, Florida is just a mess. Like everything,
Speaker 2: there are invasive species everywhere. Everything survives and thrives there.
Speaker 2: You've got really really irresponsible people doing things like chameleon ranching,
Speaker 2: which is letting go chameleons. You've got all these green
Speaker 2: iguanas that are eating all the native plants and vegetation.
Speaker 2: You've got burmese python that have reduced the meso predator
Speaker 2: population of things like raccoons and apossums and native species
Speaker 2: like that down by ninety percent in some areas. You know,
Speaker 2: it's just it's a mess. And so if you allow
Speaker 2: things like that to continue, you'll have a lot of
Speaker 2: die off you'll lose a lot of species diversity, and
Speaker 2: species diversity is the key to a healthy planet.
Speaker 1: So are a lot of invasive species from the exotic
Speaker 1: pet trade? Do you think?
Speaker 2: Depends where you go, certainly not the majority, Definitely the minority.
Speaker 2: In Florida, I'd say it's the majority, but globally it's
Speaker 2: definitely the minority. Most invasive species have been brought there
Speaker 2: by man, either through you know, agricultural trafficking or you know,
Speaker 2: just aboard something they didn't realize, like the zebra muscle,
Speaker 2: for instance, is a perfect example that you know, that's
Speaker 2: a tiny little muscle that grips onto the hulls of boats,
Speaker 2: and the second you put your boat into a new
Speaker 2: body of water, they spawn, and all of a sudden
Speaker 2: you have a new ecosystem that is flooded by zebra muscles,
Speaker 2: which does all kinds of damage. They take up all
Speaker 2: the space on the bottom and everything else. And that
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with pet trade or food or
Speaker 2: anything else. It's just an invasive species that sticks to boats.
Speaker 2: So you know, the majority are not from the pet trade,
Speaker 2: but there are some very very bad ones like the
Speaker 2: Burmese pythons, the green iguanas, a whole lot of species
Speaker 2: of fish like the plecostumus armored catfish that are from
Speaker 2: the pet trade that have caused a lot of damage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, never never if you have exotic pets, which
Speaker 1: can be tricky and of in itself, like, never release them.
Speaker 1: Never release any Like if you have a fish tank
Speaker 1: full of fish and you have to move, never, just
Speaker 1: like release them into your local pond, local lake, whatever.
Speaker 1: Most likely they'll just die. But if they on the
Speaker 1: off chance that they don't like, that could be an
Speaker 1: even bigger problem. It's hard, I think, in general to
Speaker 1: realize that, like they're a tiny animal, like a little
Speaker 1: zebra muscle or a little fish, could do much harm
Speaker 1: if it like gets out even a I mean, actually,
Speaker 1: what can be really bad is like invasive plants. So
Speaker 1: like you have an aquarium plant and like you you know,
Speaker 1: flush it down or you it gets down a drain
Speaker 1: and then it gets into the local sort of water
Speaker 1: system and that plant can just start taking over. So
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, animals and plants are so have
Speaker 1: so much of a keen desire to survive that a
Speaker 1: fairly innocuous action like cleaning out your fish tank and
Speaker 1: rinsing these some of these plants like down the sink
Speaker 1: or something could lead to some really bad consequences.
Speaker 2: I would hope that people just sort of know that
Speaker 2: and think that if they're getting into the pet trade
Speaker 2: but you know, or not pet trade but pet hobby.
Speaker 2: But you know, you never know. People are people can
Speaker 2: be pretty dumb.
Speaker 1: It's education, right, Like you if there's a pet store
Speaker 1: that's just like, hey, here's some fish and here's some plants,
Speaker 1: and they don't really tell you anything about about them,
Speaker 1: how to take care of them, or like any of
Speaker 1: the perils of like do not make sure that this
Speaker 1: stuff doesn't get down like a storm drain. You know,
Speaker 1: people may it may just never occur to them that
Speaker 1: like a tiny little plant from a fish tank could
Speaker 1: cause any harm should it be released. So I think
Speaker 1: it's just so important for people to you understand that.
Speaker 1: And I think like most people who are like experienced,
Speaker 1: you know, aquarists or animal owners do appreciate that or
Speaker 1: understand that. But yeah, for sure, I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: something where it's just a domino effect that it is hard.
Speaker 1: It's hard to conceive of that you could have such
Speaker 1: a great impact, but just through kind of an accident,
Speaker 1: but it definitely can happen. So do you ever find
Speaker 1: an animal that is outside of its range? Like you'll
Speaker 1: find something that is like not what you're expecting to
Speaker 1: find there, but it is not actually an invasive species.
Speaker 2: Uh oh yeah, I mean that's I mean, that's a
Speaker 2: big part of what I've made my career doing is
Speaker 2: finding lost animals. But more so than finding lost animals,
Speaker 2: like new distributions. I mean I had to run in
Speaker 2: with a hammerhead four hundred miles outside of its own
Speaker 2: range when I was just a teenager. I redefined the
Speaker 2: species distribution of Mastakophas lateralis, which is the uh I
Speaker 2: think it's what's the common name, the pink coach whip,
Speaker 2: stripe coach whip. I'm not sure lateral coach whip would
Speaker 2: be lined coach whip. I don't know. Yeah, the species
Speaker 2: distribution and range distribution for them. Yeah, I mean we
Speaker 2: find animals outside of their known range all the time.
Speaker 2: I mean I put up a video on that YouTube
Speaker 2: channel I was mentioning where we found the first ever
Speaker 2: record of a leopard epaulet shark in two feet Papua
Speaker 2: New Guinea, which everybody had historically said there are no
Speaker 2: leopard epaulets in two Fee because of the bathometric barriers.
Speaker 2: It's too deep, the canyons are too severe. These shallow
Speaker 2: water species wouldn't go here. And I got there and
Speaker 2: started talking to the local fishermen and they're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: they're all over here. And I was like, no way,
Speaker 2: do you think you can find one? Yeah, we'll find
Speaker 2: you some tonight. And they went out and found one
Speaker 2: in like half an hour.
Speaker 1: Yow.
Speaker 2: And you know, we redefined that species distribution as it
Speaker 2: was known to science by four hundred miles, you know,
Speaker 2: like just like that, and all the Nati, not all,
Speaker 2: but many of the native people knew about it, but
Speaker 2: science was on aware of it because science dictated that
Speaker 2: due to these certain barriers and the fact that there
Speaker 2: had been no records, there's no way that this animal
Speaker 2: could be here. However, the native people don't pay attention
Speaker 2: to that, and they're like, yeah, animals right here. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 2: we encounter that all the time. So yeah, that's that's
Speaker 2: a very common thing that we deal with while doing
Speaker 2: surveys in the field.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an interesting thing to me because I think
Speaker 1: that there is this sometimes it happens where you'll have,
Speaker 1: you know, a population of people who are familiar with
Speaker 1: the area that have some knowledge of animals. That's either
Speaker 1: you know, current knowledge because they fish there and they
Speaker 1: interact with see life all the time, or it's something
Speaker 1: that's passed along culturally through generations, and that's like it's
Speaker 1: kind of placed in like this separate category as sometimes
Speaker 1: it's placed in a separate category as science because it's like, well,
Speaker 1: these are observations by you know, non professionals, and they're
Speaker 1: not really they're not cataloged in the same way that
Speaker 1: scientific observations are, but they seem really valuable. Like does
Speaker 1: that play a part a lot in terms of like
Speaker 1: finding animals in new ranges or finding animals that were
Speaker 1: thought to be extinct or not exist in a certain area.
Speaker 2: You mean just just native or just amateur records of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Yeah, I mean, of.
Speaker 2: Course, especially from native people, you know. I think that's
Speaker 2: the most significant is working with local hunters, fishermen, things
Speaker 2: like that, people that are out the best scientists. I've
Speaker 2: always said this, and I get a lot of criticism
Speaker 2: from academics for it, but I really don't care because
Speaker 2: it's in my opinion, the truth the best scientists, observational scientists,
Speaker 2: are people that are interacting with the wildlife every single day.
Speaker 2: They're not people sitting in an office that have written papers. Sure,
Speaker 2: there's two different facets to that, right. The people that
Speaker 2: are the academics, they might be able to tell you
Speaker 2: the specifics of the scale structure and the jaw morphology
Speaker 2: and this and that that the local hunter would never
Speaker 2: know because when he finds it, he walps its head
Speaker 2: off and eats it. But they don't know the first
Speaker 2: thing about tracking it, finding it, understanding its its role
Speaker 2: in the environment, and how it behaves around other animals.
Speaker 2: Whereas that local who might even know the name of
Speaker 2: the animal we're talking about, he can actually understand that
Speaker 2: species because he spends a lot of time observing it.
Speaker 2: He's out there hunting it, fishing for it, chasing it around,
Speaker 2: chasing around animals that compete with it, so on and
Speaker 2: so forth, and so yeah, I mean, I wouldn't be
Speaker 2: anywhere near the success rate that I've had if it
Speaker 2: wasn't for all of the tremendous help from local native
Speaker 2: people in every region, every location, everything that I that
Speaker 2: I've worked in, Because we need their help. I mean
Speaker 2: that's the only way that I get the information that
Speaker 2: we get. And me just going in there blindly and
Speaker 2: being like I know how to find stuff, I'd never
Speaker 2: find anything. So yeah, you have to work with local,
Speaker 2: local people, and you know, you have to take a
Speaker 2: lot of it with a grain of salt, because in
Speaker 2: many of these nations there is lore and mystery and
Speaker 2: tradition that aren't grounded in science. You know, like religion
Speaker 2: that isn't ground in science, things like that, but you
Speaker 2: still have to observe and take in the tidbits of
Speaker 2: it that are useful.
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, it's something where it's like you can
Speaker 1: use both the kind of more analytical, quantifiable aspect of
Speaker 1: science with the just immense amount of experience and time
Speaker 1: that people who actually live there and live daily life
Speaker 1: interacting with the local environs might have. Of these animals,
Speaker 1: it seems like they're very they're very complementary things to
Speaker 1: each other, like both respecting that, like, hey, if they
Speaker 1: say they've seen this or it's part of their folklore
Speaker 1: that this animal is in this region, then like maybe
Speaker 1: there's something to it, and then you know, respecting that
Speaker 1: and combining expertises seems really important.
Speaker 2: Exactly right, exactly right.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been like truly extremely surprised, Like, like,
Speaker 1: what was the most surprising find for you in terms
Speaker 1: of finding an animal that was either thought not to
Speaker 1: exist in the region or thought to have been extinct.
Speaker 2: The most surprising find. I mean, we found eight species
Speaker 2: previously thought to be extinct, so each one of those
Speaker 2: is pretty surprising. You know, when when something is deemed extinct,
Speaker 2: it's it doesn't mean it's hiding in a bush or
Speaker 2: around around a corner. It means it's gone. I think
Speaker 2: the one that was probably the most spine chilling, or well,
Speaker 2: the first one was big the Zanzibar leopard, but holding
Speaker 2: the Fernandina Island tortoise in my hand, holding an extinct
Speaker 2: animal that you know, had the mythicalness of big Bigfoot
Speaker 2: because only one in history had ever been seen one
Speaker 2: hundred and fourteen years prior, and me diving into a
Speaker 2: bush and picking up the second one that was that
Speaker 2: was a pretty big shock. I mean, you know, it's
Speaker 2: finding a tortoise on an island. That's not like finding
Speaker 2: something out in a giant jungle. You know, it's it's
Speaker 2: like a finite area even because the big area. And yeah,
Speaker 2: that was pretty surprising. So you know, all of these
Speaker 2: stories made major news headlines and made a pretty big
Speaker 2: splash globally. So I think not the reason I say
Speaker 2: that is I don't think I was the only one surprised. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think the world was pretty surprised when we found
Speaker 2: some of these animals.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, are there are there discoveries that are maybe
Speaker 1: less like sensational, Maybe an animal that's less charismatic that
Speaker 1: you wish people knew more about or appreciated more like
Speaker 1: an animal that doesn't maybe win the popularity contest, but
Speaker 1: something that is either endangered or that you have found
Speaker 1: that you think it's really interesting, really exciting, but it's
Speaker 1: just not something that gets as much love or attention.
Speaker 2: No, I really don't believe in that at all. I
Speaker 2: believe that it's much more about how it's communicated. And
Speaker 2: one of the sad things about the world we live
Speaker 2: in is the conservation organizations that are doing such wonderful work.
Speaker 2: And I won't name any or throw them under the bus,
Speaker 2: but they do such great work. They're so terrible at
Speaker 2: their messaging and public facing. And you know, if you
Speaker 2: know the field that we're discussing, you know who I'm
Speaker 2: talking about. But some of their finds are tremendous. You know,
Speaker 2: they rediscover incredible things or they redefine things that are unbelievable.
Speaker 2: And these are some of larger conservation organizations, and the
Speaker 2: messaging and the public interfacing and the way that the
Speaker 2: information is disseminated is so poor that people don't get
Speaker 2: excited about it, and some of them could be so grand.
Speaker 2: And I think that's one of the differences between perhaps
Speaker 2: what I do and what some of these very large
Speaker 2: conservation organizations do, is like I can find a tiny
Speaker 2: little blind snake, which is a new species we rediscovered
Speaker 2: just about two years ago now in literally a kitchen
Speaker 2: dumpster in the back of a desert lodge in Peru,
Speaker 2: and get millions of people excited about it and to
Speaker 2: watch it because I am genuinely so passionate and excited
Speaker 2: about it and so thrilled to find this thing, Whereas
Speaker 2: some of these organizations can find an incredibly gorgeous, charming,
Speaker 2: beautiful bird that's been lost for hundreds of years and
Speaker 2: rediscover it and you know, a couple thousand people see it,
Speaker 2: and that's it. And it's because of the way the
Speaker 2: messaging is done and the public interfacing is done around
Speaker 2: the species rediscovery, and it's it's really unfortunate because many
Speaker 2: times I've tried to offer my services and try to
Speaker 2: I always try and promote the work that these organizations
Speaker 2: are doing, and it's at no fault of their own.
Speaker 2: I always try and promote it. I always share these
Speaker 2: rediscoveries on my social media. But when you have somebody
Speaker 2: that just publishes a paper, or you know, they make
Speaker 2: like a really dry video with a bunch of still
Speaker 2: images about the animal, it doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't
Speaker 2: do anything. That's a sad thing about academic papers. When's
Speaker 2: the last I'm Katie and I are both interested in
Speaker 2: this field. When's the last time you read an academic paper?
Speaker 1: I mean I read them a lot, so I probably, yeah.
Speaker 2: That's good. I do a few days ago, Okay, I mean.
Speaker 1: I don't read it. I don't read it from start
Speaker 1: to end. I usually go through kind of skim through,
Speaker 1: and then read the sections that irrelevant. Like the last
Speaker 1: time I've actually sat down read every single page of
Speaker 1: an academic paper has got to be like I don't know,
Speaker 1: many many months yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean I'm the same. I have to read them
Speaker 2: from my work obviously, and I skim the abstract and
Speaker 2: look at a couple sections, go cool, that was interesting.
Speaker 2: But you know, that's it. And the majority of people,
Speaker 2: which is what we need, by the way, we're talking about,
Speaker 2: you know, public perception and making a difference. We need
Speaker 2: the majority of people to care. The majority of people
Speaker 2: don't even click on an academic paper. They don't open it,
Speaker 2: they don't read the abstract, they just don't you know.
Speaker 2: They're on TikTok, they're on Twitter, whatever. And I think
Speaker 2: there's obviously room in this world for both. But some
Speaker 2: of those phenomenal finds on some of these lost species,
Speaker 2: new species, redefined species whatever, they should be on TikTok.
Speaker 2: And I hate TikTok by the way, Like I think
Speaker 2: it's just an awful medium, But it should be, you know,
Speaker 2: because you should get five million kids to watch it
Speaker 2: and go, oh my god, that's so cool, and they're
Speaker 2: not so anyway, it's a very long winded way of
Speaker 2: answering your question. But I don't think it's about the
Speaker 2: species and the charismaticness. I think it's about the way
Speaker 2: the information is presented on these animals, because every animal's cool.
Speaker 2: You can make an earthworm tremendously cool. If you learn
Speaker 2: about earthworms and how neat they are and what they do,
Speaker 2: they're incredibly cool. Every animal is cool. It's just about
Speaker 2: the way the information is shared.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean I think that I get
Speaker 1: a lot of really strong reactions to animals on this
Speaker 1: show that I mean, I really love and are maybe
Speaker 1: gross and small and seemingly not very charismatic, but then
Speaker 1: when once people hear about them, and here why you
Speaker 1: know I love them and why I think they're like
Speaker 1: something little like the velvet warm, And if you look
Speaker 1: at like an actual picture of it, like up close,
Speaker 1: and you describe all these amazing characteristics of it, then
Speaker 1: other people really love it, Like I think that it's
Speaker 1: it is like, it is not hard to convince people
Speaker 1: to love these animals as long as the information is
Speaker 1: really clearly communicated. I think with with academic papers, I
Speaker 1: think that one of the main barriers is is that
Speaker 1: they are very They can be very difficult to read
Speaker 1: unless you have specific training in that area, like like
Speaker 1: or if you you you sometimes even need to completely
Speaker 1: understand like statistical analysis to understand an academic paper, which
Speaker 1: is just it's not that's not easy for people to do.
Speaker 1: You can't just like you know, you know, like read
Speaker 1: the Wikipedia on statistical analysis or how to interpret the
Speaker 1: scientific paper and then be able to do it. It's
Speaker 1: it's genuinely difficult sometimes to understand these papers. And then
Speaker 1: there's also the problem of like converting a scientific paper
Speaker 1: into like a news article, and sometimes there's a disconnect
Speaker 1: between the paper and the article, and not just in
Speaker 1: terms of like the proper information. The article may be
Speaker 1: completely accurate, but then like missing some of the key
Speaker 1: things in the scientific paper that are so interesting and
Speaker 1: fascinating that just kind of get glossed over because it's
Speaker 1: it's there's just like a little bit of a disconnect.
Speaker 1: Like I'll read a news article and then read the
Speaker 1: paper it was based on it. It's like they've missed
Speaker 1: some of the most exciting things that the study has
Speaker 1: talked about, or something that's really funny or interesting, just
Speaker 1: like like the kind of like reading like the methodology
Speaker 1: of like some of these these research papers about insects
Speaker 1: or or chimpanzees or whatever, and then you find something
Speaker 1: really funny about the study design and it really humanizes
Speaker 1: it of like, hey, this is what they had to
Speaker 1: do to like understand this animal. Like I just read
Speaker 1: a paper on chimpanzee facial well not facial recognition, rear
Speaker 1: end recognition, and they had to like in the study,
Speaker 1: like the idea is that the primates will often like
Speaker 1: be able to do the same kind of facial recognition
Speaker 1: we do with faces on rear ends, and so they
Speaker 1: had to al curate this collection of primate rear ends
Speaker 1: and then also like human rear ends and faces and
Speaker 1: then show them to primates and humans. And it's just
Speaker 1: such a funny. I think it's a funny study. And
Speaker 1: you know, I thought the news articles were pretty good
Speaker 1: of the study, but they were like like when you
Speaker 1: really get into some of the details of the methodology,
Speaker 1: which sounds like something boring, like, oh, people aren't going
Speaker 1: to be interested in the methodology, But then when you
Speaker 1: really get into it, I think people would find it
Speaker 1: really funny and really fun and then of course it's
Speaker 1: also really important research. And so I think breaking down
Speaker 1: this idea of like what people would actually find boring
Speaker 1: or not, Like, don't I don't think that science is
Speaker 1: boring at all. I think that when people feel like
Speaker 1: pushed out of it, like, well, this isn't for me.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be able to understand this. It's
Speaker 1: going to be beyond me. That's when it's not interesting
Speaker 1: is when it's not accessible. But once you've made it
Speaker 1: accessible and say like like this is actually straightforward and
Speaker 1: you are perfectly capable of understanding this, I just have
Speaker 1: to be good at communicating it to you, that's when
Speaker 1: people will be interested in it.
Speaker 2: There's multiple problems, and if the network ever hears this,
Speaker 2: they'll call and be yell at me, which is fine,
Speaker 2: but you know what, the first part is the elitism
Speaker 2: behind academia, which is sort of what you just just
Speaker 2: touched on, and the sort of the snobbery in the
Speaker 2: way that a lot of things are written. The second
Speaker 2: part is and there's so many more problems in this,
Speaker 2: but in my opinion, another big part of it in
Speaker 2: that messaging as far as digestibility, is everybody catering to
Speaker 2: the lowest common denominator, and I think there's a really
Speaker 2: that's why I say the network will get mad. The
Speaker 2: reason Animal Planet's no longer right, It's like they kept
Speaker 2: chasing like a lower and lower view and I personally
Speaker 2: experience that because they come to me and be like, Oh,
Speaker 2: this isn't exciting enough, this isn't interesting enough. People don't
Speaker 2: care about this, people don't care about that, and I
Speaker 2: just don't agree, you know. I'm like, I don't agree,
Speaker 2: and here's why. And I think I'm living proof of
Speaker 2: that because I've managed to create thriving media channels outside
Speaker 2: of Animal Planet where I communicate things that I think
Speaker 2: are fascinating and people do as well. And that's the
Speaker 2: nice thing about the day and age of the Internet is,
Speaker 2: you know, you can jump on YouTube for free and
Speaker 2: get to learn and see about a lot of these things,
Speaker 2: versus sit through a TV show on you know, hunting
Speaker 2: for Bigfoots, which is all just nonsense anyway, you know,
Speaker 2: because that's the kind of thing that they think people
Speaker 2: want to watch as opposed to like genuinely communicating interesting stuff.
Speaker 2: So anyway, that's a whole nother podcast. We can talk
Speaker 2: about for hours as to as to how that information
Speaker 2: is shared and why Chase not. I don't want to
Speaker 2: get myself in trouble, but why sharing information that you
Speaker 2: think is best for everybody because you're catering to the
Speaker 2: lowest common denominator is not it's insulting to the viewer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean I agree. I think that the
Speaker 1: it's kind of a snowball effect too, because it's like, well,
Speaker 1: this is all we show, this is the only kind
Speaker 1: of content that we have, and this is all that
Speaker 1: people watch, and therefore this is what people like to watch.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, but if you have different types of
Speaker 1: shows on your channel that are more you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's kind it's like sort of the same issue in
Speaker 1: the film industry, right where it's like it like, well,
Speaker 1: people only want to watch Marvel movies. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: but you're only serving them Marvel movies to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: and like like other movies that everybody's yeah yeah, and
Speaker 1: like movies that aren't Marvel movies are Marvel movies because
Speaker 1: they're copying the Marvel movie format. I'm not saying I
Speaker 1: don't have a problem with Marvel movies. I think they're fun,
Speaker 1: but like, you know, the idea that like, well, people
Speaker 1: don't want this because all we're doing is serving this.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, but you're only giving them this, so
Speaker 1: how do you know that they don't want it? And
Speaker 1: then when when they go outside of that format, like
Speaker 1: you know, like the Barbie Movie, it's like people really
Speaker 1: loved it and and so you know, I think basically
Speaker 1: I'm saying that, you know, weird animals, weird, uncharismatic, ugly
Speaker 1: animals are the Barbie Movie of the animal world. People
Speaker 1: will love them. One thing I wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: is it's a topic that I've brought up a few
Speaker 1: times before because I find it really interesting and it's
Speaker 1: a de extinction and it's something that can be It's
Speaker 1: it's a very controversial topic because it's something where it's
Speaker 1: that it's I mean, maybe you probably understand it better
Speaker 1: than I do, so I'll just ask you, like, what
Speaker 1: exactly is the extinction? Like what is the concept behind it?
Speaker 1: Is it some kind of like far off science fiction
Speaker 1: thing or is it something we can actually do.
Speaker 2: It's certainly something we can do. I mean, Colossal Biosciences
Speaker 2: is you know, it's actively doing it, and it's it's
Speaker 2: a company that's valued to billions of dollars now because
Speaker 2: of the work they're doing in it, and it's it's happening.
Speaker 2: You know. I don't want to I don't want to
Speaker 2: give anything away, but I'd say everybody should stay very
Speaker 2: closely tuned at the end of this year for a
Speaker 2: very large announcement. And yeah, I certainly can't say more
Speaker 2: than that. But you know, look, what is the extinction
Speaker 2: it's bringing back? I mean, the extinct is exactly what
Speaker 2: it sounds like. It's bringing back extinct animals. You know,
Speaker 2: this is not Jurassic Park. This is bringing back animals
Speaker 2: that humans have had a hand in driving to extinction.
Speaker 2: And by bringing back those animals and putting them back
Speaker 2: into ecosystems, it's repairing ecosystems. And you know, a good
Speaker 2: example I try and give to people is because a
Speaker 2: lot of a lot of the criticism that you read
Speaker 2: about the extinction is people being like the ecosystem is healthy,
Speaker 2: it's fine, like we don't need these animals back, which
Speaker 2: it's clownish. It's the same as you know, imagine if
Speaker 2: you're an alien you land on Earth and you go
Speaker 2: and find a population of people and they all have jaundice. Well,
Speaker 2: then you go, well, people are yellow, right, that's what
Speaker 2: people look like. Human beings are yellow. They're they're fine,
Speaker 2: They're just yellow over there, and they die at a
Speaker 2: young age.
Speaker 1: Hey, man, The Simpsons was a good show, all right.
Speaker 2: But you know that's wrong, Like people shouldn't be yellow
Speaker 2: and they shouldn't die at a young age. And that's
Speaker 2: how we look at a lot of these ecosystems. The
Speaker 2: arctics a perfect example, like it's not healthy, you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's relatively healthy, like it's getting by, but it
Speaker 2: would be a lot more healthy if we put mammos
Speaker 2: back into a part of the tundra. You know, Tasmania
Speaker 2: would be a far, far more thriving ecosystem if it
Speaker 2: had an apex predator back like the Thylocene. And the
Speaker 2: list goes on and on and on. And that's what
Speaker 2: the extinction, at least with the companies that I work
Speaker 2: with Colossal, specifically aimed to do. They aim to repair
Speaker 2: the ecosystem through this radical conservation method, which is the extinction,
Speaker 2: which is genetic work to bring back animals that human
Speaker 2: beings have actively had a hand in eradicating. And it's
Speaker 2: a very exciting, very important, somewhat scary proposition that we
Speaker 2: should all be excited and interested in, because this is
Speaker 2: not putting frickin' mongeese in Hawaii. You know, this is
Speaker 2: a much much more noble cause and a much it
Speaker 2: may be. I'll be candid here and without trying to
Speaker 2: offend your listeners or anybody else, it may be the
Speaker 2: first thing that human beings have done right in conservation
Speaker 2: in a very long time. Because there are lots of
Speaker 2: triumph stories of conservation, there really are, but they're very,
Speaker 2: very small, and on a whole, we're losing a conservation.
Speaker 2: Conservation has only been around for one hundred years, and
Speaker 2: we lose more and more species, more and more habitat
Speaker 2: and everything else every single year. This the extinction could
Speaker 2: be this radical effort that actually turns the table where
Speaker 2: we start winning the war of conservation.
Speaker 1: It's it's a very interesting concept because it's i mean, like,
Speaker 1: like you kind of mentioned earlier, I think when people,
Speaker 1: well maybe not everyone, but you know, the extinction has
Speaker 1: this kind of like, oh, we're doing a Jurassic Park
Speaker 1: thing where like we're playing god, we're doing something we're
Speaker 1: not supposed to be doing. But it's you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's very different from can.
Speaker 2: I touch that quick? Yes, I don't mean interrupt you,
Speaker 2: but no, that's sort of it's sort of grinds my
Speaker 2: gears a little when I hear that we're playing God.
Speaker 2: We're playing God every single time we wipe out a species.
Speaker 2: We're playing God every single time we create a medicine,
Speaker 2: We're playing God every time we get a step foot
Speaker 2: in a car. Because none of these are natural processes. Okay,
Speaker 2: the extinction, all the extinction is trying to do at
Speaker 2: this point in time. This could certainly change, we could
Speaker 2: have some mad scientist movie crap happen. But at this
Speaker 2: point in time, all the extinction is trying to do
Speaker 2: is repair things that we've broken. I don't think that's
Speaker 2: playing God. I think that's fixing things. And we've we've
Speaker 2: done so much to destroy it. We've played so much
Speaker 2: God already with ecosystems and environments by dumping species and
Speaker 2: changing them and manipulating them that it's like the argument
Speaker 2: of the playing God thing to me is I mean,
Speaker 2: it's it's a laughable argument.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's interesting because even in those movies, I
Speaker 1: don't think the problem was that they were playing God.
Speaker 1: I think the problem was that they let children loose
Speaker 1: with an apex predator on an island.
Speaker 2: But right, but no one's doing that.
Speaker 1: You know what we're not We're not letting children loose
Speaker 1: with passenger pigeons that we've cloned.
Speaker 2: Exactly, I mean exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: I think it is like I think that the the concern.
Speaker 1: I understand the concern about it because it's like often
Speaker 1: when we've tried to interfere with nature, it has gone
Speaker 1: wrong because we didn't understand what we were doing, like
Speaker 1: when we like the cane toad situation. Anytime, like we
Speaker 1: introduce a species because we want it to do a
Speaker 1: certain thing. Now, in this case, of course, with a
Speaker 1: lot of these the introductions, like the cane toad, it
Speaker 1: was not because we were trying to protect the environment.
Speaker 1: It was because we were trying to protect crops, so
Speaker 1: we're trying to protect profit. It was not it was
Speaker 1: not an attempt to like be good to the environment.
Speaker 1: And then of course that one's spectacularly bad and it's
Speaker 1: still bad today. The cane toad population is still a problem. Ever, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so's it's something where I think that we have
Speaker 1: this you know, well earned skittishness about like, well, but
Speaker 1: if we do this, it could cause problems. And I
Speaker 1: mean I think more or less it's true, like if
Speaker 1: we any conservation we do, it could like there could
Speaker 1: be unintended consequences, but like you said, we're doing things
Speaker 1: all the time that have unintended consequences that are really bad,
Speaker 1: and those things aren't even directed towards trying to you know,
Speaker 1: undo these things. But like, what would so because it's
Speaker 1: interesting to me, one of the arguments is like, well,
Speaker 1: it's kind of too late for a lot of these species,
Speaker 1: Like we certainly could bring them back. But then you
Speaker 1: know these say, like the forests in the US that
Speaker 1: were like the native habitat for say passenger pigeons, well
Speaker 1: they buy and large no longer exists. So what would
Speaker 1: these passenger pigeons do, like they would you know, could
Speaker 1: they really bring back these habitats or is it too late?
Speaker 1: And then would we just have sort of a bunch
Speaker 1: of passenger pigeons then trying to become urban adapters because
Speaker 1: they don't have any of their natural environment. Like do
Speaker 1: you think that do you think it's not too late
Speaker 1: for a lot of these species to bring back these
Speaker 1: habitats or do you think sometimes it truly is just
Speaker 1: kind of too late.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's no blanket answer. That's the part of
Speaker 2: the thing about conservation. It's part of The thing about
Speaker 2: the extinction, It's part of the thing about anything dealing
Speaker 2: with wildlife is it's on a case by case basis.
Speaker 2: With the case of the passenger pigeon, I certainly not
Speaker 2: too late. I mean there are decent size, not large,
Speaker 2: swaths of forests that are still protected and in national forests,
Speaker 2: national parks and things. So would you have the billions
Speaker 2: of passenger pigeons that were said to black out the
Speaker 2: sky in the early eighteen hundreds, No, well, that that
Speaker 2: will not be a possibility. Again, could you have large
Speaker 2: flocks that live, you know, generally within protected national forests? Absolutely,
Speaker 2: and they should be there. You know, we we're the
Speaker 2: ones who hunted them to extinction. Some animals. I think
Speaker 2: it is too late for I'm I'm blanking on a
Speaker 2: specific example at this point. But you know, if you
Speaker 2: if you can think of a creature that, well, like
Speaker 2: to be vague and generic here dinosaurs. Too late for dinosaurs, right,
Speaker 2: their habitats change, the planets change. Nobody to bring back
Speaker 2: a t rex. You know, it's a great movie premise,
Speaker 2: it's not a great conservation premise. It also is impossible.
Speaker 2: We cannot code for DNA. That's fragmented six million years ago,
Speaker 2: you know, it's just not a thing. But in the
Speaker 2: case of a passenger pigeon where we shot it to extinction,
Speaker 2: a great auc where we've plucked them out of the
Speaker 2: off off of the planet for feathers and oil, a mammoth,
Speaker 2: a thylacine. The list goes on and on and on. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we should bring them back. We should repair what we've done.
Speaker 2: The dodos. We wiped out the dodos for fun, because
Speaker 2: we'd like bopped them on the head. Popping them on
Speaker 2: the head. They weren't even good to eat, you know,
Speaker 2: and that's been shown time and time again. Like, of
Speaker 2: course doodos should come back. We should feel very guilty
Speaker 2: as a species that we ever did that, you know,
Speaker 2: and not pretend we didn't do it and hide from it,
Speaker 2: but learn from it and try not to do it
Speaker 2: again in the future.
Speaker 1: The other the other thing I think is interesting is
Speaker 1: the process of the extinction, which is there are like
Speaker 1: it's very difficult, say you wanted to bring back the
Speaker 1: Dodo to just like clone a Dodo from some kind
Speaker 1: of specimen. It's not necessarily as straightforward as like taking
Speaker 1: some DNA creating like a perfect clone, Like sometimes the
Speaker 1: extinction involves like taking like for maybe the passenger pigeon
Speaker 1: would involve taking a currently a live species and then
Speaker 1: either modifying its DNA or using it as a surrogate
Speaker 1: for the the passenger pigeon clone DNA. And so there
Speaker 1: would be some these aren't gonna necessarily be perfect replicas
Speaker 1: of the animals they once were, Like even if they're
Speaker 1: perfect genetic replicas, they would you know, some element of
Speaker 1: an animal species, of course, is instinctive, but there's also
Speaker 1: some learning, like with birds, like there's a lot of
Speaker 1: capacity to learn. Passenger pigeons aren't songbirds, but they're social birds.
Speaker 1: So like, if we bring these back, they're not going
Speaker 1: to come prepackaged with everything that the animal once was,
Speaker 1: especially for an intelligent species like a mammoth. I mean,
Speaker 1: so much of elephant behavior is learned. They're highly intelligent,
Speaker 1: highly sort of like social animals that learn generationally. So
Speaker 1: how I don't necessarily think this means like it's a
Speaker 1: lost cause, but like how it seems like that is
Speaker 1: a huge challenge to like, if we bring back something
Speaker 1: like a dodo or a mammoth, like, how would we
Speaker 1: try to create a situation such that even if it's
Speaker 1: not a perfect replica of what this animal was, it
Speaker 1: at least has a chance and to like start to
Speaker 1: reintroduce it in a way where it's being given sort
Speaker 1: of some of what would be missing, like that that
Speaker 1: social learning with because like you can't there's no existing
Speaker 1: kind of mammoth groups to put like a cloned baby
Speaker 1: mammoth with to know what to do.
Speaker 2: Well, yes and no, I mean you know, the an
Speaker 2: elephant is ninety nine point six percent related to the
Speaker 2: wooly mammoth. Right, so if you may, if you make
Speaker 2: a replica of you, Katie, and it comes out as me,
Speaker 2: it's also not a perfect replica, right, but I can
Speaker 2: still learn from you. You can still be my mother
Speaker 2: or my mentor my teacher, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 2: And uh, you know, I'm not a replica of you,
Speaker 2: but I'm also a human being, right, You're a human.
Speaker 2: I'm a human. And that's that's sort of the foundation
Speaker 2: of this. Right. If you bring back a mammoth, uh,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's just a big hairy elephant, and as
Speaker 2: long as it learns how to be an elephant, it
Speaker 2: can be a big hairy elephant up in the Arctic, right,
Speaker 2: And that's that's the simplified way of looking at it.
Speaker 2: And the same thing can be said about Dodo, Thilocene,
Speaker 2: anything else. It's you know, instinct will always be there.
Speaker 2: Nature will drive it over nurture. But of course nurture
Speaker 2: will be a factor. And in a lot of these cases,
Speaker 2: if you're putting a thilacene back in Tasmania, if you're
Speaker 2: putting a mammoth up in the Arctic, it's going to
Speaker 2: have a very easy time because the ecosystem has been
Speaker 2: without that gone force, that keystone species for such a
Speaker 2: long time that the animal basically has this giant playground
Speaker 2: to learn how to be an animal again, including and
Speaker 2: that is the nurture factor from both human beings, conservationist
Speaker 2: people like myself who are on the conservation advisory board
Speaker 2: of a lot of these species, as well as you
Speaker 2: know the targets.
Speaker 1: Well, I I think that's very that makes me feel
Speaker 1: very hopeful. I would love, uh, I would love to
Speaker 1: live in a world that is able to bring back
Speaker 1: some of these species.
Speaker 2: Well what I'm very confident we will be, So stay
Speaker 2: tuned because I think, you know, in the next few
Speaker 2: years it's all going to be happening.
Speaker 1: Well if I will keep my eyeballs peeled for that
Speaker 1: news Forrest, thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 1: Where can people find you?
Speaker 2: Uh? You know, my favorite thing. I have all the
Speaker 2: social channels, you know, all the regulars and my new thing,
Speaker 2: My new favorite thing is this this YouTube thing that
Speaker 2: I mentioned. We just launched it. It's pretty exciting. There's
Speaker 2: a whole lot of fun content on there. Extinct animals,
Speaker 2: rare speech, sheees, finding new stuff, invasive species and it's
Speaker 2: just my name for us blante on YouTube. And you know,
Speaker 2: I think that's where people could check it out because
Speaker 2: I'm directing a lot of the stuff we're doing onto
Speaker 2: there now so that people can enjoy it.
Speaker 1: That's excellent. Yes, I will never say no to more
Speaker 1: animal content. Thank you guys. Thank you guys so much
Speaker 1: for listening. If you're enjoying the show, please leave a
Speaker 1: rating a review. That absolutely helps. I read all the reviews,
Speaker 1: I print them all out, I put them in, bind
Speaker 1: them into a book, and then I read it as
Speaker 1: a bedtime story every night. And thanks to the Space
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Speaker 1: Hey guess what?
Speaker 2: Where?
Speaker 1: Have you listen to your favorite shows? I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: See you next Wednesday,