Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the
Speaker 1: podcast that looks at the future and says they call
Speaker 1: me the hip Hopopotamus my lyrics or bottomless. I'm Jonathan Strickland,
Speaker 1: and I'm this is Forward Thinking. We talked about the
Speaker 1: future of stuff, and today we wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: the future of something that's really near and dear to
Speaker 1: my heart. Uh, specifically, it's it's wildlife conservation. And uh
Speaker 1: it's important to talk about this because there's some some
Speaker 1: rough data out there that suggests that lots of different
Speaker 1: species maybe in some pretty particular danger. Right. Oh sure,
Speaker 1: And and we can never say that species are in
Speaker 1: no danger at all whatsoever. I mean, natural extinct extinction
Speaker 1: happens all the time. Yes. Well as a great both
Speaker 1: spirit who talks to me from the clouds once said,
Speaker 1: death is just a part of life. It is, so
Speaker 1: you know, you could never expect to live in a
Speaker 1: world where no species of organisms ever dwindle or go extinct,
Speaker 1: because extinctions are pretty straightforward consequence of evolution. You know,
Speaker 1: some uh species are competing for resources. Sometimes some species
Speaker 1: are going to become ascendant, others are going to go
Speaker 1: on the decline. Sure, if a species fills a niche
Speaker 1: that another species was heading towards, then that other species
Speaker 1: might be edged out of that ecosystem, right, may go extinct.
Speaker 1: So that there is throughout history, and we can sort
Speaker 1: of infer this from the fossil record and and different
Speaker 1: clues we have about the history of life on Earth,
Speaker 1: that extinction has pretty much been steady, except there are
Speaker 1: periods when it sort of goes into overdrive. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and these have been happening for a long time, a
Speaker 1: long time before humans got hundreds of millions of years.
Speaker 1: So you've got the steady ground extinction right where some
Speaker 1: small number of species on Earth just kind of go
Speaker 1: extinct every year. But then there are periods where suddenly
Speaker 1: lots of species go extinct. And these can be bad
Speaker 1: for multiple reasons that we can get into in a minute.
Speaker 1: But so, what causes these huge extinctions that are usually
Speaker 1: referred to as mass extinctions. Typically, I think it's it's
Speaker 1: catastrophic environmental changes. A lot of cases we don't know
Speaker 1: exactly for sure what caused them. We have some pretty
Speaker 1: good ideas. Usually it's things like space impacts, geothermal activity
Speaker 1: or volcanic eruptions or maybe even this is a weird
Speaker 1: idea coal fire eruptions. Have you heard about this? So
Speaker 1: it's just one hypothesis about what could have been partially
Speaker 1: responsible for some past extinctions if there were massive eruptions
Speaker 1: of of coal beds on Earth. And then of course
Speaker 1: simply through climate change too, and climate change can be
Speaker 1: a result of those other things I just mentioned. We
Speaker 1: should also point out, I mean, I'm sure most of
Speaker 1: our listeners are aware of this, but mass extinctions. That
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that one day a ton of species just
Speaker 1: suddenly died out. Mass extinctions can take course over hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of years. Act. Yeah. Yeah, Still that that's
Speaker 1: geologically pretty quick. Sure, geologically it's a blink of an eye.
Speaker 1: But for you know, a human being, like, it's hard
Speaker 1: for us to to, uh, to reconcile those two things,
Speaker 1: like the idea of a bunch of species relatively suddenly
Speaker 1: in the geological phase, uh going extinct, but in in
Speaker 1: human life terms, it seems like a really long time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so unfortunately a lot of scientists have recently come
Speaker 1: to the conclusion that we are actually in the middle
Speaker 1: of one of those periods right now what many have
Speaker 1: referred to as the sixth mass extinction. There have been
Speaker 1: five already and we're currently in another one. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: you want to hear a whole bunch about this topic,
Speaker 1: our colleague Christian Sager did a video interview with the
Speaker 1: Gizmoto editor in chief Annale Knew It's all about it
Speaker 1: last year at dragon Con, and it's up on the
Speaker 1: house to works a YouTube channel. We'll try to remember
Speaker 1: to link it on social But but but a few
Speaker 1: kind of basic facts in brief here. Okay, Well, one
Speaker 1: of the things is the current extinction rate grossly exceeds
Speaker 1: what has been referred to as the background extinction rate.
Speaker 1: So you have this steady, ongoing background extinction rate. When
Speaker 1: things are normal, you can expect x number of species
Speaker 1: to go extinct every year. According to a May study
Speaker 1: published in the journal Science, the current extinction rates are
Speaker 1: roughly one thousand times the background rate of extinction. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That does seem like that's significant. Yeah. Yeah. So, according
Speaker 1: to a claim I found coming from the w WF,
Speaker 1: the Worldwide Fund for Nature or the World Wildlife Fund,
Speaker 1: it goes by both names, has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: wrestling it's a conservation group. According to their only fourteen
Speaker 1: Living Planet Report, vertebrate species on Earth, So that's going
Speaker 1: to be like, you know, tetrapods, mammals, fish, amphibians, birds
Speaker 1: had declined fifty two in the last forty years. What
Speaker 1: that's incredible. Yeah, it's not not a good kind of incredible. No,
Speaker 1: So what would be a contributing factor to this? I mean, what,
Speaker 1: what were there conclusions about what might be, you know,
Speaker 1: causing this this extinction. Well, I think it is a
Speaker 1: very common conclusion reached by scientists who study this area
Speaker 1: that the current mass extinction event is believed to be
Speaker 1: largely related to human activity. There might be other factors,
Speaker 1: but human behavior is playing a huge role in it.
Speaker 1: It might be the single most important driving force. And
Speaker 1: it's not that we're just like eating all the animals,
Speaker 1: no that Yeah, it's not just wrecked extermination or capturing
Speaker 1: of wildlife that that does happen, Like poaching and hunting
Speaker 1: can play a role. I think what's thought to be
Speaker 1: more commonly the problem is the unintended consequences of human
Speaker 1: civilization and behavior, leading to things like humans bringing invasive
Speaker 1: species and new habitats, or humans destroying habitats, converting converting
Speaker 1: land into farmland, and you remove the ecosystem that supported
Speaker 1: the various species in that area, cutting down forests, draining swamps,
Speaker 1: or creating factories that are going to have an impact
Speaker 1: on the climate. Yeah, and so climate change is also
Speaker 1: going to be a huge one when you're talking about
Speaker 1: changing the environmental conditions in the places where these animals live.
Speaker 1: You don't even have to destroy the place where they
Speaker 1: live if you just maybe make it warmer, or make
Speaker 1: the water more acidic or something like this. These long
Speaker 1: downstream changes that occur because of global warming that can
Speaker 1: result in damage to wildlife too. All right, well, let's
Speaker 1: let's take an example of somebody who doesn't see the
Speaker 1: value of any particular species of animal. Let's say that.
Speaker 1: All right, let's say there's uh, some sort of weird
Speaker 1: amphibian that I'm just not really keen on. It's kind
Speaker 1: of ugly, it makes this loud noise at night. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't really mind if it just went away. What is
Speaker 1: the big deal? Yeah, that's a common expression you hear,
Speaker 1: And I know that's not your feeling, Jonathan, but I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people have this kind of Oh,
Speaker 1: you know these people trying to get upset over some
Speaker 1: toad or why are people making such a big deal
Speaker 1: about some owl? I've never even seen one of these?
Speaker 1: What does it matter in my life? Even if you
Speaker 1: are not an animal lover and you don't personally have
Speaker 1: feelings about, you know, the spotted owl or whatever animal
Speaker 1: it is that's being threatened, this should matter to you
Speaker 1: because loss of biodiversity can potentially cause unpredictable chain reaction
Speaker 1: effects on ecosystems, which might come to have a great
Speaker 1: impact on human life, even if you're not a nature lover.
Speaker 1: So I just came up with a totally hypothetical, dreamed
Speaker 1: up example and to show the kind of thing I mean. Okay,
Speaker 1: let let me hear your example. Okay, So how about
Speaker 1: let's imagine a bat. It is the strickland reticulated bat
Speaker 1: like it already, and reticulated of course, meaning has little
Speaker 1: netting pattern on its wings. Right, So, strickland reticulated bat.
Speaker 1: It goes endangered because humans and its natural range set
Speaker 1: up a football stadium, and the amplifier system of this
Speaker 1: football stadium produces ultrasonic frequencies that interfere with the bats
Speaker 1: echolocation hunting. Nope, the bats can't hunt. They starve and
Speaker 1: they disappear from the area. So maybe they're either just
Speaker 1: gone from their former range and they've had to move
Speaker 1: somewhere else, or maybe they're totally extinct. The primary food
Speaker 1: of the strickland reticulated bat happens to be insect prey
Speaker 1: like mosquitoes. Without the bats to control the population of mosquitoes,
Speaker 1: the mosquito populations almost immediately spiral out of control. As
Speaker 1: the mosquito populations boom, they expand their range and swarm
Speaker 1: in on the settled locations outside the area, and that
Speaker 1: includes maybe the football stadium. So they swarm in on
Speaker 1: the sports fans and bite them, suck their blood. It's
Speaker 1: delicious blood, and I normally I would say it serves
Speaker 1: those rotten sports fans right for driving out this beautiful
Speaker 1: creature from the region. However, that would be very shortsighted
Speaker 1: of me to say that, sure it would, because in
Speaker 1: doing so, what if the mosquitoes happened to bring in
Speaker 1: a virus that was previously only present in some reservoir
Speaker 1: species out in the wilderness where these mosquitoes were previously
Speaker 1: confined to. Because they were being hunted effectively by the bats. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this, and this happens a lot. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of animal disease that can transfer to humans from things
Speaker 1: like bats that don't get sick from that disease exactly.
Speaker 1: So imagine there is a mutant strain of hemorrhagic fever
Speaker 1: virus that loves to live in skunks, the mosquitoes, previous
Speaker 1: favorite blood source. The mosquitoes drink the blood of the skunks,
Speaker 1: then they fly to the stadium, drink the blood of
Speaker 1: the humans, spread the skunk fever, and now we're all
Speaker 1: bleeding out the eyes with skunk fever because we did
Speaker 1: not care about the bats. So what you're saying is
Speaker 1: that by driving out the bats, we have inadvertently caused
Speaker 1: the zombie apocalypse to descend upon us, the bloody eyed
Speaker 1: zombie apocalypse. Yes, I knew it. Now, I don't want
Speaker 1: to be pinned as a sensationalist, so let me remind
Speaker 1: you I just made this up, and I don't know
Speaker 1: if that specific scenario could actually happen, but it illustrates
Speaker 1: the type of thing that can happen in ecosystems because
Speaker 1: ecosystems are incredibly complex. Even animals within ecosystems that don't
Speaker 1: interact with one another directly or interdependent in complex ways
Speaker 1: based on other intermediary creatures, and removing one species can
Speaker 1: set off chain reactions that affect the others. Right. So
Speaker 1: I actually have another example that I can give very quickly.
Speaker 1: This is when I mentioned in the video about about
Speaker 1: shark conservation, which kind of served as the inspiration for
Speaker 1: this more broad approach to the topic. And that is, Uh,
Speaker 1: if you over fish sharks, and by the way, a
Speaker 1: hundred million sharks are caught every year in various fisheries,
Speaker 1: So if you over fish sharks, then you reduce the
Speaker 1: number of predators in various ecosystems. And in ecosystems that
Speaker 1: have sea grass, for example, that means the foraging animals
Speaker 1: will have nothing, no predators to to cull their numbers,
Speaker 1: and so they'll eat all the sea grass, which is
Speaker 1: great for one generation of animals, but then there's no
Speaker 1: more sea grass, so no more generations of those animals
Speaker 1: are going to be able to use that particular region
Speaker 1: to forage for food, and it's all gone. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and nothing else that would normally live in that sea
Speaker 1: grass is going to be able to live there an Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: so you you know, that's why even something like a
Speaker 1: predator is really important, because it does keep these systems
Speaker 1: in balance. Of course, So the next time you hear
Speaker 1: somebody ask like, oh, why should I care about this
Speaker 1: one animal? It's just some dumb animal. You know, there
Speaker 1: are lots of other types of owls who who gives
Speaker 1: a care? Yeah, but remind them of the zombie apocalypse. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: what you can remind them is that every time an
Speaker 1: animal goes in endangered or goes extinct, it's not just
Speaker 1: a threat to that species, it's a threat to system stability.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like if you said, well, I'm riding
Speaker 1: on a bus, and what if I removed at random
Speaker 1: one part from this bus. It might be a bolt somewhere,
Speaker 1: it might be something like that. Maybe the bus could
Speaker 1: keep going fine without that part. Maybe it wouldn't. You
Speaker 1: don't know, right, And because these systems are so complex,
Speaker 1: most of the time we would say, well, we know
Speaker 1: something will happen, we just don't know to what extent,
Speaker 1: and it might be catastrophic. So that's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why you should really care about conservation, even if
Speaker 1: for some reason you don't care about lovely cuttabool animals
Speaker 1: that are wonderful and need our love, so um one
Speaker 1: of the we wanted to talk about what we might
Speaker 1: be doing in the future to help wildlife conservation. One
Speaker 1: of the things I wanted to cover very briefly because
Speaker 1: we don't always just talk about science and technology. I
Speaker 1: know that that often is what we focus on the show,
Speaker 1: but really we look at all elements of the future.
Speaker 1: One of the things we need to think about is policy.
Speaker 1: And there are a lot of countries out there that
Speaker 1: have various types of policies about conservation or agencies or
Speaker 1: organizations that oversee that within that country. And then there's
Speaker 1: the United Nations, which has its own group called the
Speaker 1: United Nations Environment Program, and within that they had the
Speaker 1: World Conservation Monitoring Center, which helps coordinate studies and promote
Speaker 1: projects that support biodiversity in the protection of ecosystem around
Speaker 1: the world. And in fact, they have a very ambitious project.
Speaker 1: They're looking to create a global connectivity conservation strategy. So
Speaker 1: when we talk about this complex web that all these
Speaker 1: different species end up being part of, they're trying to
Speaker 1: kind of map some of that out, and that's a
Speaker 1: herculean task. I mean, that's what biology has been doing
Speaker 1: for for since there's been biologists. But they're looking to
Speaker 1: identify fragmented habitats of various species as well. So let's
Speaker 1: say that there is a region within a country where
Speaker 1: there are two different populations of the same species that
Speaker 1: used to coexist in the same general geographic region, but
Speaker 1: because the way humans have moved in, it's divided that up. Now.
Speaker 1: They're looking at ways where they might be able to
Speaker 1: reconnect these habitats to help make these populations more healthy
Speaker 1: so that it can be greater genetic diversity and biodiversity
Speaker 1: as well. So they're looking at as to support governments
Speaker 1: and stakeholders to protect ecological systems. Stakeholders being anyone who
Speaker 1: would be affected by these sort of policies. How can
Speaker 1: you turn it into an incentive as opposed to something
Speaker 1: that people are going to oppose because it could impact
Speaker 1: their plans on either making a profit or expansion or
Speaker 1: whatever it may be. Because these are delicate matters. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not always a cut and dry case like we
Speaker 1: like to simplify the narrative, like it's it's the evil
Speaker 1: developer who wants to ruin a swamp in order to
Speaker 1: create a multimillion dollar complex. That's not always it's the
Speaker 1: last rainforest. No, I mean, I think in a lot
Speaker 1: of cases, these are just people who are trying to
Speaker 1: make a living and they're not thinking about it and
Speaker 1: is not even aware of what the risks are. In
Speaker 1: some cases, it's balancing things and maybe like, no, we
Speaker 1: wanted to turn that into a state of the art hospital,
Speaker 1: which our citizens have never had in the history of ever.
Speaker 1: And it's hard to say to people like you can't
Speaker 1: have that, you can't have a really awesome neononatal wing
Speaker 1: because of a toad. Yeah, and it is difficult. It
Speaker 1: does mean that. That's why this group is looking to
Speaker 1: find ways and strategies to help governments so that they
Speaker 1: can accomplish the goals they need to accomplish without also
Speaker 1: impacting the environment in a negative way. So they're looking
Speaker 1: to establish sound scientific foundation upon which they can build
Speaker 1: this collection of policy and legislative tools, plus the incentives
Speaker 1: to use those tools that governments can use to promote conservation.
Speaker 1: So I think it's a really forward thinking approach. Actually,
Speaker 1: you know, just to yeah, I know, right, Hey, you
Speaker 1: said the title of the podcast um to the Future,
Speaker 1: right right, So I think it really is is a
Speaker 1: very smart way of moving forward, because it's it's establishing that, yes,
Speaker 1: we need to make sure that the decisions we make
Speaker 1: are evidence based, that they are science, they're not they're
Speaker 1: not just knee jerk reactions, but in fact have have
Speaker 1: research behind them to show that this is in fact
Speaker 1: the best option. Sure, and there's a real need for
Speaker 1: that in these types of cases, because when animals are threatened.
Speaker 1: You know, your little cuddling monologue earlier was a good
Speaker 1: indication of the fact that these topics are likely to
Speaker 1: involve our feelings, Yes, to excite our emotions and to
Speaker 1: make us feel empathy and stuff like that, and and
Speaker 1: it's it can be tough then to make a rational
Speaker 1: decision if you don't systematize your decision making process. Yes,
Speaker 1: the goal is to remove by us as much as possible,
Speaker 1: so that the decisions that you arrive at are are
Speaker 1: ones that that do make sense and are not again,
Speaker 1: just an emotional reaction to something. Not to say that
Speaker 1: the emotional reaction would necessarily be the wrong one, but
Speaker 1: this way, this way you can at least say no, no no, no,
Speaker 1: this demonstrably is the right way to go. Also, even
Speaker 1: just just getting all of that information and just sharing
Speaker 1: it amongst different researchers and scientists and uh, geological services
Speaker 1: and all of that stuff is really difficult to do
Speaker 1: and of course getting easier thanks to the Internet and
Speaker 1: you know, spreadsheets and stuff like that, but uh, classically
Speaker 1: it's been very difficult to pulp to pool all of
Speaker 1: that information in a useful way. Yeah, you would have
Speaker 1: these these these concentrated areas where research would be really
Speaker 1: amazing and deep and broad, but not necessarily connected to
Speaker 1: another region that might be geologically quite close, but as
Speaker 1: far as research is concerned, could be you know, decades away.
Speaker 1: It's this is actually very promising, and there are other
Speaker 1: policies that could point out, like there are a lot
Speaker 1: of places around the world they're setting up various types
Speaker 1: of refugees, not just not just for land animals, but
Speaker 1: also for sharks. I mean there are areas that are
Speaker 1: specifically says aside that are protected waters for all different
Speaker 1: species or maybe not all, but most species of sharks.
Speaker 1: And uh, that's also very very promising. And beyond policy,
Speaker 1: we do have some kind of interesting technology approaches that
Speaker 1: are helping people in efforts to conserve wildlife. And one
Speaker 1: of those is a your smartphone. Sure, and whether it's
Speaker 1: your smartphone or somebody else's smartphone, the basic idea here
Speaker 1: is apps, software and technology that help enable citizen science
Speaker 1: and citizen participation in the scientific data gathering that we
Speaker 1: need to help protect species. That right. The first example
Speaker 1: we have is an e Naturalist, and that's actually it's
Speaker 1: it's broader than just an app. It actually it's it's
Speaker 1: an online social network that's made up of biologists and
Speaker 1: naturalists as well as citizen scientists, and they're really looking
Speaker 1: to map bio diversity. And it's a platform upon which
Speaker 1: people can share observation. So you can have an app
Speaker 1: on your phone and when you are out in nature
Speaker 1: and you see, you know, evidence of various types of animals,
Speaker 1: you might use it to say, hey, I saw this
Speaker 1: this type of creature at this place. And this gives
Speaker 1: biologists an incredible tool, an ability to really kind of
Speaker 1: see in real time what the various density populations are,
Speaker 1: but based upon the number of reports they might see.
Speaker 1: So as more people use it and as more people
Speaker 1: report on the animals they see, you can see either
Speaker 1: an increase in reports might show that there's a population
Speaker 1: that's on the rise. A decrease could show that perhaps
Speaker 1: there's a population that's in trouble. Could also show the
Speaker 1: evidence of of encroaching species, invasive species. So we're really interesting.
Speaker 1: It could just give you a better idea about what
Speaker 1: the natural range of a species is. I mean in
Speaker 1: some races when you think about it, like, how do
Speaker 1: you determine the range of a species? I mean that's
Speaker 1: not as easy to do as you might think. Can
Speaker 1: you go out and walk over every square foot of
Speaker 1: ground and say, okay, don't see anymore here, so I
Speaker 1: guess this is the end, right? Yeah. It makes me
Speaker 1: think of whenever you look up a particular species and
Speaker 1: you see where it's range tends to be, and it
Speaker 1: will give it like here in the United States, you'll
Speaker 1: usually get a list of states that that animal can
Speaker 1: be found in, and then you just think, well, what
Speaker 1: would happen if I were in a neighboring state and
Speaker 1: saw this When I just say, hey, you don't belong here.
Speaker 1: You need to pick up and move twenty miles to
Speaker 1: the east. Buddy. These ground reclusives in my house fighting
Speaker 1: meed to be here, I think we found the next
Speaker 1: sci fi channel. We have a xenophobia, so but but yeah,
Speaker 1: this this means that biologists would have we'll be able
Speaker 1: to leverage a tool that a lot of different industries
Speaker 1: have been leveraging. The fact that using crowd generated data
Speaker 1: to help get a better understanding of what's going on.
Speaker 1: We talk about this all the time with the Internet
Speaker 1: of things, and usually we're talking about understanding system so
Speaker 1: that you can build more efficient infrastructure or tools or
Speaker 1: whatever it may be. In this case, we're actually talking
Speaker 1: about expanding our knowledge of a particular science. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Another one that we can talk about is oh Search,
Speaker 1: which is uh one I referred to in the shark
Speaker 1: conservation video. It's pretty cool. This is an app that
Speaker 1: lets you track tagged sharks. So there are shark tagging
Speaker 1: expeditions where people will go out, catch, catch a shark,
Speaker 1: bring it on board, tag it with essentially a beacon
Speaker 1: that lets you know where that shark is, release it,
Speaker 1: and then they track where the shark goes in order
Speaker 1: to learn more about shark migratory patterns and predatory patterns
Speaker 1: where it tends to go at any given time year,
Speaker 1: and these guys get around. So there are a lot
Speaker 1: of examples of sharks that were captured off the coast
Speaker 1: of like uh, New England and then released and then
Speaker 1: later on in the year end up in the Bahamas,
Speaker 1: which tells us that the plot to Jaws for is
Speaker 1: a little more realistic than I had anticipated. Much. It
Speaker 1: does have you know, any movie that has Michael Kaine
Speaker 1: and you have to, you know, figure, well, maybe there's
Speaker 1: more legitimacy than I originally thought. Did it explain Michael
Speaker 1: Caine's instant clothing drying technology? It did not, nor did
Speaker 1: it go into detail about how you could ram a
Speaker 1: sailboat through a Great White shark. But at any rate
Speaker 1: spoiler alert by the way, um at any rate, it
Speaker 1: is really neat, and you can actually track lots of
Speaker 1: different sharks. You can see all of them at once.
Speaker 1: You know, essentially they're all like these dots in the ocean.
Speaker 1: Or you can focus on a specific shark and then
Speaker 1: even set a parameter on there to say, well, let
Speaker 1: me see everywhere this shark has been over the last
Speaker 1: six months, and it'll give you kind of like that
Speaker 1: Indiana Jones travel line where the shark has been throughout
Speaker 1: that time. It's really cool. And um, I'm hopeful that
Speaker 1: a buddy of mine who is a shark marine biologist,
Speaker 1: he does these. He goes out and does these shark
Speaker 1: tagging expeditions and and he has told me at d
Speaker 1: agon Con that if I'm interested, I should get in
Speaker 1: touch with him and I could go on one. So
Speaker 1: if you guys want to go on a shark tagging expedition,
Speaker 1: Dragon Cons coming up again, and I believe he's a guest,
Speaker 1: So I'll talk to him and see if we can
Speaker 1: wrangle ourselves a a three person shark tagging trip. I
Speaker 1: want that indescribably much. Okay, I'll talk to him. I'll
Speaker 1: see what we can do. So is his boat called
Speaker 1: the Orca, because I think I saw one of these
Speaker 1: three person expeditions. He did come up to me and
Speaker 1: he said he said, I said, could I go? And
Speaker 1: he said, I'm talking about work and for a living,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about sharking, right. He wanted two cases of
Speaker 1: apricot brandy, yeah, and dollars um. No, he has not
Speaker 1: spoken to me about such things, but I'll try and
Speaker 1: see if we can we can actually arrange something. Because
Speaker 1: he he was very much of the opinion that the
Speaker 1: more people who participate in this, the more they learn
Speaker 1: about how important sharks are in their various ecosystems, and
Speaker 1: the US they are prone to being afraid of them. So,
Speaker 1: of course, there are plenty more conservation apps than the
Speaker 1: ones we just mentioned. Yeah, there's some that are specifically
Speaker 1: meant to help curtail poaching and trafficking and animals or
Speaker 1: animal parts. There's one called Wildlife Guardian. That's that's just
Speaker 1: one example that's a smartphone app that's specifically meant to
Speaker 1: help curtail that in China. Yeah, I feel like I've
Speaker 1: read that some of these are designed to let people
Speaker 1: anonymously report things so they don't feel like fear of reprisal.
Speaker 1: It's essentially kind of filing it with law enforcement so
Speaker 1: that the law enforcement officials can make a point to
Speaker 1: to follow up on that. And it takes the responsibility
Speaker 1: off the shoulder of the person who witnesses this, and
Speaker 1: it puts it onto the law enforcement agencies, so hopefully
Speaker 1: if they are doing their duty, they can then go
Speaker 1: in and make sure that this operation stops. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: of course another great technological frontier and conservation is going
Speaker 1: to be stuff like satellite imaging and geographic information systems
Speaker 1: or g i S. Have you ever heard about the
Speaker 1: g i S field. No, but I imagine it has
Speaker 1: something to do with tracking changes to environments. Well, it
Speaker 1: could be changes or it could be static data, but
Speaker 1: it it can definitely help us monitor changes to environments
Speaker 1: because the basic idea behind g i S is that
Speaker 1: you're combining maps and geospatial representations with data. So it's
Speaker 1: like data augmented map systems. It's for cataloging, analyzing, tracking,
Speaker 1: and updating data about geographic areas. So you might have
Speaker 1: a g i S system that looks at a certain
Speaker 1: area and then looks at the terrain and then looks
Speaker 1: at how you know the watershed in the area works,
Speaker 1: or maybe the borders of a jungle might change over time,
Speaker 1: or whether there's been erosion or and you can combine
Speaker 1: data layers with maps like these, So if you're you're
Speaker 1: trying to track relationships between different types of data points
Speaker 1: with relation to the geography, you can combine your data
Speaker 1: and say, oh, that's weird. Now we can look at,
Speaker 1: you know, lightning strikes happening in this area, and how
Speaker 1: that corresponds to the number of toads that begin flying. Wow. Okay.
Speaker 1: And then there are other efforts too, right, I mean
Speaker 1: there's other ways of using technology in conservation efforts, some
Speaker 1: of which would get really hands on. Yeah sure, and
Speaker 1: are also using that kind of satellite connection, but in
Speaker 1: a slightly different way. There are some efforts that are
Speaker 1: outfitting animals like mountain lions and bears and coyotes and
Speaker 1: wolves with smart collars which are you know, kind of
Speaker 1: like your fitness tracker, but you know a little bit
Speaker 1: bigger um and for and for wolves, and you know,
Speaker 1: and equipped with a GPS trackers and accelerometers and sometimes
Speaker 1: even cameras so that they can help conservationists learn about
Speaker 1: these animals behaviors and their movements and their sleeping patterns,
Speaker 1: and their interactions with other animals up to and including humans.
Speaker 1: The hope here is to learn enough to prevent human
Speaker 1: encroachment on really important animal territories and even to begin
Speaker 1: predicting behavior and sending out warnings like for example, uh,
Speaker 1: if a mountain lion is ranging really close to a town,
Speaker 1: they could warn locals to keep their pets inside and
Speaker 1: also you know, gently remind them about hunting loss. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This would also be great to Uh. Honestly, one of
Speaker 1: the things that I love about technology is that it
Speaker 1: gives us so many more opportunities to capture wonderful moments
Speaker 1: in our lives. But one of the things I hate
Speaker 1: about technology is sometimes it gives us these opportunities to
Speaker 1: capture wonderful moments in our lives to the point where
Speaker 1: we will put ourselves in danger in order to capture
Speaker 1: that moment. And by this, of course, referring to the
Speaker 1: numerous stories we have seen of people attempting to take
Speaker 1: a selfie with a wild animal in the background of
Speaker 1: that of that photo, and we've heard more than enough
Speaker 1: stories of people being hurt or worse in these sort
Speaker 1: of encounters. And my hope would be this sort of
Speaker 1: thing would also be in a way of reminding people, Hey,
Speaker 1: there are times where sometimes wildlife and human settlements are
Speaker 1: coming into like they're overlapping because of various reasons. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is not an opportunity for you to go out
Speaker 1: and get that amazing picture of you with this wild animal.
Speaker 1: They are wild animals, and we will try and deal
Speaker 1: with this in a way that preserves the safety of
Speaker 1: both the people and the animals as much as we can,
Speaker 1: but in order to do that, we have to have
Speaker 1: you play a part in that and not try and
Speaker 1: rush out and get your bare selfie. There's so many
Speaker 1: animals that you shouldn't try to get selfie. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: just googled running of the bull selfie. Yeah, Yeah, there's plenty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's I mean, and that's a well, I have
Speaker 1: a lot of feelings about the running of the bulls,
Speaker 1: but I won't I won't go into them here. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean, like I I've heard of ones
Speaker 1: about people who wanted to get their picture taken when
Speaker 1: they see a bear or when they see uh bison.
Speaker 1: There was a recent one, there was a ram that
Speaker 1: that injured somebody. Yeah. So these are just reminders, right
Speaker 1: that that we need to have these systems in place
Speaker 1: so that we can try to protect everyone involved, not
Speaker 1: obviously not just the animals. That's another thing I often
Speaker 1: see that people are like, well, why don't you care
Speaker 1: about people? No, No, we we care about people too.
Speaker 1: It's it's not an either or thing, you know, this
Speaker 1: is an end thing. Um. So one of the other
Speaker 1: technologies we can talk about our drones. Those are being
Speaker 1: used by a few different organizations to help with conservation efforts,
Speaker 1: both to just keep an eye on populations and see
Speaker 1: how they're doing, monitor their health without getting too close
Speaker 1: to them. Also, you might be able to access areas
Speaker 1: that otherwise would be very difficult to get to through
Speaker 1: other means, and without having to use larger aircraft like
Speaker 1: helicopters or planes, because often you have to fly pretty
Speaker 1: low altitudes in order to get an eye on these
Speaker 1: populations and with something like a helicopter. One of the
Speaker 1: points that people were making is that with a with
Speaker 1: a drone, you can fly at these low altitudes and
Speaker 1: not risk human life if something goes wrong, whereas with
Speaker 1: a helicopter, if something goes wrong because you're flying at
Speaker 1: a low altitude, you have very little time to recover.
Speaker 1: So this would be one way of keeping an eye
Speaker 1: on animals without putting human lives at danger, and you
Speaker 1: could do it from a remote location. Uh It's still
Speaker 1: obviously takes a lot of training to be able to
Speaker 1: fly a drone effectively. Not all of these drones are
Speaker 1: rotor drones. Some of them are look more like an
Speaker 1: airplane than they do a helicopter. Um And also you
Speaker 1: can use them not just to keep an eye on
Speaker 1: the populations, but also to look out for poachers. So
Speaker 1: in areas where poaching is a problem, you might be
Speaker 1: able to use drones to locate and identify poachers and
Speaker 1: in that way alert whatever regulatory agency is in charge
Speaker 1: of keeping a lid on that to go and investigate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's also some material science technology that's going into decreasing
Speaker 1: poaching wild populations. Yeah, this is really kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: You may have heard about this story about how essentially
Speaker 1: there are people who are three D printing rhinoceros horns
Speaker 1: and they're creating synthetic rhinoceros horns, uh, using some rhino
Speaker 1: d NA as part of it, and they are physically
Speaker 1: identical to actual rhino horns, Like if you were to
Speaker 1: test them, that would be a rhino horn. It's just
Speaker 1: it's synthetic. And so there's some people who are hoping
Speaker 1: to use synthetic rhino horn to flood markets that value
Speaker 1: the rhino a horn. I mean, I think it's like
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars a graham in some Chinese markets. So
Speaker 1: if you were able to flood the markets with synthetic
Speaker 1: rhino horn, you would devalue the horns. And if you
Speaker 1: devalue it enough, then there's no incentive to go and
Speaker 1: hunt a gigantic rhinoceros because you're not going to get
Speaker 1: any money back, you know, Comparatively speaking, However, there are
Speaker 1: critics who point out that this could have negative consequences
Speaker 1: as well. It could be that synthetic rhinoceros horn ends
Speaker 1: up driving up the price of real, actual rhinoceros horn,
Speaker 1: so that could end up creating an even greater incentive
Speaker 1: to hunt rhinoceros. And you mean, if people can tell
Speaker 1: the difference between people are able to if people are
Speaker 1: able to know that this is an actual rhino horn
Speaker 1: versus synthetic, I mean, you could argue that it might
Speaker 1: just create a market for people to create synthetic rhinoceros
Speaker 1: horns and call them real rhinoceros horns, which would be okay,
Speaker 1: I guess, compared to yeah, compared to killing. But the
Speaker 1: other element of this, though, is the one that is
Speaker 1: pretty easy for you to say, like, yeah, that's not
Speaker 1: so great. It does it does nothing to weaken this.
Speaker 1: It does nothing to create a stigma against the use
Speaker 1: of rhino horn, right. It reinforces the idea that rhinal
Speaker 1: horn should be used for these cases. Yeah, and this
Speaker 1: is a broader issue in conservation because you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's clear that something needs to be done, but figuring
Speaker 1: out what exactly that is is way more difficult than
Speaker 1: just collecting the data. Yeah, there there's a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, it is a very complex thing, and it's
Speaker 1: not like a one size fits all approach is going
Speaker 1: to work in every case. Right. There are going to
Speaker 1: be lots of different cases where very specific pathways need
Speaker 1: to be taken in order for us to be effective
Speaker 1: in conservation efforts, and those may not apply in other cases. Uh.
Speaker 1: And there's also just kind of a general this agreement
Speaker 1: on some very basic things. For example, the idea of
Speaker 1: naming wild animals that oh search app I was talking about,
Speaker 1: a lot of the sharks that you can follow have
Speaker 1: been given names, and it makes it really easy to
Speaker 1: refer to the specific shark, right, Like you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's Mary Lee, it's Flipper, Yeah, whatever it may be,
Speaker 1: but it's easy to refer to them. A lot of
Speaker 1: them even have Twitter accounts which were not made by
Speaker 1: oh search, by the way, they were made by other people,
Speaker 1: but they end up tweeting based upon where the shark
Speaker 1: is kind of what that shark is probably experiencing on
Speaker 1: any given day, because because apparently, according to the O search,
Speaker 1: folks like, no, we didn't make this Twitter account. We're
Speaker 1: fine with them using it to talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: where the shark is and what's going on, but we
Speaker 1: didn't make it um which you know, that's the thing
Speaker 1: is that you anyone can make a Twitter account. Well,
Speaker 1: there's their pro and con arguments about naming wild animals.
Speaker 1: So on the pro side, the you would argue that
Speaker 1: naming the animals makes us think of them as individuals,
Speaker 1: as opposed to thinking of the problem of poaching of
Speaker 1: lions in one space. If we name the lions, then
Speaker 1: we can we We we assign them an identity, we
Speaker 1: think of them as an individual, and we tend to
Speaker 1: get more emotionally invested in them as opposed to thinking
Speaker 1: about them as a larger We're not great at handling
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. On the concite, however, first of all,
Speaker 1: naming them does create a psychological effect, right, it's but
Speaker 1: we do get that emotional investment, and like we were
Speaker 1: talking about earlier, this could create a bias for research. Right,
Speaker 1: if you have the opportunity to I don't know. If
Speaker 1: you have to pick between saving two different lions from
Speaker 1: poachers and one has a name and the other one doesn't,
Speaker 1: you're probably going to pick the one with the aim,
Speaker 1: even if that's not necessarily the most you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know why you would need to pick one versus another,
Speaker 1: but still you need to make Yeah, but it could
Speaker 1: be that, you know, the argument you make is that, well,
Speaker 1: the one that we didn't name actually represents a different
Speaker 1: genetic uh makeup than the other one and would have
Speaker 1: created better diversity within the population of lines. However, we
Speaker 1: concentrate the one that had the name, and you know
Speaker 1: that it is a weird example, but it's a perfectly
Speaker 1: chromulent one. Yeah, yeah, I know, But bias and science
Speaker 1: is bad. Why did we only say Flipper the lion? Right? So? Uh.
Speaker 1: The other part of this is that the animals are
Speaker 1: wild animals. They're not pets, when we shouldn't think of
Speaker 1: them as pets. We should think of them as they
Speaker 1: are wild. They belong in the wild. Naming them takes
Speaker 1: them a step away from that in our minds, and
Speaker 1: that can be a problem. It can give the suggestion
Speaker 1: that they belong to you, because like our pets belong
Speaker 1: to us, sure, or that you should take a selfie
Speaker 1: with them, yeah, or that you're just anthropomorphizing them, which
Speaker 1: is also a problem. You know, they're they're not human.
Speaker 1: We often think of animals and human terms because we
Speaker 1: are most of us human, we're really species centric. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Just you know, until we get all those those uh
Speaker 1: genetic modifications where we can all become cat people, this
Speaker 1: is just gonna be a problem. So there there's definitely
Speaker 1: some research that supports the idea that naming animals can
Speaker 1: help build support. And that's because again going back to
Speaker 1: that problem that we have with what what uh good
Speaker 1: nature travel actually called the abstractions of catastrophe, This idea
Speaker 1: that when you hear about a big group thing happening,
Speaker 1: it's hard for us to to to process that information.
Speaker 1: Like we we have trouble thinking about any kind of
Speaker 1: news event that involves large numbers, whether it's animals or humans.
Speaker 1: It these stories hit us in because we have trouble
Speaker 1: processing it. We don't have that emotional impact. So when
Speaker 1: you hear you know, ten thousand members of whatever species,
Speaker 1: be an animal or maybe it's ten thousand people are
Speaker 1: affected negatively by something that's hard for us to process.
Speaker 1: But if you focus on an individual story, we can
Speaker 1: connect to that, and that's where we have that emotional response.
Speaker 1: And this is true whether it's animals or humans, whatever
Speaker 1: it may be. If you are able to frame the
Speaker 1: plight of any group within an individual story, that's where
Speaker 1: we have the connection. And that's where we see people
Speaker 1: willing to make a response, whether it's positive or negative,
Speaker 1: whatever the case may be. You know, it all depends
Speaker 1: upon the scenario involved. Um and that then we might
Speaker 1: be more willing or able to participate in conservation efforts,
Speaker 1: whether it's through direct support monetarily or by volunteering or
Speaker 1: uh downloading one of these apps and participating in that
Speaker 1: we're respect whatever it might be, we'd be more willing
Speaker 1: to do it because we have that emotional connection. It's
Speaker 1: just harder to do when it's a big group, because
Speaker 1: as humans, we just have trouble dealing with that kind
Speaker 1: of information. Yeah, well, I mean, and as you implied earlier,
Speaker 1: that even applies when we're talking about humans. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's it's pretty commonly accepted wisdom of psychology
Speaker 1: that you're more likely to give a dollar to help
Speaker 1: a single kid with one name than a group of
Speaker 1: twenty people in need who don't have names. One of
Speaker 1: the examples I've seen is that when you when you
Speaker 1: see a commercial about an organization that is dedicated to
Speaker 1: helping people like children and developing countries, they always have
Speaker 1: a child. Yeah, help us, help Bruce, because we can
Speaker 1: focus on that, we can identify with that, and we
Speaker 1: see the plight when you look at a big, one,
Speaker 1: big group of people, either we have problems processing it
Speaker 1: or the problem itself seems so huge that we were paralyzed.
Speaker 1: We feel like nothing we would do would make a
Speaker 1: dent at all, when that is not the case. So
Speaker 1: I think that the naming issue is a complicated one,
Speaker 1: and I certainly see both sides. So it's not like
Speaker 1: I'm pro name that animal camp all the way, but
Speaker 1: I I think I lean a little more toward being
Speaker 1: sympathetic towards that side, although I completely understand the concerns
Speaker 1: of the people who speak out against it. Along the
Speaker 1: same lines as naming is, I think the idea of
Speaker 1: adopting a particular animal. I'm sure you've seen campaigns like this, right,
Speaker 1: like the Adopter Shark program, you know where they use
Speaker 1: that kind of language. What you're really doing is, you know,
Speaker 1: you make a donation or you you help support the
Speaker 1: scientific research in some way, and you can have a
Speaker 1: you know, attract animal that is like your adopted animal.
Speaker 1: Now you don't actually have any like rights or powers
Speaker 1: over it. Yeah, and you can't go out on a
Speaker 1: boat and like find it and pet it, or you
Speaker 1: should not at any rate. Yeah, I don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: you could, but I agree with you on should not,
Speaker 1: depending on how accurate the geo data is GPS. But um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean that seems like it raises similar issues,
Speaker 1: Like I can imagine how a campaign like adopt a
Speaker 1: shark or adopt a you know, whatever the animal would
Speaker 1: be could help get more people involved and raise more
Speaker 1: money for for the kinds of scientific research that could
Speaker 1: help protect these populations. But it could also give people
Speaker 1: the wrong idea about their relationship with the animals, and
Speaker 1: a lot of this also kind of this conversation reminds
Speaker 1: me a lot of the one we had about de
Speaker 1: extincting creatures de extinction process and the concerns we have
Speaker 1: about that technology as well. So if we if we
Speaker 1: get to a point where we could reliably bring an
Speaker 1: extinct species back. The fear. One of the fears is
Speaker 1: that it would remove our sense of urgency to preserve
Speaker 1: the ecosystems in which those creatures thrived. So, sure, you
Speaker 1: might be able to bring a creature back, but if
Speaker 1: the ecosystem it lived in no longer exists, then all
Speaker 1: you've done is given a death sentence again, possibly, or
Speaker 1: you're creating an invasive species to some system it wasn't
Speaker 1: ever meant to be in. So I've got a weird
Speaker 1: hypothetical question. Imagine we get some kind of Singularity type future,
Speaker 1: whatever you know, unimaginable levels of technological precision, do you
Speaker 1: think humans should take steps to prevent all current species
Speaker 1: from going extinct? It will be I think it will
Speaker 1: be unimaginably difficult to make this determination. Sure, And that's
Speaker 1: why I said, you know, singular, I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: mean like technologically it'll be difficult. I mean psychologically, it'll
Speaker 1: be a very difficult thing. Because if you think that
Speaker 1: you have the ability to prevent a creature from going extinct,
Speaker 1: and I think it'd be really hard to say no,
Speaker 1: let's let's let it go extinct. As even if it
Speaker 1: was something that you could pretty clearly say this is
Speaker 1: going extinct, and it's not because of the actions we
Speaker 1: humans have taken upon this. So if you think of
Speaker 1: it that way, like if you were able to somehow
Speaker 1: was really high uh certainty say this creature is going extinct.
Speaker 1: We can tell from its numbers it is not due
Speaker 1: to human activity. We should probably let it have because
Speaker 1: that's just evolutions. But I don't know that we could
Speaker 1: do that. Well, there's there's also a likelihood I would
Speaker 1: I would think that if a species was going extinct
Speaker 1: due to natural events, not due to human interaction, that
Speaker 1: we probably wouldn't even know about it, because the things
Speaker 1: that we know about are generally the we just built
Speaker 1: this apartment complex here, and now we have to assume
Speaker 1: now Flipper the toad is dying off. We have to
Speaker 1: assume that, Buddies, we're in a future where the Internet
Speaker 1: of things is so incredibly rich and robust that we
Speaker 1: have a finger on the pulse of practically every ecosystem.
Speaker 1: That that is hard to imagine because the Earth is
Speaker 1: so incredible, and keep in mind, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: it we have not explored. The oceans are still largely
Speaker 1: mysterious to us. Is that we cannot breathe. We tend
Speaker 1: to explore less thoroughly. No, I think that the best
Speaker 1: that we could do, and and the best that we
Speaker 1: should be should look to do, in my personal opinion,
Speaker 1: is just preventing, you know, shutting down the negative human
Speaker 1: human interactions with our environment and and therefore preventing that
Speaker 1: kind end of extinction. I'm of the same mind. I mean,
Speaker 1: it would be I'd hate to be the guy to
Speaker 1: make that call, to be like, hey, this cute, fluffy
Speaker 1: bunny that lives in this particular region is dying out,
Speaker 1: and it's completely due to natural, you know, the natural
Speaker 1: progression of that ecosystem. It would still be hard for
Speaker 1: me to say, oh, let's let's let it go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, let's let's let's rescue the bunny, and um,
Speaker 1: let's uh, let's let's let's let's not make some make
Speaker 1: some changes to that ecosystem so the bunny's okay. I
Speaker 1: would that would be I would have to fight against that,
Speaker 1: which is exactly what we were talking about with the
Speaker 1: You'd make a safe space for the bunny at the
Speaker 1: expense of the algae that was formerly thriving in the swamp,
Speaker 1: that you've transformed into a bunny friend and then consequences
Speaker 1: and you'd have to see a commercial about Flipper the
Speaker 1: algae saying please help me. Either that or you'd suddenly
Speaker 1: discover that that, you know, this other creature that depended
Speaker 1: upon the algae is now dying out because you made
Speaker 1: this this arbitrary decision to save one species over another.
Speaker 1: And thus we get back to these things are complicated.
Speaker 1: But I agree with you, Lauren completely that I think
Speaker 1: the best we could hope for is to try and
Speaker 1: end the impact that humans are having directly or otherwise
Speaker 1: on species populations and ecosystems. Uh, But to to mitigate
Speaker 1: that as much as we possibly can. Yeah, that's the trick, right,
Speaker 1: as much as we can, because as we've said several
Speaker 1: times now, I mean it's really difficult. I would say,
Speaker 1: even with sci fi levels of technology, I think it
Speaker 1: would be really hard to understand all the complex cause
Speaker 1: and effect chains. I mean, you can understand some more
Speaker 1: easily than others. Sometimes you'll just say like, okay, this
Speaker 1: is pretty clearly, you know, because we've built X here,
Speaker 1: we drove something out. But there are other things where
Speaker 1: you know, well, okay, so there's this new species that
Speaker 1: moved into this forest, and they're out competing the previous
Speaker 1: species that filled the same niche, and now that species
Speaker 1: is dying. Why did that species move into the forest. Well,
Speaker 1: then you'd have to go one step back and figure
Speaker 1: out what happened there. Ultimately, it might be human causes
Speaker 1: or it might not. Yeah, I think, um, I mean, obviously,
Speaker 1: we can only do the best we can with the
Speaker 1: information we have. And the problem as I see it
Speaker 1: right now, is that we're not even doing the best
Speaker 1: we can with the information that's currently available. And that's
Speaker 1: that's what we need to start start addressing, is to
Speaker 1: let's let's let's make that our best as opposed to
Speaker 1: having these these these islands where people are trying really hard,
Speaker 1: but there are large areas where that's either not a
Speaker 1: priority or people are just unaware of it, whatever, whatever
Speaker 1: the reason, maybe and do our best to fix that. Um.
Speaker 1: All this being said, I am generally speaking an optimist.
Speaker 1: I think that there are a lot of very well
Speaker 1: meaning people who are trying very hard to push the
Speaker 1: message of conservation out there, and I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people are sympathetic to it. It's just that, uh,
Speaker 1: it can be again so overwhelming that it's difficult to
Speaker 1: know what you as an individual can do to make
Speaker 1: a positive impact. But there are lots of different resources
Speaker 1: out there, So I recommend people go out do a
Speaker 1: little simple research, look into the different organizations and actually
Speaker 1: do look into them. Don't just google to find out
Speaker 1: which ones are active, but actually do research to see,
Speaker 1: you know, what sort of work do they do. Are
Speaker 1: they considered to be, uh, you know, an effective organization
Speaker 1: before you go any further, you know, putting your time
Speaker 1: or money into that obviously, because not everyone is doing
Speaker 1: a great job. Some organizations are and some aren't. So
Speaker 1: I would definitely recommend doing that research for yourself so
Speaker 1: that you can find one that's a good fit and
Speaker 1: that you feel good about. If this is something that's
Speaker 1: important to you, and if there's some other top that's
Speaker 1: really important to you that we have never talked about,
Speaker 1: you know, something about the future that you really wanted
Speaker 1: to hear about, I recommend you, right and let's know,
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