WEBVTT - Rewilding 0:00:07.870 --> 0:00:12.150 Let's admit it. Humanity hasn't been great for biodiversity and 0:00:12.210 --> 0:00:16.390 wildlife on planet Earth. Throughout our history, we've killed, for example, 0:00:16.750 --> 0:00:19.690 many large mammals, either because we wanted to eat them 0:00:20.250 --> 0:00:22.340 or because we were worried that they would compete with 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:26.320 us or try to eat us. So many ecosystems exist 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:29.840 today without the large herbivores and large predators that once 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:34.339 roamed within them. Large animals like this aren't just charismatic. 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:38.260 They also have oversized impacts on the ecosystems. No doubt 0:00:38.340 --> 0:00:40.480 many of you have heard the story about how Yellowstone 0:00:40.540 --> 0:00:43.839 National Park was transformed after the reintroduction of the wolves, 0:00:44.020 --> 0:00:45.390 and we're going to talk about that a bit today. 0:00:46.070 --> 0:00:49.750 The newish movement of rewilding is a new spin on 0:00:49.770 --> 0:00:53.890 the conservation movement, though I suspect that many self-proclaimed conservationists 0:00:53.910 --> 0:00:56.730 would be upset with me for explaining it that way. Anyway, 0:00:56.810 --> 0:01:01.090 rewilding focuses on trying to restore lost interactions between species 0:01:01.190 --> 0:01:04.020 and the radiating impacts that they have on the ecosystems 0:01:04.090 --> 0:01:07.339 in which they're found. But how far should you go 0:01:07.459 --> 0:01:10.670 to restore these interactions? If the big herbivore at the 0:01:10.750 --> 0:01:13.709 center of these interactions was a woolly mammoth, should you 0:01:13.770 --> 0:01:16.150 use genetic engineering to resurrect them from the dead? In 0:01:17.390 --> 0:01:22.090 addition to emphasizing restoring lost interactions, rewilding also tends to 0:01:22.140 --> 0:01:25.540 emphasize a hands-off approach, where animals are reintroduced to a 0:01:25.580 --> 0:01:27.720 system and then you kind of sit back and see 0:01:27.740 --> 0:01:30.300 what will happen, being happy with the result, even if 0:01:30.340 --> 0:01:33.330 it doesn't produce the exact same ecosystem that was there before. 0:01:33.910 --> 0:01:35.850 We're gonna walk through a bunch of examples today and 0:01:35.890 --> 0:01:38.390 talk about how rewilding is a little different than the 0:01:38.450 --> 0:01:41.530 conservation of my youth. And we're gonna discuss the pros 0:01:41.590 --> 0:01:44.900 and the cons of this approach. Welcome to Daniel and 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:46.360 Kelly's Wild Universe. 0:01:59.670 --> 0:02:02.050 Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist who likes to 0:02:02.070 --> 0:02:04.510 think about aliens. And when I was a kid, I 0:02:05.070 --> 0:02:08.540 always wished they could bring saber-toothed tigers back from the dead. 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:09.880 Ooh, all right. 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:13.440 Hi, I'm Kelly. I study parasites and space. And I 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:16.560 wasn't necessarily thinking about de-extinction when I was a kid, 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.760 but I was really into wolves. And so, like, for 0:02:19.780 --> 0:02:22.890 my birthday, I would have my parents, like, quote-unquote, adopt 0:02:22.930 --> 0:02:24.230 a wolf for me, which just meant, like, you know, 0:02:24.250 --> 0:02:27.269 make a donation to a conservation group. And so, like, 0:02:27.330 --> 0:02:28.130 wolves were my jam. 0:02:28.810 --> 0:02:32.410 Didn't you ever see critters on TV, like in cartoons 0:02:32.430 --> 0:02:34.829 or whatever, and think, whoa, that looks really cool. I 0:02:34.870 --> 0:02:36.030 wish we had those guys now. 0:02:36.550 --> 0:02:39.530 I mean, Jurassic Park was by far and away my 0:02:39.590 --> 0:02:40.190 favorite movie. 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:40.820 There you go. 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:43.899 And so, yes, yes. I do still think it would 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:47.179 be amazing to see like a brontosaurus or something like that. 0:02:47.220 --> 0:02:50.720 And I interviewed Dr. Beth Shapiro, who now works at Colossal. 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:51.720 The dire wolf place. 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:54.040 The dire wolf place. And I asked her, you know, 0:02:54.150 --> 0:02:57.359 could we ever... Have Jurassic Park. And she was pretty 0:02:57.380 --> 0:03:01.400 much like, no. We could try to pull together all 0:03:01.419 --> 0:03:03.190 of the genes that would make something that would look 0:03:03.210 --> 0:03:06.970 like a brontosaurus. But the brontosaurus genome is like long 0:03:07.050 --> 0:03:11.870 since gone. There's nothing. We're not finding that. It's decayed. 0:03:12.690 --> 0:03:15.030 All right. A great start to our episode. Throwing a 0:03:15.060 --> 0:03:18.889 wet blanket on lots of people's fantasies. But, you know, 0:03:18.910 --> 0:03:20.630 there was something else about that when I was a 0:03:20.650 --> 0:03:23.990 kid is just the awe of seeing something like that 0:03:24.110 --> 0:03:25.630 surviving in the wild. 0:03:25.790 --> 0:03:25.989 Yeah. 0:03:26.030 --> 0:03:28.530 You know, not in a zoo, but like really making 0:03:28.710 --> 0:03:31.430 its life out there. I think about that sometimes the 0:03:31.470 --> 0:03:33.970 way I think about like small businesses. You ever drive 0:03:34.030 --> 0:03:36.059 by like a little jewelry store and you're like, how 0:03:36.100 --> 0:03:38.600 does that thing survive? Like who's going in there and 0:03:38.660 --> 0:03:40.000 paying enough to cover the rent? 0:03:40.020 --> 0:03:40.300 Right. 0:03:40.870 --> 0:03:43.150 And when you see a creature sometimes, I'm like, how 0:03:43.190 --> 0:03:45.130 does this thing like making it out there? It gets 0:03:45.170 --> 0:03:47.770 cold at night. How is this thing surviving every night 0:03:47.830 --> 0:03:51.150 and finding food and raising its kids, you know? So 0:03:51.190 --> 0:03:53.210 it's amazing to see these creatures in the wild. 0:03:53.510 --> 0:03:55.210 Zach used to joke that when we moved out to 0:03:55.250 --> 0:03:57.280 the farm, the biggest problem we'd have is that every 0:03:57.310 --> 0:03:59.400 winter I would try to get all the deer in 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:01.940 the house on the coldest night of the year. Because 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:04.440 I'd be like, guys, there's no way you can survive this. 0:04:04.460 --> 0:04:05.680 You got to come inside. 0:04:05.700 --> 0:04:05.780 Yeah. 0:04:06.490 --> 0:04:08.160 If you're cold, they're cold, right? 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:08.740 That's right. 0:04:08.820 --> 0:04:09.260 That's right. 0:04:09.300 --> 0:04:13.220 Yes, that's right. Except they're adapted to the cold and they're, 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:15.870 you know, usually they do fine. Not always, but usually 0:04:15.910 --> 0:04:18.720 they do fine. But you were focusing on, you know, 0:04:18.740 --> 0:04:20.730 me being a wet blanket, which like, fair enough, right? 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:24.770 That's a totally reasonable baseline. But today's story is meant 0:04:24.810 --> 0:04:27.190 to be a bit uplifting. One of the big- Oh, 0:04:27.190 --> 0:04:29.930 is it? Well, you know, like as much as I can- 0:04:29.950 --> 0:04:31.330 A bit uplifting. A bit, that's right. 0:04:31.350 --> 0:04:33.529 Moderate your expectations, folks. Qualifier. 0:04:33.910 --> 0:04:36.990 But you know, rewilding definitely has a more like positive 0:04:37.070 --> 0:04:40.420 vibe than conservation. And so let's try to start with 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:43.780 a like, you know, positive vibe. Like we can bring some. 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:44.520 Of this stuff back. 0:04:44.860 --> 0:04:46.200 So that at the end, you can tell us how 0:04:46.220 --> 0:04:46.800 it's all hopeless? 0:04:47.310 --> 0:04:48.990 I mean, you know, I want it to be a 0:04:49.029 --> 0:04:52.210 roller coaster ride. It wouldn't be a Wienersmith-led episode otherwise. 0:04:52.230 --> 0:04:52.910 Right. 0:04:53.310 --> 0:04:56.030 So let's begin with the inspiration of it, right? Like, 0:04:56.290 --> 0:04:58.750 what is the idea? How does this work? But first, 0:04:58.790 --> 0:05:01.750 what's the inspiration for today's episode, Kelly? Why are we 0:05:01.770 --> 0:05:03.109 talking about rewilding today? 0:05:03.370 --> 0:05:06.380 The inspiration for today's episode is that one of our 0:05:06.540 --> 0:05:10.640 active Discord members, who always has fantastic questions, whose handle 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:12.520 is callmemose. 0:05:14.510 --> 0:05:16.700 I love that you refer to the Discord members by 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:18.980 their handles. 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:21.739 I always forget to ask for first names ahead of time. 0:05:21.779 --> 0:05:24.160 But anyway, well, and also, you know, you want to 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:26.760 be able to join our Discord channel and then communicate 0:05:26.820 --> 0:05:29.940 with this person. So now you know. But anyway, let's 0:05:29.980 --> 0:05:32.349 go ahead and hear the question that they had for 0:05:32.430 --> 0:05:32.890 us today. 0:05:33.770 --> 0:05:36.810 Hey, Kelly and Daniel. I would love to hear your 0:05:36.850 --> 0:05:41.029 thoughts on the rewilding projects underway in the U.S. and 0:05:41.130 --> 0:05:44.130 Europe and maybe elsewhere. to let big chunks of land 0:05:44.190 --> 0:05:49.990 return to their natural, unregulated ecosystems, including returning original predators 0:05:50.070 --> 0:05:54.980 and herbivores to the land, removing human dams, etc. I 0:05:55.060 --> 0:05:58.480 am most interested in the American Prairie Preserve in Montana 0:05:58.940 --> 0:06:01.480 because I grew up in what used to be the 0:06:01.540 --> 0:06:05.180 prairie in Iowa, but all of these efforts are really 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:06.040 fascinating to me. 0:06:06.500 --> 0:06:10.120 Thank you. I just drove through Montana. What a beautiful state. 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:13.280 I never heard about the American Prairie Preserve. What is that? 0:06:13.740 --> 0:06:15.310 Well, we're going to get to it. 0:06:15.740 --> 0:06:17.270 Okay, sorry. No, that's okay. 0:06:17.290 --> 0:06:20.150 So I got excited about rewilding because, you know, I 0:06:20.170 --> 0:06:22.650 was really into learning about conservation when I was a kid. 0:06:22.830 --> 0:06:26.060 And then I went to grad school for ecology. And 0:06:26.150 --> 0:06:30.400 rewilding is a flavor of conservation that I was definitely 0:06:30.460 --> 0:06:34.000 less familiar with. And so I used this question as 0:06:34.060 --> 0:06:37.070 an excuse to dive into the literature and catch back up. 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:38.850 It's been at least a decade since I was in 0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:41.989 grad school and thinking about this kind of stuff. And so... 0:06:42.510 --> 0:06:44.029 I learned a lot. Today we're going to go through 0:06:44.130 --> 0:06:47.150 rewilding in general, but we're definitely going to talk about 0:06:47.250 --> 0:06:49.880 American prairie. And it turns out this is a very 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:51.940 important time to be talking about it because it turns 0:06:52.060 --> 0:06:54.580 out they might be losing the rights to graze bison 0:06:54.700 --> 0:06:58.099 on their land. So stay tuned for that because that 0:06:58.120 --> 0:06:59.320 would be huge for that project. 0:06:59.540 --> 0:06:59.860 All right. 0:06:59.880 --> 0:07:01.979 And thank you, Call Me Mose, for asking this question. 0:07:02.460 --> 0:07:04.990 I love when people ask questions that give us an 0:07:05.050 --> 0:07:07.350 excuse to bump something up to the top of the 0:07:07.710 --> 0:07:09.409 stuff I wish I had time to read about list. 0:07:09.570 --> 0:07:09.710 Yes! 0:07:10.590 --> 0:07:13.870 So I read like a whole book on rewilding and 0:07:13.890 --> 0:07:17.760 then there's this great podcast called Rewildology. And so I 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:20.680 listened to a bunch of interviews by experts who are 0:07:20.740 --> 0:07:23.560 running rewilding programs. So I've got a sense of what 0:07:23.620 --> 0:07:25.440 it's like to run a bunch of these different programs. 0:07:25.460 --> 0:07:25.940 Wow. 0:07:26.980 --> 0:07:30.140 Let's go ahead and hear what our extraordinaries think, because 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:33.470 I was wondering, do most people know the difference between 0:07:33.750 --> 0:07:37.890 rewilding and conservation, or do they use those terms interchangeably? 0:07:37.910 --> 0:07:40.190 Because I'm not quite sure I could have put my 0:07:40.270 --> 0:07:43.450 finger on the difference when I started this research project. 0:07:43.890 --> 0:07:46.420 So let's go ahead and see what the extraordinaries had 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:50.980 to say. I asked them, how is rewilding different than conservation? 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:55.360 Conservation is preventative. Rewilding is. 0:07:57.910 --> 0:08:03.790 Conservation is when you like preserve a certain thing and 0:08:03.830 --> 0:08:09.570 then rewilding is probably like letting an area go back to. 0:08:09.470 --> 0:08:13.880 The wild conservation kind of means i mean it's more 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:16.800 of um yeah like keeping track of the wildlife to 0:08:16.860 --> 0:08:22.800 preserve it while rewilding would probably be letting it wildlife vendor. 0:08:22.700 --> 0:08:25.160 For itself in a way So yeah, I think the 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:28.100 conservative is controlled and rewilding is just let it go. 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:32.780 Conservation is kind of like gardening. Rewilding is getting out 0:08:32.820 --> 0:08:34.720 of the way and letting nature take its course. 0:08:35.300 --> 0:08:38.890 I believe that conservation is different from rewilding because in 0:08:38.990 --> 0:08:43.210 rewilding there is human intervention, such as reintroducing species or 0:08:43.230 --> 0:08:46.170 something along that line. But in conservation, it's pretty much 0:08:46.250 --> 0:08:50.250 just sort of stop human interaction and human interference and 0:08:50.290 --> 0:08:51.200 letting nature do its thing. 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:55.020 I think that conservation is like taking intact ecosystems and 0:08:55.059 --> 0:08:58.440 keeping them from getting hurt, and rewilding is taking ecosystems 0:08:58.460 --> 0:09:01.040 that are already messed up and making them right again. 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:06.330 I think conservation means to try to preserve an ecosystem 0:09:07.190 --> 0:09:11.969 in an existing state, but rewilding is introducing a population 0:09:12.070 --> 0:09:14.890 to take it back to a previous state. 0:09:15.350 --> 0:09:18.630 To begin with, I've never heard of rewilding of momentum. 0:09:19.170 --> 0:09:20.809 I'm not sure, but I think the difference is that 0:09:20.910 --> 0:09:24.980 conservation protects endangered species of plants and animals, while rewilding 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:29.160 encourages proliferation of species with protections from poaching. 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:32.179 So I'm actually going to say it's about whose interests 0:09:32.380 --> 0:09:37.250 you're serving. Are you serving the environment's best interests, the 0:09:37.370 --> 0:09:39.870 area including the creatures in it, or are you serving 0:09:40.450 --> 0:09:43.130 just one or a few particular. 0:09:42.730 --> 0:09:43.510 Creatures' interests? 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:49.939 Conservation is kind of protecting what's still there, whereas rewilding, 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:53.610 you're kind of trying to add more wild. 0:09:54.230 --> 0:09:54.550 I think? 0:09:55.410 --> 0:09:56.290 Free association. 0:09:56.610 --> 0:09:59.970 Conservation makes me think of swamps and protecting them, rewilding. 0:10:00.170 --> 0:10:02.690 makes me think about genetically engineered woolly mammoths. 0:10:04.030 --> 0:10:07.709 Well, I think that conservation means keeping things as is, 0:10:08.450 --> 0:10:13.609 while rewilding means bringing back some characteristics of the natural world. 0:10:14.210 --> 0:10:17.470 I think conservation is to try to reduce the human 0:10:17.510 --> 0:10:22.080 footprint on an environment or a species, and rewilding is 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.100 human manipulation through and through. All right, people have some 0:10:25.140 --> 0:10:28.380 definite opinions about this. How do you grade these scores, Kelly? 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:31.819 I don't like to grade anyone's scores, really, because we're 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:35.120 encouraging people to just give us their off-the-cuff answers. I 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:37.699 feel like you grade something people were supposed to prepare for. 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:41.230 But I would say that we had a really thoughtful 0:10:41.410 --> 0:10:44.790 range of answers, thinking about their gut feeling for what 0:10:44.830 --> 0:10:48.569 conservation should mean versus what rewilding means. should mean. I 0:10:49.130 --> 0:10:51.770 think at the end of the day, most of these 0:10:51.850 --> 0:10:54.800 answers didn't quite get what I came away with by 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:57.380 the end of my research. And so I hope we'll 0:10:57.420 --> 0:11:00.840 all learn something interesting along the way. But so first 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:05.060 let's start with what is rewilding? And before I jump 0:11:05.140 --> 0:11:08.370 into a definition, I want to reiterate that I read 0:11:08.390 --> 0:11:10.750 a bunch of review papers and I did a bunch 0:11:10.770 --> 0:11:14.230 of research. And one of the themes was that the 0:11:14.290 --> 0:11:16.930 rewilders were like, look, we can't agree on a definition. 0:11:17.290 --> 0:11:22.199 The movement itself can't even agree what it means. 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:27.260 Well, like different projects in different places in different times 0:11:27.420 --> 0:11:32.130 want to focus on different things. And so that... leads 0:11:32.170 --> 0:11:34.370 them to come up with different definitions. But there have 0:11:34.390 --> 0:11:36.309 been some review papers where a bunch of scientists have 0:11:36.370 --> 0:11:38.510 come together and said, okay, this is our best shot 0:11:38.590 --> 0:11:41.670 at a definition that sort of encompasses what all of 0:11:41.750 --> 0:11:42.270 us are doing. 0:11:42.290 --> 0:11:42.860 Okay. 0:11:42.980 --> 0:11:44.820 And so here's the definition that I got. 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:45.350 What is it? 0:11:45.580 --> 0:11:50.260 Rewilding is the process of rebuilding following a major human disturbance. 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:50.480 Hmm. 0:11:50.780 --> 0:11:54.260 A natural ecosystem by restoring natural processes in the complete 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:57.709 or near-complete food web at all trophic levels as a 0:11:57.790 --> 0:12:02.370 self-sustaining and resilient ecosystem with biota that would have been 0:12:03.510 --> 0:12:06.910 present had this disturbance not occurred. This will involve a 0:12:06.929 --> 0:12:10.790 paradigm shift in the relationship between humans and nature. And 0:12:10.830 --> 0:12:12.620 my plan is to break it down because your eyes 0:12:12.670 --> 0:12:13.270 glazed over. 0:12:13.550 --> 0:12:16.199 No, I was just laughing when you said biota were president. 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:18.680 I was thinking that actually sounds cool. I wish we 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:22.060 had like elephant presidents and stuff like that. 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:22.560 Yeah. 0:12:22.700 --> 0:12:25.660 What would an elephant ask for? More water holes. We 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.250 need more water holes without crocodiles in them. 0:12:29.010 --> 0:12:32.330 But the overall sense I got was, yeah, we're rebuilding 0:12:32.670 --> 0:12:34.270 an ecosystem that we destroyed. 0:12:34.290 --> 0:12:34.790 Yes. Yes. 0:12:35.190 --> 0:12:38.449 So, for example, building Jurassic Park would not be rewilding 0:12:38.510 --> 0:12:42.980 because humans didn't destroy the dinosaur ecosystem that was the asteroid. 0:12:43.250 --> 0:12:45.939 Yes, that's true. Let's go through the Yellowstone example. And 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:47.859 then at the end of the example, I want to 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:51.220 talk about how a conservationist might have pitched this project 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:54.080 versus how a rewilder would have looked at this project. 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:56.320 And by the end of this example, I feel like 0:12:56.340 --> 0:12:58.800 we'll have a good handle on the difference between conservation 0:12:58.840 --> 0:12:59.500 and rewilding. 0:12:59.820 --> 0:13:01.020 All right, are we going to talk about wolves? 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:02.850 We're going to talk about wolves. 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:04.750 I love the Yellowstone wolves. 0:13:04.890 --> 0:13:07.970 Oh, man, me too. Okay, so as you probably know then, 0:13:08.370 --> 0:13:12.270 by the mid-1900s, the wolves were pretty much gone from Yellowstone. 0:13:12.770 --> 0:13:15.070 And the park ecologists that were out there, they were 0:13:15.110 --> 0:13:17.510 sort of watching what happened to the ecosystem after the 0:13:17.530 --> 0:13:20.069 wolves were gone. And they noticed that there were a 0:13:20.130 --> 0:13:22.960 lot more elk there. And those elk were now eating 0:13:23.020 --> 0:13:25.220 a lot more vegetation because there was more of them. 0:13:25.300 --> 0:13:27.100 And in particular, some of the things that they were 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:30.329 eating were young aspens. So you weren't getting like aspen 0:13:30.370 --> 0:13:33.590 woodlands anymore because these trees were getting sort of consumed 0:13:33.650 --> 0:13:35.650 before they had a chance to get big. They were 0:13:35.809 --> 0:13:39.650 also eating these trees called cottonwoods that grow along the 0:13:39.690 --> 0:13:43.900 banks of like rivers. And because those couldn't get big, 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:47.380 you were losing beavers because those trees were both food 0:13:47.450 --> 0:13:49.930 for beavers and were important for beavers when they were 0:13:49.970 --> 0:13:54.689 making their dams. Without those trees, without the beavers, that 0:13:54.730 --> 0:13:57.720 was changing the entire aquatic system as well. So one 0:13:57.780 --> 0:13:58.220 of the things. 0:13:58.380 --> 0:13:58.740 I know. 0:13:58.760 --> 0:13:59.080 So one. 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:02.100 One of the things that beavers do is these dams 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:05.060 slow the water so the water rises and starts to 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:07.910 spill over the banks of the river. When it does that, 0:14:08.050 --> 0:14:09.790 you end up with land areas that are kind of 0:14:09.809 --> 0:14:12.969 like wet and moist. And so they're producing these wetlands 0:14:13.370 --> 0:14:16.910 that are good for frog eggs and salamanders and certain 0:14:16.929 --> 0:14:19.700 kinds of insects. So having the beavers is producing these 0:14:19.890 --> 0:14:22.920 extra ecosystems that give you a bunch of extra biodiversity. 0:14:23.390 --> 0:14:26.560 But without the beavers, the water starts flowing quickly down 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:28.820 the river. And as it does that, it starts pulling 0:14:28.900 --> 0:14:31.260 away soil from the bottom of the river and from 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:34.560 the sides. And so instead of having these like rivers 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:38.160 that have wetlands associated with it, you just have very deep, 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:40.620 fast moving rivers instead. Does that make sense? 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:44.040 It does, but it just reinforces my sense that all 0:14:44.060 --> 0:14:47.500 of biology is a crazy Rube Goldberg machine. I mean, 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:50.140 you're telling me you don't have as many wolves, so 0:14:50.180 --> 0:14:52.780 now you have more deer, which eat a bunch of trees, 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:55.420 which the beavers needed, and without the beavers, you're not 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:57.860 getting dams, you're not getting the wetlands, so you're getting 0:14:57.900 --> 0:15:00.300 faster rivers. This is crazy. 0:15:00.870 --> 0:15:01.670 It is crazy. 0:15:01.750 --> 0:15:04.090 And I feel like that complexity is lost from the 0:15:04.130 --> 0:15:06.130 story a bit. So I feel like when I heard 0:15:06.170 --> 0:15:08.210 the story about the reintroduction, I was like, oh, the 0:15:08.250 --> 0:15:10.720 wolves came back. And then there's fewer elks and the 0:15:10.740 --> 0:15:13.320 beaver comes back. And now everything goes back to the 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:16.740 way it was before. But these things are so complicated 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:19.859 that that's not necessarily what you should expect. And so 0:15:19.980 --> 0:15:22.670 there were some areas when you brought the wolves back 0:15:22.690 --> 0:15:26.140 that The elk started either dying because they were getting 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:28.930 eaten by the wolves, but they also changed their behavior. 0:15:28.970 --> 0:15:31.190 They no longer wanted to be right up against dense 0:15:31.250 --> 0:15:34.410 woods where they could get ambushed by the wolves. And 0:15:34.430 --> 0:15:36.190 they also tended to not want to be in like 0:15:36.230 --> 0:15:37.230 big open areas. 0:15:37.650 --> 0:15:41.120 Wait, elk are smart like that? Yeah, of course they can. 0:15:41.180 --> 0:15:41.700 Yeah, yeah. 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:42.040 Really? 0:15:42.060 --> 0:15:42.140 Yeah. 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:42.670 Yes. 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:46.340 They give me the whole sort of glazed-eyed robot, you know, 0:15:46.420 --> 0:15:50.640 leaf-munching vibe. I don't really get a lot of intelligence 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:52.800 from the look of a deer, but clearly I'm wrong. 0:15:52.820 --> 0:15:53.370 They can learn. 0:15:53.490 --> 0:15:55.110 I mean, I think they can also hold I don't 0:15:55.150 --> 0:15:57.990 want to die in there, along with the thought of 0:15:58.250 --> 0:15:58.890 more food. 0:15:58.990 --> 0:15:59.410 Okay. 0:16:01.410 --> 0:16:03.830 Sally died last week doing this, so maybe we shouldn't 0:16:03.870 --> 0:16:04.890 do this sort of a thing. 0:16:05.270 --> 0:16:07.750 Yeah, no, I mean, I think you see like your 0:16:07.790 --> 0:16:10.280 kid get eaten by a wolf because they jumped out 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:11.780 of the woods and you're like, I'm not standing near 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:13.960 the wolves anymore. Like I'm not doing that next year. 0:16:14.500 --> 0:16:17.240 And so, so anyway, yeah, they learn. But I think 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.400 the Yellowstone wolf reintroduction story is a little more complicated 0:16:20.470 --> 0:16:23.790 because in some areas you get the beavers back and 0:16:23.810 --> 0:16:26.590 the wetlands back. But there were other areas where it 0:16:26.610 --> 0:16:29.470 looks like they didn't get that stuff back. And the 0:16:29.530 --> 0:16:31.910 reason they didn't get it back was because those ecosystems 0:16:31.930 --> 0:16:34.880 had like shifted to a different state. And I think 0:16:34.900 --> 0:16:37.360 what happened in this case in particular was that the 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:39.900 river had gotten like so deep and so fast and 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.790 the banks were no longer like appropriate for those trees 0:16:42.850 --> 0:16:45.510 to grow on that you just couldn't get the beavers back. 0:16:45.550 --> 0:16:48.670 So that system had shifted to like a no turning 0:16:48.730 --> 0:16:50.120 back scenario. 0:16:50.130 --> 0:16:50.220 Yeah. 0:16:50.890 --> 0:16:52.670 But there's lots of areas where you do, you get 0:16:52.690 --> 0:16:54.630 the beavers back, you get the wetlands back. It's good 0:16:54.650 --> 0:16:57.770 for the animals that need the wetlands. The wolves also 0:16:57.870 --> 0:17:00.810 tend to eat coyotes and the coyotes have been going 0:17:00.870 --> 0:17:03.790 nuts on the small rodents. And so now you can 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:06.159 get like some small rodent populations back. And so the 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:10.939 point is there's all of these interactions between species happening 0:17:10.980 --> 0:17:11.639 at Yellowstone. 0:17:11.820 --> 0:17:12.780 And when you. 0:17:12.700 --> 0:17:16.120 Throw the wolves in there, those interactions change dramatically. 0:17:16.140 --> 0:17:16.220 Yeah. 0:17:16.410 --> 0:17:18.520 And it actually makes a lot of sense that the 0:17:18.580 --> 0:17:22.020 ecosystem is not some sort of like reversible process where 0:17:22.060 --> 0:17:24.139 if you undo what you did, you're going to go 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:25.150 back to where you were. 0:17:25.510 --> 0:17:25.790 Right. 0:17:25.890 --> 0:17:27.370 It's like if you have a ball at the top 0:17:27.390 --> 0:17:29.389 of a hill and you kick it, it's going to 0:17:29.410 --> 0:17:31.310 go to the bottom of the hill and giving it 0:17:31.350 --> 0:17:33.720 the same kick in the other direction doesn't necessarily work. 0:17:34.100 --> 0:17:35.520 push it back to the top of the hill because 0:17:35.540 --> 0:17:37.359 gravity is going the other direction. So there must be 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:41.200 lots of asymmetric forces at work here that are not reversible. 0:17:41.540 --> 0:17:42.380 Yep, exactly. 0:17:42.460 --> 0:17:43.720 Biology is complicated. 0:17:44.010 --> 0:17:46.010 It is complicated. And I feel like when I was 0:17:46.070 --> 0:17:49.410 a kid, the vibe of the conservation movement would have been, 0:17:49.430 --> 0:17:52.710 we are bad. We killed the wolves. We need to 0:17:52.750 --> 0:17:55.950 bring the wolves back and try to recreate... what was 0:17:56.030 --> 0:17:59.740 lost and in particular, we need to reach X number 0:17:59.780 --> 0:18:01.939 of wolves and get them back in the system and 0:18:01.980 --> 0:18:04.000 we should feel bad the whole time we're doing it 0:18:04.100 --> 0:18:07.760 because we are bad and without us, this problem wouldn't 0:18:07.780 --> 0:18:08.180 have happened. 0:18:08.510 --> 0:18:10.130 And there's a couple of things going on there. There's 0:18:10.150 --> 0:18:15.369 like the self-flagellation, but also the like defining an ecosystem 0:18:15.510 --> 0:18:18.170 by a narrow metric, right? And then saying, once you've 0:18:18.190 --> 0:18:20.790 hit that metric, then now everything is back to where 0:18:20.830 --> 0:18:23.969 it was when obviously an ecosystem is very complicated and 0:18:24.030 --> 0:18:25.830 can't be captured by one number. 0:18:26.030 --> 0:18:29.300 Yeah, exactly. And so the rewilders, their attitude, like when 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:31.620 I was listening to interviews and, you know, reading books 0:18:31.660 --> 0:18:34.520 and papers, the attitude was a lot more like, look, 0:18:35.020 --> 0:18:37.620 a lot of this bad stuff happened at a time 0:18:37.700 --> 0:18:40.740 when none of us who are alive today were around. 0:18:41.220 --> 0:18:44.240 None of us made these decisions. We don't need to 0:18:44.300 --> 0:18:49.109 be self-flagellating because this happened. And we can't necessarily expect 0:18:49.140 --> 0:18:52.710 to get back exactly what was lost. But we can 0:18:52.730 --> 0:18:55.990