Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Aaron Welsh and this is this podcast will
Speaker 1: Kill You. Welcome everyone to the latest installment of the
Speaker 1: tp w k Y Book Club, my absolute favorite club
Speaker 1: where we get to read fascinating popular science book and
Speaker 1: then chat with the authors of those books. We've gotten
Speaker 1: to talk about why we saw COVID coming yet we're
Speaker 1: not able to stop it, whether sweat could be used
Speaker 1: as evidence in a criminal investigation, what the public image
Speaker 1: makeover of Neanderthals has to do with race science, and
Speaker 1: how uterus pancakes can help us communicate more clearly about menstruation.
Speaker 1: It's been so much fun so far, and I hope
Speaker 1: you all are enjoying these as much as I am.
Speaker 1: And it just keeps getting better because this episode I'll
Speaker 1: be chatting with one of the best and inarguably the
Speaker 1: funniest science writers out there, the one and only Mary Roach.
Speaker 1: Whether she's covering what happens to cadavers after they get
Speaker 1: donated to science in her book Stiff, The Science of
Speaker 1: Sex in Bonk, how space travel affects all aspects of
Speaker 1: human life and packing from Mars, or any of the
Speaker 1: other topics covered in her other best soefe and award
Speaker 1: winning books, Roach strikes that delicate balance between engaging and educational,
Speaker 1: all while being human and gut bustingly hilarious. Seriously, if
Speaker 1: you haven't read any of her books before, you should
Speaker 1: go get them all. You'll thank me later. In today's episode, though,
Speaker 1: Roach Joins made a chat not about cadavers or the
Speaker 1: alimentary canal, but about her latest book, fuzz When Nature
Speaker 1: Breaks the Law, published in twenty twenty one. Human wildlife
Speaker 1: conflict can come in all shapes and sizes, from charismatic
Speaker 1: megafauna doing uncharismatic things like elephants destroying property or leopards
Speaker 1: attacking people, to less flashy incidents like goals destroying flowers
Speaker 1: quote unquote danger trees exploding well dangerously, or that deer
Speaker 1: in your headlights. You may have even been involved in
Speaker 1: human wildlife conflict at some point yourself. I, for one,
Speaker 1: have been attacked by dive bombing birds while on a
Speaker 1: run with forehead scratches. To prove it, I've had to
Speaker 1: dash back to the truck when a herd of elephants
Speaker 1: made a sudden appearance during tick sampling. And I've been
Speaker 1: rushed by Canada geese on a walk around the park
Speaker 1: to this day, the sight of a goose on the
Speaker 1: path in front of me sends my heart racing. And
Speaker 1: those are just the vertebrate examples I can think of.
Speaker 1: Don't get me started on wasps and acacia ants and cockroaches.
Speaker 1: The way we often frame these adverse encounters with wildlife
Speaker 1: is by placing ourselves humans in the role of victim
Speaker 1: and the animal in the role of aggressor. I just
Speaker 1: did it in the examples I gave, and I did
Speaker 1: it without even thinking. But is that really the case?
Speaker 1: Was I attacked by a dive bombing bird or did
Speaker 1: I get unknowingly too close to the bird's nest, prompting
Speaker 1: it to defend itself. Do bears break into dumpsters and
Speaker 1: wreak havoc? Or did humans destroy what used to be
Speaker 1: bare habitat and place dumpsters there as an unintentionally reliable
Speaker 1: food source. The bottom line is that these animals are
Speaker 1: breaking laws that they don't know exist, and since we
Speaker 1: humans created those laws, we also have the responsibility to
Speaker 1: find a way to enforce them or adjust them in
Speaker 1: ways that minimize harm to both humans and wildlife as
Speaker 1: much as possible. Part of this involves changing the narrative
Speaker 1: around human wildlife conflict, maybe reconsidering the roles of wildlife
Speaker 1: as perpetrator and human as victim, or at the very
Speaker 1: least acknowledging the part that we play in creating this conflict,
Speaker 1: and part of it is, from a practical standpoint, how
Speaker 1: to limit the conflict in the first place, which includes
Speaker 1: encouraging humans to change a notoriously difficult task, and how
Speaker 1: to humanly diffuse a situation. In fuzz Mary Roach takes
Speaker 1: readers on a why wild ride through the incredibly varied
Speaker 1: field of human wildlife conflict, with stopovers in Reno, Nevada,
Speaker 1: where a wildlife attack crime scene forensics conference is held.
Speaker 1: Downtown Aspen, Colorado, where breaking and entering bears are a
Speaker 1: common occurrence. Delhi, India, where a roach herself has a
Speaker 1: close encounter with one of the many macaques in the city.
Speaker 1: Vancouver Island, where danger trees live up to their name,
Speaker 1: the Vatican, where bird scaring is taken incredibly seriously, New Zealand,
Speaker 1: where the humaneness of different rodent traps is considered, and
Speaker 1: so many other places, because human wildlife conflict is of
Speaker 1: course found wherever there are humans, and it has existed
Speaker 1: as long as humans have been around. Over time, our
Speaker 1: methods of dealing with conflict have changed substantially, as have
Speaker 1: our attitudes towards the troublesome wildlife. In fuzz, Roach takes
Speaker 1: her READI through space and time, exploring a bit of
Speaker 1: the history of the field of human wildlife conflict, and
Speaker 1: touring the globally diverse mitigation methods and mindsets towards these encounters.
Speaker 1: On the surface, fuzz is about the many creative ways
Speaker 1: humans have tried to deal with wildlife eating their crops
Speaker 1: or destroying their property or flying into airplane engines. But
Speaker 1: underneath the humorous and bizarre stories of bird repellent lasers
Speaker 1: at the Vatican or choosy bears cruising the fridge in
Speaker 1: the house they broke into are philosophical musings about what
Speaker 1: makes a pest a pest, the changing nature of conservation,
Speaker 1: what peaceful coexistence could look like, and whether it could
Speaker 1: ever be achieved or sustained. Mary Roach is one of
Speaker 1: my heroes of science communication, and I am so excited
Speaker 1: to get to chat with her today. So we'll take
Speaker 1: a quick break here and then get right into the interview. Mary,
Speaker 1: thank you so so much for joining me today. I
Speaker 1: am beyond excited. Your books are lining my shelves. You
Speaker 1: are one of my favorite writers of all time. You're hilarious,
Speaker 1: You're incredibly informative, Like I don't know how you do it,
Speaker 1: but this is a dream come true.
Speaker 2: Honestly, Oh stop blushing. Thank you so much. I'm delighted
Speaker 2: to be here.
Speaker 1: I'm super excited to chat with you today about your
Speaker 1: latest book, Fuzz When Nature Breaks the Law. So tell
Speaker 1: me what is the origin story for this book, if
Speaker 1: there is one, and when did you first get the
Speaker 1: idea to write a book about human wildlife conflict.
Speaker 2: Well, it's kind of a roundabout meandering origin story. I
Speaker 2: you know, have wasn't mauled by a cougar or anything
Speaker 2: exciting like that. When I finished one book, I never
Speaker 2: know what I'm going to do next. I'm I was
Speaker 2: looking for some new little sliver of science that I've
Speaker 2: never heard of before I arrived at human wildlife conflict. Indirectly,
Speaker 2: I thought I was maybe going to do something on
Speaker 2: the forensics a wildlife forensics, but not the forensics of
Speaker 2: an attack scene, which I do cover in the book,
Speaker 2: but the forensics of like when somebody discovers contraband like
Speaker 2: it's it's a pelt or it's like a horn and
Speaker 2: what is you know, that sort of forensics. And I
Speaker 2: got interested in that because I've came upon this paper
Speaker 2: called how to tell Real versus Counterfeit Tiger Penis. This
Speaker 2: is like a paper that's used as a handbook for
Speaker 2: these people who work in the Wildlife Forensics Laboratory up
Speaker 2: in Ashland, Oregon. There's the woman there and she's really good,
Speaker 2: and so am I now at identifying real versus counterfeit
Speaker 2: tiger penis, which is something you need to do because
Speaker 2: the organ of the tiger is sometimes used to make
Speaker 2: traditional medicine as a cure for virility or impotence. This
Speaker 2: is traditional medicine that doesn't, as far far as I know,
Speaker 2: have any actual virility properties, but it's something that does
Speaker 2: get made into a soup. So it's important for her
Speaker 2: for somebody to know when they find a box of
Speaker 2: what appeared to be penises, you know, are they from
Speaker 2: an endangered species or are they not? And it's actually
Speaker 2: you'll be happy to know it is almost always counterfeit.
Speaker 2: It's usually deer or horse or cow, because first of all,
Speaker 2: they're easier to come by and second of all, they're big,
Speaker 2: and they're inspiring, and the tiger has a pretty surprisingly
Speaker 2: small penis. I feel like it's rude to say that
Speaker 2: about tigers, but they've got pretty small penises anyway. So
Speaker 2: that led me up to this lab and I thought, well,
Speaker 2: this is kind of interesting, maybe there's a book here.
Speaker 2: But as it turns out, I would wouldn't be allowed
Speaker 2: to tag along on an actual investigation, and I wanted
Speaker 2: to be able to taggle. I like to be there
Speaker 2: and to be reporting in the moment. And I had this,
Speaker 2: as you know, I was envisioning a sting operation where
Speaker 2: myself and the the officer would be like breaking into
Speaker 2: this you know, back alley, dimly lit room where people
Speaker 2: would be bending over and making tiger you know, fake
Speaker 2: tiger penis, which they do they they somebody does that
Speaker 2: because they have to notch them because cats have barbed penis.
Speaker 2: To see, this is not a tidy origin story erin
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: I love it. I am so enhanced.
Speaker 2: Anyway, So the whole tagging along with the professionals wasn't
Speaker 2: going to work for legal reasons, I was told, So
Speaker 2: I kind of came back home thinking, well, that's disappointing.
Speaker 2: But around that time I came upon a book from
Speaker 2: nineteen oh six called The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment
Speaker 2: of Animals and it's I whish I thought initially was
Speaker 2: a hoax, because it's this book about bears being excommunicated
Speaker 2: from the church and pigs being put on trial, caterpillars
Speaker 2: being assigned legal representation when they were vandalizing and stealing
Speaker 2: from farmers. So it was some combination of all of
Speaker 2: this made me think, oh, what what about if we
Speaker 2: turn it inside out and the animals or the perpetrators,
Speaker 2: not the victims like this? So that led me to
Speaker 2: human wildlife conflict, a branch of science I had no
Speaker 2: idea existed, had never heard of. There are conferences and
Speaker 2: textbooks and experts and careers, and I was like.
Speaker 1: This could be fun, and it certainly is. And it
Speaker 1: seems like the research for this book took you on
Speaker 1: incredible adventures all over the world to like Vatican City
Speaker 1: in search of how to scare birds the best way.
Speaker 1: Like it's it's amazing. So you know, I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you what your process was like for deciding, you know,
Speaker 1: what trips to take and what goes into writing a book.
Speaker 2: Uh, it's pretty straightforward. It is me going what's going
Speaker 2: to be most fun for me and and for the
Speaker 2: reader by extension, like what's going to be surprising, fun,
Speaker 2: far flung, exotic, weird, frightening, whatever, what's gonna you know what.
Speaker 2: So so it's really me almost doing like a scouting
Speaker 2: for a location. In a sense. It's me contacting lots
Speaker 2: of different people in this world and and sort of
Speaker 2: finding out, you know, who's going to be out in
Speaker 2: the field and who will let me come along and
Speaker 2: be there. So really, if it wasn't fun, funny, surprising,
Speaker 2: it didn't make the cut. It's also there's places that
Speaker 2: appealed to me more than others. I was always curious
Speaker 2: as a lapsed Catholic. I was always curious about the Vatican.
Speaker 2: So I came across some misbehaving goals in Vatican City
Speaker 2: and I thought, let's go see what the Vatican has
Speaker 2: to say about about misbehaving wildlife. And yes, they had.
Speaker 2: They were having some problems with vandalizing gals, gulls, vandalizing
Speaker 2: the floral displays at the Easter. This massive floral display
Speaker 2: at the Easter Sunday Mass and Saint Peter's, so you
Speaker 2: know that's that's going to be in there. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't so much the goals or the
Speaker 2: crime in that case, it was just the juxtaposition of
Speaker 2: wildlife conflict and Vatican City.
Speaker 1: The Vatican It's amazing, Yeah, I mean there were so
Speaker 1: many amazing places that you went and cool like conferences
Speaker 1: that you tagged along to, and and I was wondering
Speaker 1: if you had one that stuck out in your mind
Speaker 1: as either the most fun or the most memorable, or
Speaker 1: the weirdest or anything like that in the process of
Speaker 1: research for this.
Speaker 2: Well, the one that I think was surprising to me
Speaker 2: and completely fascinating. I went to this conference on the
Speaker 2: practice of forensics at attack scenes. In other words, if
Speaker 2: somebody is mauled by a bear or cougar, it's usually
Speaker 2: a bear or cougar in this country anyway, The wildlife
Speaker 2: professionals arrive on the scene and they do things that
Speaker 2: they would you would see you like a police procedural
Speaker 2: like on CSI. You know, they there's the yellow tape
Speaker 2: that's securing the scene. They're going in and they are
Speaker 2: collecting evidence. They're removing the body for so that they
Speaker 2: can take it to the lab and look at examine
Speaker 2: the bitemarks and the injuries, which tell you a lot
Speaker 2: about who committed this quote unquote crime. Who did this?
Speaker 2: You know, they're so they're they know everything about how
Speaker 2: these different animals kill. So it's pretty easy for them
Speaker 2: to figure out what species it was. Was it a man,
Speaker 2: was it a cougar, was it a wolf? Was it
Speaker 2: what you know? Was it a bear? What kind of
Speaker 2: bear was it? So they can and then they take
Speaker 2: it farther and they're trying to figure out specifically which
Speaker 2: individual they may have an animal and custody, and they're
Speaker 2: going to be get gathering DNA off of the victim
Speaker 2: or the victim's clothes, and they're going to get a
Speaker 2: match and if and if the suspect I'm using air quotes,
Speaker 2: if the suspect is found to be not the actual criminal,
Speaker 2: again air quotes, they're released. So that and I had
Speaker 2: no idea that anybody does that. So we had this
Speaker 2: conference where we learned all these techniques. We had fake
Speaker 2: attack scenes, and we had mannequins, these soft touch mannequins
Speaker 2: that on them. The actual injuries, which were some of
Speaker 2: them quite gruesome, had been had been crafted on these
Speaker 2: bodies so that we had these you know, simulated victims
Speaker 2: that we then were doing our forensics on, like you know,
Speaker 2: looking at the bite marks and you know, looking at
Speaker 2: the you know, is this the hallmark of a cougar
Speaker 2: versus a bear? And we're in this big room and
Speaker 2: right next to us there's a large bingo game going
Speaker 2: on in the people from the bingo game was sometimes
Speaker 2: like walk down to the bathrooms and sort of look
Speaker 2: in and like, you know, there's these naked, bloodied, full
Speaker 2: sized human forms and they're like, what's going on in
Speaker 2: the Ponderosa room. So that one, you know, that's just
Speaker 2: for me pure gold to write up. It's so interesting
Speaker 2: and it's funny in its way, and so I think
Speaker 2: that one, I think that one stands out as a
Speaker 2: lot of fun and just interesting.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I was laughing out loud on the couch while
Speaker 1: I was reading it, and my partner kept being like,
Speaker 1: what are you what are you reading? Like what's happening
Speaker 1: over there? Like kept having to read quotes out loud,
Speaker 1: and I was just like, you've got to just you
Speaker 1: got to read this. It's absolutely hilarious, Which I feel
Speaker 1: like that's such A hallmark of your writing is you
Speaker 1: are so funny. And I feel like it's a silly
Speaker 1: question to ask, like, how are you so funny? Why
Speaker 1: are you so funny? So instead maybe I'll ask what
Speaker 1: role you think humor plays in the way you communicate
Speaker 1: science humor?
Speaker 2: I think humor is just when it comes to science,
Speaker 2: sometimes people need a little enticing, you know. I think
Speaker 2: people wrongly, I believe, but they think that science is
Speaker 2: dull because they're basing it on I don't know their
Speaker 2: chemistry textbook or whatever it is, so they might need
Speaker 2: they need a little enticing, And so I think humor
Speaker 2: is one way to kind of pull people in and
Speaker 2: kind of entertain them a little bit while they're learning.
Speaker 2: So it's also more fun for me to write it
Speaker 2: that way. So much of the humor, though, really has
Speaker 2: to do with the research. You know, what do I
Speaker 2: decide to put in the book and what do I
Speaker 2: decide to leave out? You know, I mean there's so
Speaker 2: many different all over the world, so many different human
Speaker 2: wildlife conflicts, and so many different species that people struggle with,
Speaker 2: so many different solutions. But you know, I was looking
Speaker 2: for things that might have some fun, you know, some humor. Yeah, so,
Speaker 2: so humor is important to me. It's the way that
Speaker 2: I make the book a fun read, or I hope
Speaker 2: that I hope that I make it a fun read.
Speaker 1: So we've so far talked a lot about or a
Speaker 1: little bit about human wildlife conflict, but I don't know
Speaker 1: if we've broadly defined what it is. And that's sort
Speaker 1: of it seems like it could be potentially a tricky
Speaker 1: question because on the outset, you have this concept. Okay,
Speaker 1: while it's where there's some sort of detrimental outcome when
Speaker 1: humans and wildlife interact, but who decides what that is?
Speaker 1: Did you run into this sort of almost a philosophical
Speaker 1: dilemma in writing this book.
Speaker 2: Not, not really, because it's typically one of two things.
Speaker 2: It's either a situation where human beings are being badly
Speaker 2: harmed or killed, or it's a situation where somebody's bottom
Speaker 2: line is threatened, somebody's financial situation. So it's it's largely economical.
Speaker 2: So if you look at I mean, the National Wildlife
Speaker 2: Research Center, which is under the USDA, and the animals
Speaker 2: that they focus on are ones that damage crops, ones
Speaker 2: that kill livestock, ones that threaten somebody's it's somebody in
Speaker 2: agricultures threat. It's a threat to their bottom line. They're
Speaker 2: they're economics. So so that's typically you know where you
Speaker 2: find animals in the category of nuisance. If you look
Speaker 2: at the they're listing it that that's what's there. But
Speaker 2: then you know there's also scenarios where if animals are
Speaker 2: string Like a good case I think in point is
Speaker 2: the coyote in this country. The populations have it seems
Speaker 2: if either the populations have gone up. I didn't cover
Speaker 2: coyotes in the book, but there's been a lot of
Speaker 2: urban coyotes that are getting close to people in a
Speaker 2: way that has been perceived as a threat to children
Speaker 2: because the coyotes not going to go after a full
Speaker 2: grown adult, but a small child is you know, around
Speaker 2: the size of something that a coyote would pray on.
Speaker 2: And they've been some cases where they're coming closer or
Speaker 2: and or I think biting children. And so now that
Speaker 2: that's happening, there's a lot more focus on coyotes. What
Speaker 2: do we do about coyotes? You know, when they're just
Speaker 2: kind of in the background running around, you see you know,
Speaker 2: you see them, You're like, whatever they get into trash sometimes,
Speaker 2: but they're kind of cool. And but now now that
Speaker 2: people feel that their kids are in danger, now, now
Speaker 2: that's that's put them in the crosshairs. Mm.
Speaker 1: One of the things that kept popping out to me
Speaker 1: is that when there is a particular instance of human
Speaker 1: wildlife conflict that keeps happening, you know, like a bear
Speaker 1: keeps getting into trash or something like that, it seems
Speaker 1: to signal that, Okay, something has to change in order
Speaker 1: to protect both the human and the wildlife. But most
Speaker 1: of the time, it seems like, and maybe this is
Speaker 1: my you know, misperception, it seems like it's the animal's
Speaker 1: behavior that's targeted more than the human's behavior. Why is that?
Speaker 1: Is it just impossible to get a human to change
Speaker 1: their ways? So, yeah, do you why do you think
Speaker 1: it is more the animal behavior that's targeted.
Speaker 2: Oh, because humans don't want to bother to change. We don't,
Speaker 2: you know, we don't We don't want to take inconvenient steps.
Speaker 2: We don't want to we don't want to change. We
Speaker 2: would rather just pick up the phone and have somebody
Speaker 2: deal with it. By large. And it's it's ironic because
Speaker 2: it's so much easier to get a person to change
Speaker 2: their behavior than an animal, I mean, an animal that
Speaker 2: is following its instincts, whether it's after food or a
Speaker 2: warm place to give birth. It's very hard to dissuade
Speaker 2: that animal. You can't reason with them, you can't find them,
Speaker 2: you can't read them the Riot Act. You can try
Speaker 2: to haze them, but if the if what they're after
Speaker 2: is really enticing, like a big dumpster behind a restaurant,
Speaker 2: you can you know, you can shoot Robert Broletts at
Speaker 2: them and they'll be like, ow okay, but I'm still
Speaker 2: going to go after it. You know you can. So
Speaker 2: hazing doesn't work that well. The things that you can
Speaker 2: do don't work that well. It's much much easier, but
Speaker 2: also still hard to get people to change their behavior,
Speaker 2: either by finding them or educating them or both. So
Speaker 2: we ought to look you know that that should just
Speaker 2: be what's done. It is done more and more, I mean,
Speaker 2: because over the years, the solutions that have tried to
Speaker 2: change the behavior of animals or just you know, kill
Speaker 2: lots and lots of them have been shown not to work.
Speaker 2: So people and their behavior is really the place to
Speaker 2: keep your focus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, m hmm. Yeah, it was interesting to read about
Speaker 1: how relocation is kind of one of the least humane
Speaker 1: things that you can do sometimes for an animal, and
Speaker 1: yet so much of it is like there's that balance
Speaker 1: between keeping the public happy and providing a service that
Speaker 1: is you know, valuable and also not angering the public,
Speaker 1: and and you know, just it seems very challenging to
Speaker 1: strike that balance.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, and relocation or translocation is also there's liability issues.
Speaker 2: If you, as a wildlife agency, are informed that a
Speaker 2: bear has been getting close to people's yards, it may
Speaker 2: have swiped it somebody but not injured them, and you go,
Speaker 2: you know what, we'll monitor this situation. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to do anything, but we'll monitor it. Now, if that
Speaker 2: bear comes in again and in fact harms somebody in
Speaker 2: a serious way or kills them, you as the agency
Speaker 2: who didn't take action, can be liable. Similarly, if you
Speaker 2: do take action and you relocate that bear, and now
Speaker 2: it goes to the community closest to that forest where
Speaker 2: you've relocated it, and it gets into the same kind
Speaker 2: of behavior and somebody's harmed there, again, you would be liable.
Speaker 2: And there have been pretty big lawsuits with pretty big payouts,
Speaker 2: so that is also a factor. Yeah, so yeah, there's
Speaker 2: no easy answers unfortunately.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, some of these human wildlife conflicts that you
Speaker 1: describe in your book book seem almost Disney like, right,
Speaker 1: you know, a bear breaking into a house and delicately
Speaker 1: sifting through the fridge and putting some things aside and
Speaker 1: only choosing certain items, and then others are very much
Speaker 1: less so, like some of these quote unquote man eating cats.
Speaker 1: What makes a cat man eating? And how is this
Speaker 1: term maybe not the best to describe a cat?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the term man eating or man eater was coined
Speaker 2: by one of those big game hunters, Jim Corbett, who
Speaker 2: wrote a lot of books about his adventures tracking and
Speaker 2: killing these creatures. I should say this is this is
Speaker 2: said in India in a particular region of India where
Speaker 2: leopards sometimes do attack humans in the Middle Himalaya elsewhere
Speaker 2: in India that it's rare that somebody's killed by a leopard.
Speaker 2: But up there these attacks do happen. It's a misnomed
Speaker 2: to call it a man because in reality, at least
Speaker 2: in the scenario that I reported on up there while
Speaker 2: I was working on the book, it's almost entirely children
Speaker 2: and women because they're out working in the fields. They're
Speaker 2: out with the livestock, and they are the ones and
Speaker 2: also old people. But you know, it's easier prey. So men,
Speaker 2: big stripping men like Jim Corbett are not going to
Speaker 2: get attacked. So man eater is kind of a Also
Speaker 2: it's a bit of a like like this was a
Speaker 2: career choice of the leopard, like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 2: going to be a man eater, none of these deered
Speaker 2: hell that I'm going to I'm going for the men,
Speaker 2: you know. And it's really it's a situation where I
Speaker 2: was at least, where a lot of people have out
Speaker 2: migrated to cities and so a lot of villages are
Speaker 2: very sparsely populated. So the people who are left, who
Speaker 2: are working the fields and tending livestock, they're few and
Speaker 2: far between. They tend to be on their own. Also,
Speaker 2: the brush is grown in around these fields and leopards
Speaker 2: need to have a need to conceal themselves till they
Speaker 2: get pretty close and then they sprint up an attack.
Speaker 2: So this out migration has created a scenario that's easier
Speaker 2: for leopards to prey on something different. And there there's
Speaker 2: also the you know, the the prey that they normally
Speaker 2: feed on because of deforestation is dwindling, so they're you know,
Speaker 2: they're kind of forced to find other things to eat.
Speaker 2: And that happens, you know, in California when you have
Speaker 2: if you have a situation where the a cougar is
Speaker 2: injured and or sickly, it starts coming, you know, into
Speaker 2: a human community. Normally you wouldn't you wouldn't see a
Speaker 2: cougar coming in that close to to a human settlement
Speaker 2: except on your doorbell camera late at night. So it's
Speaker 2: usually something something's gone wrong, you know, it's not just
Speaker 2: a personality quirk like I'm going to be a man eater,
Speaker 2: Like how that sounds.
Speaker 1: So as a result of your global travels for this book,
Speaker 1: you got to see a huge variation in the way
Speaker 1: that human wildlife conflict is handled. And you know, I
Speaker 1: was curious to know what you thought about how much
Speaker 1: the strategy depends on either the region or the animals
Speaker 1: that are most commonly involved in the conflict, and who
Speaker 1: decides between coexistence and you know, this town ain't big
Speaker 1: enough for the both of us. How much does that
Speaker 1: vary based on these different factors.
Speaker 2: I think it's very much a red state, blue state
Speaker 2: situation in this country. You can't generalize for the for
Speaker 2: the United States. There's there are states where the Department
Speaker 2: of Natural Resources, you know, I'm thinking of I think
Speaker 2: it was Michigan, they don't have a They're basically, you
Speaker 2: got a gun on your property, and you've got a
Speaker 2: bear that's bugging you. It's up to you, just you
Speaker 2: take care of it. There's and then you have California
Speaker 2: where a ballot measure was put forth to put cougars
Speaker 2: back on mountain lions back on the endangered list, even
Speaker 2: though in some counties there are they are doing fine
Speaker 2: in other counties, so not it shouldn't be off statewide.
Speaker 2: It should be sort of county by county because there's
Speaker 2: a lot of different So it's very much cultural in
Speaker 2: in states where people are raised in a hunting culture,
Speaker 2: they're more likely to support killing the animals. Our history
Speaker 2: is tame the wilderness, go west, make it your own,
Speaker 2: do what you have to do, and wildlife. Wild animals,
Speaker 2: big mammals in particular were viewed as either competition. They
Speaker 2: were you know, they were taking deer that people wanted
Speaker 2: to hunt, or they were taking livestock, or they were
Speaker 2: just varmints. They were you know, better off dead. So
Speaker 2: that's kind of our history in India. Though Hinduism has
Speaker 2: a number of gods that represent are represented as animals,
Speaker 2: and two of those are big nuisance animals, monkeys and elephants.
Speaker 2: But because of the you know, the Wildlife Protection Act,
Speaker 2: and because people have kind of a reverence and a
Speaker 2: fondness for animals, because of this association, they're much more
Speaker 2: conservative and they don't like, they don't even like attempts
Speaker 2: to come up with birth control for monkeys. They don't
Speaker 2: want anybody messing They want the problem fixed. They don't
Speaker 2: want these animals, you know, coming into their apartments and
Speaker 2: trashing things and throwing things around, and they don't want that.
Speaker 2: They want them to go away, but they don't want
Speaker 2: them messed with in any way. And it's very difficult
Speaker 2: for the people in the government to deal with that,
Speaker 2: to figure out something that will seem humane but also
Speaker 2: solve the problem. So it's it's very culture specific, and
Speaker 2: I think that is that is what determines what happens
Speaker 2: in this country at state by state, and I imagine
Speaker 2: in India as well. But and that's true any anywhere
Speaker 2: you go in the world people have, people have culture
Speaker 2: specific feelings about animals. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Have you ever been personally involved in a human
Speaker 1: wildlife conflict interaction?
Speaker 2: I was mugged by a macaque in India, but I
Speaker 2: had it coming because I went up to this there's
Speaker 2: a fort up on the hill outside this small city
Speaker 2: where I was bundi, and everybody was talking about, oh,
Speaker 2: don't go up there. There's a lot of monkeys, a
Speaker 2: lot of monkeys. Be careful, carry a stick if you go.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, oh, I want to see what that's
Speaker 2: like to get mugged by a monkey, so I didn't.
Speaker 2: I walked up there with a shopping bag full of bananas,
Speaker 2: so I was definitely asking for it. And it was
Speaker 2: very interesting. It was not scary. It was just over
Speaker 2: so fast. And I was impressive because there were two
Speaker 2: of them, you know. One of them kind of popped
Speaker 2: up from behind a rock and stepped in my path
Speaker 2: and I'm focused on that monkey, and this other one
Speaker 2: dashes out from behind me and grabs the bag and
Speaker 2: I was like, slick.
Speaker 1: You guys, not even mad. I'm impressed. Yeah, that's amazing. Okay,
Speaker 1: we are going to take a quick break here, but
Speaker 1: stick around because we've got so much more to chat
Speaker 1: about in the world of human wildlife conflict. Welcome back everyone,
Speaker 1: Let's just jump right back in. So, Mary, the world
Speaker 1: of human wildlife conflict is filled with some of the
Speaker 1: most varied and unusual jobs. What are some of the
Speaker 1: ways that you could get into the human wildlife conflict
Speaker 1: biz and what would you want to do?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, there's a lot of them there. I mean,
Speaker 2: the most obvious one is working for a wildlife agency.
Speaker 2: In every state in this country has and you know,
Speaker 2: it's either fish and wildlife or fish and game, or
Speaker 2: you know, they all have their own sort of take
Speaker 2: on that. But those are the people who are called
Speaker 2: in when there are issues, and that is that's a
Speaker 2: tough one though, because if you're interested in this career
Speaker 2: because you love animals, you love wild animals, you love
Speaker 2: the outdoors, it has definite perks. But on the other hand,
Speaker 2: when an animal has crossed the line in the eyes
Speaker 2: of the agency, it's it's you who has to kill
Speaker 2: the animal. And I've been I've talked with people who
Speaker 2: have to do that and it's so hard and they
Speaker 2: get they feel horrible about it. It's an awful thing
Speaker 2: to have to do. Play they get a lot of hate,
Speaker 2: hate mail and threats from people who don't feel that
Speaker 2: that animal should have been killed. So that's a tough one.
Speaker 2: But there's other ways to be involved in it. You
Speaker 2: could there are people who have founded nonprofits that promote coexistence.
Speaker 2: For example, the wolf situation is quite a contentious one
Speaker 2: in certain parts of this country. There are folks who
Speaker 2: try to bring together people on both sides of the divide.
Speaker 2: The people who are speaking for the wolves and don't
Speaker 2: want the wolves harmed, and then the people ranchers often
Speaker 2: who are not only suffering economic fallout from wolves eating livestock,
Speaker 2: but also it's just, you know, it is an emotional
Speaker 2: thing you've got, you know, your life is sheep or
Speaker 2: whatever goats and that keep getting killed. So bringing those
Speaker 2: people together to have a conversation and try to not
Speaker 2: just talk but listen and try to understand where the
Speaker 2: other person is coming from. And there are people this
Speaker 2: is again not a job I want, but there are
Speaker 2: people are really good at moderating, who are good at
Speaker 2: facilitating conversations between people with very different viewpoints and trying
Speaker 2: to come to some kind of compromise. And some compromise
Speaker 2: based solutions that everybody could be happy with. So there's
Speaker 2: a number of those groups out there that do really
Speaker 2: good work. What else you could be somebody who tries
Speaker 2: to design effective deterrence, like the person who's was working
Speaker 2: in India on using something you would use for early
Speaker 2: earthquake detection, using that to know when elephants are coming
Speaker 2: your way toward your village about to raide your crops,
Speaker 2: so because you know, you want to herd them off
Speaker 2: before they get there, and people who are you know,
Speaker 2: you don't want people sort of running out trying to
Speaker 2: scare off seventeen elise because that doesn't go well for
Speaker 2: the people. Uh So, I mean, which I thought that
Speaker 2: was creative? You could you know, there's this creativity and
Speaker 2: engineering that can be applied to it. I think if
Speaker 2: I had to do anything, I would want to be
Speaker 2: one of those people who, even though it's kind of grizzly,
Speaker 2: the attack forensics, the person who shows up on the scene,
Speaker 2: you know, like puts you know, puts up the yellow
Speaker 2: tape and collects the evidence and does that work. I
Speaker 2: think sound that sounds most interesting to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there the field of human wildlife conflict is massive.
Speaker 1: And I think you know, you brought up one of
Speaker 1: the really interesting ones, which is this development of creative
Speaker 1: deterrent or elimination strategies for certain wildlife. And I was
Speaker 1: curious if you had one in mind that you thought
Speaker 1: was the most interesting or the most creative that you
Speaker 1: came across when you were writing this book.
Speaker 2: You know, what was most interesting to me is that
Speaker 2: the classic scarecrow not only does it not work because
Speaker 2: the birds quickly figure out and they call your bluff
Speaker 2: like things not moving, but beyond that birds start to
Speaker 2: Apparently some birds see a scarecrow and it's kind of like,
Speaker 2: you know, Bob's big boy sign. It's like a hello
Speaker 2: food here, pull over here while you're migrating for a
Speaker 2: tasty treat. So in fact, it kind of has the
Speaker 2: opposite effect. It's like a signpost that there's lots of
Speaker 2: good food right here. I did, like, I learned a
Speaker 2: lot about effigies, which are bizarre, like if you it
Speaker 2: works pretty it works very well with vultures, certain birds,
Speaker 2: a little bit with roosting gulls if you're trying to
Speaker 2: clear a place where they're all hanging out, and effigy
Speaker 2: is a if you were to take a dead version
Speaker 2: of that bird, hang it by its feet, I mean
Speaker 2: again not a lovely thing, but and just sort of
Speaker 2: hang it there by its feet with the wings spread out.
Speaker 2: No other no other birds of that species are going
Speaker 2: to come anywhere near for quite a while. I mean,
Speaker 2: nothing is permanent, but it was. I forget how long
Speaker 2: it was months and months that vultures were kept away
Speaker 2: when this was done and they was figured out accidentally.
Speaker 2: We don't have to go into the story. But you
Speaker 2: can now purchase effigies, or you can just buy a
Speaker 2: styrofoam body and stick the wing because the feathers seemed
Speaker 2: to be important in the tail and the wings. But
Speaker 2: you can buy a body because the body's you know,
Speaker 2: rot quickly with all the viscerous. You can you know,
Speaker 2: fashion your own and hang it up there. It's effective.
Speaker 2: But the thing is it creeps people out. They had
Speaker 2: a down in the Everglades. There's this place where people
Speaker 2: pull up there, you know, with their boats and launch
Speaker 2: their boats. And in the parking lot there were a
Speaker 2: lot of vultures ripping up people's windshield wiper blades or
Speaker 2: they're the calking around the sun roof. This is something
Speaker 2: vultures do. We go into that in the book. We
Speaker 2: don't have to kind of do that now, but they
Speaker 2: do this and it's annoying for people. So the park
Speaker 2: people hung up some effigies and it was effective. But
Speaker 2: then they spent all day talking to people about why
Speaker 2: there are these creepy dead birds strung up in the
Speaker 2: parking lot. Somebody strung up a dead vulture in the
Speaker 2: parking lot, what's going on? And then they'd have to
Speaker 2: explain the whole thing. So eventually they just put a
Speaker 2: bunch of tarps out and said, hey, vultures attack your cars,
Speaker 2: put a tarp over it, which works very well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting that in what may be the
Speaker 1: best solution in the lab may not be the best
Speaker 1: solution when actually tested in real life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sometimes it's just better to go with a simple
Speaker 2: solution put a freaking tarp on your car.
Speaker 1: It seems like a lot of the animals that are
Speaker 1: involved in these conflicts. Some of them are charismatic, like
Speaker 1: bears and cougars, I think, and elephants are quite you know,
Speaker 1: lovely and wonderful, and then others kind of are you know,
Speaker 1: get a bad rap like vultures and goals. How much
Speaker 1: do you think that plays a role into the solutions
Speaker 1: we end up going with or the way that we
Speaker 1: handle these conflicts.
Speaker 2: Oh, huge role. Just by calling an animal a pest,
Speaker 2: whether it's a species of bird or a rodent or
Speaker 2: that's getting into your attic, you call it a pest
Speaker 2: or a nuisance. You know, you categorize it that way,
Speaker 2: and it gives people permission to just think of it
Speaker 2: not as an animal, but as something to be dealt with,
Speaker 2: just call in an expert and make it go away.
Speaker 2: So that is a huge part of it. And also
Speaker 2: the rat is not as charismatic. It's not, I mean
Speaker 2: the charismatic animals are typically cute, typically big rodents, and
Speaker 2: a lot of people don't like birds. I'm a bird lover,
Speaker 2: but yeah, my friend Anne's like, I hate birds, Like
Speaker 2: wait a minute, all birds. Yeah, She's like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: she thinks they're dirty or she's like I hate birds.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that that term past I don't. I don't
Speaker 2: like it because it just gets gives people just people
Speaker 2: don't have to really think about it. They can just
Speaker 2: call up somebody to set a trap or put poison
Speaker 2: out they can, they can very easily just have somebody
Speaker 2: deal with it. But it's not an it. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's an it, I guess, but it's a it's a
Speaker 2: it's an animal like like like a cougar, you know,
Speaker 2: like an elephant. It's just smaller and maybe more annoying
Speaker 2: to you at the moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I loved the part in your book when you
Speaker 1: talked about how this hilarious irony of how there are
Speaker 1: so many bird quote unquote pest control that goes into
Speaker 1: sunflower farming when the sunflowers are there to make birds seed,
Speaker 1: and it's just like, what, how this is happening?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you're like, well, yeah, because the sunflower farmers
Speaker 2: there are a lot of them in north and South
Speaker 2: Dakota right in the migration path of literally millions, tens
Speaker 2: of millions of blackbirds and crows and cowbirds, and they
Speaker 2: are all passing through and they're like, hey, huge feel
Speaker 2: of bird seed down there, Let's go, Like, I guess
Speaker 2: you know, that wasn't the consideration when they were planning
Speaker 2: what to plant there, but you know, and it's been
Speaker 2: a disaster for the industry and for the birds and
Speaker 2: the smart farmers decided to grow something else because it's
Speaker 2: a you know, well, we don't have to get into
Speaker 2: the trials and tribulations of bird seed farmers. And by
Speaker 2: the way, actually the main thing they do with sunflower
Speaker 2: seeds is make oil. It's a small percentage of sunflower
Speaker 2: seeds that go into bird seed, but nonetheless the irony is.
Speaker 1: Rich, is quite rich. Yeah, we talked about how a
Speaker 1: lot of animals are more valued than others in terms
Speaker 1: or maybe viewed more or less as pests. Do you
Speaker 1: think that this has changed a lot over in the US,
Speaker 1: I'll say specifically in the twentieth into the twenty first centuries.
Speaker 1: And is that sort of shaped the way that we
Speaker 1: have handled some of these conflicts.
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, it's changed a great deal. I mean, if
Speaker 2: you look back to the eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds,
Speaker 2: there were bounties on cougar's bears, coyotes, whatever, not just
Speaker 2: the big ones, but there were anything that was proving
Speaker 2: vexatious to farmers or communities or ranchers. There were bounties
Speaker 2: and people who were encouraged the government encouraged people to poison,
Speaker 2: to shoot, to do all of that. You know, fast
Speaker 2: forward to the nineteen sixties and the dawn of the
Speaker 2: conservation you know, the environmental movement and also animal welfare groups.
Speaker 2: That has changed the perspective and that has made a huge,
Speaker 2: huge difference to the point where these populations have recovered
Speaker 2: enough that now they're starting to really get up in
Speaker 2: people's business again. So it's kind of you know, there's
Speaker 2: been this embracing of wildlife and protecting wildlife and encouraging wildlife,
Speaker 2: and now that they populations have recovered, and also you know,
Speaker 2: we are expanding into their territory, so it's all combining
Speaker 2: to kind of erode people's patients and keenness to have
Speaker 2: these animals around. So it's almost because of the scale
Speaker 2: of the change from back then till now that we
Speaker 2: are starting to see more conflict.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to think about how what we envision as
Speaker 1: the ideal ecosystem or the ideal number or amount of
Speaker 1: this animal versus this animal, and how that like, is
Speaker 1: there anything actually ideal or what is the disconnect between
Speaker 1: what we imagine as ideal and then when we actually
Speaker 1: live in that quote unquote ideal space, how it is
Speaker 1: not so great for anyone involved.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that's that's a tough one to figure out
Speaker 2: the because you know, invasive species they are everywhere, and
Speaker 2: how far do you let them in situations. The one
Speaker 2: that I talk about in the book quite a bit
Speaker 2: is New Zealand because New Zealand it's an island with
Speaker 2: a unique set of flora and fauna. Fauna in particular
Speaker 2: we're talking about they've got flightless birds and a lot
Speaker 2: of also a lot of reptiles, but it's the flightless
Speaker 2: birds that are particularly vulnerable to these animals stoats and
Speaker 2: weasels and ferrets, feral cats, these creatures that are all invasive.
Speaker 2: The country has sort of as a nation agreed to
Speaker 2: eliminate stoats, rats, and possums because if they don't, they're
Speaker 2: heading into a situation where they aren't going to have
Speaker 2: any unique animals and birds left. But it's kind of
Speaker 2: heartbreaking because they themselves, going back to the early nineteen hundreds,
Speaker 2: they themselves imported these creatures, the stoats, and the they
Speaker 2: imported the stoats to kill the rabbits that they'd earlier
Speaker 2: imported that populated the landscape far further than they wanted
Speaker 2: them to. So they brought in the stoats. The stoats
Speaker 2: got there, looked around and said, yeah, there's some rabbits,
Speaker 2: but you know what, these flightless birds are much more
Speaker 2: appealing and so easy to get, so they just did.
Speaker 2: They were decimated these bird species. Also some also reptiles.
Speaker 2: But that's a lot of animals to wipe out. It's
Speaker 2: called predator free New Zealand twenty fifty. There. The hope
Speaker 2: is to wipe out stoats, rats and possums by twenty fifty.
Speaker 2: And not everybody's on board with that. And you can,
Speaker 2: like you were mentioning, you know, you're bringing it back
Speaker 2: to a point in time, but things have already changed
Speaker 2: from there. I mean anyway, yeah, how do you how
Speaker 2: do you freeze time? I mean, these things are always evolving.
Speaker 2: But that said, it's you know, I could certainly understand
Speaker 2: how if you lived in New Zealand, you wouldn't want
Speaker 2: to lose all of those those birds and reptiles that
Speaker 2: are going extinct. So yeah, how how it's the invasive
Speaker 2: species that's a tough one. Whole books are written on
Speaker 2: that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, we've covered at least one on the podcast before.
Speaker 1: While more in the context of rabbits, and mixed and
Speaker 1: mitosis and the way they you know, dealt with that
Speaker 1: in Australia. But I really feel like often this piling
Speaker 1: on of adding another animal to control this animal that
Speaker 1: was introduced, and then this animal and this animal. I
Speaker 1: think it just goes to show how how not great
Speaker 1: we have been historically and maybe still are today not
Speaker 1: the best at predicting animal behavior or what animals will do.
Speaker 2: Right, and also having a thorough enough understanding of the
Speaker 2: whole ecosystem. You know, when you're going to remove one
Speaker 2: piece of the chain, are you sure you've looked at
Speaker 2: all the side effects of that, all the repercussions, Are
Speaker 2: you sure? Because it seems like in the past often
Speaker 2: it's those unknown unknowns, and you know, like the there's
Speaker 2: the example of the mongooses mongeese were brought into I
Speaker 2: don't know which one guess is as good as mine,
Speaker 2: into the Was it the sugar cane fields in Hawaii
Speaker 2: to control rats? I think it was. But the one
Speaker 2: species is nocturnal and one's diurnal, so never the twain met.
Speaker 2: And that's that seems like maybe somebody should have somebody
Speaker 2: should have thought of that in the beginning. And again
Speaker 2: I didn't report on that, so I may be oversimplifying
Speaker 2: how that all unfolded, but it didn't go well, let's
Speaker 2: just say.
Speaker 1: That, yeah, yeah, you know, it all seems so glaringly obvious,
Speaker 1: you know, in retrospect. But yeah, so, you know, speaking
Speaker 1: of past attempts at controlling or mitigating human wildlife conflict,
Speaker 1: how do you feel about the future of it? Are
Speaker 1: you generally optimistic or pessimistic?
Speaker 2: I'm actually optimistic, partly because I see how far we
Speaker 2: have progressed from the eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 2: I do feel like that is the trend over the
Speaker 2: long haul that people, more and more people have a
Speaker 2: they value wildlife because it's wildlife for its own sake,
Speaker 2: not for you know, what can I use it for?
Speaker 2: Or how is it bugging me? But just wow, how
Speaker 2: lucky are we to have these incredibly beautiful things on
Speaker 2: the planet with us So and again, of course there's
Speaker 2: you know, there's that is not a universal opinion year
Speaker 2: in the US, but we have come along way, and
Speaker 2: I feel that if you look at some of the
Speaker 2: organizations that are charged with monitoring this and making the
Speaker 2: rules and deciding what happens. The National Wildlife Research Center
Speaker 2: and the USDA who runs that center have been of
Speaker 2: late hiring non lethal experts, not people, not just to
Speaker 2: kind of pay lip service to Oh, you know, if
Speaker 2: you were to build a pin for your chickens a
Speaker 2: nighttime a safe, well made nighttime enclosure, they won't get nabbed.
Speaker 2: Or if you were to trim this brushback or change
Speaker 2: the way you graize these sheep, I think it would
Speaker 2: help a lot. So there's they're they're hiring these people,
Speaker 2: and that's come out of some dialogues between the National
Speaker 2: Wildlife Research Center SLASH USDA and the NRDC Natural Resources
Speaker 2: Defense Committee is it or council. So there's been again
Speaker 2: those sort of coexistence meetings, people from kind of agencies
Speaker 2: that usually clash who are now sitting down and trying
Speaker 2: to work together. And I see that as a hugely
Speaker 2: positive development. Maybe I'm pollyannish, but I think, I mean,
Speaker 2: that's the best development, the most hopeful development I've seen.
Speaker 2: And you know, I forget the number of states in
Speaker 2: the amount of money budgeted, but it seemed significant, and
Speaker 2: it seemed that the mindset within the agency that is
Speaker 2: the USDA is shifting a bit, you know, there's some
Speaker 2: of the newer hires and the younger people are less
Speaker 2: inclined to carry on the tradition of shoot, trap and
Speaker 2: poison I hope.
Speaker 1: So anyway, what a dream come true. Seriously unbelievable. Thank
Speaker 1: you so so much, Mary for taking the time to chat.
Speaker 1: I had an absolute blast. Whoever said don't meet your
Speaker 1: heroes was very wrong, and I think that someone needs
Speaker 1: to use What's going on in the Ponderosa Room as
Speaker 1: the title of their next murder mystery or something, because
Speaker 1: it's just too good. If you all enjoyed this as
Speaker 1: much as I did and want to learn more, check
Speaker 1: out our website this podcast will Kill You dot com,
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