Speaker 1: Have you seen Turning Red?
Speaker 2: No, but it's on my list. I'm behind.
Speaker 1: I can't believe that because you are usually the one
Speaker 1: that's recommending movies to me. I saw Turning Red probably
Speaker 1: the first week it came out, and I loved it.
Speaker 1: So in the movie, there is a red panda which
Speaker 1: is native to China. But did you know that the
Speaker 1: red panda is endangered? Do you know how upset that
Speaker 1: makes me? After watching that movie?
Speaker 2: I did not know that. You want to know what
Speaker 2: else is in danger? What the gray Wolf?
Speaker 1: The gray Wolf? What's going on?
Speaker 2: Yes, the gray Wolf is also in danger. And it's
Speaker 2: been a yo yo off the list in twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: back on the list in twenty twenty one, and here
Speaker 2: we are twenty twenty two. Is back on the list.
Speaker 1: And it's little things that we are doing that caused
Speaker 1: these disruptions in their prevalence on the planet.
Speaker 2: Yep, we should all walk around with our heads hung low.
Speaker 1: Shame Shane, Shane Shane, absolutely even when we think of so.
Speaker 1: Like in La there is this mountain lion called P
Speaker 1: twenty two and he is famous honey, and we disrupted
Speaker 1: his food chain because he ended up eating an animal
Speaker 1: who probably ate another animal, who ate a rat was
Speaker 1: killed by rat poison and then P twenty two eventually
Speaker 1: got sick because that rat poison made its way up
Speaker 1: the food chain.
Speaker 2: And who brought the rat poison us?
Speaker 1: Shame, shame, shame.
Speaker 2: I wish people could see us tolling our bill iron
Speaker 2: Tt and I'm Zachiah and from Spotify.
Speaker 3: This is Dope Labs.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore science,
Speaker 1: pop culture, and a healthy dost of friendship. This week
Speaker 1: we're talking all about biodiversity and conservation. And if that
Speaker 1: sounds like a word salad to you, don't worry. We're
Speaker 1: gonna dig into those terms in this episode.
Speaker 2: You know, it's spring, That means the flowers are blooming,
Speaker 2: and the animals are out and about. The birds are chirping.
Speaker 1: I've been in my hammock.
Speaker 2: You've been in your hammock.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: Every time it gets warm, I pull that hammock out
Speaker 1: of the shed and I do at least an hour
Speaker 1: and a half every day of hammock time.
Speaker 2: Well, you better keep your eyes open in your hammick time.
Speaker 2: You could have a visitor, Well, you wouldn't have a
Speaker 2: visitor like they had out in Silver Lake, California with p.
Speaker 2: Twenty two, that mountain lion that was roaming. But you
Speaker 2: could have a different type of visitor based on where
Speaker 2: you live.
Speaker 1: Yes, there is a neighborhood fox that I think I've
Speaker 1: seen its tail, but I have not seen his full body,
Speaker 1: but everybody talks about him.
Speaker 2: Well, all the animals are stirring, and as you know,
Speaker 2: this is their home, we're just inhabiting it.
Speaker 1: We are visitors that overstate are welcome. You imagine somebody
Speaker 1: moving to your house and it's like, mmm, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: knock this wall down and turn this into a gym,
Speaker 1: and you're like, this is where I'm trying to sleep.
Speaker 2: And that has been suburban sprawl. Yeah, but you know,
Speaker 2: it brings a great point as our population of humans
Speaker 2: continues to grow, how do we live in harmony with animals?
Speaker 2: How do we keep what's already here, preserve it and
Speaker 2: not make any other species go extinct?
Speaker 1: Okay, let's get into the recitation.
Speaker 3: So what do we know?
Speaker 2: I think we know even back to like elementary school,
Speaker 2: do you remember those things like food wheels where will
Speaker 2: show how all the different animals and plants are connected
Speaker 2: and they're part of a yea.
Speaker 3: Yes, the circle of life.
Speaker 2: Yes, we know it's important to have a lot of diversity,
Speaker 2: biological diversity, different animals and species all working together for
Speaker 2: us to have a healthy environment, healthy planet. But I
Speaker 2: think we know that there's been some shortcomings there and
Speaker 2: we've seen a lot of different species going extinct or
Speaker 2: decreasing populations of certain organisms. One example is the northern
Speaker 2: white rhinoceros, which is functionally extinct because there are only
Speaker 2: two females left. That's something that I don't think I
Speaker 2: think about when I think about, Okay.
Speaker 1: This species is going extinct. I'm just like, oh, okay, well,
Speaker 1: we want every species to live. We want all these
Speaker 1: animals to live. But I don't think about how it
Speaker 1: affects the food chain and everything else.
Speaker 2: I think we know there are scientists, and sometimes these
Speaker 2: feel like the most appealing scientists that are tracking what's
Speaker 2: happening with different wildlife and animals. Like when I think
Speaker 2: about what Steve Erwin used to do, and basically everybody
Speaker 2: on National Geographic Right, they're doing the glamorous science. They're
Speaker 2: saving the wildlife.
Speaker 1: Yes, and I think one of the other things that
Speaker 1: we know is that being able to create more balance
Speaker 1: with biodiversity isn't easy, and so it takes a lot
Speaker 1: from a lot of different types of scientists and people
Speaker 1: just generally making sure that we have the biodiversity that
Speaker 1: we need have a balanced ecosystem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. You know, that's something we
Speaker 2: talked about keeping that type balance for the ecosystem back
Speaker 2: in the Truth Pie episode, and we've touched on it
Speaker 2: a little bit even in our early Coronavirus episode where
Speaker 2: we talked about the more expansion of human behavior. So,
Speaker 2: you know, city and suburban sprawl, as they encroach on
Speaker 2: wildlife areas or areas where different animals are living, we're
Speaker 2: somehow having an effect on them. Right. We might think
Speaker 2: it's positive that we're putting that bird feeder out, but like,
Speaker 2: is this the best thing? Is that enough?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: What should we be doing?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: And I guess I'm already asking questions, So we're now
Speaker 2: we're at what do we want to know? Yes?
Speaker 1: I want to know the intricacies of what these types
Speaker 1: of scientists, like, what their day to day would be like.
Speaker 2: Yes, And I think an intersection of some topics that
Speaker 2: we've been interested in is for this episode, the biodiversity,
Speaker 2: but also climate change. How is that affecting animals? A
Speaker 2: lot of times we think about climate change just affecting humans,
Speaker 2: but what about everybody else? Their habitats are.
Speaker 1: Changing absolutely, And I think another question that that leads
Speaker 1: to is how our behavior as human animals, How are
Speaker 1: we affecting the ecosystem?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I think there are a lot of misconceptions
Speaker 2: about how helpful who we are, and so I think
Speaker 2: i'd like to low, you know, what's the realty. I
Speaker 2: think we're ready to jump into the dissection.
Speaker 1: Our guest for today's lab is doctor ray Winn Grant.
Speaker 4: I'm doctor ray Win Grant. I am a wildlife ecologist.
Speaker 4: I am a national geographic explorer. I'm a professor and
Speaker 4: a storyteller and an intersectional person and a scientist.
Speaker 2: As a large carnivoy ecologist, Doctor Wynn has studied the
Speaker 2: impact of human activity on the behavior of black bears
Speaker 2: in northeastern Montana, but she's also done research on African
Speaker 2: lions in rural Kenya and Tanzania, gorillas and chimpanzees in
Speaker 2: the Congo Basin, and grizzly bears in Yellowstone. What have
Speaker 2: you been doing.
Speaker 1: Where in the world is Carmen San Diego. Where in
Speaker 1: the world is doctor ray Wynn Grant. This isn't the
Speaker 1: first time we've talked about ecology on the show. Our
Speaker 1: very first lab on Cuffing season was with doctor Alejandra
Speaker 1: Trio a behavioral ecologists.
Speaker 2: And ecology is the study of the relationship between living organisms,
Speaker 2: that's including humans and their environment, and so much has
Speaker 2: learned about those relationships through collecting data.
Speaker 4: When I was in graduate school, one of my professors said,
Speaker 4: ecology is essentially just counting things. You know, how many
Speaker 4: mountain lions are in this space, how many mountains per
Speaker 4: square kilometer or per one hundred square kilometers. So data
Speaker 4: collection is the exciting stuff out in the field in
Speaker 4: remote parts of the world, camping for days or weeks
Speaker 4: tracking wild animals.
Speaker 1: It feels like doctor Wyngrant does it all. She collects
Speaker 1: all kinds of data out in the field, everything from
Speaker 1: parasitic load and a particular species to performing dental exams,
Speaker 1: which we know from our conversation with doctor Johnson in
Speaker 1: Lab fifty four can be an indicator for overall health.
Speaker 1: All of this helps her understand the health of a
Speaker 1: particular animal. She'll also fit animals with a GPS collar
Speaker 1: so she can track migration patterns over time.
Speaker 4: And then what is equal is important, but definitely less
Speaker 4: glamorous is the data analysis part, where I'm sitting in
Speaker 4: front of computer and doing high level statistics to better
Speaker 4: understand my data.
Speaker 2: That's always the least glamorous part. And it feels like,
Speaker 2: no matter what your job is, everybody has to do
Speaker 2: their time in spreadsheets, right. There's just no way around it, Excel.
Speaker 2: So you may be wondering why is doctor wyn Grant
Speaker 2: collecting all this data.
Speaker 1: Well, it's because data helps us understand the biodiversity of
Speaker 1: a particular environment.
Speaker 4: Biodiversity is like the diversity of life, you know, That's
Speaker 4: what it means.
Speaker 2: Humans depend on the planet's biodiversity for a number of things,
Speaker 2: including food, fuel, fresh water, and medicine. And we're not
Speaker 2: the only ones depending on the planet's biodiversity. Other animals
Speaker 2: and species are too.
Speaker 1: All of this kind of reminds me of when we
Speaker 1: were talking about how the supply chain was affected by COVID,
Speaker 1: and we talked about it in our live show about
Speaker 1: how when there was a traffic jam in Virginia it
Speaker 1: affected the grocery stores in my neighborhood for weeks because
Speaker 1: those trucks can show up. So the biodiversity in the
Speaker 1: ecosystem is it feels like the supply chain for the ecosystem,
Speaker 1: where when you lose one aspect of it, then it
Speaker 1: affects the entire system.
Speaker 2: And so I think that's a good point. But I
Speaker 2: think the difference is it's even worse right in nature
Speaker 2: because when you lose biodiversity, there's not another truck to bring.
Speaker 1: It back, right, So, like imagine and if it just
Speaker 1: completely went away, then what do we do. Then we
Speaker 1: have to be walking around trying to figure out where
Speaker 1: we can get food from.
Speaker 2: And it's not just one thing that happens. Then, So
Speaker 2: then if you think I'm a predator, in my average
Speaker 2: prey that I normally use for fuel for energy is
Speaker 2: now gone. Now I'm looking to something else, and so
Speaker 2: I'm going to graze on that. But now that population
Speaker 2: begins to dwindle, and whatever was before using that animal
Speaker 2: as it's source of nutrition, now it's affected, and so
Speaker 2: the whole thing begins to crumble. It's a ripple effect.
Speaker 2: The gray wolf is an apex predator, and you may
Speaker 2: think Oh, they don't really matter that much. But if
Speaker 2: you go back and look at the history, whenever gray
Speaker 2: wolves were overhunted, their prey overgrazed the land, causing extinction
Speaker 2: of certain vegetation.
Speaker 1: I wish we could pull that clip from a lion
Speaker 1: King where mufass is like the antelope eth the grass
Speaker 1: and then we eat the antelope, and so it's the
Speaker 1: circle of life. Yes, well, MOVEASA said it best and
Speaker 1: it still holds true. It may be surprising, but biodiversity
Speaker 1: conservation is facing a data shortage, especially with invertebrates, so
Speaker 1: animals that don't have a spine, plants and fish. We
Speaker 1: still need more data collectors like doctor Wynn Grant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean part of it is resources to collect
Speaker 2: these things. Invertebrates are small, they're hard to track, they're
Speaker 2: hard to find. You got to look under logs and
Speaker 2: you know they exist in these different places. There are
Speaker 2: only so many people doing this work. It's expensive, it's costly.
Speaker 2: It's longitudinal, so you can capture what something looks like
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty, So, for example, there were so many
Speaker 2: gray wolves in twenty twenty that US Regulating Agency said,
Speaker 2: this is no longer an endangered species here we are
Speaker 2: February twenty twenty two. It is an endangered species. So
Speaker 2: if you think about that, unless you are tracking these
Speaker 2: different species all the time, you're only capturing them at
Speaker 2: singular moments and you don't get the full picture. And
Speaker 2: so it would be so expensive, so time consuming to
Speaker 2: constantly track every single species. So we just simply don't
Speaker 2: have the ability to do that. And sometimes what happens
Speaker 2: because we don't have that ability is that we don't
Speaker 2: realize when there are declining populations until something's already extinct
Speaker 2: and you can't find it anymore. There's so much biodiversity
Speaker 2: on our planet, but there's also so much that we
Speaker 2: don't know. Just think about the ocean, which covers about
Speaker 2: seventy one percent of the Earth. We haven't even explored
Speaker 2: over eighty percent of it.
Speaker 1: See, this is why I'm more afraid of the ocean
Speaker 1: than I am of space.
Speaker 2: You do say that, you say that a lot.
Speaker 3: I don't know what's in there.
Speaker 2: Jesus, I'm leaning towards you were right. I'm not going
Speaker 2: down there.
Speaker 1: My sister was asking me, would you rather live at
Speaker 1: the bottom of the ocean or in space? I said,
Speaker 1: absolutely space. We don't know what's down there.
Speaker 2: People think the bottom of the ocean is like Bikini Bottom.
Speaker 2: It ain't. Those are shallow waters where SpongeBob.
Speaker 1: Is Smogebob being down there.
Speaker 2: No, it's dark. Man at the bottom of the ocean,
Speaker 2: it's dark and we.
Speaker 1: Don't know what's down there. You think a shark is scared,
Speaker 1: imagine a shark that ain't never seen the sun. I
Speaker 1: don't want to run up against that thing. Biodiversity is
Speaker 1: more than just variety. It also includes variability of life
Speaker 1: at multiple levels, like species richness, which is the total
Speaker 1: number of species within an area, genetic diversity which is
Speaker 1: the total variety of genes within a single species, endemic
Speaker 1: species which is species that occur in one place and
Speaker 1: nowhere else in the world. And the fourth is ecosystem diversity,
Speaker 1: which is the total number of ecosystems in that area.
Speaker 2: And we can't talk about biodiversity without the context of
Speaker 2: the environment, so not all ecosystems are created equal. Biodiversity
Speaker 2: is highly concentrated in tropical ecosystems, so rainforests, core reefs,
Speaker 2: and savannahs, and those contain over seventy five percent of
Speaker 2: known non marine species.
Speaker 1: Climate change has a huge effect on these ecosystems and
Speaker 1: continues to threaten our planet's biodiversity. We're going to get
Speaker 1: into that later in the episode.
Speaker 4: One of the things I love about the word biodiversity
Speaker 4: is that I think it's pretty straightforward in terms of
Speaker 4: understanding it, and it's measurable. In my work, I mostly
Speaker 4: focus on like one or two species at a time,
Speaker 4: so it's again really straightforward for me to measure the
Speaker 4: amount of biodiversity, like how many mountain lions are in
Speaker 4: this space? How many mountain liines per square kilometer or
Speaker 4: per hundred square kilometers.
Speaker 2: Sometimes, though, collecting this data is more challenging than just counting.
Speaker 4: I'll give you an example. Every so often i'll do
Speaker 4: a little project in the tropics, and tropical ecosystems are
Speaker 4: often places of tremendous biodiversity. There's all these plants, there's
Speaker 4: all these insects, there's all these animals, there's all these everything.
Speaker 1: Doctor Wngrant and a couple other scientists were in the
Speaker 1: tropics to document the biodiversity in a rainforest in Madagascar.
Speaker 1: A certain species may be difficult to observe if you
Speaker 1: can't measure an organism directly, though you can do it
Speaker 1: by proxy. If you know some of the organism's friends,
Speaker 1: or if you know some of the predators or the
Speaker 1: organisms prey, you can use those to help you tell
Speaker 1: the story about the animal you're actually interested in.
Speaker 4: And one of the ways that I learned through this
Speaker 4: that you can measure biodiversity in a space is through
Speaker 4: blood from leeches. There's some emerging techniques from some really
Speaker 4: awesome scientists where they are actually taking leeches instead of
Speaker 4: looking for the animal. Maybe you're looking for, you know,
Speaker 4: a fusa, right, that's a kind of like a cat species,
Speaker 4: large predator and Madagascar, and you can't find any, it
Speaker 4: doesn't mean it's not there, because they're very elusive. So
Speaker 4: taking a couple leeches and looking and taking the blood
Speaker 4: that the leeches have sucked and analyzing the different DNA
Speaker 4: in the leech blood, we'll tell you what it's been
Speaker 4: feeding on. And maybe it's been feeding on a fusa.
Speaker 4: Maybe it's been feeding on a lot of fusa, And
Speaker 4: that means they're there even though we never saw them.
Speaker 4: It means they're there and they're not extinct. And so
Speaker 4: that I think is just this rad way of understanding
Speaker 4: biodiversity because it's not always going to be in our face.
Speaker 2: Using DNA extracted from leeches is a more indirect way
Speaker 2: of measuring biodiversity in an environment, and it can be
Speaker 2: especially useful for more elusive species. But when it comes
Speaker 2: to large predators like bears, doctor Wingrant's approaches a lot
Speaker 2: more straightforward. So at this point we really needed doctor
Speaker 2: wind Grant to walk us through what it's actually like
Speaker 2: trapping bears for data collection. How does she do that.
Speaker 4: For a bear? For a mountain line? We have a
Speaker 4: proper trap, right, it's like a big barrel. We call
Speaker 4: it a culvert trap or barrel trap. It's like a
Speaker 4: bear sized barrel. Of course, there's like windows, and you know,
Speaker 4: it's like open air. And then on one end it
Speaker 4: has a gait like a trap door, and so you
Speaker 4: put some bait in the back and then the bear smells,
Speaker 4: it walks into the trap, grabs for the bait, and
Speaker 4: then the door shuts, and then the door also sends
Speaker 4: a little signal text message to my phone.
Speaker 2: That's a text I'm not answering, I'm sorry, I just
Speaker 2: have to leave it on My phone is on do
Speaker 2: not disturb.
Speaker 1: I don't want to know what that bear is up.
Speaker 4: To, and then I go and from there, I can
Speaker 4: either use a dart gun, but usually if the bear
Speaker 4: is trapped, I will just use what we call a
Speaker 4: jab stick, which literally just looks like a stick. You know,
Speaker 4: if you're playing pool with a little syringe at the end,
Speaker 4: and you just like get the bear in its shoulder
Speaker 4: or it's a little hip and you give it it's
Speaker 4: a little sedative, and then in five minutes it, you know,
Speaker 4: falls asleep and then you open the door and that's
Speaker 4: when you know, you get pictures of me like handling
Speaker 4: a bear. It's sedated and it's asleep.
Speaker 1: And at that point doctor Wingrant can give the bear
Speaker 1: a checkup, take its temperature, weigh and measure it, check
Speaker 1: its overall health, and then she attaches a GPS collar.
Speaker 4: Haul the bear out of the trap, put it somewhere
Speaker 4: nice and shady, put a little water out, and get
Speaker 4: out of there and wait for it to wake up up.
Speaker 4: And sometimes I hide and watch it wake up, but
Speaker 4: usually I just get out of there so that when
Speaker 4: it does come to, it's not frightened by the presence
Speaker 4: of a person or just doesn't get used to the
Speaker 4: presence of a person and that's it, and then I
Speaker 4: am able to track that bear, you know, for a
Speaker 4: long time.
Speaker 2: If we haven't already made it clear, biodiversity is important.
Speaker 2: If hypothetically the earth we're hanging on biothread, then biodiversity
Speaker 2: is that thread. So we're going to take a quick
Speaker 2: break and when we get back, we're going to talk
Speaker 2: about how to preserve and protect biodiversity.
Speaker 1: We're back, but before we get back into what we
Speaker 1: can do to protect biodiversity, let's quickly talk about next
Speaker 1: week's lab. We're talking nuclear energy with doctor Marina Robinson's
Speaker 1: note in nuclear energy is something that I feel like
Speaker 1: we've all heard about but don't know much about. So
Speaker 1: we're getting into the science, politics, risks, and the potential
Speaker 1: with nuclear energy.
Speaker 2: I can't wait for that episode. Let's get back to today's lab.
Speaker 2: We're talking to doctor Ray winn Grant, and before the
Speaker 2: break we cover biodiversity House measure and why it's important.
Speaker 2: But now we're going to turn our focus to conservation.
Speaker 2: And when you think about it, biodiversity and conservation go
Speaker 2: hand in hand.
Speaker 4: I do wildlife conservation, so I am very very very
Speaker 4: much actively in the business of conserving life on Earth.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of different kinds of conservation environmental, animal, marine,
Speaker 1: and even human conservation. The one thing they all have
Speaker 1: in common is the goal to protect and preserve living things.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean non living materials don't play an
Speaker 1: important role.
Speaker 4: One of the beautiful things about our natural world is
Speaker 4: that it is both biotic and abiotic. So conservation, you know,
Speaker 4: if it's complete and comprehensive, should address water, you know,
Speaker 4: which is not alive, and should address a which is
Speaker 4: not alive and soil. Our biotic environment and biodiversity does
Speaker 4: depend on the abiotic environment as well, and so conservation
Speaker 4: needs to be comprehensive.
Speaker 2: That's right. Conservation is intersectional. It depends on the interactions
Speaker 2: of many different living and non living things in order
Speaker 2: to sustain a habitable environment.
Speaker 4: The United States has a history of looking at one species, right,
Speaker 4: like one animal, and being like, okay, we need to
Speaker 4: save this one animal in this one place.
Speaker 2: Go. I'm sure you've heard some examples of these types
Speaker 2: of efforts, you know, save the snow leopards, the pandas,
Speaker 2: the whales. And yes, focusing on the specific endangered species
Speaker 2: is important, but in the.
Speaker 4: Past that's really missed the point, right, It's missed like, Okay, well, actually,
Speaker 4: maybe we need to like save the ecosystem and enhance
Speaker 4: the ecosystem, and maybe that means that we don't put
Speaker 4: as many protections for this one animal. Maybe we lose
Speaker 4: some more of those animals. But what if we keep
Speaker 4: the water or keep the soil bacteria and that's actually
Speaker 4: what we need, or keep the insect community and you know,
Speaker 4: those pollinators in that what we need even if we
Speaker 4: lose you know, other things. So it probably comes as
Speaker 4: no surprise to so many people that nature is complex.
Speaker 1: This complexity is something that was completely overlooked by the
Speaker 1: big name American conservationists back in the late nineteenth and
Speaker 1: early twentieth century.
Speaker 4: I've been getting a re education about this science in
Speaker 4: a lot of ways, but also with conservation. Conservation as
Speaker 4: I understand it and as it is taught these days,
Speaker 4: is very, very very much rooted in colonialism.
Speaker 2: Conservation and environmentalism more broadly has a very racist history.
Speaker 2: Many of the figures most well known for founding the
Speaker 2: first conservation lands, think Teddy Roosevelt, Madison Grant, John Mirror,
Speaker 2: all embraced the perspective on conservation that was rooted in
Speaker 2: white supremacy, eugenics, and European colonialism.
Speaker 4: They were very harmful and they were motivated by some
Speaker 4: really terrible belief systems that were inherently racist, particularly towards
Speaker 4: indigenous groups and black folks.
Speaker 1: This idea of selective conservation, which is only saving those
Speaker 1: species that are deemed quote unquote valuable by a dominant group,
Speaker 1: excludes indigenous groups that inhabit the land.
Speaker 3: And it was.
Speaker 4: Really really driven by capitalism too. It wasn't like, oh, well,
Speaker 4: we should respect nature and just you know, not consume
Speaker 4: and not destroy. It was more like, oh, gosh, well
Speaker 4: we destroyed so much, you know, for the timber industry,
Speaker 4: we destroyed so much through like sport hunting, that the
Speaker 4: core concepts, if you will, of conservation are essentially like
Speaker 4: what most indigenous groups around the world were just doing
Speaker 4: as regular lifestyle.
Speaker 2: Yes, and we talked about a lot of this in
Speaker 2: Lab eighteen Truth PI with doctor Nicholas Reo, and I
Speaker 2: think one of the things to understand is that conventional
Speaker 2: or traditional conservation policy has focused on taking large patches
Speaker 2: or swaths of land and saying this is protected, but
Speaker 2: it's also doing that without consideration of who was living
Speaker 2: on that land, and so often we see the exclusion
Speaker 2: of indigenous people when deciding where these protected areas or
Speaker 2: zones are. And it also is disconnecting indigenous people from
Speaker 2: their sources of traditional food or important cultural sites, or
Speaker 2: you know, just general living. If somebody were to just
Speaker 2: show up in your neighborhood and say this ten mile
Speaker 2: radius is protected for the sparrow. They don't care if
Speaker 2: your grocery store is there, they don't care if that's
Speaker 2: where you go to church. You know, it's no consideration
Speaker 2: for any of those things. And it could have been that, yes,
Speaker 2: they did it intentionally, but it also could be that
Speaker 2: they don't see it because they don't understand your culture.
Speaker 2: And so I think that's what a lack of cultural awareness,
Speaker 2: that's how it can be so damaging and has been
Speaker 2: in the past for conservation policy.
Speaker 4: The conservation world is having a bit of a reckoning
Speaker 4: because there has been this miseducation and a lot of
Speaker 4: problems and a lot of harm. The environment isn't in
Speaker 4: better shape than when conservation started. And I say this
Speaker 4: as a conservation scientist, like that is my career, and
Speaker 4: I was taught the Western way and I have benefitted
Speaker 4: from the Western Way, like it's paid my bills, you know,
Speaker 4: up until this point. And I would even argue that
Speaker 4: it just needs to be deconstructed and reconstructed with black,
Speaker 4: Indigenous people of color leadership and like an anti capitalist mindset.
Speaker 2: And that reconstruction of conservation is already underway. One crucial
Speaker 2: element is understanding the past. In June twenty twenty, the
Speaker 2: executive director of the Sierra Club finally acknowledged the racist
Speaker 2: beliefs and actions of that organization's founder, John Muhr.
Speaker 1: Another important step towards reconstructing our understanding of conservation is
Speaker 1: also reframing the spaces where conservation is happening.
Speaker 4: Like a lot of people and they think of like
Speaker 4: where can I see wild animals? It's like national parks,
Speaker 4: right Like you want to see bears, Like go to Yosemite,
Speaker 4: you want to see wolves, go to Yellowstone. National parks
Speaker 4: were constructed to conserve biodiversity, and they do. Majority of
Speaker 4: top predators in the United States in North America, the bears,
Speaker 4: the wolves, the mountain lions, the bobcats, all of them
Speaker 4: live outside of national parks and other protected areas. So
Speaker 4: although they exist in them, they mostly exist outside of them.
Speaker 2: And this is a pretty big misconception, right. Biodiversity conservation
Speaker 2: is happening everywhere. It's happening in your backyard, and it's
Speaker 2: not just about protecting endangered species either, although that is important.
Speaker 2: Conservation efforts are happening in the Appalachian mountains and in
Speaker 2: the streets of South LA. People think you need to
Speaker 2: have hundreds of acres of land to be actively practicing conservation,
Speaker 2: but it's just as important, especially in places that are
Speaker 2: really urban, that one patch of land can sustain so
Speaker 2: many species can be the make or break. It becomes
Speaker 2: even more important when it's an island of biodiversity or
Speaker 2: an island of conservation, because there are no other resources nearby,
Speaker 2: so that patch of land begins to be even more important.
Speaker 1: I know in my county you aren't allowed to use
Speaker 1: any pesticides on your lawn, and if you want to
Speaker 1: cut a tree down in your yard, you then have
Speaker 1: to replant a tree somewhere else. So maybe that's part
Speaker 1: of that whole idea that you know, even like on
Speaker 1: a small local level, you are trying to maintain your
Speaker 1: local ecosystems.
Speaker 4: We really have to reimagine what conservation should be and
Speaker 4: could be today for it to be effective for both
Speaker 4: wildlife and people.
Speaker 2: Yes, and so now we consider the concepts of national parks,
Speaker 2: but knowing that a lot of these animals are outside
Speaker 2: of national parks, how do we protect those animals and
Speaker 2: protect the type of life that we want. I have
Speaker 2: a friend who wants to walk her dog, and she's like,
Speaker 2: I have to be careful because I'm taking the dog out,
Speaker 2: but there are coyotes out there.
Speaker 1: Dylan one of the cutest dogs.
Speaker 2: Yes, and they're seeing an uptick in coyotes because they're
Speaker 2: clearing out a lot of the land near where she
Speaker 2: lives to build more houses, right, and so it's just
Speaker 2: this delicate balance of the need for housing also to
Speaker 2: share the space with the animals that are already there.
Speaker 2: What does it mean for us to be safe and
Speaker 2: not even just I feel uncomfortable around a coyote, but like,
Speaker 2: what kind of diseases do coyotes and deer and things
Speaker 2: like that, Carrie that we can then bump up against
Speaker 2: And you know, now your dog has and now you
Speaker 2: have you know it. Just there are possibilities that we
Speaker 2: have to really consider.
Speaker 1: Pictures of Dylan will be in the show notes.
Speaker 2: Yes, and all of this is really just part of
Speaker 2: the broader definition and actual execution of biodiversity. So when
Speaker 2: you hear about things like the California Old Spiel or
Speaker 2: other human influences and suburban sprawl, people pushing closer and
Speaker 2: closer into what used to be really undisturbed areas, we
Speaker 2: have to think about all of these things. That's biodiversity.
Speaker 1: And of course we can't talk about the effects of
Speaker 1: human behavior on conservation without talking about climate change. In
Speaker 1: terms of biodiversity and specifically the types of wildlife conservation
Speaker 1: that doctor Winns Grant does. Climate change means that with
Speaker 1: changing climate, the ecosystems where animals are best suited to
Speaker 1: live in will also change.
Speaker 4: Let's say there's a protected area in this little circle
Speaker 4: that it has a perfect habitat for an animal. The
Speaker 4: climate change is going to move where that habitat is perfect,
Speaker 4: like you know, a thousand miles north or something. We
Speaker 4: can't just like pick up and move a protected area,
Speaker 4: so we're trying to figure out like, okay, well, what's
Speaker 4: a thousand miles north of there?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: Is it a big city where this animal can't live?
Speaker 2: When we consider climate change and the overall warming of
Speaker 2: the planet. If you need to be in a cooler area,
Speaker 2: usually what we're seeing is around the equator. All that
Speaker 2: area is warmer. So the cooler areas are shifting higher
Speaker 2: north or further south away from the equator. Doctor Wing
Speaker 2: Grant used an example of the Java in rhino, which
Speaker 2: is one of the most threatened rhino species. It's living
Speaker 2: in the Yujung Kulon National Park on the island of Java, Indonesia.
Speaker 2: That rhino has been there for a long time and
Speaker 2: it's evolved in order to inhabit that very specif ecosystem.
Speaker 4: And so if that specific ecosystem shifts because of climate
Speaker 4: change to somewhere else, the rhino can't just like walk
Speaker 4: on over there. And so when we're thinking of wildlife
Speaker 4: conservation and climate change, does that mean we're thinking of
Speaker 4: like airlifting rhinos to this new place, all of them,
Speaker 4: like all over the world, like flying animals to like
Speaker 4: their new home. No, that's crazy. And also like what's
Speaker 4: north of here? You know, when we're talking about like
Speaker 4: East Asian islands, there might be like cities in the way,
Speaker 4: or you know, people just all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1: Doctor Winngrant said that reimagining conservation is also going to
Speaker 1: require a huge focus on human wildlife coexistence.
Speaker 4: One thing that I really believe is that cities are
Speaker 4: going to remain cities. You know, it appears from what
Speaker 4: we understand so far that cities are really good for
Speaker 4: the environment, right. It's actually it's good for the environment
Speaker 4: to condense, you know, a lot of people together and
Speaker 4: like a lot of like human activity and human development together,
Speaker 4: because there's an argument that that can kind of spare
Speaker 4: human development in places that aren't cities, and maybe those
Speaker 4: can be good places for nature to thrive. That's I
Speaker 4: think easy to conceptualize in Western societies, but it's not
Speaker 4: applicable in a lot of places too. And there's a
Speaker 4: lot of places where there's people who really want and
Speaker 4: deserve to live on the land and not in urban spaces,
Speaker 4: and that needs to be protected as well.
Speaker 2: There's been a lot of conversation about what is the
Speaker 2: best environmentally friendly consideration of biodiversity type of setup for
Speaker 2: human and animal interface look like. Is it that most
Speaker 2: of us are living in cities, and is that fair
Speaker 2: then to folks who live and grew up in rural
Speaker 2: areas or who desire to live in rural areas, like
Speaker 2: I just wonder how we will begin to manage these
Speaker 2: types of things. And this is not something that's unique
Speaker 2: to the United States. You know, the United Nations has
Speaker 2: i think fourteen sustainable development goals things that everybody is
Speaker 2: working to, and one of those things is a balance
Speaker 2: of how much land is used for farmland and agriculture
Speaker 2: versus human development for living versus undisturbed and protected areas
Speaker 2: for wildlife. In every country, it feels like it's a
Speaker 2: pretty big deal. If the United Nations is saying this
Speaker 2: is something that we need to all figure out.
Speaker 4: What we have to hold on to is hope that
Speaker 4: there's still a chance. And I have that hope. I'm
Speaker 4: an optimist. I think there's still a lot of reason
Speaker 4: to believe that our environment will be okay and that
Speaker 4: we can create balance in this planet and that we
Speaker 4: can save more species from going extinct. I really truly
Speaker 4: think that today and in the future is going to
Speaker 4: be more of this intersection of understanding climate change and
Speaker 4: how that's changing our world. We're already getting more humans
Speaker 4: on this planet, and we're trying to get more wildlife
Speaker 4: on this planet, and so if it's going to be
Speaker 4: more of everything. We've got to figure out how to
Speaker 4: live in harmony together sustainably, and that's a big question
Speaker 4: I think of the time.
Speaker 2: All right, CD, it's time for our one thing. What's
Speaker 2: your one thing this week?
Speaker 1: My one thing this week is a clothing brand. It's
Speaker 1: black owned. It's called Thoughtless. Now it sounds like it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be that great, but Thoughtless is actually a really
Speaker 1: thoughtful brand. So it's founded by a black woman. Her
Speaker 1: name is Brooke, and she makes basic pieces that are
Speaker 1: meant to fit people with natural curves. So she has
Speaker 1: really great basic things that you can use for layering.
Speaker 1: She has really beautiful dresses, she has sweats, she has leggings,
Speaker 1: tea's dresses, but they're all really beautifully made. I got
Speaker 1: a couple of pieces and they're very very high quality
Speaker 1: and they fit like a dream. Oh my gosh. Like
Speaker 1: I got these pair of biker shorts from Thoughtless, and
Speaker 1: usually put those things on you're like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and these ones they slid on and I said, wow,
Speaker 1: I have never put on something like this and it
Speaker 1: fit me so well, like a glove.
Speaker 3: So yeah, Thoughtless.
Speaker 1: You can find them on Instagram at shop Thoughtless, or
Speaker 1: you can go to shop thoughtless dot com.
Speaker 2: Awesome.
Speaker 1: What's your one thing?
Speaker 2: My one thing this week is a poem. Yes, and
Speaker 2: this month is National Poetry Month, and one of my
Speaker 2: favorite poems is by Eve l Ewing and it's called
Speaker 2: what I Mean when I say I'm sharpening my oyster knife? Yes,
Speaker 2: and I really love that poem. I've posted it a
Speaker 2: couple of times. But it also is a reference to
Speaker 2: a quote from Zora Neil Hurston, which is, no, I
Speaker 2: do not weep at the world. I am too busy
Speaker 2: sharpening my oyster knife. And it felt really fitting because
Speaker 2: we're talking about conservation and oysters are an incredible conservation
Speaker 2: resource for our waterways and a great economic resource as well.
Speaker 2: So just want to put all those things together in
Speaker 2: the package. I'll share a link to the poem in
Speaker 2: the show notes. Maybe I'll perform it for you. All right,
Speaker 2: that's it for Lab fifty nine. Did you learn something new?
Speaker 2: Are you worried about the gray wolf? Like I am?
Speaker 2: Call us at two zero two five six seven seven
Speaker 2: zero two eight and tell us what you thought, or
Speaker 2: you can give us an idea for another lab you
Speaker 2: think we should do. We love hearing from you, So
Speaker 2: give us a call. That's two zero two five six
Speaker 2: seven seven zero two eight.
Speaker 1: And don't forget that there is so much more to
Speaker 1: dig into on our website. There'll be a cheat sheet
Speaker 1: for today's lab, additional links and resources in the show notes.
Speaker 1: Plus you can sign up for our newsletter check it
Speaker 1: out at Dope labspodcast dot com. Special thanks to today's
Speaker 1: guest expert, doctor ray Win Grant. Want to learn more
Speaker 1: about doctor ray Win Grant, you can listen to her
Speaker 1: podcast Go Wild on Spotify, or you can check her
Speaker 1: out on social media on Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok at
Speaker 1: ray Win Grant that's r a e w y n
Speaker 1: n g r A n T and for even more
Speaker 1: info check her out at Raywindgrant dot com. And you
Speaker 1: can find us on Twitter and Instagram at Dope Labs podcast.
Speaker 2: T T's on Twitter and Instagram at d R Underscore
Speaker 2: t s h O.
Speaker 1: And you can find Zakia at z said So. Dope
Speaker 1: Labs is a Spotify original production from Mega Own Media Group.
Speaker 2: Our producers are Jenny Radlett Mask and Lydia Smith of
Speaker 2: WaveRunner Studios, our associate producer from Mega Own Media is
Speaker 2: Brianna Garrett.
Speaker 1: Editing in sound design by Rob Smerciak.
Speaker 2: Mixing by Hannes Brown.
Speaker 1: Original music composed and produced by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex
Speaker 1: Sugier from Spotify, Executive producer Corin Gilliard and creative producer
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Speaker 1: show Dia and Zekiah Wattley. I like the way that
Speaker 1: you say poem, poem, How you said poem, How do
Speaker 1: I say it? You say poem, poem, poem, poem, poem, poem, poem, poem,
Speaker 1: poem