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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.

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Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to another episode of the All Lots Podcast.

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Speaker 2: I'm Tracy Alloway and I'm Joe.

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Speaker 3: Why wasn't thal Joe?

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Speaker 2: Did you hear the sad news?

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Speaker 4: Okay, I guess I know the sad news you are

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Speaker 4: talking about. I have to say I was a little

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Speaker 4: surprised to get a push.

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Speaker 3: Alert that an owl had died. I know, for some

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Speaker 3: people it's a really big.

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Speaker 2: That is such shade, that is such shade, or I'm

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Speaker 2: the slack of the owl. I can't believe you're saying.

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Speaker 4: I'm trying to be diplomatic. Some people seem to be

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Speaker 4: like really torn up. I was like, I'm a little

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Speaker 4: surprised that the death of an owl made it to

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Speaker 4: a push alert. But nonetheless, yes, I know where you're

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Speaker 4: going with this. Okay.

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Speaker 2: So for those people who don't know, maybe they don't

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Speaker 2: follow local New York news as much. Maybe they're just

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Speaker 2: heartless New Yorkers like Joe. They don't care about the animals.

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Speaker 2: Flacco the owl died recently. We're recording this on February

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Speaker 2: twenty seventh. He died over the weekend. Apparently he flew

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Speaker 2: into a building, although we're still waiting for the toxicology report,

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Speaker 2: I think. But the reason everyone was so interested in

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Speaker 2: the fate and fortunes of this owl is because he

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Speaker 2: was actually a Eurasian eagle owl who had escaped from

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Speaker 2: the zoo. Although actually I think vandals basically broke into

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Speaker 2: his exhibit and let him out, and he's been flying

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Speaker 2: around the city ever since. He was sort of a

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Speaker 2: symbol of survivalism in the urban jungle. People didn't expect

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Speaker 2: him to be able to make it.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and so there were a bunch of spottings right

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Speaker 4: in Central Park and elsewhere.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there are photos of him. He would perch on

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Speaker 2: air conditioners and sort of peek into people's windows at

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Speaker 2: odd times over the day and night.

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Speaker 4: Kind of wild that in a city this big, like

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Speaker 4: a single bird could just be spotted all over the

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Speaker 4: place for the while, and people would notice, like, oh,

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Speaker 4: this is a bad bird.

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Speaker 3: Like that's pretty cool.

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Speaker 2: Well, he stood out right, he's not native. Again, the

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Speaker 2: clue is in the name Eurasian eagle owl. But I

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Speaker 2: have to ask, how much do you think an owl

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Speaker 2: like Flacco is worth?

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Speaker 3: Oh?

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Speaker 4: Wow, huh, that's a good question.

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Speaker 3: I don't know.

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Speaker 4: Like how much would it cost, like if I wanted

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Speaker 4: to acquire one, Like are you thinking that?

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Speaker 2: Well this kind of yeah, this kind of gets into

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Speaker 2: the issue, right what would the basis of that valuation

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Speaker 2: actually be? So you can imagine there's probably a market

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Speaker 2: price that zoos or even black market collectors would pay

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Speaker 2: for and Eurasian eagle out. There's probably a replacement value

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Speaker 2: for insurance for a viable male that could produce chicks.

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Speaker 2: But maybe maybe Flacco has value in other ways. So

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Speaker 2: people were clearly happy to see him flying around the city.

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Speaker 2: We know that he was eating rats at certain points,

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Speaker 2: so maybe he was valuable as someone killing rats and

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Speaker 2: other pets. But on the other hand, you know what

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Speaker 2: if he ate someone's backyard chicken, then would he have

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Speaker 2: negative value? He's destroying public property or private property? What

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Speaker 2: if it was a buff Orpington, a really nice show Orpington,

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Speaker 2: and now someone has to replace their fancy chicken. I

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Speaker 2: have a lot of thoughts on this show. I'm sorry

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Speaker 2: to regale you with them at like mine in the morning.

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Speaker 3: H No.

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Speaker 4: I you know, look, clearly the death of Flacco meant

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Speaker 4: more to you than me. But just objectively listening to

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Speaker 4: you're like Wow, there's some really interesting questions here that

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Speaker 4: I just would never have thought about at all in

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Speaker 4: terms of the connection between Yeah, there must be some

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Speaker 4: dollar value. There must be there is some economic value

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Speaker 4: associated with a bird that people love that is rare,

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Speaker 4: that would have been difficult for a zoo to acquire,

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Speaker 4: That would be difficult for a zoo to secure. There's

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Speaker 4: a cost to is you said the insurance? So interesting

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Speaker 4: questions that I had certainly never once thought about up

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Speaker 4: until one minute ago in my life.

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Speaker 2: You know what, Joe, we don't even have to speculate

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Speaker 2: about this.

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Speaker 3: Okay, we don't have to do we have the answer.

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Speaker 2: Well, it turns out there is actually a whole body

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Speaker 2: of economics that deals with exactly this topic. It is

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Speaker 2: economic ornithology.

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Speaker 4: Can I just say something, Tracy, Yes, I think you're

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Speaker 4: more interested in this topic than any other episode we've

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Speaker 4: done in about a year.

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Speaker 2: This is my revenge for like the Celsius episode, where

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Speaker 2: not only do I have to talk about Celsius for

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Speaker 2: thirty minutes, but I also have to drink it while

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Speaker 2: we're talking. Yeah, okay, fair, I should have brought a

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Speaker 2: bird for us to look at while we're here. No, Okay,

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Speaker 2: economic ornithology. So the idea here is to actually attach

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Speaker 2: an estimated value to birds and their role in the

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Speaker 2: ecosystem of eating bugs and rodents and other things that

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Speaker 2: might be considered pests, either in New York City or

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Speaker 2: in farmland and the agricultural industry. So this is a

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Speaker 2: thing that exists, and I think we should talk about it.

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Speaker 3: Let's do it.

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Speaker 2: Okay. I'm very very happy, Joe lesso. But I am

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Speaker 2: happy to say we do, in fact have the perfect guest.

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Speaker 2: We're going to be speaking with Robert Francis. He is

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Speaker 2: the author of the bird history Substack, and he wrote

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Speaker 2: a really great piece about economic ornithology. So Robert, thank

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Speaker 2: you so much for coming on.

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Speaker 5: All thoughts, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 2: Joe clearly is a little incredulous that this is something

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Speaker 2: that exists. How did you start writing about economic ornithology?

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Speaker 2: How did you discover this topic?

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Speaker 1: Sure?

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Speaker 5: So I'm working on a book about how the relationship

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Speaker 5: between birds and people has changed over the course of

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Speaker 5: America's history. And when you're looking at the progressive era,

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Speaker 5: so from the eighteen nineties to the nineteen thirties, you

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Speaker 5: really can't miss the way that people talk about birds

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Speaker 5: in economic terms. They talk about birds in their relation

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Speaker 5: to agriculture and as friends to farmers, as playing a

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Speaker 5: really important role in protecting crops from agricultural pests. And

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Speaker 5: this isn't just farmers talking about it. You read people

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Speaker 5: talking about birds like this in the Saturday Evening post

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Speaker 5: in Harper's Weekly. You hear sportsmen talking about it. You

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Speaker 5: read in school manuals that children are getting problems about

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Speaker 5: how to calculate how many destructive bugs each individual bird

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Speaker 5: might eat over the course of, you know, several months.

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Speaker 5: So it's really something that's you know, throughout society that

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Speaker 5: people are thinking about birds in this way. And the

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Speaker 5: force behind this is a government bureau called the Bureau

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Speaker 5: of Biological Survey that was established in eighteen eighty five

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Speaker 5: to study this question to help farmers understand how they

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Speaker 5: should feel about birds and what the impact of birds

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Speaker 5: are or could be on their crops.

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Speaker 3: So, all right, this is already fascinating.

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Speaker 4: I didn't know that there was a Bureau of Biological Survey,

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Speaker 4: but that is really You mentioned children's problems about okay,

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Speaker 4: how many bugs or bird would eat. What are some

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Speaker 4: of the other ways when you talk about this language

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Speaker 4: of talking of birds and economic language, What do we

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Speaker 4: talk about?

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Speaker 3: What does it sound like?

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Speaker 4: How are they describing these birds?

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Speaker 5: Sure, so they're talking about birds as protecting crops from

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Speaker 5: destructive bugs. They're talking about hawks and eagles and owls

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Speaker 5: protecting crops from from mice and rats and other things

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Speaker 5: might eat grain or might destroy, might affect like the

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Speaker 5: orchards or things like that. And it's really looking at

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Speaker 5: birds at an individual level. So they're thinking about you know,

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Speaker 5: their main way that they study that they study birds

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Speaker 5: and their impact on crops is by cutting open their

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Speaker 5: stomachs and counting how many how many bugs of each

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Speaker 5: different species, how many little you know, broken up pieces

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Speaker 5: of bugs that they find in their stomachs, and comparing

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Speaker 5: that to how many seeds from from wheat that they

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Speaker 5: might find, how much you know, little pieces of apples

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Speaker 5: that they see in and comparing it and saying, what

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Speaker 5: are they doing that's helpful? How many destruct bugs are

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Speaker 5: they eating? How many harmful bugs are they eating compared

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Speaker 5: to how many helpful things to the farmer are they eating?

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Speaker 5: And where's the balance? Where does the balance lie help

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Speaker 5: Are they more helpful to the farmers or are they

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Speaker 5: more harmful.

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Speaker 2: So birds can be good or bad for crops. They

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Speaker 2: can eat your strawberries, and I speak from personal experience here,

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Speaker 2: but they can also eat the Japanese beetles on your

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Speaker 2: rose bushes. And again I'm speaking from personal experience, and

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Speaker 2: Japanese beetles are my arch enemy now. But anyway, how

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Speaker 2: do you come up with the net calculation for something

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Speaker 2: like that? And how precise can you get with that?

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Speaker 2: Can you get it all the way down to dollars

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Speaker 2: and cents? So you know, this robin is worth like

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Speaker 2: eight hundred and fifty three dollars to me in terms

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Speaker 2: of crop protection every year.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, and you know, the economic ornithologists of this periods

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Speaker 5: certainly tried and you look at the figures that they

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Speaker 5: put out, and it makes it seem very very precise.

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Speaker 5: And so a calculation might be okay, So a mouse

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Speaker 5: might eat two cents of grain over the course of

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Speaker 5: a year, and a single hawk, based on finding you know,

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Speaker 5: how many mice that they find in a dissected hawk's stomach,

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Speaker 5: a single hawk might eat a thousand mice over the

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Speaker 5: course of a year. So you know, you do that

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Speaker 5: arithmetic and you see that this hawk saves a farmer

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Speaker 5: twenty dollars worth of grain. Of course, the same hawk

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Speaker 5: might also eat six chickens over the course of a year,

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Speaker 5: and each chicken might be worth fifty cents to a farmer.

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Speaker 5: So you know, it does twenty dollars worth of benefit

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Speaker 5: to the farmer and three dollars worth of harm. So

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Speaker 5: this hawk, according to these economic ornithologists, they would tell farmers,

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Speaker 5: this hawk is worth seventeen dollars to you. So, and

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Speaker 5: the reason that they were sharing this information is to

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Speaker 5: try to affect farmer's behaviors. They're trying to get far

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Speaker 5: or farmers to stop killing these these hawks. So they

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Speaker 5: would tell a farmer, you know, you might save yourself

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Speaker 5: three dollars by by killing this hawk that occasionally eats

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Speaker 5: your chickens, but you're actually costing yourself twenty dollars by,

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Speaker 5: you know, in lost grain.

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Speaker 3: So is the basically.

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Speaker 4: A hawk eating a chicken is a very visible thing.

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Speaker 4: The hawkyat my chicken, You don't, I mean, it is

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Speaker 4: just sort of like almost the count one on one

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Speaker 4: the scene, the underseening a little bit, but it's like

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Speaker 4: what they probably the hawk eating the mouse, which would

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Speaker 4: is a grain is just not something that would be

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Speaker 4: as front of mine.

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Speaker 5: For those yep, exactly. And so you know, this bureau

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Speaker 5: that was established in eighteen eighty five is looking at,

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Speaker 5: you know, all of these birds that have these reputations

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Speaker 5: as pests, crows that you will eat your corn, robins

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Speaker 5: that will pack at your apples, and that farmers had

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Speaker 5: traditionally killed. And they were trying to act as almost

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Speaker 5: like judges on behalf of these birds and look at

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Speaker 5: all of them and say, okay, for each of these

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Speaker 5: birds that farmers complain about, are these birds actually more

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Speaker 5: helpful or harmful? And in almost every case they came

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Speaker 5: back and said, you know, even these birds that like

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Speaker 5: a crow, that people have traditionally thought of as pests,

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Speaker 5: they actually do they actually have a net positive impact

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Speaker 5: on agriculture by eating harmful bugs, by eating mice, you know,

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Speaker 5: and that impact is greater than the harm that they

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Speaker 5: caused by you know, opening up the occasional ear of corn.

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Speaker 2: So you touched on this earlier, the idea of you know,

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Speaker 2: kids in school rooms maybe trying to do these calculations.

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Speaker 2: But talk to us a little bit more about how

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Speaker 2: wide spread this knowledge was. So if I was a

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Speaker 2: farmer in Iowa in the early nineteen hundreds, and I was,

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Speaker 2: you know, sat on my front porch watching sparrows eat

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Speaker 2: my grain.

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Speaker 5: Would I be.

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Speaker 2: Sat there thinking like, it's okay. They're also eating like

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Speaker 2: some weed seeds and some harmful bugs, so that's all good.

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Speaker 2: Like how much was this embedded in the popular consciousness

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Speaker 2: at the time.

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Speaker 5: You know, at the end of the eighteen hundreds, I

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Speaker 5: would say not very much. Again, there was this tradition,

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Speaker 5: I mean, there were a lot of states, for example,

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Speaker 5: that offered bounties for crows, for sparrows, for birds that

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Speaker 5: were perceived as harmful. So states would pay farmers to

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Speaker 5: kill crows. That sometimes pay farmers to kill hawks. So

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Speaker 5: you know, it was pretty it was pretty well accepted

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Speaker 5: that there were some birds that were harmful for crops

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Speaker 5: and it was better for everyone if we killed them.

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Speaker 5: As this bureau went, you know, over time, pushing out

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Speaker 5: information about the positive impact that birds had on agriculture,

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Speaker 5: and it became much more accepted and much more popular

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Speaker 5: to think of birds as helpful to agriculture. You know,

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Speaker 5: you saw the end of these bounty laws. You saw

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Speaker 5: these publications that I referenced in the Saturday Evening post

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Speaker 5: and in, you know, just like popular magazines talking about

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Speaker 5: the importance of birds. You also had publications in some

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Speaker 5: thing called the Farmers Bulletin that went out to farmers

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Speaker 5: that they could read, you know, to learn about how

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Speaker 5: how to improve their their crop yields. And you know,

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Speaker 5: alongside articles about you know, best practices with like planting

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Speaker 5: and tilling, you had these these articles about building bird

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Speaker 5: houses to attract certain kinds of birds.

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Speaker 3: Something about economics.

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Speaker 4: The phenomenon is economists sometimes arrive at conclusions about things

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Speaker 4: that feel intuitively wrong. In fact, often economists love that

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Speaker 4: about themselves, like you think this is good for the economy,

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Speaker 4: but actually you're really a harmy. You know, this is

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Speaker 4: like they sort of and I have to wonder, so

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Speaker 4: like I'm re looking at your substack, and there's this

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Speaker 4: picture of economic ornithologists and they seem to be wearing

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Speaker 4: three piece suits and these like very fancy silk ties

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Speaker 4: in the photo, and I wonder if, like the farmers

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Speaker 4: out in the middle of the country, you know, they

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Speaker 4: have these notions like how this bird's good.

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Speaker 2: They're like grumbling about the economists in their white towers.

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Speaker 4: And then the economists that there are three peace suits

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Speaker 4: are like, well, actually, this bird.

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Speaker 3: Is good for you.

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Speaker 4: And I'm curious if there's like a sort of you know,

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Speaker 4: today people don't like hearing from economists often because economists

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Speaker 4: say this is actually good for you, and you thought

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Speaker 4: it was bad. Like, look, I know, I don't need

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Speaker 4: to listen to you. I know it's good man. I'm

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Speaker 4: curious if that sort of culture clash was evident even

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Speaker 4: back then, if like these economists from the bureau came

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Speaker 4: trying to tell farmers what they should and shouldn't kill totally.

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Speaker 5: And you know, I haven't seen instances where there was

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Speaker 5: like actually that conflict, but in a lot of cases

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Speaker 5: they were fighting an uphill battle. I think there were

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Speaker 5: certainly a lot of farmers that adopted some of these practices,

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Speaker 5: and you saw like a decrease in the number of

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Speaker 5: hawks that were killed. But at the same time, like

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Speaker 5: while most birds received federal protection in nineteen eighteen, some

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Speaker 5: hawks and some owls didn't receive the same level of

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Speaker 5: production until the seventies. Throughout this entire time, there were

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Speaker 5: still a lot of farmers that would keep killing the

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Speaker 5: birds that they saw eating eating their crops. And you know,

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Speaker 5: some of this tension still exists today, Like there's still

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Speaker 5: a lot of birds that are considered by farmers and

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Speaker 5: by like the Department of Agriculture. They're still considered past.

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Speaker 5: This idea that birds can be harmful to crops and

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Speaker 5: are sometimes harmful to crops has not completely disappeared.

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Speaker 2: So on that note, I know the book you're working

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Speaker 2: on is primarily focused on the relationship between birds and

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Speaker 2: people in America, but maybe it might be helpful to

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Speaker 2: contrast it with the most famous example of people getting

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Speaker 2: the economic value of birds wrong, which is what happened

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Speaker 2: in China under the four Pess campaign, where people were

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Speaker 2: encouraged to go out and kill a bunch of different

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Speaker 2: pests sparrows included, and then it backfired horribly and you

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Speaker 2: got a bunch more insects I think it was mostly locusts,

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Speaker 2: and then a lot fewer crops and then a great

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Speaker 2: famine in the late fifties early sixties. But I think

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Speaker 2: when people think about the economic or agricultural value of birds,

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Speaker 2: that's probably one of the prime examples that springs to mind.

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Speaker 5: Sure, and I think we haven't seen something like that

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Speaker 5: in the United States in recent years. So I would

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Speaker 5: say that as an so much top of mind, But

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Speaker 5: you can look at more recent research that's come out

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Speaker 5: about the impact of birds on crops, and you know,

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Speaker 5: we can maybe talk in a moment about kind of

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Speaker 5: some of the methodological limitations of these these progressive era

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Speaker 5: economic ornithologists. But more recent research that you know, makes

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Speaker 5: use of things like randomized control trials and take some

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Speaker 5: more ecological approach has shown pretty convincingly that birds have

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Speaker 5: a very positive impact on agriculture. And you know that

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Speaker 5: when you have insectivorous birds hanging around your orchard, yields

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Speaker 5: for apples and for orchard crops improved. The same thing

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Speaker 5: is true for field crops when you have birds that

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Speaker 5: eat bugs like you do see improvements in your yields.

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Speaker 5: But this is something that you know, these economic ornithologists

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Speaker 5: weren't able to show as well with the methods that

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Speaker 5: they use back in the twenties and thirties.

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Speaker 2: So you mentioned in your piece that economic ornithology sort

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Speaker 2: of fell out a favor in I guess it's traditional sense,

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Speaker 2: and part of the reason was because of the use

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Speaker 2: of pesticides. So if you're spraying all your crops for bugs,

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Speaker 2: you don't really need as many birds to eat those bugs,

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Speaker 2: and so their usefulness kind of declines. Talk to us

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Speaker 2: about that transition, and then again coming back up to

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Speaker 2: speed to modern day, like, what evidence do we have

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Speaker 2: of the usefulness of birds in modern agriculture? Now?

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Speaker 3: Sure? Right?

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Speaker 5: So, there were a handful of reasons why economic ornithology

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Speaker 5: disappeared in the nineteen thirties and the nineteen forties, And

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Speaker 5: as you mentioned, a big one is that with the

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Speaker 5: rise of effective and affordable pesticides and insecticides, farmers had

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Speaker 5: much more control over the pest in their field. Before

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Speaker 5: you had these pesticides, birds were kind of the best

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Speaker 5: option that farmers had, and they know they had to

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Speaker 5: rely on these these almost natural methods of pest control.

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Speaker 5: But that wasn't the only reason that this field kind

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Speaker 5: of disappeared. There were also some pretty significant methodological limitations.

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Speaker 5: So first of all, it was not much of an

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Speaker 5: apply science. They could show how many harmful bugs an

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Speaker 5: individual bird might eat, but they didn't have reliable methods

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Speaker 5: to show that if you do if you build a

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Speaker 5: bird house, you know you'll be able to expect a

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Speaker 5: ten percent increase in yields on certain crops, or if

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Speaker 5: you plant certain types of shrubs to attract birds that

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Speaker 5: you'll have you'll be able to see specific impacts on

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Speaker 5: your crop yields. The second limitation is that they weren't

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Speaker 5: really taking an ecological approach. They were looking at individual

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Speaker 5: birds and how many bugs they might eat, and they

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Speaker 5: were comparing kind of two facts that seem that seem intuitive.

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Speaker 5: On one hand, you know, in the nineteen twenties there

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Speaker 5: were every year bugs destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars

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Speaker 5: of crops, and economists estimate that between ten and twenty

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Speaker 5: percent of crop yields every year were destroyed by insects.

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Speaker 5: On the other hand, you have data on these birds

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Speaker 5: that you know, one single bird every day might eat

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Speaker 5: twelve hundred cinch bugs, for example, and these are major

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Speaker 5: for crops. And so you compare those things and you say, well, intuitively,

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Speaker 5: more birds eating more bugs would mean that crop yields

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Speaker 5: would improve. There is data now showing that that birds

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Speaker 5: do actually keep passed under control. But at the time

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Speaker 5: these economists weren't able to show that relationship. They weren't

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Speaker 5: able to show that, like baseline level of bugs would

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Speaker 5: decrease when you had more more birds. There were other

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Speaker 5: there were critics. A lot of them were entomologists studying

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Speaker 5: studying bugs that said, like, you know, if a bird

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Speaker 5: is hanging around on your farm, you can actually prove

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Speaker 5: that the bird is eating bugs on the farm. You know,

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Speaker 5: they observe birds, birds flying over to the river to

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Speaker 5: eat bugs and coming back, and the ornithologists would would

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Speaker 5: you know, shoot this bird and dissected stomach and say, okay,

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Speaker 5: it's eating all of these bugs. But they're not actually

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Speaker 5: bugs that are preying on crops, so they they weren't

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Speaker 5: able to establish that relationship at an end, at the

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Speaker 5: individual the level of individual birds and bugs.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, So I have a neighbor who is a

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Speaker 2: reasonably famous ornithologist actually, and the way he explained it

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Speaker 2: to me was that when pests have population outbreaks, so

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Speaker 2: if there's a big infestation of locusts or something, birds

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Speaker 2: can't actually respond fast enough to really affect the numbers,

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Speaker 2: but during non outbreak years they can, so they decrease

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Speaker 2: the baseline as you'd mentioned.

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Speaker 5: Yep, that's totally correct. So, and there's been a lot

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Speaker 5: of recent research showing that birds do actually keep bug

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Speaker 5: populations in check and they keep them at a manageable level,

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Speaker 5: so they prevent these these massive outbreaks of bugs that

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Speaker 5: are what is really really destructive to farmer's crops.

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Speaker 4: Something I'm interested in here is thinking about the timelines

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Speaker 4: the late eighteen hundreds. Can you situate a little bit further,

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Speaker 4: like how bird or economic ornithology and this idea of well,

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Speaker 4: let's let's study this by counting. Let's just look, we're

401
00:20:47,880 --> 00:20:50,520
Speaker 4: gonna get a we're gonna have an eagle, We're gonna

402
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Speaker 4: you know, dissect it. We're gonna count the number of

403
00:20:52,840 --> 00:20:55,280
Speaker 4: mice eight over its lifetimes. Of how based on what

404
00:20:55,359 --> 00:20:58,040
Speaker 4: it's in there, like how it fit into sort of

405
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Speaker 4: broader philosophies of government and management, because you know, there

406
00:21:01,960 --> 00:21:03,960
Speaker 4: were a lot of things also going around that time,

407
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Speaker 4: and obviously there's the rise of like Henry Ford and

408
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Speaker 4: new ideas about managing a factory floor, and so it

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Speaker 4: seemed to be, you know, an era of counting things

410
00:21:12,800 --> 00:21:15,919
Speaker 4: and trying to apply scientific methods to things that maybe

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Speaker 4: prior to that people just had intuitions for. Can you

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Speaker 4: talk a little bit more about the sort of like

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Speaker 4: the ideological era in which this field emerge.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.

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Speaker 5: So I might mention what kind of came before the

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Speaker 5: attitudes that came before economic ornithology, and during that time

417
00:21:31,440 --> 00:21:34,600
Speaker 5: or before before this bureau developed, So, you know, and

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Speaker 5: you read about this and attitudes, and as back as

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Speaker 5: far back as the eighteen forties eighteen fifties, people had

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Speaker 5: this idea that either through divine design or through providence,

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Speaker 5: all of nature kind of existed in this balance where

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Speaker 5: you know, bugs kept plant populations in check, birds kept

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Speaker 5: bug populations in check, other predators kept bird populations in check.

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Speaker 5: And when nature was in this like state of batalance,

425
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Speaker 5: you wouldn't have these massive infestations of bugs. You know,

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Speaker 5: things would would be stable. But with kind of the

427
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Speaker 5: settlement of the country and and you know, clearing forests

428
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Speaker 5: to make fields, humans had thrown off this balance and

429
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Speaker 5: birds were the only force keeping bug populations in check.

430
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Speaker 5: And so you have this scientific field of economic ornithology

431
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Speaker 5: that develops in the eighteen eighties. It's not contesting these

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Speaker 5: these previous ideas. Instead, it's it's using these kind of

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Speaker 5: like modern statistical scientific methods to kind of demonstrate that

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Speaker 5: they're they're correct.

435
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Speaker 2: So I think there's a tendency when we read about

436
00:22:56,040 --> 00:22:58,760
Speaker 2: economic ornithology to think that, you know, This is something

437
00:22:58,800 --> 00:23:03,520
Speaker 2: that was popular in the late eighteen hundreds early nineteen hundreds.

438
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Speaker 2: It's kind of fallen out of favor for the reasons

439
00:23:05,600 --> 00:23:08,800
Speaker 2: we've discussed, but in some ways you do see a

440
00:23:08,920 --> 00:23:14,120
Speaker 2: revival of the more generalist concept of attaching economic value

441
00:23:14,320 --> 00:23:19,960
Speaker 2: to animals in modern day conservation. And shout out to

442
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:24,560
Speaker 2: another podcast here, but Radio Lab did a fantastic episode

443
00:23:24,640 --> 00:23:26,359
Speaker 2: on this where they talked about I think it was

444
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:29,560
Speaker 2: back in like twenty fourteen or something there was a

445
00:23:29,640 --> 00:23:32,480
Speaker 2: hunter that paid three hundred and fifty thousand dollars to

446
00:23:32,520 --> 00:23:35,280
Speaker 2: go to Namibia and shoot a lion, and there was

447
00:23:35,320 --> 00:23:38,639
Speaker 2: a huge uproar about whether or not that should be allowed.

448
00:23:38,840 --> 00:23:42,800
Speaker 2: But one of the arguments for allowing that kind of

449
00:23:43,040 --> 00:23:46,040
Speaker 2: sport of hunting where people can pay to go kill

450
00:23:46,119 --> 00:23:49,919
Speaker 2: animals as well, if you can put an actual monetary

451
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:53,879
Speaker 2: amount on the life of this particular animal, then it

452
00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:57,680
Speaker 2: gives people incentive to protect it. So there is still

453
00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:01,320
Speaker 2: like an element of that theme run through some modern

454
00:24:01,359 --> 00:24:03,280
Speaker 2: day conservation work. It feels.

455
00:24:05,119 --> 00:24:07,600
Speaker 5: Right, And I think that's a really interesting question, and

456
00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:09,480
Speaker 5: it's it's not an easy one. I think there's a

457
00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 5: lot of debate among conservationists about you know, whether this

458
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:17,160
Speaker 5: is appropriate, whether this is more helpful than it is harmful.

459
00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:19,960
Speaker 5: I think that there's a lot of different ways of

460
00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:23,680
Speaker 5: trying to assign value to wildlife. I mean, I think

461
00:24:23,760 --> 00:24:26,600
Speaker 5: the way that you mentioned, where there's a specific price

462
00:24:26,760 --> 00:24:29,240
Speaker 5: placed on, you know, the head of an individual animal,

463
00:24:29,359 --> 00:24:31,720
Speaker 5: is one way. And I think it's interesting that that's

464
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:34,960
Speaker 5: kind of related to almost consumption, Like you put a

465
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:36,919
Speaker 5: price on its head, and what that lets you do

466
00:24:37,440 --> 00:24:39,359
Speaker 5: is kill it, right, you kind of almost have this

467
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:41,439
Speaker 5: like ownership over this animal. But there's a lot of

468
00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:45,120
Speaker 5: other ways of kind of establishing value or pricing wildlife

469
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:47,280
Speaker 5: that the kind of you know, look at it from

470
00:24:47,320 --> 00:24:52,199
Speaker 5: a different different direction. So so one way that ecologists

471
00:24:52,359 --> 00:24:55,960
Speaker 5: assign value to wildlife is through something that they call

472
00:24:56,040 --> 00:24:59,160
Speaker 5: ecosystem services, and that's related to you know, it's kind

473
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:01,440
Speaker 5: of a similar line of things king as economic ornithology,

474
00:25:01,480 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 5: where it's like you look at all of the different

475
00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:08,119
Speaker 5: ways that animals and wildlife contribute value to humans. So

476
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:11,760
Speaker 5: sometimes it's through agriculture, sometimes it's through tourism and things

477
00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:14,800
Speaker 5: like birdwatching. Like I'm a big birdwatcher and I've spent

478
00:25:14,880 --> 00:25:17,119
Speaker 5: a lot of money in traveling to see birds and

479
00:25:17,359 --> 00:25:20,000
Speaker 5: you know, buying binoculars and things like that. So you know,

480
00:25:20,080 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 5: they wildlife in that way contributes to the economy. Another

481
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:26,399
Speaker 5: way that they've that some have suggested for putting a

482
00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:31,000
Speaker 5: value on wildlife is through something that they call existence value. Like,

483
00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:32,960
Speaker 5: you know, I've never seen a polar bear. I don't

484
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:35,399
Speaker 5: know if I ever will, but it's worth something to

485
00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:37,760
Speaker 5: me that to know that they exist. And you know,

486
00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:40,439
Speaker 5: so if it's worth fifty dollars say to all of

487
00:25:40,520 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 5: us to know that polar bears are out there, and

488
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:45,280
Speaker 5: to you know, to just like appreciate that, you know,

489
00:25:45,359 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 5: polar bears individually are as a species are worth quite

490
00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:49,879
Speaker 5: a bit to us. And I think your example of

491
00:25:49,960 --> 00:25:53,560
Speaker 5: Falco is really interesting. This individual bird, you know, is

492
00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:56,879
Speaker 5: worth was worth quite a bit to the city alive.

493
00:25:56,920 --> 00:25:58,080
Speaker 5: You know, there was a lot of a lot of

494
00:25:58,080 --> 00:26:00,400
Speaker 5: people went out and looked for it. People tryveled from

495
00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:03,719
Speaker 5: outside of the city to come find this famous owl.

496
00:26:03,840 --> 00:26:05,800
Speaker 5: There's a lot written about it, and so it brought

497
00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:08,840
Speaker 5: a lot of value, both kind of economic and you know,

498
00:26:09,080 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 5: sentimental to the city.

499
00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:14,040
Speaker 4: I was going to say that there were polar bears

500
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:16,040
Speaker 4: at the Central Park Zoo, but apparently not, and I

501
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:19,040
Speaker 4: guess the latter. There was one that was euthanized due

502
00:26:19,040 --> 00:26:22,479
Speaker 4: to an inoperable thyroid tumor at age twenty seven indoor

503
00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:26,240
Speaker 4: twenty thirteen. I feel like I saw a No, I

504
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:28,760
Speaker 4: feel like I gussed. I think I saw it Gus

505
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:31,680
Speaker 4: years ago. But anyway, I guess the polar Bear isn't there.

506
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:34,880
Speaker 4: So could you put a dollar value on? Have people

507
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:38,320
Speaker 4: made attempts to put a dollar value on Flocco the owl?

508
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:40,120
Speaker 5: None? None that I've seen.

509
00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:41,639
Speaker 3: Have you seen Andy Tracy?

510
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:44,840
Speaker 2: I haven't. I did look a little bit beforehand to

511
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:47,760
Speaker 2: see if I could see something like in terms of insurance.

512
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:50,560
Speaker 2: But I have a slightly different question if Flacco was

513
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:54,560
Speaker 2: worth if we could find a dollar amount for him

514
00:26:54,560 --> 00:26:57,240
Speaker 2: and say, like, well, he's worth a million dollars, Let's

515
00:26:57,240 --> 00:26:59,480
Speaker 2: say the insurance company says he's worth a million dollars,

516
00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:01,000
Speaker 2: would he still be alive today?

517
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:05,320
Speaker 5: I don't know that that would have protected Flaco from

518
00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 5: flying into a building. Well, this is.

519
00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:12,160
Speaker 2: Actually another debate within New York City, is like what

520
00:27:12,320 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 2: accommodation should be made so that birds are no longer

521
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:18,359
Speaker 2: flying into all these skyscrapers that we have.

522
00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:23,639
Speaker 5: Totally and I think that there are effective protections for birds.

523
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:26,280
Speaker 5: There's birds safe glass. You can put stickers on windows

524
00:27:26,280 --> 00:27:27,840
Speaker 5: to make sure that birds can see them and don't

525
00:27:27,840 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 5: fly into them. But all of this, you know, carries

526
00:27:30,280 --> 00:27:32,600
Speaker 5: a cost to the developer or to the city to

527
00:27:32,680 --> 00:27:36,000
Speaker 5: incentivize it, and you know, it has like a very

528
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:39,119
Speaker 5: real impact on the number of birds that are that

529
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:41,920
Speaker 5: are killed by flying into windows. There are around six

530
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:44,480
Speaker 5: hundred million birds that are killed every year by flying

531
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:49,080
Speaker 5: into windows. And talking about value to the value of birds,

532
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:51,760
Speaker 5: like this is a pretty significant value across the continent

533
00:27:51,800 --> 00:27:54,119
Speaker 5: to have these birds alive. It's hard to see that

534
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:55,520
Speaker 5: value if you know, you just like live in a

535
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:58,720
Speaker 5: house and one or two birds hits your window every year.

536
00:27:58,880 --> 00:28:02,840
Speaker 5: But thinking about birds as something that that like carries,

537
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:05,440
Speaker 5: you know, like an innate value that we can appreciate,

538
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:08,960
Speaker 5: but also like an economic value to our you know, agriculture,

539
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:11,000
Speaker 5: and kind of that shift in mentality I think can

540
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:13,800
Speaker 5: help individuals and help cities and help the country do

541
00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 5: things to protect birds.

542
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:18,240
Speaker 4: How concerned are you about the expansion of wind power

543
00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:20,200
Speaker 4: and how big of a deal is that.

544
00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 5: I think that's an interesting question. The number of birds

545
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:26,360
Speaker 5: that are killed every year by flying into wind towers,

546
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:28,879
Speaker 5: you know, is around one hundred and fifty thousand. The

547
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:31,440
Speaker 5: number of birds killed by flying into windows is six

548
00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:35,240
Speaker 5: hundred million. The number of birds killed by cats is

549
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:36,960
Speaker 5: about two point four billion.

550
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:40,520
Speaker 2: I was about to ask this question while staring.

551
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:43,240
Speaker 4: Wind is like hardly anything compared to these other no,

552
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 4: And I think it's a distraction.

553
00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:47,680
Speaker 2: Interesting, Okay, I was about to ask the cat question

554
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 2: while staring at our cat owning producers in the window.

555
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:54,320
Speaker 2: Should we get rid of all the outdoor cats to

556
00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 2: save the birds? Should we put in restrictions?

557
00:28:58,160 --> 00:29:02,920
Speaker 4: It's like very delightful sort of conversation, make angry half

558
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:06,520
Speaker 4: the population by one answer or another, turn into something controversial.

559
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:09,880
Speaker 5: It is a controversial question. It's been a controversial question

560
00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:12,360
Speaker 5: for more than one hundred years. I think if you

561
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 5: want to protect birds, you can't have cats outside. And

562
00:29:15,320 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 5: there's a lot of debates about the best way to

563
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 5: keep cats outside and eliminate outdoor cats. And you look

564
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:23,480
Speaker 5: at how people talked about this question again one hundred

565
00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:26,280
Speaker 5: years ago, when they were thinking of birds as protecting

566
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 5: our national security by ensuring our food supply, you know,

567
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:31,440
Speaker 5: they talked about it as a question of self preservation,

568
00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 5: you know, whether we keep cats or not because cats

569
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:37,440
Speaker 5: killed birds and birds protect our crops. As people said

570
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:39,280
Speaker 5: it one hundred years ago, it's a question of cat

571
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:40,720
Speaker 5: preservation or bird preservation.

572
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:42,440
Speaker 3: I still don't get there.

573
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:44,720
Speaker 4: Just fly kids can't fly.

574
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:48,160
Speaker 5: Well, there's a lot of birds, you know, a lot

575
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:50,840
Speaker 5: of the birds that cats kill. Our baby birds. Oh

576
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 5: you know, they climb up the tree, they raid the nest,

577
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 5: and they take out an entire bird family.

578
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:59,000
Speaker 2: Also, birds are I mean, some birds specifically are kind

579
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 2: of dumber than you would say. So my my thirteen year.

580
00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 3: Old cat birds for just flying flying away.

581
00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 2: My thirteen year old cat many many years ago, and

582
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:10,440
Speaker 2: he had like a whole bunch of health problems. He had,

583
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:13,240
Speaker 2: you know, hyperthyroidism and a heart murmur. He managed to

584
00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:16,280
Speaker 2: catch a turtle dove, which admittedly is one of the

585
00:30:16,360 --> 00:30:18,720
Speaker 2: dumbest birds in the world. They're the ones that, like,

586
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:20,640
Speaker 2: when you're driving down the street, they're in the middle

587
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:22,840
Speaker 2: of the road and they will not move until the

588
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 2: last second. But yeah, even that cat managed to catch

589
00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:30,200
Speaker 2: a bird once, all right. Robert Francis, author of the

590
00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:32,720
Speaker 2: bird history Substack, thank you so much for coming on.

591
00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:34,840
Speaker 5: Athos, Thank you so much for having me. It's been

592
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:48,800
Speaker 5: a pleasure, Joe.

593
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed that conversation. Have I Are you interested

594
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:52,720
Speaker 2: in birds?

595
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 4: Now?

596
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:55,520
Speaker 3: I am? I really enjoyed that. Am I interested in?

597
00:30:56,320 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 2: Do you want to come to my place and look

598
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:00,239
Speaker 2: at the birds? We saw a bald eagle in our

599
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:00,960
Speaker 2: garden the other day.

600
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:03,200
Speaker 4: I do like seeing rare birds, and so I would

601
00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:04,280
Speaker 4: like to see a bald egil.

602
00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:04,440
Speaker 1: No.

603
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:06,760
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed that conversation. You know what I was

604
00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:09,720
Speaker 3: thinking about, you know, the field that we discussed.

605
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:13,960
Speaker 4: It's pretty incredible that economic ornithology was a respective field.

606
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:17,840
Speaker 4: It almost feels like it should be called like ornithologic

607
00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:20,600
Speaker 4: accounting or something like that. I always sort of think that,

608
00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 4: like a counting is a more legitimate form of economics.

609
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 3: Than economics is.

610
00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:27,440
Speaker 4: And yeah, a little spicy take for you there, but

611
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:30,000
Speaker 4: it seems like there's a lot to be said for

612
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:33,640
Speaker 4: fields where the primary method is like we're just going

613
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:37,200
Speaker 4: to count things, and we're going to count the number

614
00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:39,640
Speaker 4: of birds. We're going to open up their stomachs, and

615
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:41,360
Speaker 4: we're going to count the number of mice, and we're

616
00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 4: going to count the number of grains that a typical

617
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:46,000
Speaker 4: mice eats, and then we're going to tally up the

618
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 4: cost on one side and tally up the cost on

619
00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:50,040
Speaker 4: the other side and see which is higher. Like, I

620
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:53,920
Speaker 4: find that to be a very interesting sort of like

621
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:54,959
Speaker 4: form of practice.

622
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:57,960
Speaker 2: I do also think that you can you can quipple

623
00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 2: with the methodology for some of the stuff and talk

624
00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 2: about whether economic ornithologists were over confident in the values

625
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:10,760
Speaker 2: that they were estimating. But it does help to focus

626
00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:16,280
Speaker 2: people's minds and attitudes on the benefits of wildlife when

627
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 2: you start actually attaching values to it. And I think

628
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:24,760
Speaker 2: we've seen instances of this over and over again, the

629
00:32:24,840 --> 00:32:28,360
Speaker 2: vultures in India being another one. There was a mass

630
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:31,240
Speaker 2: die out of vultures in India and that ended up

631
00:32:31,320 --> 00:32:34,800
Speaker 2: being extremely problematic and expensive, and before that people hadn't

632
00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 2: really thought about, well, what is the value of these vultures.

633
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 2: So I do think it's useful in that sense to

634
00:32:41,320 --> 00:32:44,720
Speaker 2: like sit and think through all these different connections in

635
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:47,520
Speaker 2: the ecosystem and the value you're deriving from it, whether

636
00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:52,160
Speaker 2: it's in actual farming and growing things, or as Robert

637
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:55,080
Speaker 2: was saying, just in the idea that you get to

638
00:32:55,200 --> 00:32:58,640
Speaker 2: enjoy the birds, you get to see Flacco flying high

639
00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 2: above the sky, although not anymore.

640
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:02,840
Speaker 3: Rip Flacco, Rip Flacco.

641
00:33:02,960 --> 00:33:06,280
Speaker 4: Indeed, you know, I'm also just interested in this sort

642
00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:11,520
Speaker 4: of US government history, and it is time when in

643
00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:14,240
Speaker 4: the eighteen hundreds and then all through the nineteen hundreds

644
00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 4: where a lot of government bureaus and divisions and divisions

645
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 4: of bureaus, et cetera, were about assisting this great process

646
00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:27,720
Speaker 4: of turning the West, turning the land, whether it's agricultural land,

647
00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:31,240
Speaker 4: into something useful. And so you end up with things

648
00:33:31,280 --> 00:33:34,480
Speaker 4: like the Division of Economic Ornithology to help farmers and

649
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:36,880
Speaker 4: various bureaus that did or you know, all the various

650
00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:41,040
Speaker 4: bureaus that helped build dams and build canals and turn

651
00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 4: the rivers into irrigation and things like that. It's interesting

652
00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:48,080
Speaker 4: to find all these little niches within the expansion of

653
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:52,520
Speaker 4: government that really were like providing these services, whether information

654
00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:56,720
Speaker 4: services or sort of infrastructure services to the people, sort

655
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:57,800
Speaker 4: of like figuring out how.

656
00:33:57,640 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 3: To use the land.

657
00:33:58,880 --> 00:34:01,200
Speaker 2: I like how you've come around to this, because it's

658
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:02,480
Speaker 2: basically industrial policy.

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Speaker 3: Yeah right, yes, you get it all right.

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Speaker 2: Shall we leave it there.

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Speaker 3: Let's leave it there.

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Speaker 2: This has been another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.

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Speaker 2: I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway

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Speaker 2: and I'm Joe Wisenthal.

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Speaker 4: You can follow me at the Stalwart. Follow our guest

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00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:21,239
Speaker 4: Robert Francis at urbfr NCS and check out his substack

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00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:25,279
Speaker 4: bird History. Follow our producers Carman Rodriguez at Kerman Arman

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00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:29,120
Speaker 4: dash Ol Bennett at Dashbot and kel Brooks at kel Brooks.

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Speaker 4: And thank you to our producer Moses One. For more

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Speaker 4: Oddlats content, go to Bloomberg dot com slash odd Lots,

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Speaker 4: where we have transcripts, a blog, and a newsletter. And

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Speaker 4: go check out the discord and chat with fellow listeners

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Speaker 4: twenty four to seven discord dot gg slash.

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Speaker 2: Odlines And if you enjoy odd Lots, if you like

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Speaker 2: it when we do natural history episodes like us, then

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Speaker 2: please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform.

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Speaker 2: And remember, if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can

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