0:03

Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production

0:05

of My Heart Radio.

0:12

Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

0:15

My name is Robert Lamb. Like

0:17

co host Joe, is still out on parental

0:19

leave, so today I'd like to

0:21

present a brand new interview episode.

0:24

Today's guest is Dr Joel Berger.

0:27

He's a senior scientist for the Wildlife

0:29

Conservation Society as well as a professor

0:32

at Colorado State University. He

0:34

has decades of experience exploring biological

0:37

diversity around the world and his author

0:39

of several books, including Extreme Conservation,

0:42

Life at the Edges of the World from

0:45

Most recently, he was an author on the paper

0:48

Species Conflict at Earth's Edges

0:51

Contests, Climate and

0:53

Coveted Resources, published last

0:55

month in the journal Frontiers and Ecology

0:57

and Evolution. So we'll be discussing

0:59

that's study its findings, as

1:01

well as some broader issues in bio

1:03

diversity and conservation. So

1:06

without further ado, let's jump right in. Hi,

1:10

Joel, Welcome to the show. Rob great to

1:12

be here, Thanks for inviting me in. You bet

1:15

so. For listeners who are not familiar with

1:17

you or your work, how did you

1:20

initially become interested in conservation

1:22

biology and where has your work taken

1:24

you over the decades. So I grew

1:26

up in l A. And that would not be

1:29

Louisiana, was the l A on the

1:31

west coast, and a lot

1:33

of people, a lot of chaos, and I found

1:36

some respite out in the deserts, in the mountains

1:39

hundred miles two hundred miles out.

1:41

So gradually, growing up, I spent more

1:43

time away from people, um,

1:47

and that always felt somewhat invigorating.

1:50

UM. And since then I've spent um

1:53

what I like to call different

1:55

edges of the planet. And so that

1:57

would be the highest latitudes where and

2:00

hit sea up in the Arctic, the lowest

2:02

of latitudes, which is down in the Patagonia

2:04

ice fields where we drop

2:07

almost to the well basically

2:10

to Antarctic. But I'm

2:12

on land in South America.

2:15

And then what's called the third pole

2:17

south north south. And

2:19

then what's referred to as the third pole

2:21

would be the mountains of Central

2:23

Asia which rise to twenty

2:26

nine thousand some feet. So why

2:28

are extreme environment so crucial

2:31

to these studies, especially so far as the impact

2:33

of climate change is concerned. So

2:36

we know that Earth's atmosphere is

2:38

warming, and certainly at

2:40

the edges of the planet is warming anywhere

2:43

from two to five times faster than

2:45

it is at the mid section. And so

2:47

when we think across the realm of environments,

2:50

if we want to gain some insights into

2:53

what's going on most

2:55

rapidly, it is these extreme

2:57

edge environments. And I tend

2:59

to focus on the unsunk

3:02

species mostly that occur in these

3:04

places. Not species like elephants

3:06

or rhinos, or lions or

3:08

tigers or even whales, but species

3:11

that don't have much advocacy for them.

3:13

Now, I know that the list of organisms

3:16

that you've you've studied over the years is pretty pretty

3:18

long. What are some examples of some of these these

3:20

creatures? So some of the ones

3:22

that might be slightly better known,

3:25

So I go from slightly better known to

3:27

those that are lesser known. Um

3:29

So muskoks would be one, and

3:31

they're um up in the Arctic,

3:34

and they're they used to roam with wooly

3:36

mammoth. Wooly mammoths didn't survive.

3:39

Muskoks have long hair that drape

3:41

to essentially to their feet

3:44

and helps to sustain them throughout

3:46

these long winters. So muskoks would be one

3:48

from the very north um

3:50

over in the Himalayan realm. You have a species

3:53

called talking which are Bhutan's

3:56

national mammal. They go up to seventeen

3:58

thousand feet. They have the

4:00

the remarkable distinction of being preyed

4:02

on by tigers at low elevation

4:04

at three or four thousand feet, and then up

4:07

high snow leopards can take some of

4:09

their young and attacks, so they have the

4:11

duality of a challenge tigers

4:13

and snow leopards. Um If

4:15

we drop down into the edges of the

4:17

far southern tips of Chile

4:20

and Argentina, the Chilean

4:22

national mammal are called why mole,

4:25

and it's the most endangered large

4:27

mammal in the Western hemisphere. Large

4:30

and they're a type of a deer, but

4:33

they have a mountain goat nits and so

4:35

they live in the shadows of glaciers, usually

4:37

cliffs and very rugged terrain. So

4:40

those are some examples. I've also

4:42

worked with black rhinos and the Nama

4:45

Desert. I've worked with cariboo

4:47

a little bit in the Arctic. I've

4:49

worked one of my students is working

4:52

with what are called large antler munchacks,

4:55

which is one of the most

4:57

recently discovered large mammals

5:00

in the nineteen nineties and the Animal Mountains

5:02

of Vietnam, and so a

5:04

number of these species don't have much

5:06

of a vocal backing. Another

5:09

one are called saiga, which occur in

5:11

Mongolia, Kazakhstan and

5:14

their populations um.

5:17

The ones in Mongolia are listed is an

5:19

endangered species. I've also worked with wild

5:21

yaks up on the Tibetan Plateau

5:24

at sixteen seventeen thousand feet.

5:26

So lots of these things are either threatened

5:29

or endangered, but many of them are

5:31

not known to the general public, whether we're

5:33

talking about the public and their host

5:35

countries or certainly and the

5:38

North American or US public. The

5:41

saiga is that is that the

5:43

one that has a very unique nose or snout.

5:45

Yeah that's great robbed Yeah. Yeah. Psychos

5:48

look like part camel, part

5:50

moose, and part antelope. And they're quite

5:52

fast and speedy, and yeah, they've got

5:54

these amazing probosis um

5:56

that just hang down on wobble. I

6:00

want to come to the study

6:03

here that I think we're

6:05

mostly going to be talking about here, species

6:07

conflict that Earth's edges, contest,

6:10

climate, and coveted resources.

6:12

This was published last month in the journal

6:15

Frontiers and ecology and evolution. Can

6:17

you introduce this to the

6:20

extreme environment that where

6:22

this takes place and the species

6:25

observed in the field work. So

6:27

amongst the iconic and

6:29

not so frequently seen large

6:33

mammals again in western

6:35

North America are mountain goats, which

6:37

are not even a goat. They're really goat

6:40

antelope, which are more related to the

6:42

real antelope that we have over

6:44

in Africa. But so those are mountain

6:47

goats, but they live on cliffs and very

6:49

steep terrain. They have white, long

6:51

fur and are cold adaptive

6:53

species. Also, the

6:56

additional or the other species in which

6:58

we were witnessing direct interact since

7:00

between the two were called big horn sheep.

7:02

Big horn sheep are like sheep, big

7:05

round, thick horns, and the males

7:07

smaller, little pointy horns,

7:10

and the females. And the

7:13

places where we were working on these stem

7:15

from Colorado. The

7:17

Colorado Rockies up to about fourteen

7:20

thousand feet along

7:22

about a fifteen hundred mile gradient

7:24

that puts us into Central Alberta

7:26

in Canada, areas

7:28

to the north of bamp and Jasper,

7:31

and those are a little bit lower elevation,

7:34

only at about we'll

7:37

just say, at a lower elevation across

7:39

the realm of where we were working on

7:42

these species. We focused mostly

7:44

on the population in Glacier National

7:47

Park, but we also worked at in

7:50

Alberta, also in

7:52

Colorado areas above

7:55

tree line is where we were doing our observations,

7:59

and this came about. I was working with

8:01

another biologist named Forest Hayes

8:03

and another one named Mark Beale. Forest

8:05

is at Colorado State University, giving credit

8:08

where credit is due. Mark Beale's

8:10

a biologist where the National Park Service

8:12

in Glacier and we

8:14

were looking for grizzly bears and using a

8:16

spotting scope and looking

8:20

above tree lined because you don't have trees

8:22

and so it's easier spot animals. And

8:24

we kept seeing these white dots, and

8:27

we were doing our observations from about

8:29

a mile mile and a half away looking

8:31

at white dots and those were mountain coats.

8:34

And at about the same time in two

8:36

thousand nineteen, we also

8:38

saw gray dots and these were big horn

8:41

sheet and one was moving

8:43

across the mountains from the left to

8:45

the right and the other one moving from the

8:47

right to the left, and it looks like a collision

8:50

path. And then they got to these

8:52

brown wet soil areas,

8:56

and that was when we thought this

8:58

is going to get interesting. I wonder what's going to

9:01

happen. Both these goats, the mountain

9:03

goats and the big horn sheep are approximately

9:05

similar in size, so we

9:07

didn't know what was going to happen. And so

9:10

as these animals were moving towards these

9:13

wet grayst spots, we

9:15

noted that the goats were eating soil

9:17

and the big horn sheep would approach, but if

9:19

a goat got aggressive, the sheep would move

9:22

off, and so we thought, oh, that's

9:24

interesting. We did that a little

9:26

bit that day. Forest Haze

9:29

and I, who were working together, molded

9:32

over and we decided the next day we were going to go back

9:35

up to these high alpine zones and

9:37

again look and we saw more sheet,

9:39

more goats. And this went on for a couple

9:41

of weeks across a couple of different

9:44

years, actually across three different years,

9:47

and in Glacier National Park.

9:49

It was becoming clear to us, in

9:51

part because we're both scientists and were

9:53

familiar with the literature and some climate change

9:56

underpinnings, and we knew that these

9:58

areas had been under snow when ice and

10:00

glaciated not that long ago.

10:03

In fact, Glacier National Park in the last

10:05

hundred years has lost about eight of

10:08

its glaciers. So this area

10:10

where we were watching sheep and goats, we

10:13

were speculating that these

10:15

animals were using areas that

10:17

had been well They had to have been under ice

10:19

and snow because glaciers were there and

10:22

precipitating out were minerals

10:25

and these would be salts, these would

10:27

be sodium, it would be potassium.

10:29

And the goats and sheep were interacting over

10:32

priority of access. And this

10:34

was These weren't bloody

10:36

encounters nature too thread

10:39

and claws tennis And had said over a hundred

10:41

and twenty years ago. But they were

10:43

displacements, and they were either passive

10:46

meaning an animal walks toward another and

10:48

they leave, where they were aggressive

10:50

active in which an animal was swinging

10:52

its head, lowering its horns,

10:55

or maybe doing some rush charges

10:57

at the other species. And

10:59

at the end of the day we had more

11:01

than about a hundred and twenty interactions,

11:04

about only seven or eight

11:07

I think it was seven in Colorado where

11:09

we saw them actively at

11:11

the same site at the same time,

11:14

about a hundred or so up in Glacier,

11:16

and then another almost twenty

11:19

in the Canadian site, and

11:22

what struck us was the consistency.

11:25

And what I mean by consistency

11:28

is this goats won something

11:30

like of the interactions,

11:33

the sheep just moved off. They didn't

11:35

want to deal with it. Goats have small, pointy

11:38

horns. But it may be that the goats

11:40

just don't give good signals.

11:42

They just escalate real fast, and

11:45

the sheep wanted no part of it. Because

11:47

the big horn sheep. If if

11:49

my childhood memories of watching um

11:52

nature documentaries are correct,

11:54

I mean they're they're pretty fierce looking when you see

11:56

them engaging with each other in

11:58

combat. So I imagine

12:01

it would be easy for at least those of

12:03

us who are not experts in this, to assume that they could

12:06

more than hold their own against a mountain

12:08

goat. The sheep rear up. They have these

12:10

club like horns, I mean almost

12:13

like big thick hammers, you

12:15

know, the size of one's chest, maybe

12:17

half the size of one's cheffed. Don't want to be

12:19

exaggerating here, but they rear

12:22

up and then they charged, sometimes reaching

12:24

twenty to thirty miles an hour, and

12:26

they slam into each other's horns,

12:29

and then they reverberate and so we

12:31

were expecting, you know, given that they're

12:33

about the same size, well, if everything

12:35

else is equal, about half the interactions,

12:38

we expect the sheep to win, half

12:40

the goats to win. People who

12:42

know something about domestic goats, they

12:44

just laughed at us and said, what's wrong with

12:46

you? Guys? We

12:49

knew that. And I'm thinking to myself

12:51

and actually saying, well, you know, I've spent

12:53

three decades looking at these animals

12:55

and these extreme environments, including sheep

12:58

and goats, and I didn't know it. And maybe

13:01

scientists are not always the

13:03

prescient ones in this, but our

13:05

data were very very clear because

13:07

lots of times there's nuanced, lots of times

13:10

there's some counterintuitive results,

13:12

and we didn't expect this to happen so

13:14

consistently, and it did across the three

13:16

sites. Now, first of all, are

13:19

are both the big horn sheep in the

13:21

mountain goats in these scenarios and these

13:23

encounters? Are they both native to the regions

13:26

or or or is there an invasive

13:29

layer to this? Yeah? Real good

13:32

question, rob Um.

13:34

So big horns are native

13:36

from essentially

13:39

parts of north central Canada

13:41

or central British Columbia

13:44

all the way down into the deserts of Mexico.

13:47

So they have a very catholic range,

13:49

meaning that a wide range of tolerance

13:52

that they can occur in deserts, they can occur

13:54

in mountains, they can occur in alpine

13:57

zones. Mountain coats, on the other hand,

13:59

are elusively a cold adapted

14:01

species, and so when

14:04

Lewis and Clark first arrived here, we'll

14:06

put it this way, their native ranges

14:08

would have been from central

14:10

Idaho, Montana,

14:13

Washington all the way up into

14:15

Alaska and the Yukon in a small

14:18

part of the Northwest territories. So

14:20

cold adapted they occur in some

14:22

of the coastal ranges of Washington

14:25

UM and certainly

14:27

in Alaska UM.

14:29

But since different Fish

14:32

and Game agency states in the US

14:34

have introduced goats into places

14:36

like Oregon, where it maybe it's a little controversial

14:39

because there's some arguments that they were once native

14:41

there, But we know that they've

14:43

been introduced into Utah, introduced

14:45

into Nevada, introduced into South Dakota,

14:48

and introduced into Colorado

14:51

and Wyoming. And that's

14:53

where some of this gets interesting, because

14:56

different parks manage exotic species

14:59

differently. The Tetons, for instance,

15:01

Institute of the program where they would

15:04

remove the shape of the goats which

15:06

are introduced or an exotic

15:09

species in the Tetons, and so

15:11

they were removed by harvest by

15:13

shooting in the Yellowstone

15:15

area. Goats are not abundant

15:18

in Yellowstone Park, but they're more abundant

15:21

in the Yellowstone ecosystem,

15:23

and the Park Service Yellowstone in particular

15:26

has a different strategy than the Tetons,

15:28

and it's more lazy, fair, just letting

15:31

things go until they perhaps know more

15:33

about it. Olympic National Park

15:35

over in western Washington,

15:38

goats were introduced there in

15:40

the twenties and they've

15:42

been removed mostly by helicopter

15:44

removal, so not lethal

15:46

means, but non lethal

15:49

means. Now, what are the what were the reasons

15:51

for introducing the mountain goats

15:53

to these areas. Goats were introduced

15:56

by fish and Game departments for

15:58

harvest, so like in South with Dakota in the

16:00

nineteen twenties, they were introduced into the

16:02

Black Hills. I don't remember the years

16:05

at which they were introduced into Nevada.

16:07

They were introduced into Colorado in the

16:09

late forties. UM

16:12

today with a focus also

16:15

on bio diversity in addition

16:18

to big game, there would probably

16:20

be more studies done

16:22

about potential impacts of introducing

16:25

these large mammals. For instance,

16:27

moose have been introduced into Colorado

16:30

in the early in mid seventies,

16:32

it may have been the late seventies. And

16:35

moose, of course are riperian dependent

16:37

species, and so they affect willows, they

16:39

affect cotton woods, and they affect

16:43

neotropical migrant birds. But

16:45

when these initial introductions

16:47

occurred, both for mountain goats, for moose

16:50

and some other species, there was

16:52

far less attention on biological

16:54

diversity and more is providing

16:56

a resource for people, either

16:59

for a trophy, animal

17:02

management, for bringing some trophies home, or

17:04

for meat meat on the table. So

17:13

in this scenario again we have we

17:15

have mountain goats, big horn sheep and the

17:17

mountain goats are essentially

17:20

out competing for the same resource.

17:23

And you mentioned that the goat farmers

17:25

and people familiar with with with goats lived

17:27

with goats were not surprised that

17:29

the goats were winning out here, and and

17:31

a certain certainly brings to mind examples

17:33

of invasive or

17:36

fairal domestic goats taking over

17:38

various areas and thinking specifically of like the Galapagos

17:40

islands. Is it? What is

17:42

it do you think about? Or what is

17:45

known about like the the sort

17:47

of nature of the goat, Like what is it about

17:49

the goats? Um

17:52

Either it's morphology or it's like tenacity,

17:55

like what why does it? Why does

17:57

it win out? Why does it seem to win out in these instances?

18:00

Provocative question um so.

18:03

One idea goes as following um

18:06

so, and I'm going to focus on again

18:08

big horn sheep and mountain coats. I'm talking about

18:10

native species and not stepping

18:12

aside because maybe we'll return to feral

18:15

species or so. Big

18:17

horn sheep have an array of

18:19

ways at which they communicate, and they're

18:21

very visual, so they have a

18:23

very diverse behavioral

18:26

repertoire as to how they interact.

18:29

Um. Goats are part of a more primitive

18:32

lineage and their ancestral

18:34

origins are over into Central

18:37

Asia as our sheep origins,

18:39

and then further over into the

18:42

Mediterranean amidiest But

18:44

the goat lineage and the mountain goat lineage

18:47

in particular, the species that are ancestral,

18:50

they don't have a lot of behavioral diversity.

18:53

They don't have a lot of signals um

18:55

and so they escalate very fast, and

18:57

the escalations are with their horns

19:00

either a thrust headlow

19:03

rush, and I'm

19:05

not sure, and people haven't looked

19:07

at this, and so this is either

19:09

wild hypothesis telling to

19:11

fit with stuff to blow your mind, or

19:14

it's um

19:16

maybe some speculate, well, it is some speculations

19:19

on my part, but without the

19:21

potential for signaling and recognizing

19:23

other signals. What we see

19:26

is that the goats escalate

19:28

fast, the sheep want no part of it. And

19:31

I want to point out that these are for what

19:34

we refer to as a biotic resources,

19:37

those not of a biological nature.

19:39

So when we talk about the

19:41

competition and the

19:43

behavioral or social interactions

19:46

between bighorn sheep

19:48

and between with mountain goats, what

19:50

we see is that the species

19:52

are clumped around those dirt

19:55

patches that I talked about the moist soil,

19:58

and this is again

20:01

referred to as a mineral lick, and these are

20:03

very patchy and distributions, sometimes

20:05

they may be ten or more miles apart. So

20:07

the animals go to great length to access

20:10

these, and the goats just having

20:12

a more aggressive nature, they don't mess

20:14

around, and the sheep have somehow figured

20:17

that out and they back off. So I know

20:19

this. This probably brings to mind salt licks

20:21

and and so forth with some of our our listeners,

20:24

but for many others we might

20:26

might be a surprise to hear about

20:28

this conflict over things that are are not food,

20:31

that are not a biological

20:34

resource. So, how how

20:36

rare is this in general a biotic

20:38

resources being feuded over by

20:41

organisms? However rare is it

20:43

in human observation? And how rare do we think this sort

20:45

of thing is in the wild? So um

20:48

our paper which you did refer to, and

20:50

thanks for referring to that, we focused

20:52

on for a biotic resources,

20:55

which will describe in a moment. Actually

20:57

i'll describe them now. We focused

20:59

on shade because if

21:02

one's ever watched a dog or a cat,

21:04

or a horse or a cow or

21:06

a domestic goat, it's getting

21:08

warm, the earth is warming up. Shades

21:11

an important way to try

21:13

to adjust one's thermal abilities

21:16

to regulate um So shade was

21:18

one snow patches, which

21:20

are disappearing at a more rapid rate at

21:22

high elevation. Is the second one mineral

21:25

licks or a third one. And

21:27

at the outset when I had mentioned

21:29

we were working at the extreme edges of the

21:31

planet you think about deserts.

21:33

So the fourth a biotic resource

21:36

our water holes springs

21:38

in the desert, which of course are important

21:40

because many species need

21:43

water, not all. So are four

21:45

a biotic resources. We selected

21:47

because they're discreet and we

21:49

could measure them. When is shade available?

21:52

Are there no shade trees? If there are shade

21:54

trees, can we observe

21:56

interactions between different species

21:58

for access in shade? Do larger

22:01

species when same for water

22:03

in the deserts? You know, we have I mentioned

22:06

and you mentioned rob domestic

22:09

goats getting loose, becoming feral, and

22:11

we have certainly in the American West thousands

22:14

and thousands of feral horses and ferreal

22:16

burrows, and there are

22:19

feral pigs, and so our

22:21

interest was trying to understand the nature

22:23

of interactions for these very limited

22:25

resources, what we're calling coveted

22:28

resources, so mineral licks at

22:30

high elevation, UH water

22:32

and deserts shade. We

22:35

were able to observe a few interactions,

22:37

and those were mostly over the Kalahari Desert

22:40

in the Nama Desert where rhinos displaced

22:42

some antelopes. But we only saw

22:45

that those interactions very

22:47

few times. You had asked earlier,

22:50

how rare is this doing these kind of

22:52

observations. I think we got

22:54

lucky and at the outside I said, we were

22:56

looking for grizzly bears, and so there was a lot

22:58

of serendipity to what we are doing.

23:00

But science has a let of serendipity,

23:02

just like all of us as humans.

23:05

It's like which is the path we pick their

23:07

serendipity. Going back

23:09

though, to minerals at high elevation

23:12

and the conflicts that we were watching between

23:15

sheep and goats at some level,

23:17

as the climate is changing and warming,

23:20

we see parts of the Arctic where surface

23:22

the surface structures are being exposed

23:24

now because we no longer have ice

23:27

and perma frost, and so the

23:29

same kind of patterns that we're watching for sheep

23:31

and goats are not that different

23:34

perhaps than what we're seeing with the eight

23:36

countries that have access

23:38

to the Arctic Ocean and Arctic resources.

23:41

And we know Russia has over

23:43

the last ten years either reconstituted

23:47

or built new military basis in places

23:49

where that they didn't exist in the past,

23:51

or fortified those. China

23:54

now has a cruiser ice

23:57

breaker that they use in the Arctic, even

23:59

though they're not an arctic country, and

24:01

so thinking about mineral resources

24:04

and access and conflict. UM,

24:07

maybe there are some lessons that can be

24:09

learned from sheep and goats.

24:12

However, the good thing about the sheep and goats

24:14

is that they're not killing each other over

24:16

the stuff. I'm not sure I want to think

24:18

forward ahead of the next fifty years

24:20

what we might be doing with those resources

24:23

as humans. So do you think

24:25

that this, uh, this this scenario, this

24:27

conflict over the resources, like we can sort of

24:30

we can hold it up kind of a mirror to

24:33

human activities and and how

24:35

we fit into the into

24:38

the natural world and it's resources as well. So

24:40

I'm going to answer at two levels. I'm going

24:42

to point out first and foremost

24:45

that our observations were over

24:48

different species competing

24:50

for a limited resource, and

24:53

so that is referred to as

24:55

inter specific or differences

24:57

between species competing for

24:59

the um drawing in

25:01

the analogy for humans, we

25:03

have certainly different geographies

25:05

as humans. We live all over the world, we

25:08

have different cultures, we have different

25:10

belief systems, but we all have the

25:12

same fundamental needs. It's usually

25:14

security, it's food, it's mates,

25:17

it's shelter, and so as

25:19

we continue moving beyond

25:21

the eight billion that we're at now,

25:24

it's inevitable that we're going to end up

25:26

competing at some level for

25:29

some of the same resources. I mean, obviously,

25:32

even though I'm looking now within

25:34

species and not between the

25:36

same patterns, the same competitive

25:39

interactions at one level, whether

25:42

it be combat, whether it be bluff,

25:45

whether it be escalation

25:47

or de escalation, we see the same

25:49

things within species of other

25:52

non humans, or we also

25:54

see this between species. Fascinating.

25:57

Yeah, I know that some of the I saw some of

25:59

the coverage that came out about this study

26:01

was even referencing mad Max, saying that

26:03

this is like it's um, it's sheep

26:05

and goats, but but mad Max. Uh,

26:09

there's some pretty cool analogies in

26:12

this. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. People have had some

26:14

fun with it, and um,

26:16

I mean, we have enough challenges in the world having

26:18

some fun, even though I

26:20

believe I'm a serious scientist, actually

26:22

I know I'm a serious scientists. But being

26:24

able to laugh at oneself, being able

26:26

to you know, try to appreciate

26:29

the humor or the similarities or the differences,

26:32

I think it's a good way to go. Oh yes,

26:34

and if it draws somebody into to look

26:36

at a study that someone who might

26:38

not otherwise you know, be

26:41

interested in it, than all the better. Yeah,

26:43

just thinking about shade. If I can go a little

26:46

bit further, so, there have been studies

26:48

done in Africa of of both primates,

26:50

some chimpanzee, certainly elephants

26:53

using shades um to either

26:55

access minerals or sometimes for

26:58

cooling. And as are

27:00

as I know, and I could be wrong, I'm

27:02

wrong all the time, but as far as I know,

27:04

UM, we don't know if

27:07

in fact shade use in these caves

27:09

results in one species

27:12

being displaced by another. Um,

27:14

you know, maybe setting up some camera traps and

27:16

people are now starting to do that, we may have

27:18

some better, better insights

27:20

into those kind of interactions, but for the

27:22

time being, you know, for my

27:25

colleagues Mark and Forest Hayes and

27:27

I uh, it's been observational,

27:30

even though we use camera traps and other things

27:32

that we do. Yeah, it's it's this is this

27:34

is so fascinating and the whole all the details

27:36

to about like communication

27:39

between the sheep, communication between the goats,

27:41

and then this kind of communication breakdown

27:44

and there and then escalation and by

27:46

the goats because they are these

27:48

are not species that are

27:50

going to normally be in any kind of robust

27:52

communication with each other. Right, Yeah,

27:54

you know, I kind of think about it in the way

27:57

that UM maybe some of your

27:59

listeners will be able to think

28:02

about how cats and dogs

28:04

respond to each other. And sometimes,

28:06

you know, dogs will have a different I mean,

28:09

even within breeds of dogs, there are different kinds

28:11

of communication systems, and so

28:13

maybe a cat's not going to be reading a dog

28:16

and the dog has a certain intent or

28:18

vice versa. Sometimes the signals

28:20

are pretty clear. Sometimes they're not for

28:22

us with the sheep and the goats, maybe

28:24

not as clear than

28:32

now. In your long career documenting different

28:35

organisms and different environments around the

28:37

world, and we we we listed

28:39

some of them earlier. What sort of perspective

28:42

on the threats facing the natural

28:44

world have you been afforded? Like? What?

28:47

You know? What? What? What? What kind of vantage

28:49

point has it given you? So I've worked

28:51

both in UM places

28:54

that are very remote and then places

28:56

that are less remote. And

28:59

in the less remote places, the challenges

29:02

are mostly how we don't

29:04

destroy habitats or how we

29:07

maintain habitats, trying

29:09

to understand the extent to which restoring

29:12

species if they've been lost can

29:15

be a good idea, but the word

29:17

conservation means people,

29:19

and it means attitudes, and so

29:22

there's a lot that has to go on involving

29:25

people and our

29:28

ability to be tolerant

29:30

or to think that we're not the only species

29:33

on the planet that may be deserving opportunities

29:36

to live. And then in the remote

29:39

areas, the challenges are very different

29:41

their climate challenges. As we watch

29:43

the edges of the planet come come

29:46

under a lot of greater

29:48

variants with storms, well, just

29:50

like we see in Florida or the East Coast

29:53

or the West coast, we're certainly seeing

29:55

that at the edges of the raw edges

29:57

at the planet as well. We have

29:59

gas, we have mining, we have mineral

30:01

exploitation. A lot of that makes

30:03

some sense, um, but the question

30:06

really comes down to what do we want the future

30:08

to look like? What do we want ten years

30:10

from now? Can we project out twenty

30:12

or thirty years? And if we

30:14

can, how do we make that happen? Who

30:17

has to get on board? So,

30:19

thinking also about some of the challenges

30:21

and remote areas and certainly

30:25

areas beyond the US,

30:28

one of the remarkable problems

30:30

that people don't see very much

30:33

is that there are a lot of feral

30:36

animals out there, and I think

30:38

about across the globe, we have something

30:40

like seven hundred million dogs.

30:43

And I think about dogs free

30:46

roaming in places like the Tibetan

30:48

Plateau. I think about dogs

30:50

free roaming in the Gobi Desert and

30:53

impacts on endangered species.

30:55

I had mentioned waymole, which is the most

30:57

endangered large mammal in the western

31:00

Atmisphere down at the tips of Argentina

31:02

and Chile in the Andes. Free

31:05

Roman dogs, feral dogs, not native

31:08

causing lots and lots of issues and

31:10

problems. And there are a

31:12

lot of cultural differences based on

31:14

what societies were in and how we view things.

31:17

And so some countries choose a lassa

31:20

fair approach and won't touch

31:22

it, and other countries will

31:24

be pretty aggressive and say, let's

31:26

give some of these native species

31:28

a chance because they didn't evolve with dogs

31:31

of coursing predator, uh of

31:33

coursing feral predator. So

31:36

so, lots of issues out there in terms

31:38

of other kinds of challenges that are biological

31:40

challenges that still fall back in the conservation

31:43

realm. But would you say that we have we

31:45

have better tools at our disposal now to aid

31:48

in these conservation efforts. Is it more about

31:50

public will or or governmental

31:53

will? I think when we consider,

31:56

like the three major challenges

31:58

in the realm of natural resource, at

32:00

least I look at three. Climate change,

32:02

of course is a huge one. A

32:05

second one I will call biodiversity

32:07

crisis, because that goes to land

32:10

degradation, it goes to removing

32:13

chunks of the planet, it goes to our plastic

32:15

issues. But so I look

32:17

at climate change is one, I look

32:19

at bio diversity, and then

32:21

I look at will say,

32:23

one health, one world, one health with

32:26

disease. We think about COVID, we

32:28

think about ebola, We think about these

32:30

other challenges that emanate

32:32

from wild species or could from wild

32:35

species. But it's how we're treating the

32:37

planet. And so your question is

32:39

do we have new tools? We certainly

32:41

have much greater recognition of

32:44

of the issues. And

32:46

then, of course, as we all know as

32:49

citizens of the planet, the challenges

32:51

are how are we going to solve these? And you know,

32:53

where are we making progress? And we are making progress

32:56

and in certain places, so

32:58

where we're making some progress

33:01

is stunning. And I wouldn't have thought of this about

33:03

twenty years ago. But we're

33:06

rewild. In Europe. We've got

33:08

brown bears coming back into

33:10

places. We've got links

33:12

that are colonizing and being put back

33:14

into places. We've

33:17

got wolves that are into Germany.

33:19

We've got an area

33:21

the size of California that maybe

33:23

has a couple of packs of wolves. I'm not sure

33:26

Italy has over thirty five hundred wolves

33:28

with its sixty million people. UM,

33:31

so we can look into Europe. In this country,

33:34

blackfooted ferrets were extinct in

33:36

the wild. We've now got blackfooted

33:38

ferrets in a number of Western states

33:40

and as well as in Canada, as

33:42

well as in Mexico. Contours

33:45

were extinct in the wild. We've

33:47

now got condoors in northern

33:49

California and southern California. We've

33:51

got condoors in Mexico, contours in

33:53

Utah, condors in Arizona. UM,

33:57

we've got although

33:59

wolves are certainly polarized.

34:02

If you go back to the nineteen seventies,

34:04

the only wolves that we had were in the northern

34:07

Northern Woods. Now we've got wolves

34:10

in many of the Western states.

34:13

Grizzly bears are expanding

34:15

in Wyoming, expanding in Montana,

34:18

expanding in Idaho, in Washington,

34:21

and so you know, we can we can go with

34:23

birds, we can, you know, pick a wide

34:25

array of different species, and we're

34:28

looking at lots of successes and that's because

34:30

the people demand it. And that's one of the

34:32

nice things that we see. And for much

34:34

of this it's not even a partisan

34:36

issue. We've seen successes because

34:39

irrespective of political standing,

34:42

people want bio diversity,

34:44

they want healthy ecosystems, they want wildlife.

34:47

Now you're a There are several books that have come

34:49

out over the years, the most recent of which is Extreme

34:52

Conservation, Life at the Edges

34:54

of the World. Can you tell us a little bit about

34:56

this book? Sure? Um,

34:59

So Extreme Conservation hits

35:02

extreme environments and the species

35:05

that lived there, which must

35:07

subsist and so they have

35:09

to have special adaptations. So

35:11

this book works through thirty three

35:13

different expeditions that I did to different

35:15

parts of the world, and so not just one

35:17

or two, but also working with local

35:20

people, learning from local people,

35:23

listening to local people. And so, for

35:25

instance, we once worked

35:27

with this convicted felon who is a rhino

35:29

poacher and his sentence was

35:32

three years on a conservation project,

35:34

and so we learned from him

35:37

and subsequently we brought him to the US

35:39

to learn from US, and he exported

35:42

and he's now back in Namibia and

35:44

he's leading an NGO non government

35:46

organization. We worked with a fellow

35:48

named Freddie Goodhope Jr. He

35:50

had a lot of fun with me. He would say, Joel,

35:53

my ancestors and I have been here for ten

35:55

thousand years. You're a newcomer,

35:58

but we'll keep you warm and make sure or you're safe

36:00

up here in the Arctic. And so I

36:03

weave through dealing with the

36:06

UH the people who I've

36:08

learned from and how

36:10

they have perceived in their

36:12

injustices that have come their way

36:15

and their successes, but

36:18

then also the challenges that we've

36:20

faced as conservation biologists in the

36:22

magnificent work that's being

36:24

done in other places. I spent some

36:26

time on a Russian island

36:29

called Wrangel Island, where I was arrested

36:31

by Russian security forces. But

36:33

the Russian scientists I worked with didn't want

36:35

me arrested. They wanted to work with me in

36:37

the field. We had US government and Russian

36:39

money to look at science, to

36:42

look at climate change and how to do conservation.

36:45

And so just like in this country and elsewhere,

36:47

people are people in my book tries to

36:49

deal through the eyes of animals, but

36:52

then through some of the learning that I've done

36:54

and the challenges of what it takes to have cold

36:56

feet on the ground working in some of these places

36:59

that can be quite brew at all excellent.

37:01

So Joe, for our our listeners

37:04

out there, if they want to follow you, if they want to

37:06

learn more about you and your work, where

37:08

can they go online? They could

37:10

go to my website And so it's just

37:13

all the same, um lowercase

37:16

Joel Burger Conservation dot

37:19

com. No spaces Joel

37:21

Burger Conservation dot com.

37:24

No spaces and actually no spaces

37:26

just means no spaces. All

37:29

right. Well, I greatly appreciate you taking

37:32

time out of your day to chat with me here today. This

37:34

is this is all fascinating, uh and I

37:36

know our listeners will greatly enjoy this. Rob

37:39

Thanks and stuff to blow your mind. What a

37:41

great show you have. Thank you. Thanks

37:46

again to Dr Joel Burger for taking time out of

37:48

his day to chat with us again. The study is Species

37:50

Conflict at Earth's Edges, Contests,

37:53

climate and coveted resources. The

37:55

book is Extreme Conservation,

37:57

Life at the Edges of the World. And

37:59

you and check out his website at Joel

38:01

Burger Conservation dot com. That's j

38:04

O E L B E R G E

38:06

R Conservation dot

38:09

com. That's it for this episode of Stuff

38:11

to Blow Your Mind. Just a reminder that our core

38:13

episodes published on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

38:16

On Monday's we do listener Mail, on Wednesday's

38:18

we do a short form artifact or monster fact

38:21

episode, and on Friday's we do Weird How

38:23

Cinema. That's our time to set aside most serious

38:25

concerns and just talk about

38:27

a weird film. Obviously, we'd

38:29

love to hear from everyone out there about this

38:32

episode, past episodes, or future

38:34

episodes. Uh so feel

38:36

free to get in touch with us. Thanks as always to Seth

38:39

Nicholas Johnson for producing the show,

38:41

and if you do want to reach out, you can email

38:43

us at contact and Stuff to Blow your

38:45

Mind dot com.

38:54

Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart

38:56

Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio

38:59

because at the heart Rate, U app, Apple podcasts,

39:01

or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows