Speaker 1: Oh hey, it's your old binder from junior year with
Speaker 1: slipknot lyrics in the margins, Ali Ward, bulge your seatbelts
Speaker 1: for a ride through the science of roadkill. People study
Speaker 1: this so that you encounter it less, So heads up.
Speaker 1: Obviously we do talk about accidents with wildlife, that's the episode,
Speaker 1: but in the context of how to prevent and avoid
Speaker 1: and survive them. So if you care about animals or
Speaker 1: your car insurance premiums, it's worth the listen to learn
Speaker 1: how to help these critters out, both every day and
Speaker 1: in an emergency. So this interviewee I have chased down
Speaker 1: for years. I have been tailgating his social media, like
Speaker 1: can we do an episode at cammic Camy Camming Camming.
Speaker 1: And he has been the most elusive guest technologies history
Speaker 1: because he's been writing a book about this very subject
Speaker 1: for years, interviewing rhoetecologists all over the world about nearly
Speaker 1: every biome and biological specimen. And he wanted to wait
Speaker 1: until it was done and out to chat. And that
Speaker 1: time is now except that he got COVID. But he's
Speaker 1: a really dedicated man, and we did the interview anyway
Speaker 1: remotely as he was getting over it, so we're gonna
Speaker 1: get it right to it. But first, thank you to
Speaker 1: every patron at patreon dot com slash ologies for supporting
Speaker 1: the show and setting in your questions. For this you
Speaker 1: can join as an ologist Pal for a buck a
Speaker 1: month and submit questions, but the BFF tier can leave
Speaker 1: me audio questions. We may even plan the show. Also,
Speaker 1: thank you to everyone wearing and tagging yourself with ologies
Speaker 1: merch for social media, and folks who just leave a
Speaker 1: review for me to read, which you know I do.
Speaker 1: Such is this one from was an odd child who
Speaker 1: wrote five stars. Ali Ward, my father, uncle and missing.
Speaker 1: Wallett is the host of my favorite hyperfixation Theologies podcast,
Speaker 1: Best Way to spend an hour or two. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: be honest. Three was an odd child. I thank you
Speaker 1: for that. I'm glad that you're one of us. Okay
Speaker 1: wrote ecology, very legit term for a very sad reality.
Speaker 1: But today's topic, the facet of it we're looking at
Speaker 1: is the impact on wildlife and huge interactions. So this
Speaker 1: guest has a master's in environmental management from the Yale
Speaker 1: School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and his literally award
Speaker 1: winning science journalism has appeared in everything from National Geographic
Speaker 1: to The New York Times. Device His latest book is Crossings,
Speaker 1: How road ecology is shaping the future of our planet,
Speaker 1: and it necessitated talking to so many rhode ecologists and
Speaker 1: then packing all that knowledge into this gift that he's
Speaker 1: giving us in this interview. So if you have a
Speaker 1: keen ear, also you're going to hear the mention of
Speaker 1: Montana more than once. And so I invite you, when
Speaker 1: you do, to take a sip of the nearest beverage,
Speaker 1: perhaps do a tiny imperceptible butt dance. And again the
Speaker 1: episode will help you and anyone you talk to about
Speaker 1: it and hopefully decrease collisions that impact wildlife. We're going
Speaker 1: to cover bumpy roads, wildlife using crosswalks, skunk stench, moose impacts,
Speaker 1: deer crossing signs, the most dangerous animals on the planet,
Speaker 1: laser fences, highway tunnels, lush overpasses, beloved cougars, asolot facts,
Speaker 1: What to do if you see roadkill, how to avoid
Speaker 1: making more of it, and whether it's okay to pick
Speaker 1: up a dead thing and to eat it. With author,
Speaker 1: environmental scientist and Honorary Rhotocologist Ben Goldfarb.
Speaker 2: My name is Ben Goldfarb, and he him.
Speaker 1: I have been waiting to talk to you for literal years. Benjamin,
Speaker 1: It's been so long.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: I feel like we've been discussing this possibility forever, and
Speaker 2: you guys so patiently waited for this book to wind
Speaker 2: its way through the publication pipeline. I'm really grateful that
Speaker 2: you guys didn't find somebody else about this topic.
Speaker 1: There's no one else I'd rather talk fresh roadkill or
Speaker 1: old roadkill. So this is a pretty big day for
Speaker 1: me and for roadkill in general. First question off the bat,
Speaker 1: how does one end up studying roadkill? I know that
Speaker 1: you get asked this at every dinner party. How did
Speaker 1: you end up writing a book about this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really good question. I'm not even sure
Speaker 2: what the answer is. I think, I mean, certainly part
Speaker 2: of it was seeing ways to prevent roadkill. You know,
Speaker 2: I had this really formative experience a decade ago. In
Speaker 2: October of twenty thirteen. I was in Montana, you know,
Speaker 2: working as an environmental journalist, looking for things to write about,
Speaker 2: and I ended up getting a tour of these wildlife crossings,
Speaker 2: you know, these overpasses and underpasses that let animals safely
Speaker 2: navigate highways. This was on Highway ninety three north of Missoula,
Speaker 2: and that was just such a cool experience. You know,
Speaker 2: I hadn't really thought a whole lot about roadkill and
Speaker 2: about all the problems that roads create, but seeing these
Speaker 2: structures that were designed to prevent that tragedy from happening
Speaker 2: just sort of caused me to think about this problem
Speaker 2: in a new way.
Speaker 1: And you know, I know that road well. My dad
Speaker 1: is from Montana. I've driven ninety three many times. And
Speaker 1: one thing that's interesting about roads in Montana is all
Speaker 1: the white crosses. Are you familiar with those? Oh yeah, certainly, yeah,
Speaker 1: which is really a stark and kind of gutting reminder
Speaker 1: of how many fatal accidents have been on that road.
Speaker 1: It really makes you slow down. Okay, So, if you've
Speaker 1: never seen these, they are these small white metal crosses
Speaker 1: planted on the side of the road, and there's one
Speaker 1: to mark each fatality at the site it happened. So
Speaker 1: every time you see one, I mean, it's impossible not
Speaker 1: to imagine the shattered glass and the wrecked metal and
Speaker 1: the grieving families. And I've seen clusters of them at
Speaker 1: a time, And there are memorials near tricky bends in
Speaker 1: the highway that have crops of markers up to like
Speaker 1: sixteen in one place, and some groups are opposed to
Speaker 1: them for understandable reasons across may very well not represent
Speaker 1: the faith of the victims. Also, they're a bummer, But
Speaker 1: the American Legion has been putting these up in Montana
Speaker 1: since early nineteen fifties to do just that, to scare
Speaker 1: the shit out of me personally and millions of other
Speaker 1: people so that they drive more carefully in order to
Speaker 1: spare more human lives. Did that have any impact as well,
Speaker 1: just knowing that those roads are dangerous to humans as
Speaker 1: well as wildlife.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what, it certainly didn't. I think that
Speaker 2: they're I mean, they're dangerous for a lot of the
Speaker 2: same reasons. Right, They're these winding rural highways that people
Speaker 2: tend to drive too fast on, and you know, often
Speaker 2: wildlife is probably related to those human fatalities as well, Right,
Speaker 2: I mean, there's something like four hundred drivers killed in
Speaker 2: deer crashes every year. I think Montana is the second
Speaker 2: highest state in the country for per capita wildlife vehicle collisions, Right,
Speaker 2: there are lots of animals on the landscape, so certainly
Speaker 2: that roadkill is a it's a danger to humans as well.
Speaker 2: And I've had, you know, state troopers say things like,
Speaker 2: you know, look, there are four hundred dead drivers every
Speaker 2: year that we know of. But oftentimes when you come
Speaker 2: upon a single car accident with a fatality, you know,
Speaker 2: we don't know why that occurs, but that could be
Speaker 2: somebody who veered for a moose or an elk and
Speaker 2: hit a tree or flipped or something like that. So
Speaker 2: I think that link between human safety and wildlife safety
Speaker 2: is a really close one.
Speaker 1: So there's a September twenty twenty three report about just
Speaker 1: this animal impacts and it was issued by State Farm
Speaker 1: Insurance and the headline screams November is still the most
Speaker 1: dangerous month, with an estimated two hundred and ninety seven
Speaker 1: thousand collisions, and they're talking about wildlife. So over the
Speaker 1: last year, one point eight million Americans filed insurance claims,
Speaker 1: apparently because they slammed into a non human creature. But
Speaker 1: the national odds of hitting an animal annually is one
Speaker 1: in one hundred and twenty seven. But if you'd like
Speaker 1: to avoid it at all, costs. I guess you could
Speaker 1: ride a bike, or you could move to Arizona, where
Speaker 1: you have a one in five hundred annual chance of
Speaker 1: an animal vehicle collision, and West Virginia I am sorry,
Speaker 1: but one in thirty eight for y'all. Montana unsurprisingly held
Speaker 1: the number two spot, with one in fifty three people
Speaker 1: getting into an accident with an animal. And if you
Speaker 1: can't just up and move to Arizona because your spouse
Speaker 1: and children would feel abandoned or whatever, then you can
Speaker 1: take other measures. You can be careful in the riskier situations,
Speaker 1: like driving at dusk. You can watch out for herd animals,
Speaker 1: which tend to travel in posseas naturally, and of course,
Speaker 1: do not scroll on your exos social media if the
Speaker 1: long drive gets boring. As humans driving cages of reinforced
Speaker 1: steel are chances of survival much higher than a bunnies.
Speaker 1: So when Ben was writing the book, how did he
Speaker 1: balance the focus between the impact on humans versus the
Speaker 1: impact on the wildlife question?
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that it's hard to separate those things.
Speaker 2: You know, so much of the history of studying roadkill
Speaker 2: is really about human safety. It's kind of it's interesting
Speaker 2: to trace the history of rhad ecology, this field of science,
Speaker 2: you know, which really begins in the nineteen twenties with
Speaker 2: the proliferation of the car, and early biologists are fretting
Speaker 2: about all of the garter snakes and ground hogs and
Speaker 2: the woodpeckers being killed by this fearsome new technology. But
Speaker 2: then the car kind of becomes this accepted fact of
Speaker 2: the American landscape and people stop thinking about it until
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixties when deer populations explode. You know, deer
Speaker 2: were almost hunted to extinction in the nineteenth century, and
Speaker 2: then in the mid twentieth century they start making a comeback,
Speaker 2: and people are driving farther and faster than ever, and
Speaker 2: suddenly there are these large mammals blundering onto new interstate
Speaker 2: highways and really causing a risk to human safety. And
Speaker 2: that's really when rhad ecology as a field truly takes off.
Speaker 2: And it is aren't necessarily in concern for wildlife, although
Speaker 2: certainly that's a big part of it. Its origins are
Speaker 2: really in concern for human safety, specifically due to deer collisions.
Speaker 2: So I find that fascinating that this discipline is sort
Speaker 2: of intimately tied to human safety almost from the.
Speaker 1: Advent that makes sense, I mean in terms of also
Speaker 1: westward expansion and American colonialism, I feel like maybe we
Speaker 1: look at things from a human centered lens a lot,
Speaker 1: just a hunch, but no kidding. Also, did killing off
Speaker 1: wolves have a lot to do with that explosion of deer?
Speaker 2: That was definitely, I mean, that was part of it.
Speaker 2: You know, deer, we're coming back into this landscape that
Speaker 2: lacked wolves and cougars and all of the historic predators
Speaker 2: that would have controlled their populations. I think a big
Speaker 2: part of it was also the rise of the suburb.
Speaker 2: You know, suburbs are amazing deer habitat right, So many
Speaker 2: Northeastern suburbs have much higher deer populations than forests did
Speaker 2: prior to European arrival, which is pretty amazing to think about.
Speaker 2: And of course the suburbs are this creation of the
Speaker 2: car in a lot of ways. Right in the mid
Speaker 2: twentieth century, the interstate highways are funneling people away from
Speaker 2: cities and into suburbs, and this whole car culture oriented
Speaker 2: around the suburb is emerging and sort of beckoning to
Speaker 2: whitetail deer, which are kind of bouncing back from their
Speaker 2: own brush with extirpations. So I find that really interesting too,
Speaker 2: right that cars created a landscape that was prime for
Speaker 2: deer and then caused collisions between drivers and those same animals.
Speaker 1: And for more on wolf populations, you can see the
Speaker 1: Lupinology episode about wolves, and you can prepare to celebrate
Speaker 1: the finest holiday of the year on November twenty third,
Speaker 1: which is Wolfanut. It celebrates the spirit of the wolf
Speaker 1: who brings and hides small gifts around the house for everyone,
Speaker 1: especially people who have dogs and are kind to dogs.
Speaker 1: They get better gifts than anyone else. And you eat
Speaker 1: roast meat because wolves eat meat, or roasted veggies if
Speaker 1: you like. And you make a cake that's decorated like
Speaker 1: a full moon. And this according to the seven year
Speaker 1: old New Zealander who invented wolf in newt just a
Speaker 1: few years ago, not realizing that it would become a
Speaker 1: global November twenty third celebration, one which I myself enjoy.
Speaker 1: I have hid new pairs of socks around the house
Speaker 1: for dinner guests to hunt like Easter eggs, and my
Speaker 1: full moon cake was ugly but delicious. Now on the
Speaker 1: topic of wolves prey, though, we of course, have an
Speaker 1: excellent two parter Deer episode featuring not one but two
Speaker 1: cervidologists named Rhannon What Are the Odds, which addresses all
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff like whether or not deer eat birds alive.
Speaker 1: I mean, be honest with me, are deers the ones
Speaker 1: getting creamed the most?
Speaker 2: Deer? Yeah, I mean, deer are definitely they're the ones
Speaker 2: getting creamed the most visibly. I would say, I think
Speaker 2: between one and two million deer killed every year. And
Speaker 2: you know, obviously the vast majority of those collisions are
Speaker 2: not fatal to the driver but fatal to the deer.
Speaker 2: So deer are definitely getting creamed. But you know, there
Speaker 2: are also lots of squirrels and apostums and raccoons, all
Speaker 2: of the critters that we've all seen by the side
Speaker 2: of the highway. And you know, I think that in
Speaker 2: part because the animals that we tend to see are
Speaker 2: the really common ones. You know, we don't really think
Speaker 2: about roadkill as being a true biodiversity and conservation crisis, right,
Speaker 2: but there are lots of rarer species as well, Florida
Speaker 2: panthers and oslots and tiger salamanders. You know, all of
Speaker 2: these animals that because they're so rare, we don't see
Speaker 2: them dead by the side of the road. And yet
Speaker 2: for these these very threatened and endangered species, you know,
Speaker 2: roadkill really is an existential crisis.
Speaker 1: Okay, So, first off, oslots are native to North and
Speaker 1: Central America. I had no idea for starters. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: an oscelot is a bobcat sized, spotted little cutie with
Speaker 1: a kitten face. It weighs twenty to thirty pounds. It's
Speaker 1: like the size of a large main coon, which is
Speaker 1: like having a real hairy toddler with knives in its face.
Speaker 1: And I thought oslots like maybe lived in North Africa
Speaker 1: or Central Asia. Nope, they live in like Texas south
Speaker 1: of the Alamo, but not many. So forty percent of
Speaker 1: Texas oslot deaths have been attributed to human traffic collisions,
Speaker 1: and now there are only sixty to eighty Texas oscelots
Speaker 1: left in the wild. And yes, if you think some
Speaker 1: people keep them as pets, you are correct, most notably
Speaker 1: surrealist painter and Mustache have her Salvador Deli. But before
Speaker 1: you decide to dip into like tiger king culture, be
Speaker 1: aware that your friend Wikipedia warns that osceolots might demand
Speaker 1: a lot of attention and have a tendency to suck
Speaker 1: on things, and this can lead them to accidentally ingest
Speaker 1: objects such as tennis balls, which is so specific I
Speaker 1: can only imagine that the editor of that page added
Speaker 1: it in shame after a close call and an exotic
Speaker 1: vet bill. I don't know what happened, but oslot's keep
Speaker 1: them in the wild. Also, Florida panthers send him good vibes, man,
Speaker 1: because a September CBS news headline says it all kind
Speaker 1: of with a heaving sigh. Another endangered Florida panther struck
Speaker 1: and killed by vehicle, the sixty second such fatality since
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, it reads, and apparently Florida panthers had
Speaker 1: the distinct honor of being one of the first critters
Speaker 1: on the nineteen seventy three endangered species list. After hunting
Speaker 1: just struck a massive blow to their population and now
Speaker 1: there's less than two hundred and fifty Florida panthers in
Speaker 1: the wild. Ten percent of their entire population is killed
Speaker 1: each year in crashes with cars. Florida panthers don't deserve this.
Speaker 1: They should be going on motor boats and getting sun
Speaker 1: damage at Margarita happy hours like the rest of the state.
Speaker 1: But listen, these are the realities, and there is hope,
Speaker 1: which we discussed later. I'm not just trying to bum
Speaker 1: you out. Who comes to your book readings? I got
Speaker 1: to ask you, just did a book tour. Do the
Speaker 1: people that you encounter there do they pull you aside
Speaker 1: and confess to you like you're a priest, about accidental
Speaker 1: squirrel collisions they've had or hitting a turtle in their teens?
Speaker 1: Do you get that a lot?
Speaker 2: It's so funny us that I have compared myself to
Speaker 2: a priest taking confession on multiple occasions, because yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: everybody's had this experience and they want to tell somebody
Speaker 2: about it. I think there's something so distressing and disorienting
Speaker 2: about hitting an animal too. You don't exactly know what
Speaker 2: to do when it happens. I told a friend about
Speaker 2: the premise of this book a few years ago, long
Speaker 2: before it came out, and he told me that he
Speaker 2: had recently hit a squirrel and was so bewildered and
Speaker 2: confused in the moment that he just panicked and called
Speaker 2: nine to one one, which of course is not the
Speaker 2: right reaction, and I think they hung up on him,
Speaker 2: as they probably should have. But I think that just
Speaker 2: a tests to what a weird and saddening and confusing
Speaker 2: experience it can be to hit an animal.
Speaker 1: Have you ever hit anything?
Speaker 2: Sure? Yeah, I've hit all kinds of creators. I'm ashamed
Speaker 2: to say. I most recently, I killed an owl that
Speaker 2: was a few weeks ago in Colorado where I live,
Speaker 2: and it just swooped across the highway in the middle
Speaker 2: of the night and hit the top of the windshield,
Speaker 2: and you know, I assume it was killed. I did
Speaker 2: go back to briefly look for it, but couldn't find it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so that was really hard. I don't know what. Have
Speaker 2: you ever hit?
Speaker 1: Ali, Well, I hit a deer once and high school
Speaker 1: not long after I got my license. I grew up
Speaker 1: in a suburb with a lot of deer, and you'd
Speaker 1: always hear collisions. And I had an ap biology teacher, Odie,
Speaker 1: who whenever someone would hit a deer, they'd call him
Speaker 1: instead of nine to one one and he would come
Speaker 1: out and flay the deer, take the venison, take the hide.
Speaker 1: And I saw him. There was one that was hit
Speaker 1: near school, and so he took us out to have
Speaker 1: a look at it, and I remember's belly was covered
Speaker 1: in ticks, but he showed us what to do with it,
Speaker 1: which was uncommon. They have to be pretty fresh. But
Speaker 1: I hit a deer once and the deer hit me.
Speaker 1: The impact was on the side of the car, and
Speaker 1: so when I told my parents, like, the deer hit me,
Speaker 1: they did not believe me at first, but then they're like, well,
Speaker 1: it is on the side panel, So what are you
Speaker 1: gonna do? But what if you don't have an ode
Speaker 1: in your life, and you definitely shouldn't call nine one one?
Speaker 1: What is the best protocol if there's been a collision.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, certainly you could
Speaker 2: call the local the sheriff's department out here, you know
Speaker 2: in the West, or the police department just to report
Speaker 2: that incident, but you know they're not gonna do anything.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the most common response is you
Speaker 2: don't really do anything. I mean, if the animal has
Speaker 2: done damage to the vehicle, you know there's going to
Speaker 2: be an insurance claim, right, and then that will become
Speaker 2: a data point for somebody potentially. But the most common
Speaker 2: reaction is probably just keep driving, which is part of
Speaker 2: why this problem is so hard to grapple with in
Speaker 2: some ways and to grasp because these incidents generally are
Speaker 2: not being noted or observed or recorded in any way,
Speaker 2: and as a result, we don't really have a lot
Speaker 2: of great data about what a significant toll roadkill is
Speaker 2: taking on biodiversity.
Speaker 1: I was curious, since Ben covered so many species and ecologies,
Speaker 1: if he had to track down possome researchers and deer
Speaker 1: teams and like a clique of panther people, a frog squad, etc.
Speaker 1: Did he have to collect a mosaic of data? And
Speaker 1: is his contact list the best?
Speaker 2: Rhadycology this term that was coined in the nineteen nineties
Speaker 2: by Richard Foreman and a cologist at Harvard. You know,
Speaker 2: at first it was this very niche subject that only
Speaker 2: a handful of people in the country had heard of,
Speaker 2: let alone practiced. But today you can go to these
Speaker 2: rhad ecology conferences that have thousands of people in attendance.
Speaker 2: So it's certainly interdisciplinary. It touches upon a lot of
Speaker 2: different fields, but it's also a distinct discipline in its
Speaker 2: own right that you know, increasingly has people who self
Speaker 2: identify as rhodecologists.
Speaker 1: Do any of them come to you like, Hey, Ben,
Speaker 1: what's the deal with this? Can you hook me up
Speaker 1: with this person?
Speaker 2: So people do say, you know, hey, I'm working on
Speaker 2: you know, mule deer over here in this state. You know,
Speaker 2: what are people doing about moos over in that state?
Speaker 2: And you know, is there anything that we can learn
Speaker 2: from those guys? And I've definitely been able to put
Speaker 2: different sources of mine in touch because the field has
Speaker 2: become so large and dispersed and atomized in some ways
Speaker 2: that not everybody knows what everybody else is working on.
Speaker 2: And it's nice to be able to play that kind
Speaker 2: of interstitial role sometimes.
Speaker 1: Did you want to focus on different countries, different species?
Speaker 1: How did you break it down? And why do I
Speaker 1: feel like Australia has the most roadkill? That's just absolutely
Speaker 1: a hunch.
Speaker 2: No, I think you're You're totally right, But actually Tasmania
Speaker 2: is considered the roadkill capital of the world. It has
Speaker 2: some of the highest roadkill rates ever recorded. I know,
Speaker 2: super sad, right to think about all of those wallabies
Speaker 2: and wombats. Those are like the coolest critters and and
Speaker 2: that was actually one of the places that I went
Speaker 2: and working on this book was Tasmania the road kill Capital,
Speaker 2: and they're One of the amazing things is that, of course,
Speaker 2: because those animals are marsupials, right, they're carrying their babies
Speaker 2: in their little pouch. What happens often is that the
Speaker 2: mother will be killed by a car, but the Joey,
Speaker 2: the baby will actually survive in the pouch. So there
Speaker 2: are hundreds of wildlife rehabilitators in Tasmani who just drive
Speaker 2: around the countryside looking for dead animals, checking their pouches
Speaker 2: and extracting the joey's the babies within, and then raising
Speaker 2: them to adulthood over a couple of years, which is
Speaker 2: just this amazing, heartbreaking, beautiful inspiring practice. You know, we're
Speaker 2: so used to just driving past roadkill all the time.
Speaker 2: That was really incredible to go to a place where
Speaker 2: people actually notice it and even seek it out.
Speaker 1: Do those animals that are raised by rehabbers do they
Speaker 1: ever go back into the wild or is it like
Speaker 1: they've imprinted and their ambassador species.
Speaker 2: No, they do get released back into the wild, and
Speaker 2: I definitely talked to rehabers or they're actually known as
Speaker 2: terrors in Tasmani, which is the phrase that I love.
Speaker 2: I talked to terrrs who say, yeah, this is a
Speaker 2: dubious practice in some ways, because we're removing these animals
Speaker 2: from this incredibly dangerous environment, and then we're releasing them
Speaker 2: back into the same incredibly dangerous environment. Right, it's still
Speaker 2: the roadkill capital of the world, and is it really
Speaker 2: humane to reintroduce them into a setting where they're likely
Speaker 2: to suffer the same fate as their mother did. Because
Speaker 2: Tasmania doesn't really have those wildlife crossings and other kind
Speaker 2: of infrastructural fixes that prevent roadkill, you know, the state
Speaker 2: itself is kind of relying on all of these volunteer
Speaker 2: rehabers to deal with this crisis without really addressing it
Speaker 2: in a meaningful way.
Speaker 1: Did you get to extract any baby wombats or Tasmanian
Speaker 1: devils or wallabies out out of an available did you
Speaker 1: ever have to do it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, it's funny. I stopped for so many dead
Speaker 2: animals while I was there, and every single one was
Speaker 2: a male. It was very strange. I mean, probably a
Speaker 2: dozen or so and they were all they were all males.
Speaker 2: It was surprising. Mean, I think it's not too uncommon.
Speaker 2: Lots of species have higher rates of male roadkill than female.
Speaker 2: You know, males tend to have larger home territories than
Speaker 2: females do, and many mammal species especially, and often it's
Speaker 2: those young dispersing males who get hit. You know, they're
Speaker 2: setting out for their own territories and looking for females. Hello, ladies.
Speaker 2: So you know that's not uncommon that you would see
Speaker 2: more male than female roadkill, But to check a dozen
Speaker 2: or so carcasses and they're all males, that was pretty surprising.
Speaker 1: Did you get to see any baby wallabies in carror
Speaker 1: centers at all?
Speaker 2: I got to see so many wallabies and wombats and patamelons.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Actually I love padamelons. That's an animal that
Speaker 2: moost people haven't heard of. But they're almost like if
Speaker 2: you took a kangaroo and miniaturized it, you would have
Speaker 2: a padamelon. And they're basically as cute as you'd imagine.
Speaker 2: And at one of the places I went, it was
Speaker 2: pretty wild. It was this couple, this wonderful couple who
Speaker 2: have extracted and raised so many patamelons to adulthood and
Speaker 2: they released them into the wild. But you know, the
Speaker 2: pedamelons still have this kind of ancestral memory of the
Speaker 2: place that they were raised. And in the evening, this
Speaker 2: couple actually tosses food out for them, and all the
Speaker 2: ptamelons emerge from the forest and congregate in their backyard.
Speaker 2: And it was just this really surreal, beautiful, magical moment
Speaker 2: to see all of these creatures come out of the bush,
Speaker 2: and it's sort of like, Okay, you know you're feeding them,
Speaker 2: Is that you know, the best thing for them? But
Speaker 2: in some ways I think maybe it is. You know,
Speaker 2: they're giving them kind of a soft entry into the
Speaker 2: wild in some ways and still meeting some of their
Speaker 2: needs while not actually having them in captivity.
Speaker 1: Is this couple the happiest couple on earth?
Speaker 2: They're pretty happy. Yeah, they were living out in the
Speaker 2: bush in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by their
Speaker 2: hordes of patamelons. There's definitely definitely worse ways to live.
Speaker 1: Imagine a life with your love you're surrounded by animals
Speaker 1: that look like less stone version of quacas. The p
Speaker 1: melon is nature's chimera. It's the size of like a
Speaker 1: small raccoon or maybe a large bunny. It's got a
Speaker 1: squirrel face, kangaroo limbs, and a tail like a rat.
Speaker 1: But most spectacular, if you ask me, is it's asked
Speaker 1: to head ratio a pea. Melon's got a caboose easily
Speaker 1: ten times the size of its head, but sadly it's
Speaker 1: still not enough cushion to soften vehicular pushion. What a life?
Speaker 1: Just critters coming out of the bush to be like, hey, mom,
Speaker 1: oh that's a cute thing I've ever heard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you could move to Tasmania and experience that yourself.
Speaker 2: That would be a radical change in lifestyle for you,
Speaker 2: but it sounds like you'd enjoy it.
Speaker 1: I gotta befriend them on MySpace or something. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you said males more than females. What animals tend to
Speaker 1: be most vulnerable because the idea of a panther getting
Speaker 1: hit or we have a massive problem with pumas out
Speaker 1: here in La, which I'm sure you're familiar with in
Speaker 1: P twenty two two and all of that. We did
Speaker 1: an episode about P. Twenty two with Miguel and Beth.
Speaker 1: Oh cool, yeah, and it was so emotional. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was really an LA mascot for so long, and
Speaker 1: the freeways here are so punishing. But you don't think
Speaker 1: of leopards as not being able to outrun a kia.
Speaker 1: So what species are most vulnerable?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good question. I'm so glad you talked
Speaker 2: to Beth and Miguel because I you know, those guys
Speaker 2: are awesome in there in my book as well, and
Speaker 2: certainly there's a lot of P. Twenty two stuff in there.
Speaker 1: So P. Twenty two was this beloved puma that lived
Speaker 1: in the hills beneath LA's Hollywood signed for years and
Speaker 1: he died last year, and I was able to interview
Speaker 1: the wildlife biologists who discovered him in the special episode
Speaker 1: will Link of the show notes there is crying.
Speaker 2: You know, there are kind of two main classes of
Speaker 2: animals that are really susceptible to road kill. I mean,
Speaker 2: the first are those large carnivores, you know, the cougars,
Speaker 2: the ocelots, the Asiatic cheetahs in Iran. You know, these
Speaker 2: are animals that patrol really large territories, which means that
Speaker 2: they cross highways often and they tend to occur in
Speaker 2: load densities. Right they occupy these big home ranges. There
Speaker 2: aren't a huge number of them on the landscape, so
Speaker 2: if you lose just a few to cars, the whole
Speaker 2: population can really suffer. So for you know, the Florida
Speaker 2: panther in the southeast, I mean more than ten percent
Speaker 2: of their population is killed by cars every year. For
Speaker 2: ocelots in Texas, cars are the leading cause of mortality, right,
Speaker 2: So it's those carnivores that again occur in load densities
Speaker 2: and patrol large areas. You know, I definitely consider those
Speaker 2: some of the most endangered, the most road endangered species
Speaker 2: out there. And then you know, on the other end
Speaker 2: of the spectrum, you've got the smaller stuff, the amphibians,
Speaker 2: especially frauds and salamanders that have to migrate to breeding
Speaker 2: ponds every spring and cross roads and mass in the
Speaker 2: process and get crushed in these events that you know,
Speaker 2: one ecologist described as a massive squishings, which are incredibly tragic.
Speaker 1: Okay, So side note. I needed to know who coined
Speaker 1: that term because we needed to know, and via Ben's bibliography,
Speaker 1: it was first used in the textbook called rhode Ecology,
Speaker 1: Science and Solutions, which was written by host of authors
Speaker 1: including doctor Richard T. T. Foreman, now eighty eight years
Speaker 1: old and a professor of landscape architecture at Harvard, and
Speaker 1: he is considered to be the father of landscape ecology
Speaker 1: and rhode ecology and helped spearhead urban ecology and town ecology.
Speaker 1: Truly a metro polyologist this one. But that textbook passage
Speaker 1: I found reads hundreds of Amphibian tunnels in several nations
Speaker 1: of Western Europe funneled the animals under roads in their
Speaker 1: seasonal reproductive migration. Massive squishings and associated messy auto accidents
Speaker 1: were reduced, So that's good news. But on the topic
Speaker 1: of squishings, here's some pop cultural trivia. Okay, so you
Speaker 1: know the video game Frogger, right, I love an underdog
Speaker 1: story and frogs, and it was inspired by a true incident.
Speaker 1: I just found this out. Akira Hashimoto, a designer for
Speaker 1: this Japanese video game developer, was chilling at a stoplight
Speaker 1: and saw a love frog trying to cross the road,
Speaker 1: and he got out of his car to help the frog,
Speaker 1: and then he pitched the game. But American executives hated it,
Speaker 1: saying only little girls and women would play it, and
Speaker 1: girls and women were a trash demographic. And this was
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen eighty so I'm assuming that was
Speaker 1: a conversation in like a boardroom filled with power ties
Speaker 1: and cigarette smoke. But this one American executive for Paramount
Speaker 1: disagreed and really fought for Frogger, saying, you, Dix thought
Speaker 1: pac Man sucked and look at it now. And so
Speaker 1: they said, yeah, that's true, and they bought it and
Speaker 1: it became this colossal success across all ages and genders.
Speaker 1: And that Paramount pro Froger advocate was named Elizabeth Falconer,
Speaker 1: who was a executive in the early nineteen eighties. So
Speaker 1: if you've played Froger, you have enjoyed a rhodecology simulation
Speaker 1: and the fruits of a lady in shoulder pads and
Speaker 1: a men's world.
Speaker 2: Those amphibian populations, too, are really being wiped out. So
Speaker 2: those are two, you know, incredibly disparate groups of organisms, right,
Speaker 2: these large cats on one end, the tiny frogs on
Speaker 2: the other, and they're both dramatically affected in different ways.
Speaker 1: Do you cry about roadkill?
Speaker 2: You know, I think that I cried about roadkill once.
Speaker 2: It was Yeah, it was ten years ago. As in
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen, my wife and I were driving through Yellowstone
Speaker 2: National Park early one morning this beautiful morning was kind
Speaker 2: of missed, rising off the pavement just a you know,
Speaker 2: a gorgeous day, and we hit a red squirrel and
Speaker 2: the poor squirrel had a little pine cone or a
Speaker 2: nut or something in his mouth, which he dropped when
Speaker 2: we killed him, and my wife took his little body
Speaker 2: and sort of curled it around the pine cone he'd
Speaker 2: been carrying and covered him in bread by the side
Speaker 2: of the road. And yeah, we both we both cried
Speaker 2: about that. And you know, I think that part of
Speaker 2: it was just the fact that we were in a
Speaker 2: national park, you know, this place where animals are theoretically
Speaker 2: safe and protected, and you know, it turns out they're
Speaker 2: protected from everything except for cars, right, They're safe from
Speaker 2: hunting and development and all of these other pressures. But
Speaker 2: there are still these highways running through the middle of
Speaker 2: our otherwise secure, protected areas. And there was something that
Speaker 2: felt so unjust about that, you know, that you could
Speaker 2: live in a national park and still be run down
Speaker 2: by humans. That that was I think that was why
Speaker 2: we shed some tears over this world.
Speaker 1: I don't blame you.
Speaker 3: And it was Karen, a pine cone.
Speaker 2: It was It was really hard. It was really hard
Speaker 2: to see.
Speaker 1: I bet it was so excited about the pine cone.
Speaker 2: Toad. You're trying to make me live this.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I'm just I'm just here. I'm processing this for
Speaker 1: the first time.
Speaker 4: Got it together?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, okay, you've written also beautifully about and
Speaker 1: eaters and the rainforest. What areas are putting in preventative
Speaker 1: measures like what's working out there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know a lot of different countries and states
Speaker 2: in the US are doing stuff about this problem. If
Speaker 2: you talk to you know, Miguel and Beth about the
Speaker 2: p twenty two saga. You know, you heard the story
Speaker 2: of the Liberty Canyon overpass. Right, this giant wildlife bridge.
Speaker 2: It's going to reconnect mountain lion populations in southern California.
Speaker 2: That's incredibly exciting, and I think is galvanizing lots of
Speaker 2: energy around building infrastructure that helps animals safely crossroads. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think a lot of cool stuff is happening in
Speaker 2: countries that aren't the US. You know, we think of
Speaker 2: ourselves as such leaders and infrastructure and conservation, and yet
Speaker 2: one of the problems we face is that we have
Speaker 2: such old, kind of calcified highway systems. Right, we built
Speaker 2: all of our major highways, you know, in the nineteen
Speaker 2: fifties and sixties and early seventies, before our understanding of
Speaker 2: how roads really affect nature and before laws like the
Speaker 2: National Environmental Protection Act that require environmental assessments. So as
Speaker 2: a result, we kind of made these mistakes decades ago,
Speaker 2: and now we're stuck dealing with the consequences. And yeah,
Speaker 2: we can build wildlife crossings and retrofit highways with fences
Speaker 2: that keep animals off the road and things like that,
Speaker 2: but you know, we're sort of stuck in this world
Speaker 2: we've built, whereas other countries are doing all kinds of
Speaker 2: cool innovative stuff as they build out their infrastructure for
Speaker 2: the first time. You know, in India, for example, they
Speaker 2: built a highway through a tiger sanctuary. Unfortunately, right ideally
Speaker 2: the highway wouldn't go through there at all, but you know,
Speaker 2: they elevated the entire highway on these giant concrete pillars,
Speaker 2: so the animals can just wander underneath the highway unimpeded,
Speaker 2: which is more radical and progressive than anything we've done
Speaker 2: here in North America.
Speaker 1: But not all corralling efforts are created equal. So, according
Speaker 1: to this twenty fifteen study, mitigating reptile road mortality, fence
Speaker 1: failures compromise eco passage effectiveness even with the tunnel under
Speaker 1: the highway, the fences that border the wilderness, and the
Speaker 1: roads that direct the critters toward their safe route matter.
Speaker 1: So the research found that plastic fences can tear and
Speaker 1: they end up trapping reptiles and amphibians on the road
Speaker 1: side because they can't find their way back into the
Speaker 1: safe side. So rather than keep replacing these failing plastic fences,
Speaker 1: it's better to just spend the money on more permanent solutions.
Speaker 1: And this adheres to my husband's stance that instead of
Speaker 1: skimping on something shitty and then replacing it multiple times,
Speaker 1: get the good thing that will last, even if it's
Speaker 1: more expensive initially. And this steep but singular investment is
Speaker 1: known as buy once, cry once. He has yet to
Speaker 1: purchase miles of reptile fencing, but if he does, I'm
Speaker 1: going to share that study. What about speed limits, like
Speaker 1: in Tasmania, as reducing speed limits helped or I wonder
Speaker 1: also if the oil crisis in the seventies, when speed
Speaker 1: limits went down a lot, at least in America to
Speaker 1: fifty five miles an hour, if that reduced roadkill.
Speaker 2: You know, the speed limit thing is. It's an interesting
Speaker 2: question because I mean, certainly driving slower is good, right.
Speaker 2: It gives both the driver and the animal more time
Speaker 2: to react. We know that the problem is that it's
Speaker 2: really hard to get people to drive slower. You can
Speaker 2: lower speed limits, but people generally don't respond very very
Speaker 2: strongly to that signal. And the reason for that, basically
Speaker 2: is that we have highways that are designed to be
Speaker 2: driven fast. On right, we have these wide, straight freeways
Speaker 2: that basically make you want to go fast, and there's
Speaker 2: lots of research showing that people tend to drive the
Speaker 2: eroad's design speed rather than the posted speed limit.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: I mean, how many times have you been like flying
Speaker 2: down a straight away and you just kind of glance
Speaker 2: at your speedometer and it says, you know, eighty five
Speaker 2: and you're like, oh, I didn't realize I was going on.
Speaker 2: I mean, there have been studies showing that lowering speed
Speaker 2: limits does not really lead to a meaningful reduction in roadkill,
Speaker 2: because people just continue to drive fast because that's what
Speaker 2: our roads want you to do. One of the really
Speaker 2: cool roads that I visited working on this book was
Speaker 2: actually a road in Brazil in this park where they
Speaker 2: had deliberately engineered the road to be really sinuous and
Speaker 2: also to be kind of wavy on the y axis
Speaker 2: like a roller coaster, basically to force drivers to go
Speaker 2: slowly for wildlife. So instead of just changing the speed
Speaker 2: limit as we do sometimes here in the US, they
Speaker 2: actually designed a road that you could not speed on,
Speaker 2: which is a really cool and innovative idea.
Speaker 1: I think just like giant speed bumps kind of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or like way yeah, yeah, it felt sort of
Speaker 2: like being at sea. They also closed that road at night,
Speaker 2: which was a great innovation, and I feel like we
Speaker 2: should be doing that as well here in protected areas.
Speaker 1: What about things like answers and LED lights and solar
Speaker 1: lights for the evening. Are there any places that are
Speaker 1: trying to at least like illuminate the roads.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You know. One of the cool technological solutions that's
Speaker 2: out there are these animal detection systems. So one of
Speaker 2: the challenges in rhode ecology, right, is that our most
Speaker 2: common innovation, or our most common attempted solution for dealing
Speaker 2: with roadkill is signage. Right, that classic yellow diamond with
Speaker 2: the leaping black buck that says, you know, watch for
Speaker 2: wildlife next forty miles or whatever. And those signs as
Speaker 2: you'd probably guess are totally useless, you know, because drivers
Speaker 2: just habituate to them. You know, if you drive past
Speaker 2: a Florida panther crossing one hundred times and never see
Speaker 2: a Florida panther, you're just going to stop slowing down, right,
Speaker 2: and then the one time that the panther's there, you've
Speaker 2: already habituated to the absence of the panther and that's
Speaker 2: the time that you hit it, because you just got
Speaker 2: that negative stimulus so many times, right. So one of
Speaker 2: the cool ideas that exists now. One of the cool
Speaker 2: technologies are basically responsive animal warning signs that only tell
Speaker 2: you there's an animal on the road when there's actually
Speaker 2: an animal on the road. They are these kind of
Speaker 2: real time signs along roadsides that are outfitted with radar
Speaker 2: and other sensors that light up these warning signs only
Speaker 2: when the critter's actually approaching the road side. So those
Speaker 2: sorts of solutions that don't let drivers habituate, I think
Speaker 2: those are more effective. They're not perfect. They have I
Speaker 2: think about a fifty percent roadkill reduction rate typically, which
Speaker 2: is definitely, you know, better than nothing, but not as
Speaker 2: good as a wildlife crossing with fences that you know,
Speaker 2: keeps the animal off the road altogether.
Speaker 1: So systems using yeah, radar or laser trip wires can
Speaker 1: give this technological heads up that says, hey, unless you
Speaker 1: want to think about the time you kill the deer
Speaker 1: for the rest of your life, maybe slow down because
Speaker 1: you got one comming up, buddy, and you don't want
Speaker 1: to meet up with it in hell? What about myths
Speaker 1: in roadkillingcology? What do you feel like is something that
Speaker 1: you learned was not true you didn't know going into it,
Speaker 1: or most people just don't know.
Speaker 2: There are just so many failed attempted solutions out there, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, you hear about deer whistles sometimes, right,
Speaker 2: these contraptions that you can mount on the hood of
Speaker 2: your car and that make this noise that's audible to
Speaker 2: the deer and frightens the deer away from the roadside.
Speaker 2: Or deer reflectors. You know, another really common attempted solution,
Speaker 2: These roadside reflectors that sparkle when they're hit with headlights
Speaker 2: and alert the deer to a coming car and frighten
Speaker 2: them away. You know, those sorts of things. I mean,
Speaker 2: we've been trying that in this country for decades. And
Speaker 2: they're just not really backed by any good, peer reviewed science.
Speaker 2: So I think that the sordid history of failed roadkill
Speaker 2: solutions is something that was surprising to me.
Speaker 1: I know, people asked about those horns and things at
Speaker 1: the front of the cars, and I was wondering. So
Speaker 1: that's good to know. And we did a couple episodes
Speaker 1: about ticks and lime disease, and obviously Connecticut came up
Speaker 1: a lot in the northeast, and I was reading a
Speaker 1: study about how when they gave more hunting permits for
Speaker 1: deer in those areas, the number of animals that were
Speaker 1: hunted for venison and buckskin and stuff reduced the number
Speaker 1: of crashes by about the same amount is legal hunting
Speaker 1: of non predator animals. Is that becoming more popular?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's becoming more popular.
Speaker 2: Certainly that's another thing that has been tried. There are
Speaker 2: lots of stories of communities in the eastern US that
Speaker 2: have actually done these white tailed deer culls, where they
Speaker 2: you know, they hire sharpshooters to control the population, at
Speaker 2: least partly as a roadkill reduction strategy. I think a
Speaker 2: much cooler idea than increased human predation is actually increased
Speaker 2: natural or wild predation.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: They're actually a couple of fantastic studies suggesting that cougars
Speaker 2: and wolves, you know, by eating lots of deer, dramatically
Speaker 2: reduce roadkill rates and vehicle collisions and damage and even
Speaker 2: driver decks, which is pretty amazing. You know, wolves in
Speaker 2: Wisconsin have been shown to save the public millions of
Speaker 2: dollars by eating deer. And there was a great study
Speaker 2: that estimated the value of reintroducing cougars to the Northeast
Speaker 2: and I forget what the figure was exactly, but it
Speaker 2: was you know, in the I think the hundreds of
Speaker 2: millions of dollars over the course of decades thanks to
Speaker 2: all of the deer vehicle collision reduction that cougars would
Speaker 2: achieve for us. So I think that's a pretty cool idea.
Speaker 2: You know, we could rely on natural predators as collision
Speaker 2: prevention technologies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not volvos. Just get up back out there. I
Speaker 1: also imagine that when you hear reintroduce wolves and cougars,
Speaker 1: it's like this hairs on the back of your neck
Speaker 1: stand up and you're like, that's so dangerous, but you
Speaker 1: are so much more likely to be killed in a
Speaker 1: collision with a deer than just torn to pieces by
Speaker 1: a cougar, I imagine, statistically.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, I mean, that's same paper about cougar reintroduction
Speaker 2: in the Northeast estimated that cougars would save many lives
Speaker 2: over the course of thirty years. So yeah, these are
Speaker 2: seemingly dangerous animals when in reality, you know, the most
Speaker 2: dangerous wild animal in the country is the white tail deer,
Speaker 2: you know, much more responsible for many more human fatalities
Speaker 2: than sharks and snakes and bees and other animals, and
Speaker 2: certainly than cougars. Of course, that's not the deer's fault, right,
Speaker 2: that's the world that we've engineered in which deer are implicated.
Speaker 2: But there's no question that anything we can do to
Speaker 2: kind of reduce some of these unnaturally high white tail
Speaker 2: deer densities, you know, is gonna save some lives.
Speaker 1: I wonder even do you think they're even more dangerous
Speaker 1: than mosquitoes? Hm, that's in this country.
Speaker 2: That's a good question.
Speaker 1: I got to look it up.
Speaker 2: I mean, certainly not globally, but yeah, I'm not sure
Speaker 2: how many how many Americans are killed by mosquito born illnesses.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Okay, yeah, I checked this out for US,
Speaker 1: and while over a million people worldwide so come to
Speaker 1: mosquito born illness every year, it is a low percentage
Speaker 1: in the US. So the CDC reported just seventy nine
Speaker 1: human deaths last year, but deaths in America from deer
Speaker 1: collisions around four hundred and fifty, which is the same
Speaker 1: number of American fatalities from salmonella or acetamenophin hepatoxicity which
Speaker 1: is the medical term for a taile and all overdose.
Speaker 1: But that's still four hundred and fifty funerals because of deer.
Speaker 1: And you know, they say it in Montana specifically, if
Speaker 1: you've ever been on a hike in Montana, you have
Speaker 1: been stalked by a cougar in a tree just looking
Speaker 1: at you, which is like, well, I've been on a
Speaker 1: lot of hikes in Montana yet to be killed by
Speaker 1: a cougar. Knock on something, So that's good. I have
Speaker 1: questions from listeners. Can I lob them at your face?
Speaker 2: Oh? Please? Yeah, I'm ready, But before.
Speaker 1: We do, let's steer some money at a cause of
Speaker 1: the ologists choosing, which this week is wild Landsnetwork dot org,
Speaker 1: which uses the principles of conservation biology to identify the
Speaker 1: core native wildlife habitat areas and the corridors the connect them,
Speaker 1: which they call wild ways, and their work is shaping
Speaker 1: conservation projects across North America. So if roadkill upsets you,
Speaker 1: consider checking out Wildlandsnetwork dot org. And thanks to sponsors
Speaker 1: of the show for making that donation possible. All right,
Speaker 1: let's wild out. Let's tear through your Patreon questions. To
Speaker 1: submit questions for the Ologies ahead of time, you can
Speaker 1: just go to patreon dot com slash Ologies. It's a
Speaker 1: book a month to join, and we're going to hite
Speaker 1: your questions specifically a few audio questions asked by the
Speaker 1: BFF here on Patreon, but this first topic of inciry
Speaker 1: was a popular one. It was also submitted by Jenna Briner,
Speaker 1: Rachel j Alisia Smith, John Burbridge, Maras Schoner, Kayla C. Chandler, Witherington,
Speaker 1: Elena Litton, Alana Wood, Alissa Gregory, Nicole Kleinman, Elizabeth Newman Taylor,
Speaker 1: and Denoah. Okay, let's hear it. Collar you're live, You're
Speaker 1: not absolutely not live.
Speaker 5: Not too try to.
Speaker 4: Put anologist out of work, but is there any way
Speaker 4: to avoid running over my little and sometimes not so
Speaker 4: little friends on the street.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good question, And I think that minimizing your nighttime
Speaker 2: driving is probably the best way to do that. You know,
Speaker 2: that's just when the critters tend to be more active,
Speaker 2: and also you know, when your reaction time is the slowest.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's definitely something that I've tried to be
Speaker 2: more conscious of. It's obviously hard to avoid altogether, but
Speaker 2: making trips in the daytime when you can, I think,
Speaker 2: is one way around that.
Speaker 1: And also, early bedtimes are the new sleeping in? Am
Speaker 1: I right?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: I love an early bedtime? So A pal and a
Speaker 1: host of the beauty podcast Natchbute, Jackie Michell Johnson. She
Speaker 1: calls herself a niche over thirty influencer, and she has
Speaker 1: influenced me.
Speaker 2: Guess what is so much better than sleeping in? Going
Speaker 2: to bed early? Going to bed early.
Speaker 5: It's so much better than sleeping in, take it from me.
Speaker 1: And for that, I am ever grateful.
Speaker 2: So nice, it feels, it feels so good, it's the best.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just like I used to think, like things
Speaker 1: is so old of me, but I'm like, no, this
Speaker 1: is luxury, are you kidding? In bed of the book
Speaker 1: by nine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's that fucking man. Your device turned off in
Speaker 2: another room ideally, so good.
Speaker 1: Yes, I got a flip phone recently, a bat phone.
Speaker 1: I call it for emergencies. Only only a few people
Speaker 1: have the number, so I could just leave my phone
Speaker 1: in a corner. I know that if there's an emergency
Speaker 1: that people can reach me with a bat phone. But
Speaker 1: highly recommended, Ellie.
Speaker 2: I've actually I have been an exclusive flip phone user
Speaker 2: for the last five years. So now we'll do another
Speaker 2: another a flip Phoneology episode sometime because I could talk
Speaker 2: about my flip phone all.
Speaker 1: Day, oh my god. And you still are able to
Speaker 1: text people obviously, you could still take pictures on it.
Speaker 1: It's just no scrolling. That's amazing, very.
Speaker 2: Very pixelated pictures and very slow texts.
Speaker 1: But yes, yes, yes, good for you. Love it. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, that's amazing. I never would have guessed that
Speaker 1: about you. Some people, some of you out there, can
Speaker 1: just delete an app where you can silence your notifications,
Speaker 1: and congratulations on that. But I cannot trust myself around
Speaker 1: a browser because I blink and it's two forty am
Speaker 1: and I'm learning that the National Animal of Scotland is
Speaker 1: a unicorn who allowed that? Don't make me look it up,
Speaker 1: but okay, back to a podcast about actual wildlife. So
Speaker 1: Ben's biggest tip is avoiding night driving and be hyper aware,
Speaker 1: especially during dusk and down. Other tidbits from experts on
Speaker 1: how not to kill an animal or yourself include don't
Speaker 1: look at your phone for everyone's sake, stay alert, especially
Speaker 1: during the peak season, which is now you are welcome,
Speaker 1: and especially when you see those animal crossing signs. If
Speaker 1: you see an animal, you can flick your high beams,
Speaker 1: which is the universal signal for go on gee it.
Speaker 1: You can honk your horn, You do a little tap
Speaker 1: dance on the brakes to let anyone behind you know
Speaker 1: that there's some shit going down on the road ahead,
Speaker 1: and if an impact is imminent, if it's going to happen,
Speaker 1: the wisdom is not to swerve because that could land
Speaker 1: you in a ditch or rollover. So don't veer off
Speaker 1: the road. Call nine one if it's a big critter
Speaker 1: that you hit that could endanger others, or if it
Speaker 1: needs humane treatment. Insurance companies are also like tape pictures
Speaker 1: so that we don't wrap your claim up in a
Speaker 1: lot of bullshit. Or moose shit. So okay, now you
Speaker 1: know how to avoid it or what to do. Just
Speaker 1: your internet dad here asking you to drive safe. Kiddos,
Speaker 1: want to have you around for as many episodes as possible. Okay.
Speaker 1: This next one is another audio question from the bfftre
Speaker 1: on Patreon, but it was also on the minds of
Speaker 1: patrons Anna Thompson, Scarlett Page and Baker, Katie Murray, Ashley Dent, Sodnis,
Speaker 1: Jenna Coongden, Chris Curious, Jason Lowenthal, Destiny Beg, the Saccgrast Scientists,
Speaker 1: Pedal Luck and Emmy Dalrymple. Let's roll the tape.
Speaker 3: This is Emily and Michigan. I was wondering who comes
Speaker 3: and cleans up the road kill and what do they
Speaker 3: do with the road kill? Where did they go after
Speaker 3: they scrape them up off the road? Sorry for being
Speaker 3: so explicit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's such a great question. So every road has
Speaker 2: its maintenance personnel, you know, whether that's county staff or
Speaker 2: state staff or Federal Highway Administration staff, depending on the
Speaker 2: jurisdiction of the road. Who owns and operates the road,
Speaker 2: you just lends their private contractors as well, and you
Speaker 2: know most of those carcasses get land filled or incinerated.
Speaker 2: Some just get like taken to some random dump site
Speaker 2: and shoved off the side of the highway. Oh dear,
Speaker 2: oh dear, that definitely happens. Sometimes. There are a couple
Speaker 2: of carcass composting programs out there which are kind of cool,
Speaker 2: and then some get eaten as well by people. You know,
Speaker 2: I think about thirty states now have legalized roadkill consumption.
Speaker 2: You know, typically you have to obtain a permit, which
Speaker 2: you're usually pretty easy to get, or you know, report
Speaker 2: your salvaged animal via an app. It's a cool program.
Speaker 2: It's kind of a way of getting free range, organic
Speaker 2: meat to people who need it. One of the people
Speaker 2: I talked to working on the book was a woman
Speaker 2: who used to be a truck driver for the Alaska
Speaker 2: Moose Federation, which was this organization that went around collecting
Speaker 2: dead moose and taking them to the elderly or poor
Speaker 2: people who signed up for a moose carcass, and you know,
Speaker 2: there's your protein for the year. Those are some pretty
Speaker 2: hefty animals.
Speaker 1: Right Gigantic Alaska residents check out the Alaska Wildlife Troopers
Speaker 1: Roadkill Salvage Database, and that alerts eligible organizations to come
Speaker 1: fetch this hot carcass within thirty minutes of the notification.
Speaker 1: Time's a ticken now Wyoming people. As of January twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, there is a five to one one app
Speaker 1: where if you've cleared yourself with fish and game first,
Speaker 1: you can get notifications to salvage a whole edible menagerie,
Speaker 1: including elk, deer, moose, antelope, wild bison, or wild turkey.
Speaker 1: But so, maybe hold off on just having a flip
Speaker 1: phone because a bison buffet could be just at that
Speaker 1: tips your fingers. But would you want to do you?
Speaker 1: Will you get a disease that you'll regret for the
Speaker 1: rest of your life or is it scruptuous? So patrons
Speaker 1: Jesme Ritchie, Elta Sparks, River Kanina, Melanie Yakimovic, Sheilen Whippert,
Speaker 1: Laura Brunner, Jessica Fowler, Roslin has Bi, Savannah McGuire, jen
Speaker 1: Ander mcadam's, Tessa, John Mitchell, Gregory Hayes, mar Go Lewis,
Speaker 1: Brenna Pixley, Heather Moore, Olivia Kimes, who asked is it
Speaker 1: safe to eat? Not talking about rodents? And on that note,
Speaker 1: first time question asker Julie Bender wanted to know, is
Speaker 1: roadkill really safe to eat? And if so, how can
Speaker 1: you tell? R. J. Deutsch wants to know. Is there
Speaker 1: a place to take it to find out if it's
Speaker 1: safe to consume? You know, is chronic wasting a disease
Speaker 1: with deer a concern? Or how do you know if
Speaker 1: like this one's past its prime or this one's like
Speaker 1: ready for the barbecue?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Good, good question. I mean, certainly there are definitely
Speaker 2: conditions in which you're more liable to want to harvest
Speaker 2: roadkill than others. You know, I talked to a number
Speaker 2: of roadkill salvagers working on this book, and they definitely
Speaker 2: all said, like winter is kind of prime time. Right
Speaker 2: in summer, you know, carcasses decomposed quickly, whereas in winter
Speaker 2: they're naturally preserved. If you know that an animal's been
Speaker 2: killed very recently, right, that's a good sign. I actually
Speaker 2: just ate roadkill for the first time a week ago.
Speaker 2: It was a friend who lives in Montana and actually
Speaker 2: saw the elk hit in front of his house and
Speaker 2: you know, ran out and salvaged it. One thing that
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of guys check for is they
Speaker 2: check for bruising. If an animal is you know, badly
Speaker 2: bruised by a collision, its meat's not as good and
Speaker 2: you know, maybe the internal organs have kind of been scrambled,
Speaker 2: and that's certainly not good for the quality of the
Speaker 2: meat either.
Speaker 1: Heads up a little warning for details of collisions. But
Speaker 1: this stuff is really good to know from an ecological
Speaker 1: and a sustainability perspective.
Speaker 2: You know, an animal that's been hit in the head
Speaker 2: rather than the flank is generally a better one to harvest.
Speaker 2: As for the questions about zoonotic disease transmission, I mean,
Speaker 2: to my knowledge, and you know, I did plenty of
Speaker 2: dignity because I was curious about that as well, I've
Speaker 2: never found an instance of roadkill to human disease transmission.
Speaker 2: I mean that's not to say that it never has
Speaker 2: or will happened, And certainly there are activists out there
Speaker 2: who have complained about roadkill salvage or raised concerns about
Speaker 2: it for that reason, But as far as I can tell,
Speaker 2: there's never been a recorded instance of that actually happening.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, that's good to know. So there are hunter
Speaker 1: training programs that advise of say a high metal toxicity
Speaker 1: in certain regions, or how to test for chronic wasting
Speaker 1: disease in deer or other pathogens in say, raccoon meat.
Speaker 1: So you might want to seek out more local info
Speaker 1: or take a course for hunters of game meat so
Speaker 1: you can familiarize yourself with wild animal carcass handling for
Speaker 1: the purpose of consumption. So roadkill, it's accidental, it's free protein,
Speaker 1: it's unfarmed animals who may have had a good life.
Speaker 1: Who's not down with a good roadkill harvest? Where who's
Speaker 1: the haters?
Speaker 2: A couple of things. I mean, first, I've definitely read
Speaker 2: concerns that it could lead to intentional roadkill, and I
Speaker 2: think that's extremely rare, not to say that it never
Speaker 2: happens there, Actually there are I have heard of a
Speaker 2: couple of instances of people deliberately running down deer with
Speaker 2: their cars and then harvesting them. And one guy actually
Speaker 2: I think of some prison time for that, and a
Speaker 2: security camera caught him doing that. You did meet, which
Speaker 2: is pretty pretty wild. That just seems like a really
Speaker 2: dangerous and expensive way to go about it, right, I
Speaker 2: mean you like, you don't have a rifle in your
Speaker 2: car or something. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you're gonna do something illegal, make it at
Speaker 1: least easier.
Speaker 2: I guess right exactly.
Speaker 1: A guy in Wisconsin twenty thirteen misdemeanor illegal deer hunting charge,
Speaker 1: pleading guilty find a few thousand bucks, but is a
Speaker 1: carcass on the road worth two in the freezer section.
Speaker 2: I'd also read a letter or a paper that basically
Speaker 2: said that it was sort of classist in some ways.
Speaker 2: Right in some places, you know, a fair amount of
Speaker 2: roadkill ends up in food banks, and the concern there
Speaker 2: is that again, there's potentially something classist about giving needy
Speaker 2: people these animals that were hit on the side of
Speaker 2: the road and could potentially be carrying parasites or other pathogens.
Speaker 2: You know, I think that those health concerns are generally,
Speaker 2: I think overblown. And you know, as many roadkill salvagers
Speaker 2: pointed out to me, you know, think about how many
Speaker 2: how many antibiotics are stuffed into a factory grown cow
Speaker 2: or pig or chicken, whereas you know, roadkill is this
Speaker 2: free range, organic wild meat that you know, in some
Speaker 2: ways might be healthier than an animal grown and a
Speaker 2: feed laph.
Speaker 1: I always wonder about that too, because it's factory farming
Speaker 1: is so destructive for the environment as well, and then
Speaker 1: there's so much just meat and protein that goes to waste.
Speaker 1: And we had great questions from Shalen Whippert, Kaikishimoto, Megan Yo, Knnie,
Speaker 1: Connie Bobani, and Jen Squirrel Alvarus, who wanted to know
Speaker 1: about taxidermy roadkill. Connie said, I have a friend who
Speaker 1: would pick up deer and tan the hides. Any reason
Speaker 1: not to do this? Jen wants to know how can
Speaker 1: I collect skulls for roade kill without looking like a
Speaker 1: serial killer? And is it okay to pick it up
Speaker 1: and tax it dermy it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it depends on the species, and you know,
Speaker 2: end on your local UH or state regulations. I don't
Speaker 2: want to give any any advice. It's going to get
Speaker 2: anybody into any trouble just because the regulations are so
Speaker 2: sort of diffuse and diverse. So I'll just say, you know,
Speaker 2: check with your local, your your state fish and Wildlife
Speaker 2: agency before picking up in taxi durying any any wildlife.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, good call google it. Google it in your area.
Speaker 2: Peter, kind of a cop out, but that's That's what
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go with.
Speaker 1: Hey, you're avoiding people getting arrested.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be aiding in our betting any
Speaker 2: any any taxidermy felons.
Speaker 1: You're like, here's what you do. You get yourself a briefcase?
Speaker 1: All right, say it's paperwork. Okay. With all this talk
Speaker 1: of roadkill meals and taxidermy specimens, I'm sure that the
Speaker 1: animal lovers and all of us feel like a little
Speaker 1: like a little squeaky.
Speaker 5: Let al.
Speaker 1: And I wondered how Peter would feel about this whole episode, Like,
Speaker 1: am I going to get letters next time I go
Speaker 1: to the mall? Is someone going to douse me in
Speaker 1: red pain? And People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Speaker 1: weighs in via their website and whoo boy, get ready. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is what they say. If people must eat animal carcasses,
Speaker 1: roadkill is a superior option to the neatly shrink wrapped
Speaker 1: plastic packages of meat in the supermarket. Wait what Okay,
Speaker 1: Peda continues. Eating roadkill is healthier for the consumer than
Speaker 1: meat laden with antibiotics, hormones, and growth stimulants, as most
Speaker 1: meat is today. It's also more humane, and that animals
Speaker 1: killed on the road were not castrated, dehorned, or debeaked
Speaker 1: without anesthesia, did not suffer the trauma and misery of
Speaker 1: transportation in a crowded truck in all weather extremes, and
Speaker 1: did not hear the screams and smell the fear of
Speaker 1: the animals ahead of them on the slaughterline. Perhaps the
Speaker 1: animals never knew what hit them. Wow, Okay, so animal
Speaker 1: activists are like, hey, man, it sucks, but it's unlived already.
Speaker 1: So when it comes to a dead frail pig, go
Speaker 1: hog wild Hatren Shalan Whipper wanted to remind us of
Speaker 1: a person who called into Fargo, North Dakota radio station
Speaker 1: Y ninety four Playhouse with concerns about deer crossing signage.
Speaker 5: Why are we encouraging deer across at the Interstate. I
Speaker 5: don't get it. That's such a high traffic area. I mean,
Speaker 5: I understand the deer world animals, they need to travel
Speaker 5: across the streets occasionally to survive and of course to
Speaker 5: sign food. But it seems to me that so irresponsible
Speaker 5: of us to a lot of these deer cross needs
Speaker 5: to be in areas where these deer are so likely
Speaker 5: to be struck by oncoming traffic.
Speaker 1: May won't you agree to be clear that was not
Speaker 1: an ologies patron with an audio submission, that was just
Speaker 1: some person years ago, but this ologeite did want some
Speaker 1: elucidation on it. I thought Elena Litton had a great question.
Speaker 1: Is there any meaning behind where the signs are placed
Speaker 1: along a road, Like is there a deer trail right there?
Speaker 1: Or is it just like in this general area.
Speaker 2: You know, it's so ad hoc in some ways, there's
Speaker 2: not really. I wish there was a great systematic way
Speaker 2: in which signs were placed, but my impression is that
Speaker 2: that's not the case at all. You know, sort of
Speaker 2: where crashes have occurred in the past, or where deer
Speaker 2: have been observed or hunter saw some deer tracks at
Speaker 2: a time or two. It seems like it's often pretty arbitrary.
Speaker 2: And I think that's why signs aren't super effective, because
Speaker 2: they're just so many of them on the landscape. Again,
Speaker 2: we habituate too, then they kind of become white visual noise.
Speaker 2: So yeah, those deer signs again not too effective, and
Speaker 2: they're not generally placed in a really focused strategic way.
Speaker 1: Okay, just think I wondered that too, like if there
Speaker 1: was a deer that was just hanging out behind the
Speaker 1: sign being like is it safe across?
Speaker 2: Yeah? If I could train them across at the signs that,
Speaker 2: you know, that would be really effective.
Speaker 1: Right, as someone who has been hit by a car
Speaker 1: crossing the street, I trust deer dab better instincts than
Speaker 1: I do. I survived, obviously, but it was it wasn't
Speaker 1: a fun experience. I was like, twelve, that's off.
Speaker 2: Sorry that happened to you.
Speaker 1: I know, a Mercedes Sedan hit me. And they're like,
Speaker 1: here's the deal. We'll give you five hundred bucks not
Speaker 1: to sue us. And I was like, five hundred smackers.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of money. I'll take it. So I
Speaker 1: guess I benefited slightly, and from what I know, I
Speaker 1: didn't have any lasting traumatic brain injury.
Speaker 2: Are you sure about that?
Speaker 1: We had some great questions. Chen Burbridge wanted to know
Speaker 1: how has roadkill affected animal behavior? Have some animals started
Speaker 1: to avoid roads, or has it changed the evolution of
Speaker 1: certain species that are are learning to just like I
Speaker 1: don't cross that.
Speaker 2: That's such a good question. There's some fantastic studies and
Speaker 2: anecdotes out there about that very question. I mean, so
Speaker 2: you know, those are really a couple of different questions right,
Speaker 2: there's a question about evolution, and then there's a question
Speaker 2: about behavioral adaptation, you know, learning to live around roads
Speaker 2: on the sort of the behavioral front. Yeah, lots of
Speaker 2: research showing that animals have become road avoids. Grizzly bears
Speaker 2: are kind of one of the archetypal examples of that.
Speaker 2: You know, they're studies showing that even six cars an hour,
Speaker 2: so one car every ten minutes, right, a really low
Speaker 2: traffic rural road is enough to prevent a grizzly bear
Speaker 2: from crossing road. But you know, there are other kind
Speaker 2: of boulder animals out there that have really learned to
Speaker 2: live with these structures that we've built and the traffic
Speaker 2: we've created. You know, the Chicagos of coyote or what
Speaker 2: did I just say, the Chicagos coyote, The coyotes of Chicago,
Speaker 2: you know, a very famous urban animal population. They actually
Speaker 2: cross at crosswalks, at human pedestrian crosswalks, at red lights,
Speaker 2: or at least that's been described and reported. They look
Speaker 2: both ways before crossing the street, which you know not
Speaker 2: every human pedestrian does. And there are carrion crows in
Speaker 2: Japan that will drop nuts at intersections and you know,
Speaker 2: they'll let the cars crush the nuts for them, and
Speaker 2: then they'll scurry out at the red light and grab
Speaker 2: the nut meat. And you know, if the car doesn't
Speaker 2: hit the nut, they'll reapos issuean nut by a few
Speaker 2: inches so the car gets it the next time around.
Speaker 2: So you know, animals are sort of learning to live
Speaker 2: with us in some really fascinating ways.
Speaker 1: So I wondered if this was a common occurrence, and
Speaker 1: our managing director Susan Hale told me that she has
Speaker 1: seen coyotes crossing Elle streets several times, and the internet
Speaker 1: is choco block with video footage, including a bear lumbering
Speaker 1: about in downtown Ashville, deer on the Japanese island of Nara,
Speaker 1: who have apparently also learned how to bow in thanks
Speaker 1: to treats better than me at avoiding social gaffes, at
Speaker 1: Alaskan moose waiting for the light to change. There's footage
Speaker 1: of Middle Eastern bores at crosswalks, a South Carolina alligator
Speaker 1: just shuffling safely over the stripes, and a small flock
Speaker 1: of German ducks waiting until the light goes green to
Speaker 1: waddle through a crosswalk, which I was like that's odd
Speaker 1: because it got wings none of my business. Also noteworthy
Speaker 1: is this group of elephant bulls in Hiland who can
Speaker 1: smell the approach of raw sugarcane trucks and they stop
Speaker 1: them in the road to demand like a toll of
Speaker 1: a few hundred pounds of the goods before they let
Speaker 1: them continue on. So if you've been too scared to
Speaker 1: ask for a raise at your job, just know that
Speaker 1: there is an elephant somewhere with a sugar high just
Speaker 1: because it was aware of its own worth and its
Speaker 1: own power. No rays, block your boss's car with your
Speaker 1: body and take their wallet. You can write me from prison. Now,
Speaker 1: how much of this is pattern recognition and how much
Speaker 1: is evolution?
Speaker 2: And then the evolution question is also an amazing question.
Speaker 2: There's one really iconic study that I talk about in
Speaker 2: the book about cliff swallows. Cliff swallows are these birds
Speaker 2: that build mud nests on the undersides of highway overpasses
Speaker 2: and bridges, and historically they build their nests on cliffs, right,
Speaker 2: That's how they got their name. But you know, now
Speaker 2: they've kind of taken advantage of all of this infrastructure
Speaker 2: that we've built, and as a result of that, they
Speaker 2: do get hit by cars sometimes, you know, they're living
Speaker 2: over highways in many cases, and they get you know,
Speaker 2: they get plastered. But there's some amazing research that was
Speaker 2: conducted by a scientist named Charles Brown starting in the
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties in Nebraska, and he basically found that over
Speaker 2: time cliff swallows became less susceptible to roadkill. And the
Speaker 2: reason is that they were evolving shorter wings. Having a
Speaker 2: long wing is good for flying long straight directions or distances,
Speaker 2: whereas having a short wing is good for making lots
Speaker 2: of tight turns and rolls and pirouettes, all of those
Speaker 2: little quick maneuvers that you'd use to you know, get
Speaker 2: out of the way of a barreling eighteen wheeler. So
Speaker 2: over time, all of those long winged swallows got weeded
Speaker 2: out of the population and the cliff flaws became shorter
Speaker 2: winged as a result. So that's you know, evolution happening
Speaker 2: really like in the blink of a geologic eye.
Speaker 1: Oh that's amazing. I had no idea. I always wonder
Speaker 1: what those mud nests were too. When I passed under them,
Speaker 1: I was like, who is living in there?
Speaker 2: Those are the cliff swallows?
Speaker 1: Yeah, just a fun to bring up. Will everyone choose
Speaker 1: yams silently?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 1: Cliff swallows build their little domed adobe houses out of
Speaker 1: over a thousand individual pellets that they gather from puddles
Speaker 1: and mud banks. Like imagine if you could make ceramics
Speaker 1: no hands, using just your mouth, and then also live
Speaker 1: in them and not have a mortgage. Next time you're
Speaker 1: driving along and you've see an underpass turned into a
Speaker 1: hipster enclay for birds, say hey, way to go, I
Speaker 1: love it. Make me one. Aaron Burbridge and Emily Stuffer
Speaker 1: raised a great point about seasoning the roads. Aaron lives
Speaker 1: in Nova Scotia, Canada, and we apply salt brine to
Speaker 1: the roads out of winter storms. And I've heard that
Speaker 1: some animals are attracted to the salt and that brings
Speaker 1: them closed to road sides. Does that happen? I've heard
Speaker 1: that with moose too in Maine. They're lapping up the
Speaker 1: shoulders of the roads. Is that a problem?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question, and that is a problem. Mean,
Speaker 2: certainly roads can become these ecological traps. You know, salt
Speaker 2: is this super stimulant that animals crave. And our profly
Speaker 2: salting of highways does lure them to the roadside and
Speaker 2: create trouble as a result. I mean, there's one place
Speaker 2: in Quebec that I read about where basically they had
Speaker 2: created all of these little artificial salt ponds by the
Speaker 2: side of the highway actually in a wildlife refuge, and
Speaker 2: moose were so often drawn to the highway and hit
Speaker 2: as a result that they actually had to drain all
Speaker 2: of those salt ponds and fill them in with rocks
Speaker 2: so that the moose wouldn't keep coming back to the
Speaker 2: road over and over again. In Jasper National Park there's
Speaker 2: actually they put up these road signs in winter that
Speaker 2: say do not let moose lick your car, which is like,
Speaker 2: I feel like, if a moose wants to lick your car,
Speaker 2: it's going to be really hard.
Speaker 1: To prevent it from doing that.
Speaker 2: But you know, that is I guess that's a problem.
Speaker 1: How do you have boundaries of the moose? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I've heard too. My dad, who grew up in Montana,
Speaker 1: always used to say that if you hit a moose,
Speaker 1: it's like hitting a brick wall, like your toast.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, I mean there's been lots of studies showing,
Speaker 2: you know, the sort of the different costs to hitting
Speaker 2: various animals, you know, the costs in terms of vehicle
Speaker 2: repairs and hospital bills and insurance costs and tow trucks
Speaker 2: and so on. So now you know, the average deer
Speaker 2: collision costs the American public more than nine thousand dollars,
Speaker 2: and the average moose collision costs more than forty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Because they're just such an enormous animal that does so
Speaker 2: much damage. And I'm sure that that sort of per
Speaker 2: moose crash, I would imagine that they're the most dangerous
Speaker 2: animal in the country.
Speaker 1: Do halogen lights help it all? I know that there
Speaker 1: are some new cars that are like blinding, but do
Speaker 1: better bulbs help.
Speaker 2: From a driver visibility standpoint? You know, you'd imagine that
Speaker 2: any headlight that increases the distance that you can see
Speaker 2: in front of your car is going to be helpful.
Speaker 2: There's also there was a cool study done by a
Speaker 2: guy named Travis de Vault, who's an ecologist who's done
Speaker 2: lots of work with roadkill and scavenging and collision avoidance,
Speaker 2: and he basically showed that putting these backward facing light
Speaker 2: bars in the front of cars, which actually like illuminated
Speaker 2: the car rather than the road itself in front of
Speaker 2: the car. That helped because it seemingly made the car
Speaker 2: more visible to wildlife. So that's one solution. I don't
Speaker 2: know if we're going to, you know, outfit all of
Speaker 2: our vehicles with these light bars, but you know, it
Speaker 2: does seem like there are things we can do to
Speaker 2: our vehicles that might make a difference.
Speaker 1: One possibility that giant roof mounted set of fiberglass antlers,
Speaker 1: maybe just to intimidate other ungulates, like dang, that dude's
Speaker 1: on the juice. See I'm out because, as patron Tara asked,
Speaker 1: our deer's part moth for headlights and in Natalie Risou's words,
Speaker 1: why do deer want to die so bad? And I
Speaker 1: can't believe I forg got to ask this one. So
Speaker 1: many listeners want to know, deer in the headlights? What's
Speaker 1: going on? Why do they freeze?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good question. They have eyes that are
Speaker 2: incredibly good at absorbing light essentially, and as a result
Speaker 2: there basically blinded, you know, And that's of course another
Speaker 2: example of cars hijacking this otherwise useful adaptation, right, And
Speaker 2: you sort of think about the evolutionary history, or the
Speaker 2: evolutionary defense strategies of You know, all of our most
Speaker 2: beloved animals, skunks that spray, and porcupines that have quills,
Speaker 2: and turtles that pull their heads into their shells. Right,
Speaker 2: these are all amazing defense mechanisms that have been honed
Speaker 2: over thousands of generations. You know, when you're predator is
Speaker 2: a hawk or a coyote, but you know, against an
Speaker 2: F one fifty barreling down the interstate, they're normally useless.
Speaker 2: They're actually maladaptive. Right, The worst thing you can do
Speaker 2: is stand your ground and hunker down. So cars have
Speaker 2: this really evil way. I think of hijacking evolution and
Speaker 2: deer freezing in headlights because they have these wonderful eyes
Speaker 2: that are capable of absorbing light but get blinded by
Speaker 2: its unnatural brightness. That's just another example of evolution kind
Speaker 2: of gone awry thanks to automobility.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to keep them, but I had to
Speaker 1: ask skunk questions from Jenny Brown's and leneam Brink Anderson,
Speaker 1: I swear to more, and then I'm letting you go
Speaker 1: to cough and take more. Dequel, I'm so very sorry.
Speaker 1: Julie wants to know. Is it weird that I like
Speaker 1: the smell of skunk coil driving by? Also? Do they
Speaker 1: spray when they get hit or what's the deal there?
Speaker 1: Is it unrelated? How do you feel about skunk smell?
Speaker 2: Weird that you like that smell? Dear, dear listener, you
Speaker 2: might be alone in that one, and I don't know
Speaker 2: for sure, but you know, my assumption would be that
Speaker 2: when they're hit, the scent gland that they used to
Speaker 2: spray is just crushed and the scent is released.
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. It reminds me of home.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of summer night. I don't love that
Speaker 1: there was a skunk that's resting in peace, but I
Speaker 1: do if I smell it far away, I'm not mad
Speaker 1: at it. It's like the smell of gasoline. Some people
Speaker 1: are like, ah, love that, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Go figure, listen. I'm going to do an old fact
Speaker 1: dology episode at some point, but for now, I needed
Speaker 1: to know why skunk is music to our noses but
Speaker 1: not all of us. And it turns out that Skunk's
Speaker 1: first off, they have not one, but they have two
Speaker 1: anal glands, and they can spray up to fifteen feet
Speaker 1: with military accuracy, and what's in them volatile sulfur containing
Speaker 1: compounds called thiols. And you may enjoy it because the
Speaker 1: olfactory bulb resides in a part of your brain associated
Speaker 1: with memory. So if it's a nostalgic scent, you say
Speaker 1: yea me me mimiam. Sunset drives on warm summer nights,
Speaker 1: heading to make out with my crush on a park bench.
Speaker 1: And for more of that you can see the July
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one study Contextual Variation and Objectivity in Olfactory Perception.
Speaker 1: Or maybe because it smells like the gancha. According to
Speaker 1: another recent paper titled identification of a new family of
Speaker 1: pre nihilated voladile sulfur compounds in Cannabis Revealed by comprehensive
Speaker 1: two dimensional gas chromatography, so researchers found that it's not
Speaker 1: cannabis terpenes, but rather a three methyl two buttine on
Speaker 1: thighol VSC three, or volatile sulfur compound number three that
Speaker 1: gives weed its skunky aroma, and VSC three is also
Speaker 1: found in bruce Ki's exposed to UV light, which you
Speaker 1: might know is skunked beer. So VSC three it's in
Speaker 1: your weed, it's in your beer, it's in the skunk's butt.
Speaker 1: I have never been skunked, but I understand it's kind
Speaker 1: of like when you put lipliner outside of your lip.
Speaker 1: It's better at a distance, but up close, skunk musk
Speaker 1: smells apparently like someone farting garlic near a tire fire.
Speaker 1: And the smell is so bad that it's been used
Speaker 1: as inspiration for a weaponry, such as a yellow mist
Speaker 1: fired from a water cannon that has the aroma apparently
Speaker 1: of a rotting corpse in an open sewer wearing filthy socks.
Speaker 1: And it's called simply skunk and has encountered opposition from
Speaker 1: several human rights organizations. It's considered that cruel. I need
Speaker 1: to do an episode on smell. Last listener question, Aaron
Speaker 1: Ryan wants to know do.
Speaker 4: You ever cry when you see free special animals that
Speaker 4: have become roadkill, like a heron? And then do you
Speaker 4: also later realize that you cried over a garbage bag
Speaker 4: that you thought was a heron?
Speaker 1: I think this is a personal question. Have you ever
Speaker 1: thought you saw roadkill and then it turned out to
Speaker 1: just be like a duffel bag?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's like one of those like asking for a friend. Yeah, no,
Speaker 2: I mean yes, I have definitely stopped for yeah, many
Speaker 2: sticks and tire fragments and all kinds of stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 2: especially for snakes. You know, I definitely stopped for snakes
Speaker 2: very often and shepherd the snakes off the road. I
Speaker 2: did that the other day, and you know, it turned
Speaker 2: out to be a rattlesnake, which was a little bit
Speaker 2: more exciting than I'd anticipated, but awesome. I was really
Speaker 2: happy to help that snake off the road, even if
Speaker 2: he just returned to bask on the warm asphalt fifteen
Speaker 2: minutes later. But a snake looks like anything, right, So
Speaker 2: if you're habituated to stop for snakes, you also end
Speaker 2: up stopping for lots of ropes and bunge of corks
Speaker 2: and branches and all kinds of things.
Speaker 1: And the snake was alive.
Speaker 2: Snake was alive.
Speaker 1: Oh, oh my gosh. I have a rattle from a
Speaker 1: rattlesnake in Montana that my cousin Boyd, who we've had
Speaker 1: on in the Bisonology episode, cut off of a dead
Speaker 1: one and he gave it to me and it's it's
Speaker 1: a bit of a treasured possession. But he was like, well,
Speaker 1: the rattlesnake wasn't using it anymore. He didn't kill the rattlesnake,
Speaker 1: but he did harvest the rattle.
Speaker 2: But that's like another example, right of that evolutionary hijacking.
Speaker 2: You know, Rattling is this amazing, unique, bizarre defense mechanism
Speaker 2: that you know is really good at warning off people
Speaker 2: and foxes and all kinds of other creators. But your
Speaker 2: subrew doesn't care.
Speaker 1: Oh so true. But last questions, I always ask what
Speaker 1: was the hardest thing about writing this book? What was
Speaker 1: the toughest moment for you in this experience?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good question. You know, Look, there are
Speaker 2: a lot of tough road killer related moments, you know,
Speaker 2: certainly seeing a giant ant eater or a tape air,
Speaker 2: you know, all of these amazing, just majestic exotic animals dead.
Speaker 2: You know, when I visited Brazil for one of the chapters,
Speaker 2: I think the toughest thing was writing a book that
Speaker 2: you know, I hope is enjoyable to read. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's such a dark topic in some ways, and yet
Speaker 2: there are so many inspiring people out there who are
Speaker 2: working on understanding the problem and devising solutions. All of
Speaker 2: the you know, the real rhode ecologists that I was
Speaker 2: just fortunate to translate. Basically, so writing a book that
Speaker 2: dealt with a dark, challenging topic, but you know, is
Speaker 2: still enjoyable on the page and maybe even uplifting in
Speaker 2: places that was challenging throughout, And I'm not sure if
Speaker 2: I got there, but I was definitely trying again.
Speaker 1: His book is called Crossings, How RhoD Ecology is Shaping
Speaker 1: the future of our planet, which I have It's beyond wonderful,
Speaker 1: but don't take my word for it. Reviews of the
Speaker 1: book have called Ben the David Attenborough of the Asphalt,
Speaker 1: the kind of gonzo environmental journalist Hunter S. Thompson would
Speaker 1: have loved, and said that his book is rilely funny,
Speaker 1: full of cool stories, and a deeply researched and compelling read.
Speaker 1: What about a moment that was uplifting or one of
Speaker 1: your your favorite moments in writing this book or researching it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I loved going back. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think I mentioned at the start of this conversation that
Speaker 2: I began the journey of this book by visiting one
Speaker 2: of these wildlife crossings, right, or a number of these
Speaker 2: wildlife crossings, you know, these structures that we create to
Speaker 2: help animals cross the road safely. And eight or nine
Speaker 2: years later, sort of at the end of this process,
Speaker 2: I got to go back to one of these wildlife crossings,
Speaker 2: a different one. This one was on I ninety in
Speaker 2: Washington State, you know, about an hour east of Seattle.
Speaker 2: I got to go on top of this big wildlife overpass,
Speaker 2: this bridge that's been used by elk and coyotes and
Speaker 2: little toads and all kinds of other critters, and there
Speaker 2: was it was just so cool to see the sensitivity
Speaker 2: of the ecological design of this crossing in some ways,
Speaker 2: right that they were really thinking about every member of
Speaker 2: the ecosystem. And you know, you can imagine that every
Speaker 2: member of the ecosystem has different requirements in a wildlife crossing.
Speaker 2: Everybody uses slightly different habitat, and you need those different
Speaker 2: habitat elements up there. You know, you need the rock
Speaker 2: piles for the lizards and snakes, and the little log
Speaker 2: jams for the toads, and the kind of the dead
Speaker 2: trees that are going to you know, entice some of
Speaker 2: the birds to visit the crossing because actually, you know,
Speaker 2: birds that are often reluctant to fly over highways as well,
Speaker 2: at least some species are. They'd planted all this native
Speaker 2: vegetation and they'd even inoculated the soil with you know,
Speaker 2: native microorrhizal fungi that are going to grow all of
Speaker 2: the right plant species. So it was just so cool
Speaker 2: to see this bridge that wasn't really a bridge, It
Speaker 2: was really an entire ecosystem that had been designed and
Speaker 2: engineered by humans. And I just found that, again really
Speaker 2: really inspiring and touching in a way that you know,
Speaker 2: we would go to such lengths for wild animals. You know,
Speaker 2: we do so much on this planet to make animals
Speaker 2: lives difficult or more difficult and more dangerous and harder,
Speaker 2: you know, and here was this beautiful, multi million dollar
Speaker 2: structure that we designed to make their lives safer and easier.
Speaker 2: And I thought that was really really lovely.
Speaker 1: Oh that's gorgeous. And do they find their way over
Speaker 1: at through cent? Does a cougar say, I'm going to
Speaker 1: keep following these tracks and then oh, hey look at
Speaker 1: that a bridge?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, really the most important piece in terms
Speaker 2: of getting them to actually use the crossing really the fences.
Speaker 2: You know, you need fences on either side of the
Speaker 2: wildlife crossing along the road. So the cougar is wandering around,
Speaker 2: he's trying to find a way to cross the highway.
Speaker 2: He hits the fence, he starts walking the fence line,
Speaker 2: and then he finds the crossing ideally and says, oh,
Speaker 2: here's the way I'm going. I'm going to get across
Speaker 2: this thing. But you know, the really wonderful thing that
Speaker 2: happens over time, and there's you know, plenty of evidence
Speaker 2: showing this does happen, is that animals teach their own offspring.
Speaker 2: You know, you get a mother grizzly bear who learns
Speaker 2: to use a wildlife crossing, and you know, then her
Speaker 2: cubs follow her across it themselves, and they become crossers,
Speaker 2: and they teach their cubs, which is really cool. And
Speaker 2: the other wonderful thing is that over time, all of
Speaker 2: those animals going across create game trails, you know, little
Speaker 2: animal paths, all of those hoofs and paws leading to
Speaker 2: the crossing and guiding other animals to it. There are
Speaker 2: so many great stories of these amazing spider webs of
Speaker 2: game trails that converge on wildlife crossings. You know, it's
Speaker 2: almost like this form of collective external memory that's leading
Speaker 2: creatures to these places. I talked to one roady cologist
Speaker 2: who had worked in Banff National Park in Canada, where
Speaker 2: there's some very famous wildlife crossings, and he said it
Speaker 2: was like the land itself was learning to use the
Speaker 2: crossings together, which I thought was the most beautiful sentiment.
Speaker 1: Oh that's amazing. That's gorgeous, and how exciting to know
Speaker 1: that that's happening in different parts of the country and
Speaker 1: hopefully will be happening more and more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, that really is happening. You know, there's this
Speaker 2: really big new pot of money for wildlife crossings, and
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty one Federal Infrastructure Act three hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty million dollars, which is the most money that's ever
Speaker 2: been allocated to these sorts of solutions. You know, there's
Speaker 2: a big effort led by Beth Pratt, who you talked to,
Speaker 2: to raise five hundred million dollars in private philanthropy for crossings.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot more money out there for this
Speaker 2: sort of thing than there ever used to be, and
Speaker 2: you know it's not enough yet, right, We know, this
Speaker 2: problem is such a huge problem for wildlife in this country.
Speaker 2: You know, more than a million animals are killed by
Speaker 2: cars every day, right, so even three hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: million dollars in federal funding isn't enough to treat all
Speaker 2: of the roadkill hotspots that we know are out there.
Speaker 2: But we're at least going in the right direction. Whether
Speaker 2: we're doing it fast enough or aggressively enough to save biodiversity,
Speaker 2: that's a big question.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for answering so many questions. We're so
Speaker 1: excited to finally get.
Speaker 2: To talk to you allie. Thank you so much for
Speaker 2: doing this. I really really appreciate it. That was super fun.
Speaker 1: So ask driven people drivelling questions because it's the fastest
Speaker 1: way you can move forward. And again, Ben's new book,
Speaker 1: it has so much more detailed info. It's called Crossings
Speaker 1: How Rhodocology is shaping the future of our planet, And
Speaker 1: of course it's all wherever you get books, so you
Speaker 1: can probably get it on your lunch break or at
Speaker 1: the link in the show notes. His social media is
Speaker 1: really gorgeous as well, full of wildlife photos and it's
Speaker 1: linked in the show notes. We are at ologies on
Speaker 1: Instagram and Twitter. I'm at Aliward on both. We have shorter,
Speaker 1: kid friendly versions called Smologies available at Aliward dot com
Speaker 1: slash Smologies. You can be a patron for a book
Speaker 1: a month at patroon dot com slash ologies and submit
Speaker 1: your questions there. And Ologies Merch is available at ologies
Speaker 1: meerch dot com. And we have cool shit if I
Speaker 1: do say so myself. Aaron Talbert admins Theologies podcast Facebook group.
Speaker 1: Emily White of the Wordery makes our professional transcripts. Susan
Speaker 1: Hale as our managing director, literally runs the show and
Speaker 1: did additional research on this episode. Noel Dilworth is our
Speaker 1: scheduling producer. Kelly ar Dwyer makes our website and can
Speaker 1: make yours. And in the driver's seat of our editing
Speaker 1: is lead editor Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio. Nick Thorburn
Speaker 1: did the music and he's in a band called Islands.
Speaker 1: And if you stick around to the end of the episode,
Speaker 1: I tell you a secret, And this week there are two,
Speaker 1: but I have like fifteen I want to tell you
Speaker 1: this week, but the first one is courtesy of Mercedes,
Speaker 1: the person, not the car. And she said said, heck,
Speaker 1: you can tell the world my secret if you want.
Speaker 1: I have eaten Road killed there we knew exactly when
Speaker 1: it was hit and there were people on the scene
Speaker 1: very shortly after. My partner is with volunteer fire and
Speaker 1: he and another first responder split it. It was fine,
Speaker 1: no different than any other while venison. Did it feel
Speaker 1: kind of weird? She says, yes? Did I get it
Speaker 1: over it real fast because venison is delicious? Also yes,
Speaker 1: and bonus, I did not have to shoot it and
Speaker 1: feel bad. So there you have it. A veritable yelp
Speaker 1: review from the shoulder of the road from a Canadian
Speaker 1: and a trusted member of Temologies. Lead editor Mercedes Maitland
Speaker 1: has eaten roadkill loved it. Okay, this other secret is
Speaker 1: my own and maybe you know this. Maybe this came
Speaker 1: late to me in life, but it wasn't until maybe
Speaker 1: this year that I understood why did the chicken cross
Speaker 1: the road to get to the other side? I thought
Speaker 1: it was just like this flat shrug of a punchline,
Speaker 1: like a dotta as joke. But getting to the other
Speaker 1: side means to die. Why did the chicken cross road
Speaker 1: to die? Which is bleak, but it makes more sense. Also,
Speaker 1: this is a sad note, but my dad was going
Speaker 1: in for this kind of risky emergency surgery and his
Speaker 1: last words in the waiting room to me and my
Speaker 1: mom were see you on the other side, which like
Speaker 1: broke my heart that he had to think of the
Speaker 1: right thing to say in case this was like goodbye, goodbye.
Speaker 1: But we were lucky we saw him on the other
Speaker 1: side of the hospital that day and he lived another
Speaker 1: few years. But I always remember like that, see on
Speaker 1: the other side. I also, I don't have a good
Speaker 1: sideway for this, but I didn't understand the bumper sticker
Speaker 1: honk if you're horny until recently either, like that horns
Speaker 1: honk like honk if you're horny. So there you go.
Speaker 1: Some automotive confessions for you. Okay, drive safe, uh yeah, dude, seatbelts,
Speaker 1: bye bye, pacadermatology, hombology, crypto zoology, lithology, hinology, meteorology, batology, anathology, areology, ethology. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: wait a year.
Speaker 2: I'm walking here, I'm walking head