July 21, 2025 • 37 mins
You know when you see someone on social media and you just KNOW they'll be amazing to chat to? Well, that's Bethany Brookshire for you.
Bethany is a science journalist, animal behaviorist and author who writes about the animals most people hate. Rats, cockroaches, spiders, pigeons... And how our feelings about them are mostly cultural, not scientific.
We talked about where fear and disgust come from and how cute a mouse eating a fruit loop is.
Also, how US science funding is collapsing and how bad that's going to be long term, why postgrad burnout is real, and how she wrote a brilliant book.
Part two gets a little more controversial, as we talk cats in Aotearoa.
What we cover:
Bethany’s journey from academic to science journalist.
Fear and disgust; how we learn what animals to hate.
Rats, lab mice, cockroaches, snakes, spiders… and Fruit Loops.
The collapse of US science funding and what that means long term.
Quotes from Bethany:
“I always tell people my life is an entire story of failing upwards. Or at least failing sideways.”
“There is a feeling of disgust and fear around animals like spiders and snakes that we think is evolutionary. It’s not.”
“Startlement can become joy, or it can become fear. It depends who’s around you when it happens.”
“I have the self-confidence of a mediocre white man.”
“Giving a mouse a Froot Loop is like watching a human try to eat a car tyre.”
You can find more about Bethany at https://bethanybrookshire.com/.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Kyoto Kaitaki and welcome to NowThat's what I Call Green.
I'm your host, Brianne W, an environmentalist and
entrepreneur trying to get you as excited about our planet as I
am. I'm all about creating a
scientific approach to making the world a better place without
the judgement and making it fun.And of course, we will be
chatting about some of the most amazing creatures we share our
planet with. So if you are looking to
(00:26):
navigate through everything green or not so green, you have
come to the right place. Joda, welcome back.
I am very excited about today's guest.
I emailed her out of the blue. I always expect people to either
ignore me or just laugh at me. And she said yes, which, yeah,
surprising. She's awesome.
Her name is Bethany Brookshire, and she is a science journalist.
(00:46):
She is. Well, she's a retired scientist.
You'll understand more on the pod, but she's someone who's
made. A.
Career out of questions. She's studied biology,
philosophy, bought it all together and looking at the way
we categorize and live with different species.
She's written for the likes of Science News, The Atlantic,
whole bunch of scientific magazines you'll have heard of.
(01:10):
But she does a lot of science communication on Instagram and
she does a really cool series called the Insomniac Anatomy
Academy. Highly recommend you go and
follow her details in the show notes.
Thank you so much for joining me, Bethany.
I'm so glad to be here. Thank you for having me.
I was specifically. Wanted to find someone who was
an expert in, I don't want to use the term gross, but animals
people don't like and then you cannot.
And then I started stalking you all over the Internet and I was
(01:32):
like, this person is freaking amazing.
I need to talk to you. So I emailed you and thought she
didn't say no, definitely not. And then he responded.
I was so excited. I said thank you very much.
I'm very excited. I'm always here for people who
are here for like, gross in quotes animals and yeah, the
animals that most people hate. I am here for anyone who wants
to talk about those. We might be here for a while
(01:53):
then. One of my favorite pictures.
Fan of you again. This sounds super creepy and
stalker. It was the one where you've got
a rat, I think on your head you've got one crawling over
your shoulders. You're so cute, Pete Rat.
Her name is Magrat. Yeah, well, it was Magrat.
Rats don't live very long. No.
Yeah. So that photo was taken in 2022
(02:13):
and she was actually older than you can't actually see it, but
she just had some minor surgeries cause domestic rats
are often they're very subject to large tumors, benign tumors.
And so she'd had a bunch removedand her fur had mostly grown
back. So she was mostly camera ready.
But she's actually, she was a friend of mine's rat and she was
so great. Like rats normally cannot
(02:36):
control when they pee or poo. And she held it the whole time.
Like we were taking photos for asolid 45 minutes and she did
nothing. She was genius.
She was so lovely. She's the sweetest little rat.
I've heard they really are surprisingly lovely, Pete.
I've always wanted one but the short age thing has put me off
because I can't go through constant heartbreak it'd.
(02:58):
Be hideous. There's that, and also I have
cats. Wouldn't go well.
Well, I've seen videos of them struggling together and, you
know, possibly faked photos. No, I mean I it does happen.
There are exceptions to every single rule, but on average
rodents find the smell of like carnivores and predators
(03:18):
stressful. So it's, it's not even personal.
It's not like it's not personal.It's just the smell of a
predator is stressful. It's a thing actually when I was
a scientist that we used to do to cause stress, we would put
the odor of a predator near the animal and it was a reliable
stressor. So.
OK, so as a predator, you said carnivore, are we classed as a
(03:41):
predator? And if so, what do you mean by
smell? Is there a particular, is it a
byproduct of digesting meat? Is it a whole bunch of different
fear amounts? Like it's probably more
complicated, but what does that smell?
What is it? So I'm not sure that we do count
as a predator, and it's very possible they're just really
adjusted to us. It is also possible that in a
laboratory setting, we are seeing animals that are stressed
(04:03):
all the time because they are always around humans, and we
just consider that to be baseline.
That is absolutely possible. I, I say this as a former mouse
person who like studied mice, but certainly the ones we used
were cats. So I actually would have a cat,
my former pet cat who has passedon.
I don't have other cats sit on AT shirt and I would bring the
(04:25):
shirt in and like put it in front of the rats or like we use
you can buy fox odor and that's specifically fox gland odor.
So that is a specific smell. And Oh my goodness, that is,
that is the worst. That is stressful to everyone,
humans included, because it justsmells so bad and it gets in
your clothes and it gets in yourhair and oh, Oh my God, but.
(04:49):
They're so cute. Oh, I would kill for a fox.
Well, they're trying that experiment in Russia, so you may
be in luck sooner or later. OK, I don't know if I want to go
down that track, but this is already fascinating.
However, I want to talk a littlebit about you so that people
have an understanding of who youare, where you came from.
And a lot of people ask how you get into, this is going to sound
(05:11):
a bit harsh, but how you get into really interesting careers
within science. And I think most people would
say working with animals is particularly interesting.
So what is your career background?
What did you study at school andthen at university?
And did you always want to play with gross in quote marks
animals or how did that evolve? I always tell people my life is
an entire story of failing upwards, or at the very least
(05:35):
failing sideways. I always did love science.
Like I was one of those children.
I went to a nature based summer camp when I was a kid.
Literally, it was a camp where it was so nerdy.
You had to take classes everydayand like the classes starting at
age 12 were things like botany, mammalogy, herpetology, and you
(05:57):
had homework and you had like Tess.
I loved it. I loved it.
I would be so on board. That sounds amazing.
It was so fun. Hey, in herpetology, one of our
final assignments was clearing out the Copperheads from under
the girls bunkhouse, so it was awesome, all right.
I'm OK. I'm surprised they allowed you
to, but that would be so cool. Snakes are.
Yeah. Anyway, people don't understand,
(06:19):
but snakes are just so beautiful.
They. Are stunning and fascinating but
yes, so I always wanted to do science in college.
I actually ended up doing biology and philosophy.
I really loved philosophy. Actually, I was, I concentrated
in logic and I really, really loved it.
Ethics can absolutely bite me. I mean, I I do a lot of ethics
(06:39):
work and I dislike every minute of it, but.
Yeah, I could understand that, but.
I really loved science, and I was really interested in
ecology, and I was doing ecologyresearch.
And I remember going to my mentor at one point and I was
like, I really want to be an ecologist.
I want to go to grad school in ecology.
And he was like, OK, so listen, your grades are terrible.
And I was like, fair, fair. And he's like, they're not good
(07:05):
enough to get into Graduate School in ecology.
I was like, oh, he was like, butyour test scores are really
good. And I was like, all right.
And he's like. And the National Institutes of
Health has just doubled the budget, so their standards are
really low. So you can probably get into
Graduate School to cure cancer or something.
There's a lot in there. There's so much in there.
There's so much in there. And I went, OK, and I went into
(07:28):
Graduate School in Physiology and pharmacology, studying drug
addiction in particular. And this is not to say that this
was like a SEC, I mean, it was asecond choice, but I did love
it. I really did enjoy it.
It was incredibly fascinating. It was interesting, it was
compelling. And I did that for about 10
years. But it turns out I'm not a very
good scientist. And so I ended up being unable
(07:51):
to get grants and flunking out of the tenure track in a truly
spectacular fashion. But in the meantime, when I'd
been in Graduate School, I was like, I'm suffering from,
there's this thing that you go through in grad school after you
pass your calls that we call thepost calls slump, which is where
all of your experiments just stop working for no conceivable
reason. This happens to, as far as I
know, literally everyone. And yeah, so I was going through
(08:14):
the post qual slump. Nothing was working.
I was like, maybe I need to findanother career.
And I happened to go to a seminar on alternative careers.
And I sat down with an editor from Scientific American.
And I was like, hey, can I writefor Scientific American?
To his credit, he did not laugh in my face.
So you know. I love.
I love the boldness. What can I say, I, I have the
(08:38):
self-confidence of a mediocre white man.
So he did not laugh in my face. But what he did do was he was
like, maybe you should get some experience 1st.
And this was in a period where science blogs were kind of
having a moment. I started science blogging back
when that was a thing you could do.
And it turns out I was good at it and I got better at it.
(08:58):
And during Graduate School and during my postdoc, I actually
was writing three days a week. And so I was building up this
kind of base of of work and kindof like learning my way around
science writing. And more importantly, I was
making connections with people who were professional science
writers and science journalists,which was not a career that I
(09:19):
knew existed. Like as a child I did not know
no. That's true, actually, yeah.
It's not a thing you you learn. And it's funny because I read
National Geographic like an absolute little nerd the entire
time, but no one ever said, hey,these are journalists, and
that's a job like that. Never, never came up.
But anyway, I was learning my way around.
(09:40):
I was making connections. And so when I ended up leaving
academia, I did do a very, very short stint as an intern in
government science, which led meto understand that I do not
respect authority enough to workin government.
I didn't think that was going tobe complimentary.
And then I, I landed a position at Science News, writing for
(10:03):
Science News Explorers, which istheir children's magazine.
And they were wonderful. They trained me up.
The people there are still my mentors.
They're still my colleagues. And so from there on out, I've
been a science journalist. And I was specializing at first
in kind of biomedical science because my degree is in
neuroscience. But I quickly was able to branch
out and, like, go back to my original love for ecology and
(10:26):
for human wildlife interactions.And so eventually I got a
fellowship at MIT to pursue writing a book proposal about
human wildlife conflict, and here we are.
Long story short. Yeah, yeah.
It's amazing. My favorite genre is exactly
what you've written, right? It's non fiction done in a
storytelling way. Is that a specific?
(10:46):
Are we calling it science? I'm going to call it science
stories. You're going to tell me it's got
a name. I.
Would call it narrative non fiction.
Yeah, OK. Well, I like a bit of
alliteration. How long did it take you to
write? Oh, so it sort of depends.
I would say it took me a year. Well, I've been thinking about
the idea for years. The idea for it started in 2016,
but then I wrote the proposal toget the fellowship in 2018.
(11:12):
I was in the 2019-2020 class at MIT, which if you know what
happened to 2020? If you know, you know.
But anyway. Does anybody not know?
Maybe some people were lucky enough to sleep through it.
I don't even know. But anyway, I spent that year
learning how to write a book proposal.
I spent that year also taking a bunch of classes at like MIT and
(11:32):
Harvard and like doing interviews and studying.
And then I wrote the book proposal.
And then I got the book deal. And then they said, hey, great,
your draft is due in 18 months. And so then I wrote it in 18
months, and then it was about nine months from then to
publication. So yeah, it's a marathon, not a
Sprint. Yeah, I had a ninja approached
(11:56):
me a couple of years ago and said, dad, you know, we called
to give us some ideas and then Ipanicked at the idea of
committing to a deadline. So I oh pad to you.
I love deadlines. Oh, you're one of those.
Well, I don't love them, love them, but I need them to the
point that I give myself deadlines, right?
And I'm also that person who like, I graph all of my like
(12:18):
progress and like there's a spreadsheet for everything.
I'm I'm that person. Not whatever gets you, whatever
gets your stuff done, I guess. Yeah, I'd like to do it at sort
of 9:00 the night before it's due.
That's fair. That's fair.
I mean, that's how I write the news, so.
Oh, well, you kind of have to because I guess it's at the
moment, right? When I write Science News pieces
(12:40):
it's like 2 hours to deadline. I'm like slamming away.
Yeah, that wouldn't be much morestressful than being a news
journalist particularly. I was going to say particularly
at the moment actually, but I'm trying to think of a calm
moment. No, I would say particularly at
the moment. Yes, I wasn't going to talk
about this is completely off thetopic of my list of questions.
What is the science environment like in the US at this moment?
(13:04):
It's dark, it's dark. It's sad.
Actually, it's really sad. It's.
Horrifically sad. It's, it's enraging, it's, I
don't know, it's a lot of words,but is it something that you see
as repairable? All of these grants have been
cut. Every time you go on whatever
various social media platform, you, there's another scientist
(13:26):
or another group and chunk of people who have been let go or
the grants. You know, I don't need to repeat
it, but do you think this is setscience and knowledge back or do
you think at the end of this term it will go back to?
Normal. I mean, I I'm not a science
policy person. I'm also no longer a practicing
scientist, so I can't, can't fully say.
(13:47):
But I can say that with the cutsto National Science Foundation,
National Institutes of Health, we are cutting an entire
generation of scientific talent off just saying go do something
else because there's no grants to support those graduate
students. And you have to understand that
(14:07):
part of the reason people are able to go to Graduate School
for the sciences is because it is paid.
It is not paid well, right? But it's not like, for example,
taking out a loan to go get a graduate degree in film or
business like it is paid by the government.
And that is really, really important, especially for people
(14:28):
who are underrepresented in science, right?
Because it means you can supportyourself while you learn how to
be a scientist. And it also means that you're
working on, you know, this is not just a gift.
You are working on projects thatbenefit the country, people's
health, the world. And that's been cut off in a
(14:51):
really terrifying way. And I think it's going to have
really long term knock on effects for the environment and
the ecology of the United States.
I think it's going to have really negative long term
effects for health, not just for, you know, Americans, but
for everyone. And yeah, I think the turn
(15:12):
around is slow, right? You don't.
This is a giant cruise ship of research and you do not turn it
on a dime, right? I think it would take years,
years and years. I should stop asking questions I
don't want the answer to. Sorry.
The cruise ship analogy is a good one.
You cannot turn something on andoff and expect it to be.
(15:34):
Quick Yeah. And it's sad for a lot of people
who aren't, not just Americans. I mean, we train a lot of people
from overseas, you know, to be scientists.
And I would like to think that that's been a net good for the
world. I mean, it has its downsides,
obviously. Like, nothing is perfect.
Everything has downsides. But yeah, it's a lot to think
about. And of course, meanwhile, media
(15:57):
is like suffering under similar onslaughts.
And so a lot of the journalists who would cover this are, you
know, getting laid off. So that's that's its own issue.
It's an attack on all fronts, right?
It feels like it sometimes. Yeah, However, I choose to be
sometimes delusionally optimistic.
Like pests, we will rise. We will survive.
(16:19):
Yeah, totally. Yeah, Call us the cockroaches.
I don't like cockroaches. I don't know why.
Interestingly, there's always this idea that cockroaches would
be the ones to survive, like thenuclear winter or whatever it'd
be like, Oh. No, don't take this away from
me. And it's actually not true.
The cockroaches would not. OK.
Are you saying nothing? Will I mean microbial life?
(16:40):
Oh no, it's not that. It's that the German cockroach
in particular is well adapted tocities because it's well adapted
to specific ranges of temperatures that are maintained
on the inside of buildings. And so if you lose people to
maintain those buildings temperatures, you're going to
have a massive plummet in the lifestyle of the German
cockroach. It's nothing to do with like,
(17:01):
cockroaches not being tough. Cockroaches are very tough.
Big salute to the Roach. I don't understand the fear of
them because I quite like Beatles, but and saying that
I've maybe seen two in my entirelife.
We've got native ones here and Isaw one of my because it's going
to make some my house sound horrendous.
You know what? I don't care.
I rewild. I live on a few bit of land.
I'm very lucky and I have been rewilding it and the the boom in
(17:22):
wildlife and insects and birds and in just three years is
phenomenal. Oh, that's lovely.
It is. It's the most amazing place to
go and stand outside. And yeah, but sometimes they
come on inside, which is mostly fine unless they are, well, I
don't know, a spider bigger thanwhatever an inch and 1/2.
So what? What's that thing?
We also, we have a spider size cut off in my house where if I
(17:44):
see one that's like smaller thanabout like a large coin, I'll
just look at it and be like, I didn't see you, you didn't see
me. We're just going to keep going.
No one else needs to know that you were ever here.
But if they're bigger than that,other people are going to know.
And like, it's not so much me, it's the other people in my
(18:05):
house who will know that the spiders are there.
But no, I can tell you, I'm fromthe southeast of the United
States. And when you get down in South
Carolina, we have a thing calledPalmetto bugs, which are a
native type of cockroach. And they are very large.
They can be about the size of the palm of your hand.
And they fly. Oh, shit.
(18:26):
And they fly at you. Why?
Because they're not very bright.They're just kind of dumb.
I think it's, you know, they're just the bumbling, they're
bumbling big guys. If only they were fairy, they'd
be cute. But yeah, I understand why
people feel the way they do about roaches.
Yeah, OK. If one of those flew towards my
(18:49):
face, I would probably have a mild response, shall we say?
Yeah, you haven't lived in SouthCarolina until you've had a
Palmetto bug in the face. I know someone from there.
I'm going to have to ask him. So how was that experience as a
child? OK, yeah, spider size is quite
important. I just, I'd be a lot happier
with them because I live next toAustralia, right?
(19:09):
So I've seen big. I really, really wish I wasn't
frightened to spiders. It would make I'd be much
happier. But.
Yeah, Huntsman. 'S Oh God, I saw one in a car
once and I had. Oh, I know.
And I do a lot of Rd. tripping on my own around Australia and I
live in fear of 1 running acrossthe windscreen and I'm in the
middle of the Outback because I'll have to leave my car.
And then I'll be the person in the news, the idiot who left
your car when that's the thing they say not to do.
(19:30):
But then I'll be like, well, there's a spider in it.
I mean, what can you do? It's like when there's a bee in
the car, like you just had to leave the car.
There's no other option. I actually, I love the idea of
Huntsman spider. I mean, they're terrifying.
But also I always look at them and I'm like, wow, is that the
size limit for like oxygen exchange when you don't have
lungs? Like my scientist brain
immediately starts going to wow,how much bigger can they be?
(19:54):
The biggest is a Goliath bird eater, right?
And they are. They're chunky, chunky boys, Do
they? Live in a No, they're not
Australian are they? You do get bird eating spiders.
In Australia, I don't think it'sa Goliath there.
Maybe it is, I don't know. I'm not a spider ologist.
A right knowledge is not as coola spider ologist.
That's true, I do know a spider ologist.
Oh, do they keep them? I mean, professionally, I don't
(20:16):
think personally okay. That's that's fine.
There's a spider room at my university and I live in fear of
finding out where it is. I have a vague idea and I just
stay off that floor just in case.
Oh, see, I think that's awesome.I would love to see that.
I but I'm that person. Anytime I find out somebody has
like a lab or cool stuff in the lab, I'm like can I see it?
I worry that I'll go in there and I will not cope very well.
(20:38):
And then you get over it and youyou warm to it.
But then they say, OK, would youlike to have because they they
do have like a phobia breaking spider, for lack of a better
term. So they have a beautiful
tarantula cruel across you. And I imagine that would be
amazing. I think tarantulas are adorable.
A little pause. Oh my God.
And objectively sounds fabulous.But what if you know, you have
(20:59):
that instinctive and you just throw it and they shatter?
Oh, you. I feel horrific.
So I'm just destined to be scared.
Well, that's actually something I end up actually going into in
my book is that, you know, thereis a feeling of disgust and fear
that people have around animals like spiders, but also snakes
(21:20):
that to some extent is actually has a deep psychological
explanation to it. We think it's evolutionary.
It's not, oh, it's not evolutionary.
It is learned, but it's learned in part because of the way we
live in the world. So like, for example, when
you're a baby or a kid, you're very used to seeing things that
(21:40):
walk on 4 legs or two legs, right?
It's like birds get 2 legs, right?
Dogs 4 legs, humans 2 legs, and so forth.
And so you're used to that and you're used to the gates that
are associated with that. You're used to that kind of
movement, right? You know what that movement
looks like, and you become very comfortable with what that
movement is. When you're looking at spiders,
(22:02):
extra legs, too many legs some might say.
And the gate is very different and it often startles people.
You'll have a startle response because the gait is different.
And the same is true for snakes,right?
Because they are Slytherin, obviously, no legs.
And you will have a startle response because you'll be like,
Oh my goodness, that's moving ina way I don't expect.
And startlement can become joy and it can become fear.
(22:28):
And it kind of depends on who's around you when it happens.
So they have done studies. Actually, I think it's Vanessa
Laboux has done a wonderful set of studies at Rutgers with
parents. Basically, they spied on a bunch
of families in a reptile house. And they, like, listen to the
parents talk about the animals. And so like, they would go up
to, like, a Komodo dragon and they'd be like, oh, look at
(22:49):
this. The Komodo Dragon's going to
come and kiss you. The Komodo Dragon's going to
lick you with a little tongue. You know, it's like, oh, isn't
that cool? It's a dragon.
And then they saw a snake. And they were like, you know,
snakes eat little girls. Oh well, of course, of course
that would make perfect sense. Right.
And and you're very. Young.
So it becomes an intergenerational fear, Yeah.
Yeah, and even if they're just joking, it's still something
(23:13):
that can really get into, you know, And it's present in media
too, right? How many evil figures in media
are described as snake like Jafar I?
Don't know why he's the first one that comes to mind because.
The answer is all of them. Yeah, yeah, Voldemort.
Yeah, yes, even has a snake. Yeah, a perfectly nice snake who
is very wronged in my personal opinion, but.
(23:35):
Agreed. Well, there's a few things in
that book. Well, yeah, but also there's,
you know, I mean, it goes back to the Bible.
There is a snake in the Bible. I will have to admit my
ignorance to you. Never read it but.
Oh, so Adam and Eve, Garden of Eden.
Eve goes to this tree that she'snot supposed to eat from, and
(23:55):
the snake is like, Oh my God, have you tried this fruit?
It's delish. And Eva's like railing.
He's like, yeah, it's fine. And so on.
Fall of Man, yes. Well, I would believe a talking
snake if it told me to commit murder.
I probably would. Fair enough, it's a snake.
Very cute. Right.
But there's this whole idea of this historical enmity, and that
doesn't have to be the case. There are religions and there
(24:17):
are traditions that respect snakes and honor snakes, right?
And that doesn't mean they don'thave a healthy respect for
snakes that are dangerous, because you'd have to be a fool
not to, right? But they have a respect that is
not necessarily based in fear. And it's a cultural thing.
It's not a biological thing. And I found that really super
(24:39):
fascinating. Yeah, I've always assumed it's
because we evolved. I thought it was something that
would be throughout any species that was in an area were you had
spiders that were harmful. But then I always thought so why
am I not frightened of snakes? Because same deal.
Well, so there's actually studies, there was this idea
that monkeys were just like congenitally afraid of snakes,
(24:59):
like it was just in the genes hard wired in there.
And there have been studies thathave actually shown that monkeys
raised in the wild absolutely afraid of snakes.
Monkeys raised in captivity. Meh, I'm not afraid of snakes
until they're exposed to a monkey raised in the wild.
How interesting. And then the monkey raised in
the wild sees the snake and goes, oh, my God, it's a snake.
And the monkey's like, oh, is that.
(25:20):
Oh, is that. Oh, I should be.
Well, yeah. And so they can actually, like,
that's been shown that it reallyis a matter of cultural
transmission. That's so cool.
Yeah. OK, so you wrote a book a I'm
very excited. I bought it on Kindle and I
actually hate reading books on Kindle.
I don't know why I do it, but I've also bought a couple
because this is mentioned in my e-mail to try and manipulate you
(25:42):
into coming on this podcast. Sorry.
I've bought a couple of giveawayand it's a fascinating insight
into why we are frightened, or repulsed I suppose, of the
animals that we are and actuallywhy we shouldn't be, what they
do, blah blah blah. And a greater context around
that Is that a fair assessment? Yeah, I'd say it's also about
the animals that we don't hate, and often animals that we
(26:05):
really, really love, even thoughthey cause very similar
problems. And what's the difference
between those two? Right.
So I talk about rats and I talk about pigeons and I talk about
snakes, but I also talk about elephants and cats.
So in fact, I talk about cats specifically, and Ataroa.
Oh, OK. Well, that sounds like something
(26:25):
we're going to delve into now, because that is a fraught topic
here. I know, I am aware.
It is a hard one because if you look at the numbers, feral cats
do untold damage. I actually wrote an article a
few months ago and I was terrified of publishing.
But if we can't have conversations with this level of
nuance, then really we should all just go home.
(26:46):
What did you find out about the the story here?
I mean, it's complex, right? It's complex and it's difficult
because cats are obligate carnivores.
And not only are they obligate carnivores, they are live prey
specialists. If it moves, they are invested.
And cats kill for fun, right? Like this is established, they
(27:07):
will kill when they don't eat. It contrary to people's
understanding, they're not the only animals to do that, are
they? No.
No. They're not.
So it's just, it's tough becausecats do have these biological
behaviors and they absolutely docause harm.
I mean, there is evidence they have contributed to the
extinction of 66 species and counting, right?
It's bad. Some of those are in New Zealand
(27:31):
and but at the same time, I havecats.
Not only do I have cats, I have cats that I pulled in from the
outside. They were little stray feral
monsters and I trapped them in my house until they were like
okay this is pretty all. Right, So you've, you've
befriended, you've domesticated A feral cat or several I.
Wouldn't call them feral, I would call them stray.
(27:51):
They were neighborhood strays. They were eating cat food,
though. They also ate sparrows.
I've seen them do that. But they were definitely like
very eager for cat food. And one of them basically walked
into the house like it was just like this looks.
Nice. Yeah.
And. I was just like, this looks like
a woman who's going to spend thousands of dollars on my
healthcare. Yes.
(28:11):
But yeah, I mean, I adore cats. I really do.
And so I understand how hard it is, especially because if you
own a cat, if you are a pet owner, you want to give that cat
the best life, right? And there is a very firm belief
in many cultures that the best life for a cat involves allowing
(28:32):
that cat to roam and allowing that cat to hunt, allowing that
cat access to the outdoors. And that is actually disputed.
Like there's a lot of research showing that you can give cats
really fulfilling lives indoors.I am a pathetic person and my
cats live indoors and also have access to a very large outdoor
enclosure. Because they have a catio.
Because that's the whole thing here now.
(28:53):
So I have a screened in porch but it is basically a catio yes?
Brilliant. I think they're a great.
Idea it's a good idea, but it's also, I mean not everybody can
afford a giant screened in porch.
I mean in the South a lot of houses come with them, but a lot
of places do not to. Keep the Palmetto bugs out.
Yes, yes. Or the mosquitoes in our case,
because it gets real bad. But, you know, a lot of people
(29:14):
can't necessarily afford that. So I understand why people want
to let their cats out. And some people even really
firmly believe that you got to let a cat have its natural
behaviors, have to let it hunt. And then of course, there are
people who the reason cats became associated with us is
because they're good mousers, man.
Like, they do good work in pest management.
(29:37):
And that's part of the reason wekind of invited them into our
lives. And so people want those
effects. And The thing is that's going to
have knock on consequences, right?
And so it's, it really is a difficult situation.
And it's difficult not just in, you know, Australia has a big
feral cat problem. It's difficult not just in a
(29:58):
tear row in New Zealand, it's difficult in the United States.
We have a massive feral cat population, and they eat just as
much stuff. Yeah.
So yeah, it's fraught, and there's lots of efforts.
So for example, I looked a lot into TNR, which is trap, neuter,
return. So basically they trap the cat
and they neuter the cats, and then they return it to, you
(30:18):
know, live out its life. And that can be good.
But you have to neuter like 89 to 90% of the cats, which
involves catching all of the cats.
And it's a lot. It's a big, heavy lift, and it
takes about a decade to work, and a lot of species don't have
a decade, you know, And so it's very difficult.
(30:40):
And it also, one of the reasons I found cats especially
fascinating is that our feelingsabout cats really highlight our
feelings about other animals. So, for example, I came across
in my research for this book so many stories of predators
dropped on islands. This happens all the time.
(31:00):
So many of these stories, you know, you get a rat dropped on
an island, then there are 10 rats, then there are 100 rats,
then there are 1000 rats. And the rats start eating the
local seabirds. This is you're talking migration
through human intervention or natural.
Human intervention. So I'm talking about, for
example, rats on boats. Rats go on boats and then they
go off boats and there's not a. Lot we can do about that and
(31:22):
they spread the plague. Isn't that why every ship
supposedly had a cat? Was that a myth?
Yes, that is why the ship's cat,yes.
And I mean, I don't know how widespread that was.
I know some ships certainly did have cats.
Lucky cat. Oh, yes, and no.
Cats and rats don't fight as often as you think they do.
Cats prefer smaller prey. Yeah, the rats are big.
(31:42):
So there's studies actually showing that if you put a colony
of cats next to a colony of ratsin like, Manhattan, which is
where the study was done, the animals will just kind of ignore
each other politely, OK? And you'll see fewer rats
because when the cats are around, the rats are not.
But the rats are still there, they're just going around when
the cats aren't. OK, I am sort of seeing a
Stephen King novel here. For some reason it's.
(32:03):
Like rival St. gangs. But anyway, so you know, rats
end up on islands all the time and they can cause a lot of
destruction to species, especially seabirds.
And when that happens, conservationists will not
hesitate. Millions of tons of poison will
be dropped on that island. They will drop it from
helicopters. They will spray it out of like
pellet guns. They will do whatever it takes
(32:26):
to poison those rats. To kill those rats, they will
use lethal traps. They will send people out with
BB guns. They will do whatever they got
to do. Consider Predator Free 2050,
Which. Doesn't have cats in it and it's
just been defunded in in anyway.Oh, no, really.
Oh yeah, we've got a pretty shitty government too.
Oh, that's sad, actually. Anyway, so we'll do anything to
get rid of those rats. What if it's a cat?
(32:48):
Because there have been many cases when it's a cat.
And it can just be 1, right? Doing the same thing and it can
be just one cat. And when it is, people will do
anything to make sure they don'tkill the cat.
They will trap it, they will neuter it, they will put it in
the Florida Keys. They have trapped a whole pile
of feral cats that were causing major problems and they
(33:11):
relocated them to a giant outdoor catio screened in
enclosure because the cats are too feral to be adopted.
But they will do anything to notkill the cat.
And the difference between a catand a rat is one letter and a
little bit of taxonomy and our feelings.
The big difference is our feelings, right?
(33:32):
We hate rats. We feel fine doing whatever we
have to do to get rid of the rats.
Cats are a different matter. And that was just such a
fascinating trip into human psychology.
Did you dig into why is it I wasgoing to say disease related
except cats spread disease. But then again, our emotional
feelings are not necessarily at all related to facts or logic.
(33:55):
It's much more cultural, right? OK.
It's just a cultural love and respect for cats that live near
us. And also The thing is, when we
see rats, rats are often associated with disease.
They're associated with dirt, they're associated with poverty,
which is a big one. You see a lot of that and cats
(34:16):
are not. You see house cats, you see cats
in the media are are happy, wellfed, they're playful, right?
You have these deep associationsthat you make over time about
the difference between cats and rats, our cultures.
And that really changes how we see them.
And I looked into that as well with, like, the kind of rise of
laboratory mice and laboratory rats, which in part became a
(34:39):
huge animal in research because we hate them, because we felt OK
about that. Yeah.
I told you, I do a lot of ethics.
I don't love it. Yeah.
Ethics never makes you feel good.
It never makes you feel good. No, I did an environmental
ethics paper last year and I just remember ultimately getting
to the end of what does it mean if it all matter in the end that
(35:00):
you can argue it, just there's no answer.
And that's I'm actually doing some philosophy papers as well
and it's fascinating, but it's also frustrating.
So it's fascinating insight intothings.
You're absolutely right. So I can see why you loved it.
But also the ethics suck. The mouse LED rat thing is.
It's fascinating. Just try not to feel anything.
Oh no, I left my emotions October 2024.
(35:22):
I was like no more of those. Or probably beforehand anyway.
Interesting. The rats LED mice.
Animal testing was a big reason I always wanted to be a
microbiologist. Actually no, a bit like you I
realized I'd be a shit scientist.
Not necessarily for the same reasons, but I don't like
paperwork. I don't really like being
methodical, I don't really like doing things a million times
(35:46):
over to try and repeat the results.
Not my my area of expertise, butthat was a big reason I couldn't
taste on things I was good at. That part, it's the grant
writing that absolutely screwed me.
But no, I loved I was an animal behaviour person primarily.
I got to work with mice all the time.
I really loved. One of my favorite things about
training mice and behavioral tasks is you train them by
(36:06):
rewards. And let me tell you, giving a
mouse a fruit loop. Do you know what Fruit loops
are? Yeah, Yeah, I think we have them
here, yeah. The little round, sugary cereal
and giving a mouse a fruit loop,it's like watching a human try
to eat a car tire because they're huge compared to the
size of the mouse. But the mouse is determined.
The mouse has a goal. He goes in, he like eats all
(36:28):
around the edge and he breaks through to the center.
And it's so funny when a mouse has finished a fruit loop, they
are measurably larger than before.
Like their old tummies are so full and they're just like
flopped out in the cage. Like no regrets.
I regret nothing. Do it again.
It's so cute. It's so cute.
We've all been there. And that brings Part 1 to a
(36:49):
close. Yes, I've cut this episode in
half because we talked for well over an hour and she's full of
the most interesting stories. Part 2 will be out next week,
and it's probably a little bit more controversial.
We're going to talk cats in Altera.
We'll dive into a little bit of pigeon history, which is weird
sounding but actually is really interesting and kind of
depressing. And the difference between pest
and pit other than just a letter?
Yoda, see you next week.
Kyoto Kaitaki and welcome to NowThat's what I Call Green.
I'm your host, Brianne W, an environmentalist and
entrepreneur trying to get you as excited about our planet as I
am. I'm all about creating a
scientific approach to making the world a better place without
the judgement and making it fun.And of course, we will be
chatting about some of the most amazing creatures we share our
planet with. So if you are looking to
(00:26):
navigate through everything green or not so green, you have
come to the right place. Joda, welcome back.
I am very excited about today's guest.
I emailed her out of the blue. I always expect people to either
ignore me or just laugh at me. And she said yes, which, yeah,
surprising. She's awesome.
Her name is Bethany Brookshire, and she is a science journalist.
(00:46):
She is. Well, she's a retired scientist.
You'll understand more on the pod, but she's someone who's
made. A.
Career out of questions. She's studied biology,
philosophy, bought it all together and looking at the way
we categorize and live with different species.
She's written for the likes of Science News, The Atlantic,
whole bunch of scientific magazines you'll have heard of.
(01:10):
But she does a lot of science communication on Instagram and
she does a really cool series called the Insomniac Anatomy
Academy. Highly recommend you go and
follow her details in the show notes.
Thank you so much for joining me, Bethany.
I'm so glad to be here. Thank you for having me.
I was specifically. Wanted to find someone who was
an expert in, I don't want to use the term gross, but animals
people don't like and then you cannot.
And then I started stalking you all over the Internet and I was
(01:32):
like, this person is freaking amazing.
I need to talk to you. So I emailed you and thought she
didn't say no, definitely not. And then he responded.
I was so excited. I said thank you very much.
I'm very excited. I'm always here for people who
are here for like, gross in quotes animals and yeah, the
animals that most people hate. I am here for anyone who wants
to talk about those. We might be here for a while
(01:53):
then. One of my favorite pictures.
Fan of you again. This sounds super creepy and
stalker. It was the one where you've got
a rat, I think on your head you've got one crawling over
your shoulders. You're so cute, Pete Rat.
Her name is Magrat. Yeah, well, it was Magrat.
Rats don't live very long. No.
Yeah. So that photo was taken in 2022
(02:13):
and she was actually older than you can't actually see it, but
she just had some minor surgeries cause domestic rats
are often they're very subject to large tumors, benign tumors.
And so she'd had a bunch removedand her fur had mostly grown
back. So she was mostly camera ready.
But she's actually, she was a friend of mine's rat and she was
so great. Like rats normally cannot
(02:36):
control when they pee or poo. And she held it the whole time.
Like we were taking photos for asolid 45 minutes and she did
nothing. She was genius.
She was so lovely. She's the sweetest little rat.
I've heard they really are surprisingly lovely, Pete.
I've always wanted one but the short age thing has put me off
because I can't go through constant heartbreak it'd.
(02:58):
Be hideous. There's that, and also I have
cats. Wouldn't go well.
Well, I've seen videos of them struggling together and, you
know, possibly faked photos. No, I mean I it does happen.
There are exceptions to every single rule, but on average
rodents find the smell of like carnivores and predators
(03:18):
stressful. So it's, it's not even personal.
It's not like it's not personal.It's just the smell of a
predator is stressful. It's a thing actually when I was
a scientist that we used to do to cause stress, we would put
the odor of a predator near the animal and it was a reliable
stressor. So.
OK, so as a predator, you said carnivore, are we classed as a
(03:41):
predator? And if so, what do you mean by
smell? Is there a particular, is it a
byproduct of digesting meat? Is it a whole bunch of different
fear amounts? Like it's probably more
complicated, but what does that smell?
What is it? So I'm not sure that we do count
as a predator, and it's very possible they're just really
adjusted to us. It is also possible that in a
laboratory setting, we are seeing animals that are stressed
(04:03):
all the time because they are always around humans, and we
just consider that to be baseline.
That is absolutely possible. I, I say this as a former mouse
person who like studied mice, but certainly the ones we used
were cats. So I actually would have a cat,
my former pet cat who has passedon.
I don't have other cats sit on AT shirt and I would bring the
(04:25):
shirt in and like put it in front of the rats or like we use
you can buy fox odor and that's specifically fox gland odor.
So that is a specific smell. And Oh my goodness, that is,
that is the worst. That is stressful to everyone,
humans included, because it justsmells so bad and it gets in
your clothes and it gets in yourhair and oh, Oh my God, but.
(04:49):
They're so cute. Oh, I would kill for a fox.
Well, they're trying that experiment in Russia, so you may
be in luck sooner or later. OK, I don't know if I want to go
down that track, but this is already fascinating.
However, I want to talk a littlebit about you so that people
have an understanding of who youare, where you came from.
And a lot of people ask how you get into, this is going to sound
(05:11):
a bit harsh, but how you get into really interesting careers
within science. And I think most people would
say working with animals is particularly interesting.
So what is your career background?
What did you study at school andthen at university?
And did you always want to play with gross in quote marks
animals or how did that evolve? I always tell people my life is
an entire story of failing upwards, or at the very least
(05:35):
failing sideways. I always did love science.
Like I was one of those children.
I went to a nature based summer camp when I was a kid.
Literally, it was a camp where it was so nerdy.
You had to take classes everydayand like the classes starting at
age 12 were things like botany, mammalogy, herpetology, and you
(05:57):
had homework and you had like Tess.
I loved it. I loved it.
I would be so on board. That sounds amazing.
It was so fun. Hey, in herpetology, one of our
final assignments was clearing out the Copperheads from under
the girls bunkhouse, so it was awesome, all right.
I'm OK. I'm surprised they allowed you
to, but that would be so cool. Snakes are.
Yeah. Anyway, people don't understand,
(06:19):
but snakes are just so beautiful.
They. Are stunning and fascinating but
yes, so I always wanted to do science in college.
I actually ended up doing biology and philosophy.
I really loved philosophy. Actually, I was, I concentrated
in logic and I really, really loved it.
Ethics can absolutely bite me. I mean, I I do a lot of ethics
(06:39):
work and I dislike every minute of it, but.
Yeah, I could understand that, but.
I really loved science, and I was really interested in
ecology, and I was doing ecologyresearch.
And I remember going to my mentor at one point and I was
like, I really want to be an ecologist.
I want to go to grad school in ecology.
And he was like, OK, so listen, your grades are terrible.
And I was like, fair, fair. And he's like, they're not good
(07:05):
enough to get into Graduate School in ecology.
I was like, oh, he was like, butyour test scores are really
good. And I was like, all right.
And he's like. And the National Institutes of
Health has just doubled the budget, so their standards are
really low. So you can probably get into
Graduate School to cure cancer or something.
There's a lot in there. There's so much in there.
There's so much in there. And I went, OK, and I went into
(07:28):
Graduate School in Physiology and pharmacology, studying drug
addiction in particular. And this is not to say that this
was like a SEC, I mean, it was asecond choice, but I did love
it. I really did enjoy it.
It was incredibly fascinating. It was interesting, it was
compelling. And I did that for about 10
years. But it turns out I'm not a very
good scientist. And so I ended up being unable
(07:51):
to get grants and flunking out of the tenure track in a truly
spectacular fashion. But in the meantime, when I'd
been in Graduate School, I was like, I'm suffering from,
there's this thing that you go through in grad school after you
pass your calls that we call thepost calls slump, which is where
all of your experiments just stop working for no conceivable
reason. This happens to, as far as I
know, literally everyone. And yeah, so I was going through
(08:14):
the post qual slump. Nothing was working.
I was like, maybe I need to findanother career.
And I happened to go to a seminar on alternative careers.
And I sat down with an editor from Scientific American.
And I was like, hey, can I writefor Scientific American?
To his credit, he did not laugh in my face.
So you know. I love.
I love the boldness. What can I say, I, I have the
(08:38):
self-confidence of a mediocre white man.
So he did not laugh in my face. But what he did do was he was
like, maybe you should get some experience 1st.
And this was in a period where science blogs were kind of
having a moment. I started science blogging back
when that was a thing you could do.
And it turns out I was good at it and I got better at it.
(08:58):
And during Graduate School and during my postdoc, I actually
was writing three days a week. And so I was building up this
kind of base of of work and kindof like learning my way around
science writing. And more importantly, I was
making connections with people who were professional science
writers and science journalists,which was not a career that I
(09:19):
knew existed. Like as a child I did not know
no. That's true, actually, yeah.
It's not a thing you you learn. And it's funny because I read
National Geographic like an absolute little nerd the entire
time, but no one ever said, hey,these are journalists, and
that's a job like that. Never, never came up.
But anyway, I was learning my way around.
(09:40):
I was making connections. And so when I ended up leaving
academia, I did do a very, very short stint as an intern in
government science, which led meto understand that I do not
respect authority enough to workin government.
I didn't think that was going tobe complimentary.
And then I, I landed a position at Science News, writing for
(10:03):
Science News Explorers, which istheir children's magazine.
And they were wonderful. They trained me up.
The people there are still my mentors.
They're still my colleagues. And so from there on out, I've
been a science journalist. And I was specializing at first
in kind of biomedical science because my degree is in
neuroscience. But I quickly was able to branch
out and, like, go back to my original love for ecology and
(10:26):
for human wildlife interactions.And so eventually I got a
fellowship at MIT to pursue writing a book proposal about
human wildlife conflict, and here we are.
Long story short. Yeah, yeah.
It's amazing. My favorite genre is exactly
what you've written, right? It's non fiction done in a
storytelling way. Is that a specific?
(10:46):
Are we calling it science? I'm going to call it science
stories. You're going to tell me it's got
a name. I.
Would call it narrative non fiction.
Yeah, OK. Well, I like a bit of
alliteration. How long did it take you to
write? Oh, so it sort of depends.
I would say it took me a year. Well, I've been thinking about
the idea for years. The idea for it started in 2016,
but then I wrote the proposal toget the fellowship in 2018.
(11:12):
I was in the 2019-2020 class at MIT, which if you know what
happened to 2020? If you know, you know.
But anyway. Does anybody not know?
Maybe some people were lucky enough to sleep through it.
I don't even know. But anyway, I spent that year
learning how to write a book proposal.
I spent that year also taking a bunch of classes at like MIT and
(11:32):
Harvard and like doing interviews and studying.
And then I wrote the book proposal.
And then I got the book deal. And then they said, hey, great,
your draft is due in 18 months. And so then I wrote it in 18
months, and then it was about nine months from then to
publication. So yeah, it's a marathon, not a
Sprint. Yeah, I had a ninja approached
(11:56):
me a couple of years ago and said, dad, you know, we called
to give us some ideas and then Ipanicked at the idea of
committing to a deadline. So I oh pad to you.
I love deadlines. Oh, you're one of those.
Well, I don't love them, love them, but I need them to the
point that I give myself deadlines, right?
And I'm also that person who like, I graph all of my like
(12:18):
progress and like there's a spreadsheet for everything.
I'm I'm that person. Not whatever gets you, whatever
gets your stuff done, I guess. Yeah, I'd like to do it at sort
of 9:00 the night before it's due.
That's fair. That's fair.
I mean, that's how I write the news, so.
Oh, well, you kind of have to because I guess it's at the
moment, right? When I write Science News pieces
(12:40):
it's like 2 hours to deadline. I'm like slamming away.
Yeah, that wouldn't be much morestressful than being a news
journalist particularly. I was going to say particularly
at the moment actually, but I'm trying to think of a calm
moment. No, I would say particularly at
the moment. Yes, I wasn't going to talk
about this is completely off thetopic of my list of questions.
What is the science environment like in the US at this moment?
(13:04):
It's dark, it's dark. It's sad.
Actually, it's really sad. It's.
Horrifically sad. It's, it's enraging, it's, I
don't know, it's a lot of words,but is it something that you see
as repairable? All of these grants have been
cut. Every time you go on whatever
various social media platform, you, there's another scientist
(13:26):
or another group and chunk of people who have been let go or
the grants. You know, I don't need to repeat
it, but do you think this is setscience and knowledge back or do
you think at the end of this term it will go back to?
Normal. I mean, I I'm not a science
policy person. I'm also no longer a practicing
scientist, so I can't, can't fully say.
(13:47):
But I can say that with the cutsto National Science Foundation,
National Institutes of Health, we are cutting an entire
generation of scientific talent off just saying go do something
else because there's no grants to support those graduate
students. And you have to understand that
(14:07):
part of the reason people are able to go to Graduate School
for the sciences is because it is paid.
It is not paid well, right? But it's not like, for example,
taking out a loan to go get a graduate degree in film or
business like it is paid by the government.
And that is really, really important, especially for people
(14:28):
who are underrepresented in science, right?
Because it means you can supportyourself while you learn how to
be a scientist. And it also means that you're
working on, you know, this is not just a gift.
You are working on projects thatbenefit the country, people's
health, the world. And that's been cut off in a
(14:51):
really terrifying way. And I think it's going to have
really long term knock on effects for the environment and
the ecology of the United States.
I think it's going to have really negative long term
effects for health, not just for, you know, Americans, but
for everyone. And yeah, I think the turn
(15:12):
around is slow, right? You don't.
This is a giant cruise ship of research and you do not turn it
on a dime, right? I think it would take years,
years and years. I should stop asking questions I
don't want the answer to. Sorry.
The cruise ship analogy is a good one.
You cannot turn something on andoff and expect it to be.
(15:34):
Quick Yeah. And it's sad for a lot of people
who aren't, not just Americans. I mean, we train a lot of people
from overseas, you know, to be scientists.
And I would like to think that that's been a net good for the
world. I mean, it has its downsides,
obviously. Like, nothing is perfect.
Everything has downsides. But yeah, it's a lot to think
about. And of course, meanwhile, media
(15:57):
is like suffering under similar onslaughts.
And so a lot of the journalists who would cover this are, you
know, getting laid off. So that's that's its own issue.
It's an attack on all fronts, right?
It feels like it sometimes. Yeah, However, I choose to be
sometimes delusionally optimistic.
Like pests, we will rise. We will survive.
(16:19):
Yeah, totally. Yeah, Call us the cockroaches.
I don't like cockroaches. I don't know why.
Interestingly, there's always this idea that cockroaches would
be the ones to survive, like thenuclear winter or whatever it'd
be like, Oh. No, don't take this away from
me. And it's actually not true.
The cockroaches would not. OK.
Are you saying nothing? Will I mean microbial life?
(16:40):
Oh no, it's not that. It's that the German cockroach
in particular is well adapted tocities because it's well adapted
to specific ranges of temperatures that are maintained
on the inside of buildings. And so if you lose people to
maintain those buildings temperatures, you're going to
have a massive plummet in the lifestyle of the German
cockroach. It's nothing to do with like,
(17:01):
cockroaches not being tough. Cockroaches are very tough.
Big salute to the Roach. I don't understand the fear of
them because I quite like Beatles, but and saying that
I've maybe seen two in my entirelife.
We've got native ones here and Isaw one of my because it's going
to make some my house sound horrendous.
You know what? I don't care.
I rewild. I live on a few bit of land.
I'm very lucky and I have been rewilding it and the the boom in
(17:22):
wildlife and insects and birds and in just three years is
phenomenal. Oh, that's lovely.
It is. It's the most amazing place to
go and stand outside. And yeah, but sometimes they
come on inside, which is mostly fine unless they are, well, I
don't know, a spider bigger thanwhatever an inch and 1/2.
So what? What's that thing?
We also, we have a spider size cut off in my house where if I
(17:44):
see one that's like smaller thanabout like a large coin, I'll
just look at it and be like, I didn't see you, you didn't see
me. We're just going to keep going.
No one else needs to know that you were ever here.
But if they're bigger than that,other people are going to know.
And like, it's not so much me, it's the other people in my
(18:05):
house who will know that the spiders are there.
But no, I can tell you, I'm fromthe southeast of the United
States. And when you get down in South
Carolina, we have a thing calledPalmetto bugs, which are a
native type of cockroach. And they are very large.
They can be about the size of the palm of your hand.
And they fly. Oh, shit.
(18:26):
And they fly at you. Why?
Because they're not very bright.They're just kind of dumb.
I think it's, you know, they're just the bumbling, they're
bumbling big guys. If only they were fairy, they'd
be cute. But yeah, I understand why
people feel the way they do about roaches.
Yeah, OK. If one of those flew towards my
(18:49):
face, I would probably have a mild response, shall we say?
Yeah, you haven't lived in SouthCarolina until you've had a
Palmetto bug in the face. I know someone from there.
I'm going to have to ask him. So how was that experience as a
child? OK, yeah, spider size is quite
important. I just, I'd be a lot happier
with them because I live next toAustralia, right?
(19:09):
So I've seen big. I really, really wish I wasn't
frightened to spiders. It would make I'd be much
happier. But.
Yeah, Huntsman. 'S Oh God, I saw one in a car
once and I had. Oh, I know.
And I do a lot of Rd. tripping on my own around Australia and I
live in fear of 1 running acrossthe windscreen and I'm in the
middle of the Outback because I'll have to leave my car.
And then I'll be the person in the news, the idiot who left
your car when that's the thing they say not to do.
(19:30):
But then I'll be like, well, there's a spider in it.
I mean, what can you do? It's like when there's a bee in
the car, like you just had to leave the car.
There's no other option. I actually, I love the idea of
Huntsman spider. I mean, they're terrifying.
But also I always look at them and I'm like, wow, is that the
size limit for like oxygen exchange when you don't have
lungs? Like my scientist brain
immediately starts going to wow,how much bigger can they be?
(19:54):
The biggest is a Goliath bird eater, right?
And they are. They're chunky, chunky boys, Do
they? Live in a No, they're not
Australian are they? You do get bird eating spiders.
In Australia, I don't think it'sa Goliath there.
Maybe it is, I don't know. I'm not a spider ologist.
A right knowledge is not as coola spider ologist.
That's true, I do know a spider ologist.
Oh, do they keep them? I mean, professionally, I don't
(20:16):
think personally okay. That's that's fine.
There's a spider room at my university and I live in fear of
finding out where it is. I have a vague idea and I just
stay off that floor just in case.
Oh, see, I think that's awesome.I would love to see that.
I but I'm that person. Anytime I find out somebody has
like a lab or cool stuff in the lab, I'm like can I see it?
I worry that I'll go in there and I will not cope very well.
(20:38):
And then you get over it and youyou warm to it.
But then they say, OK, would youlike to have because they they
do have like a phobia breaking spider, for lack of a better
term. So they have a beautiful
tarantula cruel across you. And I imagine that would be
amazing. I think tarantulas are adorable.
A little pause. Oh my God.
And objectively sounds fabulous.But what if you know, you have
(20:59):
that instinctive and you just throw it and they shatter?
Oh, you. I feel horrific.
So I'm just destined to be scared.
Well, that's actually something I end up actually going into in
my book is that, you know, thereis a feeling of disgust and fear
that people have around animals like spiders, but also snakes
(21:20):
that to some extent is actually has a deep psychological
explanation to it. We think it's evolutionary.
It's not, oh, it's not evolutionary.
It is learned, but it's learned in part because of the way we
live in the world. So like, for example, when
you're a baby or a kid, you're very used to seeing things that
(21:40):
walk on 4 legs or two legs, right?
It's like birds get 2 legs, right?
Dogs 4 legs, humans 2 legs, and so forth.
And so you're used to that and you're used to the gates that
are associated with that. You're used to that kind of
movement, right? You know what that movement
looks like, and you become very comfortable with what that
movement is. When you're looking at spiders,
(22:02):
extra legs, too many legs some might say.
And the gate is very different and it often startles people.
You'll have a startle response because the gait is different.
And the same is true for snakes,right?
Because they are Slytherin, obviously, no legs.
And you will have a startle response because you'll be like,
Oh my goodness, that's moving ina way I don't expect.
And startlement can become joy and it can become fear.
(22:28):
And it kind of depends on who's around you when it happens.
So they have done studies. Actually, I think it's Vanessa
Laboux has done a wonderful set of studies at Rutgers with
parents. Basically, they spied on a bunch
of families in a reptile house. And they, like, listen to the
parents talk about the animals. And so like, they would go up
to, like, a Komodo dragon and they'd be like, oh, look at
(22:49):
this. The Komodo Dragon's going to
come and kiss you. The Komodo Dragon's going to
lick you with a little tongue. You know, it's like, oh, isn't
that cool? It's a dragon.
And then they saw a snake. And they were like, you know,
snakes eat little girls. Oh well, of course, of course
that would make perfect sense. Right.
And and you're very. Young.
So it becomes an intergenerational fear, Yeah.
Yeah, and even if they're just joking, it's still something
(23:13):
that can really get into, you know, And it's present in media
too, right? How many evil figures in media
are described as snake like Jafar I?
Don't know why he's the first one that comes to mind because.
The answer is all of them. Yeah, yeah, Voldemort.
Yeah, yes, even has a snake. Yeah, a perfectly nice snake who
is very wronged in my personal opinion, but.
(23:35):
Agreed. Well, there's a few things in
that book. Well, yeah, but also there's,
you know, I mean, it goes back to the Bible.
There is a snake in the Bible. I will have to admit my
ignorance to you. Never read it but.
Oh, so Adam and Eve, Garden of Eden.
Eve goes to this tree that she'snot supposed to eat from, and
(23:55):
the snake is like, Oh my God, have you tried this fruit?
It's delish. And Eva's like railing.
He's like, yeah, it's fine. And so on.
Fall of Man, yes. Well, I would believe a talking
snake if it told me to commit murder.
I probably would. Fair enough, it's a snake.
Very cute. Right.
But there's this whole idea of this historical enmity, and that
doesn't have to be the case. There are religions and there
(24:17):
are traditions that respect snakes and honor snakes, right?
And that doesn't mean they don'thave a healthy respect for
snakes that are dangerous, because you'd have to be a fool
not to, right? But they have a respect that is
not necessarily based in fear. And it's a cultural thing.
It's not a biological thing. And I found that really super
(24:39):
fascinating. Yeah, I've always assumed it's
because we evolved. I thought it was something that
would be throughout any species that was in an area were you had
spiders that were harmful. But then I always thought so why
am I not frightened of snakes? Because same deal.
Well, so there's actually studies, there was this idea
that monkeys were just like congenitally afraid of snakes,
(24:59):
like it was just in the genes hard wired in there.
And there have been studies thathave actually shown that monkeys
raised in the wild absolutely afraid of snakes.
Monkeys raised in captivity. Meh, I'm not afraid of snakes
until they're exposed to a monkey raised in the wild.
How interesting. And then the monkey raised in
the wild sees the snake and goes, oh, my God, it's a snake.
And the monkey's like, oh, is that.
(25:20):
Oh, is that. Oh, I should be.
Well, yeah. And so they can actually, like,
that's been shown that it reallyis a matter of cultural
transmission. That's so cool.
Yeah. OK, so you wrote a book a I'm
very excited. I bought it on Kindle and I
actually hate reading books on Kindle.
I don't know why I do it, but I've also bought a couple
because this is mentioned in my e-mail to try and manipulate you
(25:42):
into coming on this podcast. Sorry.
I've bought a couple of giveawayand it's a fascinating insight
into why we are frightened, or repulsed I suppose, of the
animals that we are and actuallywhy we shouldn't be, what they
do, blah blah blah. And a greater context around
that Is that a fair assessment? Yeah, I'd say it's also about
the animals that we don't hate, and often animals that we
(26:05):
really, really love, even thoughthey cause very similar
problems. And what's the difference
between those two? Right.
So I talk about rats and I talk about pigeons and I talk about
snakes, but I also talk about elephants and cats.
So in fact, I talk about cats specifically, and Ataroa.
Oh, OK. Well, that sounds like something
(26:25):
we're going to delve into now, because that is a fraught topic
here. I know, I am aware.
It is a hard one because if you look at the numbers, feral cats
do untold damage. I actually wrote an article a
few months ago and I was terrified of publishing.
But if we can't have conversations with this level of
nuance, then really we should all just go home.
(26:46):
What did you find out about the the story here?
I mean, it's complex, right? It's complex and it's difficult
because cats are obligate carnivores.
And not only are they obligate carnivores, they are live prey
specialists. If it moves, they are invested.
And cats kill for fun, right? Like this is established, they
(27:07):
will kill when they don't eat. It contrary to people's
understanding, they're not the only animals to do that, are
they? No.
No. They're not.
So it's just, it's tough becausecats do have these biological
behaviors and they absolutely docause harm.
I mean, there is evidence they have contributed to the
extinction of 66 species and counting, right?
It's bad. Some of those are in New Zealand
(27:31):
and but at the same time, I havecats.
Not only do I have cats, I have cats that I pulled in from the
outside. They were little stray feral
monsters and I trapped them in my house until they were like
okay this is pretty all. Right, So you've, you've
befriended, you've domesticated A feral cat or several I.
Wouldn't call them feral, I would call them stray.
(27:51):
They were neighborhood strays. They were eating cat food,
though. They also ate sparrows.
I've seen them do that. But they were definitely like
very eager for cat food. And one of them basically walked
into the house like it was just like this looks.
Nice. Yeah.
And. I was just like, this looks like
a woman who's going to spend thousands of dollars on my
healthcare. Yes.
(28:11):
But yeah, I mean, I adore cats. I really do.
And so I understand how hard it is, especially because if you
own a cat, if you are a pet owner, you want to give that cat
the best life, right? And there is a very firm belief
in many cultures that the best life for a cat involves allowing
(28:32):
that cat to roam and allowing that cat to hunt, allowing that
cat access to the outdoors. And that is actually disputed.
Like there's a lot of research showing that you can give cats
really fulfilling lives indoors.I am a pathetic person and my
cats live indoors and also have access to a very large outdoor
enclosure. Because they have a catio.
Because that's the whole thing here now.
(28:53):
So I have a screened in porch but it is basically a catio yes?
Brilliant. I think they're a great.
Idea it's a good idea, but it's also, I mean not everybody can
afford a giant screened in porch.
I mean in the South a lot of houses come with them, but a lot
of places do not to. Keep the Palmetto bugs out.
Yes, yes. Or the mosquitoes in our case,
because it gets real bad. But, you know, a lot of people
(29:14):
can't necessarily afford that. So I understand why people want
to let their cats out. And some people even really
firmly believe that you got to let a cat have its natural
behaviors, have to let it hunt. And then of course, there are
people who the reason cats became associated with us is
because they're good mousers, man.
Like, they do good work in pest management.
(29:37):
And that's part of the reason wekind of invited them into our
lives. And so people want those
effects. And The thing is that's going to
have knock on consequences, right?
And so it's, it really is a difficult situation.
And it's difficult not just in, you know, Australia has a big
feral cat problem. It's difficult not just in a
(29:58):
tear row in New Zealand, it's difficult in the United States.
We have a massive feral cat population, and they eat just as
much stuff. Yeah.
So yeah, it's fraught, and there's lots of efforts.
So for example, I looked a lot into TNR, which is trap, neuter,
return. So basically they trap the cat
and they neuter the cats, and then they return it to, you
(30:18):
know, live out its life. And that can be good.
But you have to neuter like 89 to 90% of the cats, which
involves catching all of the cats.
And it's a lot. It's a big, heavy lift, and it
takes about a decade to work, and a lot of species don't have
a decade, you know, And so it's very difficult.
(30:40):
And it also, one of the reasons I found cats especially
fascinating is that our feelingsabout cats really highlight our
feelings about other animals. So, for example, I came across
in my research for this book so many stories of predators
dropped on islands. This happens all the time.
(31:00):
So many of these stories, you know, you get a rat dropped on
an island, then there are 10 rats, then there are 100 rats,
then there are 1000 rats. And the rats start eating the
local seabirds. This is you're talking migration
through human intervention or natural.
Human intervention. So I'm talking about, for
example, rats on boats. Rats go on boats and then they
go off boats and there's not a. Lot we can do about that and
(31:22):
they spread the plague. Isn't that why every ship
supposedly had a cat? Was that a myth?
Yes, that is why the ship's cat,yes.
And I mean, I don't know how widespread that was.
I know some ships certainly did have cats.
Lucky cat. Oh, yes, and no.
Cats and rats don't fight as often as you think they do.
Cats prefer smaller prey. Yeah, the rats are big.
(31:42):
So there's studies actually showing that if you put a colony
of cats next to a colony of ratsin like, Manhattan, which is
where the study was done, the animals will just kind of ignore
each other politely, OK? And you'll see fewer rats
because when the cats are around, the rats are not.
But the rats are still there, they're just going around when
the cats aren't. OK, I am sort of seeing a
Stephen King novel here. For some reason it's.
(32:03):
Like rival St. gangs. But anyway, so you know, rats
end up on islands all the time and they can cause a lot of
destruction to species, especially seabirds.
And when that happens, conservationists will not
hesitate. Millions of tons of poison will
be dropped on that island. They will drop it from
helicopters. They will spray it out of like
pellet guns. They will do whatever it takes
(32:26):
to poison those rats. To kill those rats, they will
use lethal traps. They will send people out with
BB guns. They will do whatever they got
to do. Consider Predator Free 2050,
Which. Doesn't have cats in it and it's
just been defunded in in anyway.Oh, no, really.
Oh yeah, we've got a pretty shitty government too.
Oh, that's sad, actually. Anyway, so we'll do anything to
get rid of those rats. What if it's a cat?
(32:48):
Because there have been many cases when it's a cat.
And it can just be 1, right? Doing the same thing and it can
be just one cat. And when it is, people will do
anything to make sure they don'tkill the cat.
They will trap it, they will neuter it, they will put it in
the Florida Keys. They have trapped a whole pile
of feral cats that were causing major problems and they
(33:11):
relocated them to a giant outdoor catio screened in
enclosure because the cats are too feral to be adopted.
But they will do anything to notkill the cat.
And the difference between a catand a rat is one letter and a
little bit of taxonomy and our feelings.
The big difference is our feelings, right?
(33:32):
We hate rats. We feel fine doing whatever we
have to do to get rid of the rats.
Cats are a different matter. And that was just such a
fascinating trip into human psychology.
Did you dig into why is it I wasgoing to say disease related
except cats spread disease. But then again, our emotional
feelings are not necessarily at all related to facts or logic.
(33:55):
It's much more cultural, right? OK.
It's just a cultural love and respect for cats that live near
us. And also The thing is, when we
see rats, rats are often associated with disease.
They're associated with dirt, they're associated with poverty,
which is a big one. You see a lot of that and cats
(34:16):
are not. You see house cats, you see cats
in the media are are happy, wellfed, they're playful, right?
You have these deep associationsthat you make over time about
the difference between cats and rats, our cultures.
And that really changes how we see them.
And I looked into that as well with, like, the kind of rise of
laboratory mice and laboratory rats, which in part became a
(34:39):
huge animal in research because we hate them, because we felt OK
about that. Yeah.
I told you, I do a lot of ethics.
I don't love it. Yeah.
Ethics never makes you feel good.
It never makes you feel good. No, I did an environmental
ethics paper last year and I just remember ultimately getting
to the end of what does it mean if it all matter in the end that
(35:00):
you can argue it, just there's no answer.
And that's I'm actually doing some philosophy papers as well
and it's fascinating, but it's also frustrating.
So it's fascinating insight intothings.
You're absolutely right. So I can see why you loved it.
But also the ethics suck. The mouse LED rat thing is.
It's fascinating. Just try not to feel anything.
Oh no, I left my emotions October 2024.
(35:22):
I was like no more of those. Or probably beforehand anyway.
Interesting. The rats LED mice.
Animal testing was a big reason I always wanted to be a
microbiologist. Actually no, a bit like you I
realized I'd be a shit scientist.
Not necessarily for the same reasons, but I don't like
paperwork. I don't really like being
methodical, I don't really like doing things a million times
(35:46):
over to try and repeat the results.
Not my my area of expertise, butthat was a big reason I couldn't
taste on things I was good at. That part, it's the grant
writing that absolutely screwed me.
But no, I loved I was an animal behaviour person primarily.
I got to work with mice all the time.
I really loved. One of my favorite things about
training mice and behavioral tasks is you train them by
(36:06):
rewards. And let me tell you, giving a
mouse a fruit loop. Do you know what Fruit loops
are? Yeah, Yeah, I think we have them
here, yeah. The little round, sugary cereal
and giving a mouse a fruit loop,it's like watching a human try
to eat a car tire because they're huge compared to the
size of the mouse. But the mouse is determined.
The mouse has a goal. He goes in, he like eats all
(36:28):
around the edge and he breaks through to the center.
And it's so funny when a mouse has finished a fruit loop, they
are measurably larger than before.
Like their old tummies are so full and they're just like
flopped out in the cage. Like no regrets.
I regret nothing. Do it again.
It's so cute. It's so cute.
We've all been there. And that brings Part 1 to a
(36:49):
close. Yes, I've cut this episode in
half because we talked for well over an hour and she's full of
the most interesting stories. Part 2 will be out next week,
and it's probably a little bit more controversial.
We're going to talk cats in Altera.
We'll dive into a little bit of pigeon history, which is weird
sounding but actually is really interesting and kind of
depressing. And the difference between pest
and pit other than just a letter?
Yoda, see you next week.
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