Humans Doom-Scroll While Nature Suffers + feat. Daisy’s Research on Wild Tit

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey guys, welcome to the Wild Bits show. I am Upamanyu.
And I am Meghna.
And we've got a great show planned for you.
We'll be talking about the headline topic, of course, which is very concerning, to me at least.
Human connection to nature has declined over 60% in 200 years.

(00:20):
There has been a study on that.
We'll also be talking about dogs some more, continuing from the last episode.
There has been a surge in demands for wolf-dog hybrid pits.
I don't know what it is about.
I know what it is about them that attracts humans.

(00:43):
But, yeah, we'll see what our opinions are, whether we should do that at all, and what the risks are.
Yeah, what else do we have on the roster, Meghna?
And I am going to be talking about oil exploration in the Congo Beats and rainforest, which could be a disaster for both nature, climate, and the humans, of course.

(01:06):
And there is one more burning topic that I want to talk about, something that's very current in India.
I think you'll find out later, you know, when the time comes for it.

(01:36):
Cool.
Let's get into what is, of course, the headline topic of this week.
Human connection to nature has declined 60% in 200 years, study finds.
A study by Professor Miles Richardson published in the, this is a report from The Guardian, published in the journal Earth, reveals a 60% decline in human connection to nature since 1800.

(02:06):
And I think the year 1800.
And I think the year 1800, I mean, the 19th century in general is quite instrumental here to me as well, because that's when, till the 19th century, human population has been very much stable.

(02:29):
You know, there, there, there, there has been, every one of you might have seen the graphs of human population increase.
It, it had become viral at some point, and it does over, you know, after certain periods.
19th century is when the graph starts going, you know, straight up.

(02:50):
There's a huge boom in population.
So, multiple factors, industrialization, better, you know, healthcare, sanitary conditions, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, that led to that boom.
But it says in the study as well, decline in human connection to nature since 1800, mirroring the disappearance of nature, words from books.

(03:19):
Oh, that's very interesting as well.
So, it's also the, the words, yeah, that, that's, I, I find that very interesting.
Like the nature, the frequency of that word or related words is declining from books as well.
It says, it goes on to say, this trend driven by urbanization, wildlife loss, and parents not transmitting nature engagement to their children predicts an ongoing extinction of experience.

(03:53):
Modeling shows that this will worsen without significant policy and societal changes.
I think that's where we have been very lucky.
Meghna and I, that our parents have always encouraged that, that kind of, you know, connection with nature, or we have found our own niches for that connection with nature as well.

(04:25):
So, I know in my case, you know, there was a huge influence of my parents in, you know, in, in, in contributing to the interest that I've gained towards nature.
What do you, what do you think Meghna?
It's, it's a lot of things, I think.
Um, one, I think what we used to watch as children, we didn't have a lot of options.

(04:47):
And our generation especially grew up watching National Geographic and Discovery.
Those were the two main channels that we would watch.
And that time, National Geographic and Discovery only had animals and animal related documentaries and nature related documentaries.
I mean, the whole channel is named Animal Planet.
Yes.
So, but now, obviously, they have entered into different kind of documentaries.

(05:10):
But back then, all we used to walk and talk about were these things.
Secondly, we grew up in, I think, a lot of nature environments.
So, the city that I grew up in, I used to say it was a jungle and now it's a concrete jungle.
It had like pythons and mongoose and monitor lizards and peacocks.
You had so much wildlife that you could see just around your house.

(05:33):
And it was green and lush and there were no malls, no big shops, no proper roads also.
So, you know, when you grow up in such an environment, you have a lot of connection to nature.
But if you grow up in a city that, you know, where you just see buildings, I think that probably doesn't even foster your connection.
Yes.
And I think what you mentioned around, like, you know, documentaries, you know, venturing into multiple different kinds of documentaries, you know, you know, venturing, branching out from just nature and natural history documentaries.

(06:09):
That tracks with what they have found in this paper as well, in this, you know, study as well.
Because, you know, nature, words being taken from books and I think decline of purely nature-based shows from those channels.

(06:30):
I think you have observed that change over the years as well.
I think it is in that same path of, you know, people in general not finding nature as appealing.
So it's a chicken and egg loop that we get into.

(06:52):
I mean, you and me both know that we're doing this show so we can be the bridge between the science that is relayed in the news and then talk about it so that we can create some more awareness and people start talking about these topics.
But we also know that the niche that we're covering is not something that most people enjoy.
You know, had we been doing something on food or pop culture or even like Bollywood or Hollywood, we would definitely have more viewers because people relate to that more.

(07:21):
People just don't relate to nature and wildlife anymore.
And this is primarily our, you know, I think if we brought it on to ourselves, we kept modernizing ourselves to the extent that now it's harder for us to go back and connect with nature.
That is entirely correct.
And I think most people wouldn't even like, you know, at the risk of generalizing, I think the Gen X or Gen Alpha, whatever we are up to today, they have significantly less connection and even knowledge.

(08:02):
Like, you know, where do these things live or, you know, these are animals that you can see in the wild.
These are wild animals, not only, you know, existing in a zoo or on a page of a book or maybe a documentary on the Internet or TikTok or something like that.
Like, they wouldn't have that idea.

(08:23):
Like, a lot of people, like, absolutely have no idea where the meat on their table comes from.
You know, it's just convenient to think supermarket as the answer.
And I honestly think, I mean, the way the children are exposed today, I think them, because everyone is given either a tablet or a phone when they're super, super young.

(08:45):
So they are so much into screens that they do not go out and play as much.
You know, I read this somewhere, like, I think I was seeing this reel or whatever it was, but it said that where are all those kids who had, like, those casts on their hands and casts on their legs and, you know, you could see broken bones.
So when we were little, all of us broke our bone at one point of time, it was normal to break our bone.

(09:08):
But now you don't even see kids happening, you know, like having those broken bones because they're not exposed.
They don't go out.
They don't drop out.
They don't play.
You know, how would you even love nature if you're not in nature?
Exactly.
Like, that interaction and connection with nature has definitely decreased.

(09:29):
We can see it anecdotally as well.
And the study has found the same thing.
And I think also, like, supporting that connection and the need for that connection.
I think there has been multiple studies supporting that connection as well, that, you know, connecting with nature and being out in nature, being in those natural spaces is extremely important.

(09:57):
And that's why, you know, important for, you know, development of the brain.
Also, you know, being content in your life.
There has to be.
There has to be.
And that's why, like, we hear everyone, oh, we want to get away in the forest.

(10:19):
And that's the reason why people want to get away in the forest, in nature.
Because it sort of fills a missing part in your brain that becomes, you know, apparent when you are living in a concrete jungle and when living in urban environments.
And something happens when you go back into nature and reconnect with nature.

(10:41):
That's why it's so appealing to take a vacation to places where it's covered with nature.
Be it sea, be it land, be it forests, be it anywhere.
You know, people go there to breathe out their mind, all the worries from their mind, I think, as well.
I think what Oops pointed out, there have been multiple research that shows that if you are suffering from any mental health problems, if you take a break and you go and have a vacation in nature, that you come back feeling like 60 to 80% better.

(11:15):
Because that connection with nature and that disconnect from everything that's troubling you, be it, you know, anything that's online and everything that we're connected to, you know, we have really shallow lives in the city.
This is what I feel like, you know, all I can think of that people do here is party and want to go out drinking.
And then there's more bars.

(11:36):
And then you don't scroll on your phone.
Like, you don't know anything nature related.
Yes, there are some groups that do hike and, you know, would go cycling, but most people in a city do very city bound exercises that has nothing to do with nature.
So it's harder.
And I think even this research shows the same thing.
It says that, you know, effective introductions include introducing children to nature at a young age and cleaning urban environments.

(12:03):
So the research highlights parental nature connectedness as the strongest predictor of a child's bond with nature.
So exactly what, you know, oops, was talking about that because we both were introduced to nature and we were brought up with that connection.
So we hold on to that connection very dearly.
Like even today, I do not relate with city life, but I love it when, you know, I'm in some place remote.

(12:30):
Yes.
And I think that's like mental health.
I think what you mentioned there is a crucial, you know, part of this whole thing is, yeah, concrete jungles.
We have become trapped in those loops.
And I mean, this is a society we have created for ourselves.

(12:52):
So, yes, we might spend, you know, 75, 80% of our time here, depending on how, you know, how connected are you with nature or how much time you want to spend in city life.
But, you know, after a certain point, if you are constantly, if you are spending 100% of your time in the city and with coming with its flaws and, you know, all the, you know, triggers that a city, a large metropolis or an urban environment presents you with,

(13:33):
it's inevitable that it will take a toll on the mental health of anybody.
And I think nature, you know, having green spaces in a city is the bare minimum almost, I think, that, you know, the city governments and municipalities can do to at least encourage people.

(14:01):
Because I think it's very easy to, for a growing city, and I think Meghna will be able to speak about that as well, for a growing city to prioritize economic growth, and just left, right and center, you know, get rid of green spaces and install multi-story buildings and malls and, you know, co-working spaces and, you know, whatnot in their places.

(14:29):
Yeah, and I think one of the things is, like, you know, like, we have these allotments for, like, parks, and then there'll be just, like, one park made in a place.
But at the same time, one thing I think is, like, when we were younger, we would walk, we would walk through all these areas that, you know, that were just all foresty, like, all just trees and trees, and you would walk through them and then get back to the road and then walk through another patch and then get back to the road.

(14:53):
But now people don't walk.

(15:23):
There was some, there has been some research on that as well.
I remember this, I remember this from my childhood.
There was a period where walking bare feet on grass was, became viral, I mean, in today's terms, but it was on every newspaper, everyone was talking about it.
And it was, you know, everybody was suggesting, oh, walk 15 minutes on grass every morning, you know, there, to have that, there was some, some very apparent health benefit to walking directly on grass.

(16:05):
Yeah, I remember that part of my childhood as well.
It was quite important that we had, and what Meghna said, like, walking on grass, it's just an example of that.
You know, just strengthening that argument that we need to be in nature.
And you will know from your own experience too.

(16:28):
And if you're listening to someone that's watching or listening to us, you'll know from your own experience that when you go out, even to a local park, you know, even to maybe play with your kids or maybe just go sit by yourself or read a book in the sun or, you know, do anything.
Take coffee or anything like that in the sun, you'll know how much better it feels and how it breaks your day up and gives you more energy to focus on what you've got to focus on.

(16:59):
I think, yeah, I make it a point to do that, go out of the house.
And I have a nearby park that I go to, just take a walk there, sit there for a moment, read a book, maybe drink a cup of hot chocolate or something like that.

(17:23):
I think that gives me an immense productivity boost in my work, in my job, and so on.
Yeah, I think when there's a 60% disconnect, we have to start fostering that connection again.
And it is probably a long process, like anything environment related, like, you know, the awareness that you need and the change that you need, it's low.

(17:47):
But it could be as simple as, you know, just maybe going out for five minutes and walking on prayers or just like, you know, looking at trees or looking at flowers or anything.
But I think you need to foster that connection again, for your own mental well-being and for the next generation that is probably growing up more isolated than us.

(18:09):
So we need to do this so that, you know, if we really want to save nature, we need that connection to save nature.
And this is something that we spoke about, I think, the last time also.
A lot of people don't feel for the ocean because they don't go diving in the ocean.
So they only see the water at the top and they don't feel that connected.
It's the same with land now.
And I think it's very, very important.

(18:29):
So there are only these communities that are, you know, rural that still foster that connection.
But the urban communities, they really need to try harder for that connection.
Yes.
And I think the discussion question there for us was, with declining nature connection, how do we prevent an extinction of experience for future generations?

(18:50):
Because I think it will be really, you know, very big loss to our humankind in general.
If we completely lose that connection, you know, it will certainly take a toll on the mental well-being.

(19:13):
But also, like, you know, physical well-being, you know, having these spaces also means, you know, having access to fresh oxygen and fresh air, which is dwindling in the cities.
You know, those, every one of those things.
So, yeah, I think for us to be able to foster that, you know, we are trying through this show to foster some kind of connection, as Meghda was saying, and be that bridge between nature and, you know, urban life, busy urban life.

(19:50):
But also, I think governments and municipalities should also prioritize, you know, parks and having those green spaces instead of, I mean, economic growth is important for every city.
And that's, that is a priority, that should be a priority as well.

(20:12):
But this thing, not at the cost of, you know, green spaces and natural spaces being, you know, deprioritized, you know.
Yeah, I think talking about the governments and nature, I think it's a good time to segue to the next topic.
But before that, one, I think one moment, we should all foster that connection.

(20:37):
So, if you're there, we're not saying leave the show and go and, you know, bask in nature right now.
But make an effort every day, maybe that five minutes, you know, how you make the gym routine, make a nature routine.
We need that connection to protect the nature for ourselves and our future generations.
Rightly said.

(20:58):
And basically, the next topic is something that's, again, anti-nature.
As we know, that is like the thing that happens.
So, oil exploration in the Congo Basin rainforest could be a disaster for nature and the climate.
The Democratic Republic of Congo is controversially auctioning vast areas of the Congo Basin rainforest for oil exploration for the second time in three years.

(21:24):
The licensing round offers 52 blocks across 124 million hectares of critical tropical ecosystems, including Virunga National Park and the COVID Central Tropical Peatlands, which store the equivalent of three years of global fossil fuel emissions.
Environmentalists warn this fossil fuel extraction could be a disaster for nature and the climate, threatening rare wildlife like okapis and gorillas.

(21:53):
The previous 2022 auction, despite a 500 million COP26 protection deal, ultimately failed due to a lack of competitive bids.
Despite its prior collapse, the DRC is reopening these invaluable areas for business, risking global environmental repercussions.
And the discussion question for us in this is, can a nation like the DRC, rich in biodiversity and forest carbon reserves, ethically justify oil extraction when it threatens global climate stability?

(22:27):
I think this is a prime example of economic growth being prioritized over nature and climate change and everything that has got to do with it.
Like, oh, a few gorillas are dying or the entire species is dying or okapis are dying to hell with it.

(22:52):
We are getting this immense boost in, you know, in our economy.
So, that's the goal.
That's the goal for us.
I mean, I think while that is the goal for, you know, for a country maybe like the DRC, where it is still a developing nation, economic priorities should be there.

(23:20):
But, you know, I think it's like, I can't even imagine what 124 million hectares of area looks like.
And they are just, you know, right, left and center, just licensing that.
And it's critical tropical ecosystems, which is sad for me.

(23:47):
Yeah, I think the thing is that a lot of people think only about the Amazon when we think about, you know, saving rainforests or tropical forests or anything else.
But we don't think about the Congo basin.
And it's not talked about just as much.
And for people who don't know, in Congo, they actually do like these walking gorilla tours where you can actually see gorillas in their wild environment.

(24:11):
It's one of those last places where gorillas thrive in the wild naturally.
So, you know, it's really sad that the government is actually thinking of this.
And the second thing that I've actually read about is, one, obviously, it soaks the emissions.
So, it's worth three years of emissions that this forest itself soaks.

(24:34):
And the second thing, obviously, is that because it's the forest, it's in the middle, it's not really financially viable, apparently.
And it's not an amazing oil source as opposed to, I think, the sea and other pockets that they have.
But still, the DRC, even though the auction fizzled out last time, it's trying once more to do this.

(24:55):
And this, at least according to the article, it says it's because Trump has come in and he's pushing for very, you know, like a lot of anti-environment deals.
As we know, he's not a nature person and he doesn't even believe in climate change.
And he's been pushing other countries to also like, you know, kind of auction their areas out like this.
So, I think this is where the problem comes in.

(25:18):
So, even though they gave up on the idea, they have now again taken up the idea.
And they don't realize that this is a disaster.
Because if you go back, if you go down to the article, which I'll just read, the last bit, it says that, imagine, 39 million Congolese people and 64% of our forests could be directly affected by the awarding of these oil blocks.

(25:43):
This is the campaign coordinator who is campaigning against this move.
And all this while the government is promoting the Kibu Kinshasa Ecological Corridor.
So, where is the logic?
So, for those who do not know, earlier this year, it announced one of the world's largest conservation projects.
And this is the same DRC government, the flagship Kibu Kinshasa Green Corridor Conservation Initiative.

(26:07):
But, ironically, more than two-thirds of that corridor overlaps with the plant oil blocks.
So, it almost feels like the government cannot decide if they actually want to conserve or they want to give it up for oil.
Because they are the same ones saying that we are announcing the world's largest conservation project.
Now, they are saying, no, no, just take it all back and give us our oil.
But, imagine, like 39 million people will be displaced and 64% forests could be wiped out in Congo by this.

(26:34):
Yeah, and I think there was this word in the article summary, peatlands.
Peatlands or wetlands.
I think Meghna touched on it, but people, as Meghna was saying,
like people immediately connect to, you know, think of the Amazon rainforest as being, you know, the largest carbon absorber.

(27:04):
You know, emissions absorber, lungs of the earth and whatnot.
When people think of carbon emissions and climate trade and whatnot.
But peatlands, like wetlands, it is beyond, we might do a segment on that in the future.
But wetlands are such an important ecosystem that often goes overlooked.

(27:30):
You know, wetlands, they are shallow water.
So it's very easy to cover them up and build over wetlands.
And I think a lot of countries have done that.
A lot of cities have done that, you know, covering up wetlands and then building on top of it.
It is very easy to do that.
But wetlands is such a fragile ecosystem, but such an important ecosystem, especially for like carbon capture and things like that.

(27:58):
And the other thing that people don't pay attention to or think about when they think of carbon capture is the phytoplankton and the algae that floats around the ocean.
I think we talked about it a couple of episodes ago.
But yeah, wetlands are these immensely important and immensely affected ecosystems all over the world as well.

(28:34):
Yep.
Yep.
And the thing is, I think there are a lot of ecosystems that are not talked about a lot.
One is the wetlands, the other is the grasslands.
These are both extremely important because they house different kind of animals.
So if you've ever been to a wetland, any wetland, even in your area, if you've been to a wetland, you would see a lot of wetland birds.
Now, these birds are specifically birds that thrive in and around the water.

(28:58):
And you can only see them in wetlands.
So if you destroy the wetlands, you destroy the birds.
And the same with the grasslands.
Like in India, the grasslands are homes to a lot of, you know, smaller mammals and to foxes and wolves and things like that.
So if you take off the grasslands, then, you know, you're killing the home for a lot of other wildlife.

(29:19):
I'm sharing on my screen okapis so that you can, you know, you can see how an okapi looks like.
This, so we are actually giving up these half deer, half zebra so that it's easier for people to understand what it is.
You know, we're giving up on these animals and we're giving up on gorillas.

(29:40):
Now, obviously, all of us know gorillas.
But look at this, like it's such a beautiful animal.
Why would you want to take its home away?
And this is where it comes down to accountability.
One, obviously, the people need to question the government that why are you doing this to us?
There needs to be like worldwide reach for things like this.

(30:01):
And secondly, obviously, the government needs to think that how is this even a viable solution?
Now, Congo depends a lot on its tourism, especially like this, you know, like for the gorillas, for the okapis and for the bonobos.
A lot of people come for wildlife, just like other African nations.
Congo also has a lot of tourism and it depends on tourism.

(30:22):
So if you're going to take away the homes, then you're basically only promoting oil and not tourism or, you know, animals or wildlife anymore.
And oftentimes, I think, again, I can't say for certain.
We can't say for with a definite certainty.
But as we saw in our last episode, sorry, the episode before last, you know, shark meat being prioritized.

(30:50):
Some of you might remember it, you know, that was.
I believe this it is the case here as well.
I have a very strong feeling about that, that it is it might only be a marginal benefit or marginal, you know, economic benefit to prioritize this over something else.

(31:14):
You know, maybe tourism, maybe something else, agriculture, whatever.
Oil might be only a marginal benefit or marginal economic gain to the country.
But that those margins is what they are prioritizing, basically, to to add the cost of all these different things that we have listed till now.

(31:39):
And the thing is, you know, it's it's really hard to be hopeful in such an environment where all you hear every day is plants, trees being cut down here and forests being wiped out there.
And, you know, you keep trying, you keep trying to educate people, to tell them how important all of this is.

(31:59):
But then you come across news like this, that, you know, like an entire government doesn't care about something that's as beautiful as this.
And your heart just tanks.
Like, you're like, why?
Like, look at these amazing gorillas.
And we are doing nothing to try to save them.
The government doesn't want to save them.
Yes, I think that's the that's the thing.

(32:23):
Like nature.
Has always been.
Like an afterthought.
Like, it's almost like, you know, having air or sunlight or anything else in our in our life.
And we take it for granted.
I think.
I think the thing is, I read somewhere.

(32:44):
It says that, you know, if if trees gave out Wi-Fi, we would be planting them like crazy.
Too bad.
They only give us the oxygen we breathe.
That is that is beautifully put.
That is very beautifully put.
And I think.
Yeah.
I like.
Yeah, it is.
It has those classic markers of taking something for granted and only realizing its importance when it's too late.

(33:15):
And I think here in in in such cases which deals deals with nature,
There is no second chance that you'll get once you've once you're done with it.
You're done with it.
But having said that nature is also very resilient.
If we give nature that space and we give nature that room to breathe and to recover.

(33:42):
I think there has been multiple examples over the years where conservation has led to or stopping something has led to nature reclaiming that space and nature sort of recovering in that place.
Yes.
There are multiple examples on land and water.

(34:05):
I think we spoke about it a few episodes back.
There are multiple times.
There are multiple times that we've been doing.
So, any place that you would protect, you would see nature returning back.
But you need to give them at least that much time and space to recover.

(34:28):
And that is what we need to prioritize right now.
We do not have to prioritize oil.
And going by the entire initiatives around the world, we are trying to go for non-carbon emission fuel.
We're trying to switch more to solar.
We're trying to switch more to hydro and wind, which may or may not have their own problems.

(34:49):
But at least we're trying to switch.
There is a lot of talk of electric cars and electric everything.
But why are we again then going back?
Like why are we taking one step back when everything is moving forward?
And we're actually trying to do something good for the environment now.
Even knowingly, unknowingly.

(35:09):
So, we really, really need to oppose this.
Like there are petitions out there for not doing this.
And it would be a good idea to at least sign.
That's the least we can do from where we are sitting to voice out our concern.
Something that's as devastating as, you know, wiping out the Congo Basin.

(35:31):
And I think also we as people, and I would like to believe that the people listening to this live or recorded in a podcast form,
people listening to this are, you know, are affected by these things to various degrees, but are affected by these things.

(35:53):
So, we should also be very vigilant and sort of keep a lookout for these kinds of things happening in our own governments and own countries or cities or states and whatnot.
We should keep a lookout for these things happening.
Because if we are not vigilant and if we are not, you know, keeping an eye on our government, then it is very easy for the government to...

(36:20):
And we have seen this time and again, there are very few governments in the world that would prioritize, you know, climate change and nature over something which is more economically lucrative.
So, I think we must keep a vigilant eye on the government as well.

(36:43):
We do for a lot of issues, but this is becoming...
This is already a very big issue and like climate change, conservation in general.
And I think we need to make our governments sort of realize that and take that as, you know, front of mind decision, not like an afterthought.

(37:09):
Yes. And I think there are like a lot of things.
I mean, nature is amazing.
Like the...
How we spoke about turtles last time, finding their way back home without ever talking to their own mom.
They just know where to come back to.
Just like that, I think whales migrating to the warmer waters without food, bringing up their kids for six months.

(37:37):
You know, tigers and how they behave or gorillas and how they behave and all these different behavioral traits.
They're so amazing to learn.
So, why are we giving that up for some oil?
And it's not even like we're...
We're not at that stage where we really need to start fighting over it.
But we really want to start

(37:58):
just plucking and taking every last thing out.
And that is that, you know, how Oops said,
when we have destroyed the last tree, the last forest, the last fish, we've hunted the last fish.
And that's when we would be like, oh, I'm so sorry.
I should have thought about protecting this before.
Yes.
And it will be a...

(38:19):
It will be like a switch.
Like once that last tree goes away, like the whole of humanity will weather away.
Just die a painful death.
And that is something, that is a message that conservationists around the world, you know,

(38:40):
have been trying to...
They have been trying to propagate this to the masses, you know.
You know, people like Greta Thunberg or even the OGs like David Attenborough.
They have been sort of hammering these sorts of messages for quite a few number of years now.

(39:05):
But it is not a choice.
Basically, it is not either or.
Either this or that.
It's only this.
Like we can't make that choice between nature and economic growth.
We have to choose nature always first.
Because without that, the entire, you know, entire world will cease to exist as we know it.

(39:28):
So I think what our discussion question asked that, you know, can a nation like DRC ethically justify all extraction?
And I think my answer to that would be no, it can't ethically justify, you know, that decision when it threatens like the climate stability, not only of their nation, but the world in general.

(39:57):
Yeah, I think one of the things that they spoke about in that article also said that the Congo River Basin affects the rainfall as far as Egypt.
Like, you know, so the rain basin is, you know, I mean, the basin is what is affecting the climate as far as Egypt and the rainfall that happens there.
So if you're going to cut down the trees, you're going to see like huge differences to your climate.

(40:21):
But then talking about how the people and government behave with nature, I think this is a good time
good time to segue to people and their obsession with exotic pets.
And, you know, how wolf dog mixed breeds are taking up the new storm, like from huskies to now wolf dogs.

(40:42):
Yes, I think that's a good time to segue to the new storm.
I think that's a good idea.
And we can talk about that.
So this is, again, a report from National Geographic, which goes on to say that demand for hybrid pets is surging.

(41:05):
That is, yeah, I don't know.
That is, yeah, I don't know.
That is, that is very, very weird statement for me.
And it surprises me that that statement is true.
And it goes on to say that it's a huge problem.
So wolf dogs are gaining immense popularity worldwide as pets, raising significant concerns among conservationists and their potential to interbreed with wild wolf populations, especially in Europe.

(41:38):
So I said in the intro, I know where this obsession comes from.
And I think it comes from fantasy novels like the Lord of the Rings and, you know, etc.
So I think those shows, those novels have contributed a huge deal to this obsession.

(42:10):
It's like if we just talk about this wolf dog hybrid issue in general.
And I think we talked about, you know, this biosciences privately funded company trying to bring back or trying to claim that they brought back the direwolves.

(42:30):
And I think that has direct relationship with Game of Thrones as well.
There were quite a few direwolves that were sort of, you know, very much portrayed in a very grandeur manner in the series and in the books.
So I think that there is that obsession of obsession of people that we want to have a companion like that.

(43:00):
It's similar to how we want to own tigers or any other exotic pets.
And I think it is especially, it especially shows how we choose convenience because we want a dog which is like as big as a wolf.
But we also don't want the aggression that comes with a wolf.
I think that's why this is becoming a trend because we want a companion which is like as good as a dog which has evolved with us for thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands of years.

(43:34):
But we also want something that is big and like bold and with big paws and things like that, like a wolf.
Yeah, I think, I think like, like even in the article, it basically says that these controversial hybrids originally bred from German shepherds and Eurasian wolves for military use are large, demanding and can pose challenges for owners.

(43:56):
But despite the difficulty, their appeal is growing fueled by social media and shows like Game of Thrones, the same thing that Ops just touched on.
And these significant breeders now are noting a dramatic increase in sales, especially in Italy, where a single wolf dog can cost 2000 euros.
That is, I mean, one, the expense, two, they're saying that it is a challenging breed, obviously, because, you know, it still has both genes in it.

(44:26):
And three people are going crazy over it, one, because of social media and the shows.
And, you know, while these shows obviously always have these disclaimers, but I think social media is a big culprit.
It is one of those places that push you to want something that you don't really need.
Like, there are, you know, there are dogs in the shelters, there are dogs in other places, there are dog breeds that you can go adopt, you can go, you know, even buy in some countries.

(44:55):
But, but you don't have to get a wolf dog.
I think it's the same obsession I've seen with huskies or akitas at one point of time.
I think this is, this is, this is people who, these are people who would, who probably own a husky and they want an upgrade from that.
Because husky is kind of that, as close to a wolf as you can get in terms of looks that exists currently in the wolf breeds market.

(45:24):
And it's a genuine breed of dog.
Like, it's not a, not a hybrid or of any, any kind.
It's a dog.
But that's as close as you can get in terms of the looks currently.
And I think this would be an upgrade from that for the people who, you know, fantasize about, you know, owning wolves.
And I'm sharing my screen.
I mean, like, I have to admit as well, like, looking at this, I've been a huge lover of dog all my life.

(45:50):
These things look cool.
But that's what they are, kind of.
It's just the looks.
They look cool.
But, you know, people don't realize that how much of, of a maintenance effort that dogs take in general, leave these wolf-dog hybrids.

(46:13):
Like, dogs in general take a lot of maintenance.
And if you introduce, like, the wolf's genes in them, that means, you know, that maintenance costs and time that you have to spend goes, like, 50 times or 100 times up.
But it is not even the cost.
Like, okay, let's say we bred these dogs, okay, for military use.

(46:36):
But we should have stopped there.
And we should not have encouraged people to have them as pets.
Not everything is a pet.
Not everything should be kept at home.
And not everything should be hybrid.
Like, you know, why are you trying to cross-mix everything?
We don't need that.
We need wild wolves, you know, wild wolves in the forest.
So why are you playing with that?
Because right now, there might be a lot of cross-breeding happening even in the wild because of what we're doing.

(47:00):
So we do this and then we say, oh, these are invasive species.
Then we start culling them because they started growing.
No, but give me this, Meghna.
You said that, you know, these things would have been good to be bred for military.
But I think that's where the problem started.
Because when the military bred these, they would have to retire some of the dogs after a certain point.

(47:25):
Not some.
Every dog has to be retired after a certain point.
And I think that's where the military made the choice.
Whether to kill these dogs that we bred.
We can't call them a dog.
It's like a wolf-dog hybrid.
Whether to kill them or whether to put them up for adoption.
And then some people adopted them.
Those who had the fantasy.
And, you know, as is with the human tendency, you know, looking at someone else's dog, we're like, oh, I want one.

(47:51):
So now, I think that is where, that would be my, you know, guess of how that industry got started.
So.
Yeah, I think you're right.
Like, they should not have meddled with it to begin with.
Like, even for whatever purpose there are.
And there are enough and plenty breeds that army use everywhere across the world.

(48:16):
Like, in India, I think it's German Shepherds and Labradoras that they use.
But they're starting to use even the original Indian breeds now in the army.
So, you know, why don't you just use local breeds instead of trying to mix them, then make them a product and then sell them in the market.
This is where the issue is that you want to experiment.

(48:39):
And then this experiment goes wild.
And then there is no stopping.
And you're putting the boots on the line.
You're putting probably yourself on the line.
Because, you know, you do not know how to handle this breed.
And then you're obviously making it harder.
Like, so, huskies that live in really cold climates have now migrated.
And they're all over the world in really tropical climates.

(49:00):
Like in India, where it's really hot.
And these huskies are not even active because imagine like wearing a two fur coat.
And I'm saying the day is not like far away where these are going to go to the US and India and everywhere.
And then you're just going to see like really, really easy boot-up hybrids because they just are not, you know, you're not letting them thrive wild.

(49:24):
And you're not letting them survive in the environment they belong to.
Yes.
And I think here, you know, it says in this article as well, it says the bond is with an animal that won't be a pet, but will be a friend, says Moria Sheen, a caretaker at Mission Wolf, a wolf dog sanctuary.

(49:44):
And I think this is the way to go, like creating sanctuaries for these things, even if the military chose to breed these things.
You know, it's in the past.
We can't go in the past and change it.
Maybe we can, you know, be more careful in the future.
But these sorts of sanctuaries, I think, is the way to go instead of trying to trying to adopt these dogs or, you know.

(50:17):
And the interesting part is if you just see two paragraphs down, it says around two to three years old.
That's when we get the phone call twice a week.
We get calls that people are hoping we can rescue their animals.
And we have to turn down thousands of dogs.
So I think this is very important.
And I think where people come in, they get in dogs because they look very beautiful and because it's a social media trend, but they do not understand the responsibility of having a dog.

(50:45):
So I worked with, you know, volunteering where we got dogs adopted.
And one of the few things that I would always notice is that people never research about the breed of dog that they wanted.
So like people would say, I have a small house.
So I want a beagle because it's small.
And I would always tell them that a beagle is a hound.

(51:06):
It's restless.
It needs space.
It needs to keep walking.
It needs to keep moving.
So, you know, unless and until you do not research about the breed, you just automatically assume that small means small space.
But that's not how it works with dogs.
It's not like a human that, you know, small human needs smaller space.
But with dogs, it's very important.
And I think this is what happens.

(51:26):
You see a bulldog.
You're like, oh, my God, they look amazing.
So let me have one.
And then when you get it home, then you realize, oh, they probably shed fur.
They probably don't listen to your commands.
They're probably not as trainable.
But, you know, you got it because they looked so amazing.
And that is never a good enough reason to get a dog home.
Yes.

(51:46):
And I think, yeah, I think the photographer who walked on this article, I must say, they've done a very good job.
But they have captured some scenes and you can see, like, in context, this is, I don't think this is even a full grown dog that I'm sharing on the screen, the wolf dog hybrid.
But it's already such a big, big animal.

(52:09):
And it's very easy for this animal to overpower, you know, let alone kids like adults.
So, yeah, it's very, because the wolf genes are still present in them.
I would imagine it, as Meghna was saying, like, it would be very difficult to train them or to make sure that they have strict discipline and things like that.

(52:33):
I mean, yeah, a seasoned dog trainer could do it, but it's not within the skill set of an individual casual, like, dog owner.
And, yeah, I think Meghna...
And if something happens, if something happens, then they're always going to blame the dog, because the dog can't talk for itself.

(52:55):
It can't tell why it did something.
It could be anything that provoked it, but we wouldn't know.
And we would blame the dog, you know, even if it is genetical, even if it's something that it has instinct to do, we would still blame the dog and not the humans for bringing the dog home.
Yes, and I think that's where the problem did start as well, because when they say that there has...

(53:22):
This is a concern among conservationists, because it has the potential to interbreed with wild wolf population, in turn, like, you know, contaminating their gene pool, the wild wolf gene pool.
This might be the concern, like, you know, people just not being able to keep up with these things, these wolf-dog hybrids, and just releasing them, just letting them go.

(53:48):
And this is one of the main things, at least that's happened in India, is there are a lot of unethical breeders, non-registered breeders.
And what they do is there's a lot of inbreeding.
And with the inbreeding, the German Shepherds and the Labradors that people love to buy so much, they have sloped backs.
And because of these sloped backs, now they have these disc problems or hip problems.

(54:08):
And they cannot be on slippery floors.
They cannot be in houses that have, like, you know, steps.
So people get these breeds, but they do not realize that they are actually contributing to the inbreeding that is happening.
So this is something that we need to be really, really sure of, you know, and that is why you need to try to adopt as locally as possible.

(54:28):
And this is where I think it is a good point to segue to the next topic.
And I'm going to hold Ups very accountable for one line that he said five minutes back where he said he's a huge lover of dogs.
And this is an opinion piece only because he has differing opinions on this.
And he's not as much as a dog lover as he says he is.

(54:49):
So in India, the Supreme Court, the Apex Court, so here we have an Apex Court for the entire country.
It has a ruling that in the capital region, which is Delhi NCR, which includes Gurgaon, Faridabad, Noida, all these places, the stray dogs, the dogs that live on the street, you know, that remove all these dogs and take them into shelters.

(55:11):
And that too within a timeline of eight weeks.
Now we're talking about 300,000 dogs.
There are not enough shelters.
There is no, you know, there are no resources properly.
There's no game plan.
There is nothing like, I mean, if you're going to shelter these dogs, you need to provide for them.
You need to clean for them.
You need to see that there is enough space that these dogs don't fight.

(55:33):
Now these dogs are, and what we're talking about is maybe like a very minor, you know, like there are dog fight cases.
But more than that, there are human groping and human molesting and human rape cases that are more important in India.
But no, we don't want the, you know, there are millions of cases pending in the court of murders and rapes and everything human related.

(55:56):
But no, we want the dogs to be taken off the street.
Now, one of the important things that I've read about this is if you're going to take out these dogs, which are like, I think half of them are sterilized on the street.
You take them out, you put them in.
Dogs from neighboring areas will come and take these over and then they will be unsterilized.
And then those dogs will have a higher chance of spreading rabies than the ones that we have already sterilized.

(56:20):
So we do not realize that the dogs that already live with us in these environments and the ones that we are feeding, the ones that are docile, they're actually helping keep the rabies away because they're already sterilized and vaccinated.
So the bigger question is why are we trying to remove 300,000 dogs instead of trying to vaccinate and sterilize them?
And India has a program in a lot of other cities like Bombay and Bangalore and Chennai.

(56:45):
They have proper sterilization and vaccination programs.
So why can't they do it for India?
I'm going to show you the, I mean, for Delhi, I mean, why can't they do this for Delhi as well?
Why is Delhi suddenly in the limelight for something as dogs?
And I'm really proud of the people though, because people are protesting and there are marches and people really care about the dogs.

(57:13):
So there's a lot of gung ho and, but I also would say one thing that this, this probably is, and this might be controversial, but the government does try to bring up controversial things like this when it wants to cover up some other controversial news that it doesn't want to face.
Yeah.

(57:34):
So I hope you guys know about this topic and you really, you know, we need to stop targeting animals left, right and center and start questioning what our decisions are.
Yeah.
I think this, like, as Meghna was saying, like, I didn't want to engage, engage a lot with this topic because I have some differing views here.

(58:00):
But I think on the whole, on the whole, the, the Supreme Court, I mean, whatever, whatever be the reason, whatever was, was the reason that, you know, the Supreme Court decided on, on such a thing.

(58:21):
And the Supreme Court decided that they, they were going to eliminate all the dogs here.
Yeah.
I think the, the, the society, as a society, we might want that outcome, but yeah.
And I think we had a, Meghna and I, we had a conversation, a couple of, a semi-heated conversation a couple of days ago where we were deciding on this, when we were writing the script.

(58:53):
And, um, since then I have sort of thought about it and I have, I think, like, it should have gone through a democratic process, at least.
At least a democratic process.
No, no, no, no, no.
I think if you go through a democratic process, like we have spoken about, in India, you have this obsession with dog breeds.

(59:14):
People don't want to adopt dogs from the street.
The dogs that have high immunity, they're not crossbred, no medical issues, less part.
People don't want to adopt them just because they live on the roads.
But if you bring them home and you actually, you know, groom them, they look beautiful.
But people do not realize that they don't want, they have, they're so breed obsessed.

(59:34):
So if you take a democratic decision, it's not great.
The better option would be something like, I think I read in Sweden or Norway somewhere.
Uh, what they did was that they actively vaccinated and sterilized the dogs.
And then they, uh, put fines on people when they tried to abandon their dogs.
And they also made it, you know, compulsory for you to adopt the local dog.

(59:55):
So then this was a process where they got the dogs off the streets.
And this is what we need to do, even in India, where we need to push that, you know, adopt our local dogs.
They're the best and they're the best suited for the environment instead of just, uh, pushing to, you know, kill dogs, cull dogs and all of that.
You know, if we can push the local people to adopt them and make it like a, you know, like a fine that if you don't adopt them or if you abandon them, what would happen?

(01:00:24):
Then, then we would actually see some change.
We cannot just sentence them to this inhumane, impractical, unreasonable method of just, you know, okay, just let's like put 500 dogs into one small space.
We can't do that.
Yeah, I think, I think, yeah, I, I, I would, I would, I would agree to that.

(01:00:46):
Um, yeah, largely.
And, and, uh, there, there has been some very, um, I guess, not heated, but, um, very live and active, um, active conversations.
Right.
Um, on this topic and all the news outlets have been sort of reporting on this topic quite, um, aggressively as well.

(01:01:12):
Right.
Meghna.
Yes, they are being, uh, but that is what I'm talking about.
Like, you know, um, the, the topic coverage can just be a masking.
So it doesn't have to be that the outlets necessarily are actually, you know, bothered by this.
The people are, uh, because there are a lot of street dog feeders.
I'm one of them.

(01:01:32):
I go out and I always interact with the street dogs and, uh, they're amazing.
Like all the places that I've gone to.
So I wait for one, be really heartbroken if this goes through, but I am hoping that the government sees, you know, the, the Supreme court sees, um, some sense or some, you know, a bigger view and does not take this forward.

(01:01:53):
Uh, right now the, the order is reserved.
So I'm hoping that they do not actually make it binding.
Cool.
Um,
so we are, we are ending, uh, usual, usual segment there.
And, um, we are, we are trying something, trying to do something new today.

(01:02:18):
Um, so what we've done is we have invited a special guest to us show, um, Daisy Abraham, and, um, she has been researching on this very cool topic.
Um, divorces in wild, great tits.
Um, the birds, um, the birds.
And like birds, again, it's, it would be a generalization, but birds in general, a lot of bird species, uh, have, you know, soulmates for life.

(01:02:47):
So it's really interesting to see these kinds of behavior in, in a species of birds.
So, yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll let Daisy, um, sort of welcome Daisy and sort of let her, um, talk about her research as well.
Um, hey Daisy, welcome to the Wild Birds show.

(01:03:09):
Um, we are very thrilled to have you here.
So we were just, you know, researching, um, topics for the show and we came across your paper and we thought it was super cool.
Especially the title is very, um, clickbaity for, for lack of a better word.

(01:03:30):
Um, so we wanted to talk to you about it, you know, um, you know, how, how sort of your journey to, to publish your first paper and sort of what made you, um, made you choose that area, um, as the topic for your first paper.
So yeah, share with us your journey to get this paper, like publish this as your first paper.

(01:03:55):
Yeah.
Um, it's a good question.
Um, I'm, so I'm doing my PhD at Oxford at the moment.
So this is both my first paper and the first chapter of my thesis, hopefully.
Um, and I sort of wasn't really interested in this topic actually before I started my PhD.
I've always, I do animal behavior and I've been quite interested in sort of individual behavior and how individuals change their behavior and response to their environment in particular.

(01:04:24):
Uh, and then the lab group that I wanted to work with in Oxford were working with great tits.
So I was like, okay, I guess that's, that's what I'll be doing.
Um, I didn't, you know, I, I had never even seen one before I moved to England.
So it was all, all quite new for me.
Um, and then through that, I sort of got interested in social behavior because the lab group does a lot of work with social behavior specifically.

(01:04:49):
Um, and through social behavior into that question of divorce, which is quite a funny thing to study and not where I expected myself to be.
Um, and, and, and like, um, what, what questions, one of the questions, the first question we have is why are they called tits?
It's, it's actually really embarrassing because that's the, one of the first times I've been asked and I, I'm going to have to try and remember.

(01:05:17):
But I think it's like an old English word that meant small.
So it's like, they're just a little small bird, but obviously now it's quite a funny name.
Yes.
Yeah.
It definitely gets a lot of laughs to be able to go around saying that's what I study.
Right.

(01:05:37):
Right.
And whether, whether you mentioned that you sort of chanced upon it, which is, which is how most of research, research happens, uh, as well, at least choosing, choosing topics, uh, for, for research.
Uh, what, what was there, was there, um, similar research on this topic?

(01:06:00):
Were you sort of taking some, some research forward or understanding of this behavior forward?
Or what was this the first time sort of you and your sort of group, um, or, or your advisor sort of, uh, started on this trajectory?
Yes.
I was building on a few different things that people had done already.

(01:06:21):
Um, so there was a person who had for her PhD in the same lab group done a lot of work on divorce in the tits.
So the divorce thing was not new, uh, by me.
Um, but she was sort of looking at what predicted whether birds were going to get divorced or not.
And then separately, there was a lot of work in the lab group on how birds, uh, associate in the winter and who they associate with.

(01:06:45):
And so what I did is kind of combined those two things and looked at the relationship between divorce and the winter associations.
So it's sort of merging two things that had already been looked.
So, right.
So I think the question here is, um, one, how did you figure out that they're divorced?
Like what, what really happens?
Uh, so if you could just dumb down your paper for the viewers, because obviously they would not understand the journal language, but they would understand the simple language.

(01:07:13):
So basically we have been studying these birds in the woods that I work on them in for over 70 years.
Um, so we have a lot of data about these birds, which is very cool.
Um, and one of those things is that we know every year who they breed with.
So we know who's breeding with who, um, by sort of finding them in their pairs and identifying them.

(01:07:36):
And so with that, we were able to see that they, you know, sometimes we'll breed with the same individual again the next year.
And then some years they'll be found breeding with another individual the next year.
So they're clearly sometimes staying with their original partner and sometimes getting what we call a divorce.
Um, obviously that's quite anthropomorphizing, but, um, it's sort of the language that the literature has used.

(01:08:01):
So, and people understand what you mean when you say it.
Um, and what I was interested is whether after they've, because when we were looking at divorce through the breeding season, you can see their first breeding and you can see their second breeding.
And from their second breeding, you can say, okay, we can see they've got a divorce, but we didn't really have any idea of what was going on in between those things.

(01:08:26):
Cause they're a year apart.
So I was kind of interested in looking at what is happening in the middle and are there any behaviors that we can see that are related to the fact that they end up divorcing.
So what we found is that in the winter, they travel around these feeders, um, and these big flocks.
And so we were looking at who was associated with who at the different feeders.

(01:08:48):
And what we found is that birds that end up getting a divorce spend a lot less time together at the feeder.
So they're sort of not, not hanging out much basically when you compare it to the peers that do end up staying together.
Um, so it was quite interesting.
Right.
Uh, so I just wanted to ask, but in general, are these great tips, like, do they have a soulmate concept like penguins and hornbills do like where they give, you know, the, the pebble or a fruit or something?

(01:09:20):
Do they have the same custom?
Not really.
Um, we don't know loads about how the pairs form.
Um, we know that they tend to associate most in the winter with the bird that they end up going on to breed with.
So there's definitely this sort of process and that kind of increases over the winter.
So there is this process of sort of building a relationship with your mate before you breed together for the first time.

(01:09:46):
Uh, but we don't really know what is going on in their heads when that's happening.
Um, some birds will stay together with the same partner for multiple years for their whole life.
Um, but it's kind of a mix.
The percentage that we found was that, uh, 30%, approximately 30% of the pairs get a divorce.

(01:10:14):
So it's doing better than people in a lot of places.
I think they're doing the same as India.
Urban, urban India has a 30, 40% divorce population.
Yeah.
Um, that, that, that, that is very interesting.
And were, were you able to figure out anything around or, or is there any other research around the fact that why did they decide to separate?

(01:10:43):
Like why did decide to separate in the first place?
So with the great tits, the thing that determines it seems to be if they have a bad breeding season.
So if their breeding season doesn't go very well, um, they're much more likely to divorce their partner.
Um, in general, in sort of birds, there's kind of two theories about why they might get divorced.

(01:11:05):
Cause quite a few species do, um, divorce their partners occasionally at kind of like different rates.
Right.
Um, the first one is trading up.
So that's the idea that one of the individuals find someone better and it's just like, well, see ya, I found a better one.
Um, and then the second hypothesis is mutual incompatibility, which is just that they kind of both like, we're not very effective partners.

(01:11:30):
We're not doing a good job at raising babies.
Let's go our separate ways.
Um, so it is hard not to anthropomorphize cause it does all sound very human.
Yeah.
But I just wanted to ask, so like, um, without the breeding season, like, like, do they have to have to have a breeding season once they get together?
Or do you also see these couples that probably wait for a breeding season and then do they stay together if they've not been a part of the breeding season?

(01:11:57):
So it's hard to say because, uh, with the way that we gather our data, we will only be able to identify individuals if they've laid eggs.
Um, basically we have these like nest boxes up in the woods.
And when there's a nest that, um, we find we'll like catch the individuals at that nest once the eggs have been laid.

(01:12:18):
So we actually, it's a really good question.
It's like, um, you know, like, uh, I think it happens.
Um, I think it happens once or twice across the 70 years.

(01:12:41):
Um, but the main thing that it might happen more, the main thing is that they don't actually live that long.
So you need both individuals to live like three seasons and that just actually isn't that likely, sadly.
Um, so it might happen more if it wasn't for the kind of lifespan of the birds.
What exactly is the lifespan?

(01:13:01):
Um, most, I mean, the vast majority of them will die like in their first year before they get to breed once.
Um, and then if you survive that, you're probably going to average about two years.
Um, so two breeding seasons and then very occasionally you get like a really long lived one.

(01:13:23):
Like I think the oldest one we've found is like a nine year old female, which is very good going.
Right.
That, that is, that is very interesting.
And, and like one of the questions I had, um, for you, um, and I've asked this questions to other sort of animal behavior researchers as well.
So I, I worked on a film, um, on, on Kias in, in New Zealand.

(01:13:48):
I'm from New Zealand.
Yay!
I love Kia.
Yes.
Um, um, yeah.
So I think I worked with a researcher from the university of Auckland and she, she told me this thing that the, the, her department was part of the psychology department in the university of Auckland.

(01:14:10):
So it's, it's comparative psychology that she was technically studying.
So my question there to you would be like, why are we studying these things?
I mean, it's cool.
It's very cool to, to know about these behaviors.
It's very, it, it satisfies our curiosity, but is there any other sort of deeper reason of understanding ourselves or something like that, that, you know, such a department or such a field of study exists?

(01:14:41):
Um, yeah.
So my sort of broad field that I work in, I guess at the moment is social network studies.
Mm.
So that sort of presenting animal groups as social networks.
So I think, I feel like now, especially after COVID and with like Facebook and stuff, most people can visualize a social network, but it's like individuals connected by associations.

(01:15:04):
Um, and my broad interest is how individuals can change their social behavior in that network in response to changes in the network.
So that might be that other individuals die and you respond to that by changing your own social behavior.
Um, and so this is kind of like a example of that process.

(01:15:26):
It's an example of how the individuals change their social behavior in response to some change, which is that they've decided that they're going to get a divorce.
Um, and so it does seem a bit silly, but it has sort of like this broader question of the ability of individuals to respond to changes in their environment, which you could look at in the context of climate change or that conservation or things like that.

(01:15:52):
Yeah.
And, and, and you mentioned, um, like breeding success being, um, one of the sort of forefront, like reasons, um, one of the main reasons of these birds getting a divorce.
Um, and, and you mentioned like in other birds that there, there, there has been some examples of, you know, trading up, um, or incompatibility.

(01:16:20):
Was there any evidence of that within the wild tits?
Like other reasons except, uh, like the very obvious evolutionary one where, you know, you can't breed, um, successfully.
That's something we've looked into, but it's actually quite hard to tell kind of what's going on in that way in the wild birds.
Um, like studying wild birds is very cool, but it does kind of limit you.

(01:16:45):
You can look at a little bit less.
Uh, something I'm, um, I do kind of want to look into as a next step with a sort of one individual distances itself more than the other.
Cause if it does, that would imply kind of trading up, but if it's quite happening at the same rate, that would be sort of more mutual incompatibility.

(01:17:06):
Um, but I haven't kind of started digging into that yet.
So stay tuned.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's.
So since you mentioned that they kind of live only for two years, so they, do they go through only two breeding seasons and they find multiple partners in those two breeding seasons itself?
So it's on average about two years.

(01:17:27):
Um, so they will kind of have one partner each breeding season, but sorry, unplugged my light
extension since it's a little bit dark.
Um, they will, there we go.
Um, yeah, they'll find one partner for each breeding season.

(01:17:48):
So if they only live for two years, that's only two breeding seasons, only two partners.
So they might only get divorced once in their life.
Um, so it's relatively short for each individual, but because we have information across a lot of years, we can kind of build that up even with just a few individuals.
Uh, but are there like the ones that have lived longer than two years, have they had multiple partners over the years?

(01:18:15):
Like, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
So most of them will.
Yeah.
So if say if they lived to four years, they had four breeding seasons, they might stay with the same individual or four.
They might have two years with one individual, then two years with another.
There's sort of a lot of mixing and matching.
Um, and also because their lifespan is relatively short, actually what's more common than getting a divorce is just that one of the individuals dies and the other one has to find a new partner.

(01:18:44):
Hmm.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Yeah.
And, and, um, might be useful for, uh, for our viewers and listeners and, and for me as well.
Uh, if, if you, if you, could you, could you give us like a dumb down or short timeline of like birth till like death of these birds?

(01:19:08):
Um, yeah.
So they're born in the spring.
Yes.
And then they sort of gradually will.
North hemisphere spring.
North hemisphere spring.
Yeah.
Sadly, not in New Zealand anymore.
Um, they will get sort of fed by their parents and kind of fattened up until they are, uh, able to fledge within about 20 days of being born.

(01:19:33):
So they'll like leave the nest, uh, kind of go off on their own.
Uh, and then they have a winter, um, that is quite hard when you're first fledged.
So that's where a lot of the individuals will die.
Um, there's sort of a lot of competition.
And obviously you're a young bird, you get thrown into a winter, you got to figure it out.
Um, in that winter, they're going to be gradually, uh, slowly building a relationship with a mate.

(01:19:59):
And then by the time that spring breeding season comes around, uh, they've got a partner and they're ready to breed.
Um, so that's kind of the first year.
And then that just sort of repeats.
So they have winter, spring, winter, spring for as long as they live.
But what do they do when it's not breeding season?
Like between...
Mostly?

(01:20:20):
Yeah.
Mm.
So they fly around in these flocks.
We call them, um, fish infusion, which is quite a cool word, but it just means that the flocks kind of come together, um, and break apart quite a lot.
So they're very dynamic.
Um, it's not like a herd of elephants where you have sort of the same individuals always together.
It's much more like they're kind of mixing around in the woods.

(01:20:42):
Um, and those are also mixed species flocks.
So there's a few different species of tits that will all flock together, um, looking for food, which is basically whatever they can get really.
In the spring, they like insects, but in the winter, they'll take sort of like seeds and things like that as well.
So when they're just like, you know, um, just flocking together, are they all single at that time or are they still paired up at that time?

(01:21:09):
Um, so this is what we found in the study is that birds that are faithful.
Um, so they're still, um, they're still, um, they're still, um, they're still associating most strongly together.
So it seems like they're still kind of maintaining that relationship.
Um, obviously we don't know again, what's going on in their heads.

(01:21:31):
So maybe they're maintaining that relationship, but they're like, well, you know, if something better comes along, I'll like drop them quickly.
Um, but they do seem to maintain associations from their breeding season into the winter and sort of keep that going.
And I don't know if I'm getting this correctly, but, um, you, in the paper, I remember reading somewhere that, um, there was some sort of environmental,

(01:22:02):
environmental as in like rest of the flock behaving a certain way, impacting the divorce decisions as well, or, or am I remembering that wrong?
So I think what we were looking at was, um, how the behavior with their partner compared to their behavior with the rest of the flock.

(01:22:24):
Um, so essentially the finding was that divorce birds treat their partner as just like any old random other member of the flock, uh, with a, for faithful birds, they're kind of distinct their partner.
So you can see that they've got some more unique relationship with them for the divorce birds.
It's like, you could be anyone, whatever.

(01:22:44):
Yeah.
That, that, that is very, very cool.
Yeah.
Meghna.
Sorry.
I, I, I think like, I mean, if you were living for just two years, then it makes sense to just go explore.
Then.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, that, that might be some things, um, might be going through their heads, but, um, and, and, and like, was there any unexpected sort of challenges to overcome during the data collection or analysis?

(01:23:17):
You know, I don't know how, um, sanitary the data that was coming in was, was there any data sanitation issues there or any other challenges that you can recall during the collection, et cetera?
So I'm very lucky in that most of this data was actually collected for me.
So basically the breeding season data and the winter association data was all collected back in 2013 to 2015.

(01:23:44):
Um, and I was still in high school, so I wasn't helping out with that.
Um, and so I had the very, uh, easy time of turning up and just happily taking the data and analyzing it.
Um, obviously we had, you know, data analysis never goes as easily as you think it is going to or want it to, but, um, it really was not too bad.

(01:24:05):
Um, and I've been helping out with the data collection in the breeding season years that are currently going on, but this paper was from a few years back.
Right, right.
Right.
Right.
Right.
And, um, you know, we, we have, we'll have all kinds of listeners.
Maybe some of them would want you to go into a little bit more detail about your methods and the tools you used for analyzing the data.

(01:24:30):
Yeah.
Um, so the paper was mostly regression based, so it was all just using, um, regression models.
I kind of mentioned the social network thing earlier.
Um, and social network analysis is a sort of like distinct field with a lot of its own methods.
Um, and the way that we did this is we used social network metrics.

(01:24:53):
So kind of measures that are built off of social networks.
So the particular one that, uh, comes up the most and sort of that we talk about the most is simple ratio index, which is a measure of how often two individuals are observed together.
So you sort of compare how often they're seen in the same flock versus how often they're seen in different flocks.

(01:25:15):
And that's a metric that you get from social networks.
And then I sort of ran models using that metric.
Um, we also looked at, so as well as simple ratio index, we also looked at visit adjacency, which is how often the birds come to the feeder within three seconds of each other.
Um, and the idea of that was that simple ratio index is quite large scale because you can get a flock that goes on for like 20 minutes.

(01:25:41):
So if a bird turns up at the very start of the flock and at the very end, it's not necessarily showing that they are associating together.
Um, so the closeness of their visits to the feeder seemed like a more sort of in depth or like fine scale measure.
Um, and then we also looked at preferred partner.
So just throughout the season, whether or not their partner was their closest associate, closest opposite sex associate.

(01:26:07):
Right.
So since you mentioned that this paper is a few years old and data collection is still happening right now, have you seen any change in that data or would you say it's similar to.
Whatever was published earlier.
It seems to be staying pretty consistent.
So we don't have the winter association data, so I can't compare that unfortunately, but I, we are able to look at divorce rates and that does seem to be staying, um, pretty consistent.

(01:26:36):
The really interesting thing about the great tits is that they, climate change is sort of messing with them a little bit because it's bringing the spring and the timing of the food peak a bit earlier.
Um, but they do seem to be tracking it quite well and breeding earlier to match that change.
So, so far it doesn't seem to be having any impact on breeding success.

(01:26:59):
Um, if it, if climate change did start to impact breeding success, we might start to think that it could impact divorce as well.
Um, but so far there's no sign of that, which is good.
Right.
So they're one of the resilient species where they have been able to adapt with the climate change that's happening.

(01:27:20):
Yeah.
At least the level so far, um, obviously if it gets more dramatic, they might not be able to change, but they're able to shift at least a little bit, which has been good.
Apart from climate change, are there any other factors that have messed up with their population over the years?
The great tits are actually doing okay.
Luckily, um, they're sort of found all over Europe.

(01:27:43):
Um, they're a pretty common species.
Uh, and so there isn't anything that's too dramatic.
They also do really well in sort of semi urban environments.
So not so much in the cities, but, um, in like kind of slightly built up.
They love a bird feeder.
So anywhere that people have gardens and put out feeders, they do really, really well.

(01:28:04):
Um, and actually they're a problem for other birds because they're doing so well because of the feeders and they beat up all the other birds at the feeders and don't let them feed.
Um, so the great tits are okay, luckily, um, which is good.
So hopefully we'll be able to keep studying them for a while.
What, what are these other birds that the great tits, uh, you know, beat at the bird feeders?

(01:28:27):
Like where the great tits are winning?
So there's a few other tits species, um, that'll be around and flocking with them.
And the one in particular that is declining and that they think it might be declining because of great tits is the marsh tip, which is, um, looks quite as a sort of similar size, a little bit smaller, but a bit more brown, not quite as bright and yellow.

(01:28:52):
But is, is it because the great tits are bigger in size that they're dominating or is it just nature?
Uh, I think it's that they're bigger in size.
So they're able to throw their weight around a little bit.
Hmm.
Hmm.
I, I just shared, um, or for a few, few seconds, um, the image of, uh, of the great tits as well.

(01:29:16):
I was, I was trying to find images and every search I made was like, oh, this is blurred out or this is blocked, um, due to whatever, uh, parental controls or whatever.
So I had to really carefully craft, um, craft my search, um, to be able to get, get like an image.
But yeah, that, that, that, that is very, very interesting.

(01:29:38):
I think, um, the, the, the research that's, and the data collection, like the more data, as you said, we have, the more we can sort of analyze and see where these trends, um, and, and see like humans as humans.
We have very, very good at seeing patterns.
So yeah, I think that's, that's where we can, we can go deeper into this.

(01:30:00):
Um, do you, you, you briefly touched on this, but what sort of, in your view, the future scope of this line of research?
So I, well, I've gotten interested now in widowing.
So what happens when a bird's partner dies?
And to be completely honest, that's just because there was loads more data because that happens more often.

(01:30:23):
So I was like, oh, that looks great.
Um, and then I started looking at widowing.
And once I'd done all my like data cleaning and picked out the pairs that I could use, there was actually less than in the divorce paper.
So that was a bit of a, um, that was a bit sad, but I've got a sort of widowing paper that I'm working on at the moment, which is looking at how birds respond to, uh, the loss of their partner.

(01:30:44):
Um, and in general that, like I said, I'm sort of interested in how they change this social behavior in response to changes in their social environment.
So just any kind of thing like that.
Um, we did an experiment last winter where we sex segregated them.
So we put two feeders up and we're, uh, at one feeder, only males could feed.

(01:31:05):
And at one feeder, only females could feed.
Um, and we're going to see how they respond to that.
And whether they choose.
How did you do that?
How did you do that?
Like separating the feeders?
Um, the way that we identify the individuals at the feeders is that they have these like radio tags on.
Um, and what you're able to do is kind of preset rules on the feeder.

(01:31:27):
So when a bird with a particular tag comes to the feeder, it can either open or stay closed.
It's very cool.
Right.
Um, by doing that, you can kind of split the population in a way that you choose.
Um, yeah, we've decided to do by males and females.
Um, and what we're sort of interested in is whether they will ignore the fact that they

(01:31:50):
can't feed it to feed it and still go because they need to be building that relationship with
a partner.
Um, and whether there's sort of a sex difference.
So whether say like males will go to where the females are or females go to where the males
are or vice versa.
Um, I haven't started looking at that data yet.
So that will be a little fun thing to dig into.

(01:32:12):
But that has, that is also that data that, that sort of segregated data has also been,
how long has it been being collected for?
That was, uh, not this last winter, but the winter before.
So it's just been in the last couple of years.
Right.
So that was something that I did with a couple of master's students just kind of ran that

(01:32:35):
experiment, which was good to prove that I can collect my own data after just using other
people's.
So, I mean, I know you're still researching about the widowing part, but when birds get
widowed, which is when their partner dies, do they go through a phase of being really sad
before they find another partner?
So this is what I was interested in.

(01:32:55):
And as far as I can tell, not at all.
Um, they basically seem to not respond in any way to the fact that their partner is lost, which was a real surprise because we thought that even if they weren't sad, at the very least, they'd be like, well, now I have to put all this effort into finding a new partner.
I should like up my game a bit and maybe interact with a few more birds, you know, check out the options.

(01:33:23):
But they, as far as we can tell, and again, this is not published yet.
So, you know, hasn't been checked over and everything.
As far as we can tell, um, they barely reacted all.
So that was a bit of a surprise.
And, sorry, one question popped into my head.
Are great tits, um, dimorphic or no?

(01:33:45):
So not really.
Um, the sort of male and female have slightly different plumage.
Um, and the male is slightly bigger, but it's a really quite, like, you wouldn't be able to see the difference by eye.
It's only when you show away them that you can tell.
Right, right.
And, and so the radio tagging that you mentioned, um, sort of that was done during, like, during the, at some point in the 30 years that you mentioned the data is being collected for?

(01:34:17):
So that's been done consistently since the sort of early 2010s.
Um, it's one of those, like, you know, things that they decided to start doing.
And now it's very useful and they've got lots of cool data out of it.
Um, and there's lots of birds in the woods flying around with the little radio tags on.
Um, so before that, so for the last, the years before that, um, they had, uh, metal rings.

(01:34:45):
And now they have metal rings.
Yeah.
Um, metal rings and a, uh, radio tag as well.
So there's lots of ways to identify every individual in the woods.
They're very well tracked.
Yeah, no, I'm, I'm sorry.
I'll just say I'm very impressed by whoever decided to just let the data accumulate, even though there was no, uh, there was no, um, immediate use.

(01:35:12):
Um, yeah, no, I, I, I, that, that is very cool.
That's, that's a decision with foresight.
Yeah.
I would say, yeah.
Yeah.
One of the questions.
Yeah.
Sorry.
Uh, one of the questions I had was because you're saying the male and female have the same kind of plumage and you can't see with the eyes, but in general birds have different colors and the males are more colorful because then the predators go for the males.

(01:35:37):
And instead of females, because you could see the predators.
So do the craters have any predators or are they like, are they chill?
Like they have no predators, which is why the plumage is same.
They do have, uh, some predators.
So one of the big ones is a sparrowhawk, um, would absolutely take care of it.

(01:35:58):
Um, they also, especially when they're nesting, they're quite vulnerable to like weasels and stoats and things like that, which can come in and take the eggs and the chicks.
Um, and then sort of any predator would be happy to have one if they managed to get one.
But the sort of main threat is the sparrowhawks.
Okay.

(01:36:19):
So why, why is it that in these birds, like it's the same color in the male and the females?
It's a really good question.
I think, I don't know for sure.
So I'm going to kind of take a guess basically.
Um, but often when the males are really brightly colored or differently colored, it's related to sexual selection.
So it's related to kind of trying to look really pretty and convince the female that she should breed with you.

(01:36:45):
Um, so my guess would just be that the males have a different way.
And fitness as well, right?
Like fitness and males as well.
Yeah.
Is often kind of represented by that.
Um, so yeah, my guess would be that the males have a different way of kind of convincing the females that they're a good breeding option and whether that might be related to their social behavior.

(01:37:06):
Right.
Maybe they say we look so alike, you know, we should get together.
We've got so much in common.
Um, yeah.
Yeah.
And you, I think you briefly touched on this, but one of the questions we thought we would ask you is sort of, is there, is there a sort of laundry list of things that you're, um, you're working on that you can share and what are you sort of planning on, uh, working next as well after the current list is done?

(01:37:37):
Because, uh, you mentioned that you, you, you, you, you, you have become interested in the social dynamics and social networks or in these sorts of, uh, ecosystems as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So at the moment I am sort of.
In the coming into the last year of the thesis.
So it's crunch time, um, which means I sort of have an idea of all the chapters at the moment and I'm just working on getting them done.

(01:38:03):
Um, so that is the widowing, the sex segregation data.
And then there's a sort of more, uh, complicated social network, like simulation paper that I'm working on with another student in my lab group.
Right.
Um, and so probably won't be too many new things coming up in the next year.
Cause I'm going to have to try and lock in and really get it all done.

(01:38:26):
Um, but after that, no idea.
So I'm trying not to think about it.
But do you see yourself like being more research based or would you be going into maybe teaching or another field?
I'm really, I think I enjoy the teaching a lot and I suspect that I'll kind of move a little bit more into the teaching side of things.

(01:38:51):
Um, I really enjoy research, but I enjoy being a student.
And I think if I was having to run the show, I'd be, I'd find that quite stressful.
Um, so probably kind of turning a little bit into the, um, teaching side.
Cool.
On that note, um, I think, I think we can, we can end your segment there.

(01:39:14):
And it was, it was great talking to you, of course, and like lots of good insights.
And it was a fun conversation.
This is, this is our first time doing, um, like inviting a guest and talking with them as well.
Um, so yeah, it was, it was very, very fun, um, sort of talking with you and getting to know about, about the research.
Um, yeah.

(01:39:34):
And thank you for coming over.
I mean, it's, it's great.
And we really learned a lot.
I think before this, I don't think I knew so much about great dates, but thank you for all the insights.
And I hope, yeah, I hope the viewers also learn as much.
Well, thank you guys very much for having me.
It was really fun.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.

(01:39:55):
Um, yeah, I'll, I'll let, uh, King should take care of you from here on out.
Have a good one.
You too.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye, Daisy.
That was, that was very cool.
That was very cool.
Um, to learn about all those things.
And I think, I think, I don't know, I'll, I'll wait for feedback from our viewers, uh, on how they felt this segment went.

(01:40:22):
But, um, we want to be doing, um, more of these, uh, more of these as we, as we go through, uh, you know, the show, um, as well.
Um, yeah, yeah.
What are, what are your thoughts, Begna?
Yeah, I'm just sharing a picture, like just the screen with the great tits so you can see the bird.

(01:40:43):
I don't know.
I didn't get any firewalls.
I, I just said great tits.
England, I was fine.
But I think, um, Upaman, you're just quite bombarded with like.
Yeah, just the parental controls and things like that.
because I, um, I was trying to get the, um, IUCN status and I, I think including an S, including an S, like tits, is triggering that, that firewall.

(01:41:13):
Um, for some reason.
Oh, did you?
Okay.
Maybe, maybe it's, it's a careful selection of these, of those words that sort of trigger, trigger that firewall.
Maybe it's because I wrote England or something.
I'm not sure.
Yeah, maybe, maybe.
But anyway.
Um.
I just hope YouTube doesn't flag down our videos saying that we use the word tits quite a lot.

(01:41:36):
But, yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, I think we talked about this when we were planning as well.
And, and similar if, if people will remember from the story we did on Great Indian Busters as well.
Um, it's a very similar sounding word to a cuss word.
Um, and, yeah, it's.

(01:41:57):
Yeah.
I mean, imagine, like, I mean, after all that curiosity to know what a tit means, it means
small.
Like, you know, it was just something very harmless when it started being used.
And now it's just something else altogether.
Yeah, I was reading up about that as well.
And I think the old English word was tit mouse, which meant like a small, you know, those small

(01:42:22):
mice that sort of get anywhere and roam around.
And I think from that, anything that was very small, uh, started being called a tit in old
English.
Um, um, yeah.
And I don't know.
Yeah.
I think that's where the problems come because these birds, most of these birds were probably
named like centuries ago.

(01:42:42):
And back then.
Especially in Europe.
And like the, the scientific inquiry there, like modern scientific inquiry there has been,
yeah.
has been, has been done for quite a long time now.
Yeah.
So since the birds were named much before, you know, the modernization of these words happened,
um, you know, back then it would have just been, tit means a bird and nothing else.

(01:43:06):
But now we've just, you know, started using slang words for everything.
So it changes and makes it harder to, you know, I mean, just talk about the bird without,
like how.
Without getting flagged.
Yeah.
Or triggering parental controls.
Yeah.
How Daisy said that when she talks about it, it's really funny because she has to tell people
this is what she's working on.
Yes.

(01:43:26):
That, that is cool.
But no, overall it was really, uh, great, uh, from my perspective, at least it was great.
And to get that insight, um, you know, talking to the research and also understand sort of the
motivations and, um, challenges of, of that process as well.

(01:43:48):
And, um, you know, that, that's what we discussed kind of, um, what we wanted to do with this,
these kinds of segments as well.
Right.
Yeah.
I think this is really important because, um, as science communicators and when we were
even studying together, this is what we noticed that a lot of scientists would publish the

(01:44:10):
research in journals.
So, you know, it would be in these academic journals, but it rarely comes out to the public
to see it.
So, you know, it's all there only in the academic, uh, what would you say circle, but it's not
out there for the public to understand.
And this is where we come in because we want to find all these cool research bits and
then get these researchers to explain their research to you.

(01:44:30):
So you can get also interested into all of this because not all of us have access to these
journals and not all of us are going to read the journal.
No, I mean, like leave that.
I think that that's a separate topic in itself as well.
Like these journals are heavily payballed and like, even if you want to, you can't have access
to these journals unless you are in an academic setting.

(01:44:55):
Yeah.
Um, thankfully this, this, uh, paper was published in one of those, uh, open journals that gives
open access to everyone, but universities and academic institutions spends thousands, multi
hundred thousand dollars every year to just get access to these, uh, different journals

(01:45:16):
for their students and, uh, faculty.
Yeah.
Because when me and Upam and you were both working on our thesis at the university of Otago, then
when you had the university access, you could actually access a lot of websites with these
journals.
Uh, but now that we're not part of it, there are like a lot of papers that we cannot access

(01:45:36):
and you will have to actually reach out to the researcher if you want to read the entire
text.
And this is not just for wildlife.
It's for anything, um, you know, even medical or other things.
If you really want to read, like, you know, read a paper, you wouldn't be able to, you can
only read the abstract and then it's payable.
And this is, this is really important because if you're doing research, then why are you researching

(01:46:00):
it if you don't want the general public to know about it?
Yeah.
It's, it's, it's, yeah.
It's sort of that, uh, conglomeration and all these other, other like economics, uh, that
these other, other sort of minds of the corporates and things like that, that come in.
But yeah, um, I think any, like, if you want to, if, if anyone is interested and wants to,

(01:46:25):
uh, read these papers, I think it's really, really difficult.
And, um, but, but, but still we would encourage everyone to sort of at least check out the latest
happenings, uh, even, even if they can only read, um, an excerpt, um, to at least know about
what, what these things, uh, what, what are the current developments?

(01:46:47):
And also I think sometimes to make those arguments to your, um, representatives in a democratic
setting as well, um, you have to have those, you know, those, that understanding backed by
research.
And if you're not doing that, the, the, the, the government might just, you know, might

(01:47:08):
just, they, they might just dismiss you anyway, but with research, at least you, um, have that
chance.
So we are science communicators as Meghna was saying, um, at, at our core.
So yeah, we'll, we'll continue to bring, um, such, uh, more cool research and what things
worth knowing about, um, to you over, over the coming episodes as well.

(01:47:32):
Um, I think, oops, um, since it is in an open domain, then you should be able to share that
link under our page.
Yes, I will.
Yeah.
If someone wants to go and read the paper, then it would be great.
Yeah, absolutely.
I will be sharing it, um, in the descriptions of the videos, whichever platform you're watching
on.
And also if you're listening to this on a podcasting, um, in a podcast format, um, yeah, I'll, I'll

(01:48:00):
post the link in the show notes.
Um, yeah.
So do, do, do check that out.
Um, but anyway, we are, uh, we have, we are towards the end of the show.
We should probably wrap things up.
Any, any message for the audience, Meghna, before we, before we go away?

(01:48:24):
No, I, I mean, just that, uh, what did you think about our episode?
Did you like having a guest speaker on?
Because we loved it.
I mean, it was great hearing from someone else and being able to ask them the questions.
Um, how do you feel now that you know what tips actually mean?
And, um, that's about it.

(01:48:46):
Yeah.
Um, so yeah, we'll, we'll draw an end to today's show there.
Again, as usual, subscribe to our channels, follow on all our social media platforms.
We are there on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitch.
Um, yeah.
All the links will be in the descriptions.
Um, yeah, do follow us there.

(01:49:07):
Do leave a comment.
Do leave a comment.
Uh, it helps a lot with the algorithm.
Leave a like, uh, leave a comment and let us, let us know what, what you thought about it.
And if you're listening to this on a podcasting platform, rate our show.
Yeah, it really helps feed that algorithm and get it out to even more listeners.

(01:49:28):
But that's it for today.
We will see you again next Sunday.
Same time, same channel.
Have a good one, guys.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.

(01:49:49):
Thank you.

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