Helicopter Sausage: Conservation Gets Weird

is TV writer, cartoonist and filmmaker Anna Selina's welcome. Hi, so happy to be here. I am excited to have you back. And I was just talking with you about how I think of the last time I had you on. We talked about little cute owls, and for some reason it happened again and I didn't plan for it. Maybe it was like kind of some subliminal messaging that I got where it's like, I gotta talk about tiny owls, But are you ready to talk about tiny els? I am,

because they're so cute. They are the cutest little babies that I mean. They're just like flying beaky kittens, you know. Yeah, yeah, they look like you could hold them in the palm of your hand and pet them. They would hate it. They would hate it to much. Yeah, so they are adorable. They are Western burrowing owls, and their territory is often threatened by land development, and so researchers and ecologists are trying to trick these tiny owls into locating somewhere else

that is safe from land development. So Western burrowing owls, there's some of my favorite owls. I they're so expressed of They have some of the cutest pictures, and they are the only ground dwelling owl in North America. They stand at only ten inches tall, which is twenty five cimeters. They're found in Western America, including Canada and South America, and they live in grasslands like a bunch of little

prairie dogs. They do look like prairie dogs, like poking out of the dirt and they it's like if a prairie dog was a bird, which is so cute. It's very cute, and there's actually a reason for that. These burrowing owls, despite their name, do not actually make their own home. They use burrows made by prairie dogs or maybe ground squirrels or other burrowing animals. So if there's an abandoned prairie dog burrow, they will take it over

their squatters. Essentially, that is so resourceful like to to know that, oh I don't have to build my own hole, I can just use someone else's. I love that. It's like how I've started using a laundry service because I'm like, I don't have to do my own laundry. I'm an adult. I get to choose what I waste my money on, exactly. I just love the thought of them going into the prairie dog home and knocking off all the prairie dog photos from the mantel and putting up their own little

owl photos. Yes, and then the prairie dog comes back because they weren't actually moving, they just were on a little trip, and it's like, what the hell are you doing here? Yeah? Yeah, I feel like that must happen where they think something's abandoned and it's not, and then they probably get in a squabble with a prairie dog and then the little prairie dog police are called in and lawyers. Yeah, it gets really bloody. I hate to say it, but I just see those sharp beaks and

I know in prairie dog court. All of a sudden, there's like blood everywhere. Yeah, I get it. They're fighting over their home bird law, bird law. So yes. A cute note on these little owls is one way they defend themselves is they like to hiss and pretend to be a rattlesnake so they won't be disturbed. So I'm gonna have you listened to this because it is such a good mimicry situation. It's like it's like a cat hissing at you, but it does shake. They've like mastered

the vibratto of a rattle, which is impressive. It really is. It really is, because it doesn't quite sound like the cat hiss. It does sound like that that rattlesnake rattle, which is actually when a rattlesnake hisses, that rattle is not produced by it's any kind of vocalization. It's the ah striation of these hardened scales on its back tail rattling together these dry scales. So the fact they can mimic that with the their vocalization is really impressive. But

they are harmless little babies. Unless you are a small raptile road in or insect. They could probably scratch it pretty good. But again they're like, they're like flying cats, you know, so uh. They Unfortunately, because they live in these grasslands, they are really vulnerable to land development because that is a favored area to develop because it's flat, relatively easy to build on, and in fact, most of California's grasslands have been developed and put that puts these

adorable little flying murder kittens in peril or things. That's so sad. It's like they've just moved into their new house, kicked off the prairie dog photos. Now they're losing their homes again. Yeah. Yeah, And they're actually a federally protected species, so developers have to relocate the owls when they develop

on their habitat. They can't just go around killing a bunch of owls, which is good, um, but typically the land developers simply evict the owls from their homes by waiting for the owls to leave than destroying their burrows, and then when they get back, they're just their burrows are gone. There's also the method of translocation, where you remove the owls and take them somewhere else, but often the owls will simply try to return to where they knew their old burrows were only to be met with

like some kind of McMansion being built. They're completely confused. That's so sad. It's really sad, especially when you consider how atrociously ugly mc mansions can be. And these owls are probably like, why do you have different roof styles altogether on one house? It doesn't make sense. The windows aren't symmetrical and stuff. When they just like when they just stick a turret on a house, you can't do that. Crimes against and all the houses look the same on

the block. Crimes against nature and crimes against architectural style. So ecologists are trying to figure out a better way to move the owls to new homes on nature reserves. And they did a study comparing the fates of owls who were simply evicted versus those who were acclimatized to

new burroughs. And they found that by relocating owls and creating a lived in burrow for them by doing things like thought fully splattering them with owl poops, sometimes real al poops, sometimes fake just just so you know, just this kind of artful little splatter Jackson Pollock like splatters of owl poop here and there. I'd love to sit in on like the designer, the interior designer using this al poop. Yeah yeah, just artfully sprang it on some of the walls, like you could use an accent while

right here with ol poop. I think that'll really balance out the living room and live in the room up and you want you want to sense of motion, Yeah, you want some sense of motion. You want a nice function way. So there's a front facing window around here, um and that's that's where that will poople go. You openin up the space. I think that is so sweet to decorate an owl's little burrow for them. That's just

the sweetest. It's the least we can do. That's true. Hey, I took your home, but I got you a new one, and don't worry. I pre pooped it. I just like that. It's humans and owls are essentially the same. When a real estate agent is trying to get you to buy a home, they bake some cookies in it so you smell freshly baked cookies. If we're trying to get an owl to settle on a home, it's like al poop into that right, you don't know it's covering. It reminds

you of home right reminds you of your childhood. Oh yeah, is it fresh? Oh yeah, that's fresh? Nice and warm? Yes, warm and cozy? What have real estate agents just went to the bathroom right before they try to show the home. So it just has that nice lived in you know. It's the sound of flushing and you feel like you're already home. The toilet seat is all still warm. Someone's just lit, uh match to try and get rid of the smell, but it just kind of covers it. You

still smell it, but also smell the match. Yeah, I'd be like the smells like home, I would leave immediately, but I it would smell familiar, so freshly baked cookies and then the smell of a match, and then like poop. Wouldn't do it for you? I want to say no, but who knows. I've never bought a house. I don't know what it would be like. It depends if I bought a house. Yeah, I was on the artful splatter. Yeah absolutely so it's mid century splatter, Rococo splatter. H

so uh. They also will play owl sounds near these burrows, kind of like, hey, other owls are digging it, maybe you'll dig it to uh, huh. So they actually did find that this was successful. The owls were much more likely to inhabit the homes and they were more likely to successfully breed. And that's really key because if we want to conserve their population, not only do we need to basically save their lives, we need to give them a conducive environment to have a family and continue their

little owl life. Yeah, they're little owl lives. You know, they'd be really offended by that. They'd be like, actually, we have really rich lives where the protactists of our own story maybe little, but we have big dreams. We maybe little, but we have big dreams. I feel like that would be an amazing marketing poster for these owls.

Like like you know how when they make a new housing development and they put up a billboard to like advertise the development, it's like the neighborhood of your dreams, say to raise a family, like but then have a little tiny billboard for these these owl villages where says we may be little, but we have big dreams. Join Owlie Hills, Ali Hills. It's perfect. They're playing the little owl sounds kind of like when you go to that Disney Town. How they're playing music in the rocks. Have

you heard of this? Oh yeah, yeah, I mean it. Yeah. It is a very like curated sort of experience, just like Disneyland is where they play sounds, they waft sits for you. They make you feel like you're in a village and not being watched by Mickey Mouse from a surveillance tower. Exactly. We're creating little Disney villages for these owls are being watched. I want to see an owl in a little tiny teacup right now. Yeah, you can see it because you can imagine their little heads like

twist stick around as the teacup twirls. They like the heads are just a little too long to swel around. Like, I don't get it. I'm not dizzy at all. Yeah, this is fine. This is like just a regular walk in the park for me. Man al Disneyland, that would be That's my dream. Uh yeah yes. So, so this technique of making a potempkan village is actually not unique to owl. So a potempkan village is a village that has a fake facade that makes it look lived in

or desirable. Uh. This is, I guess um a technique that is used by conservationists where they are trying to get animals to see an area as a viable place to live. And they've actually done this underwater as well. So oh wow. Off the coast of Australia lies the sprawling Great Barrier reef. Unfortunately, coral reefs are actually in dangerous So the reef itself is made of living organisms, so coral is alive. Uh and if those die, so dies the reef and that ecosystem collapses. So when coral

dies something happens called bleaching. So bleaching is when coral expels the symbiotic algae that lives inside it called I think it's zoe xanthela. It's a it's a complicated word, zoe x anthela. This can occur due to warming waters or changes in the amount of nutrients in the surrounding area.

Often this is due to climate change. It can be due to water runoff from farms where you have fertilizer running off and changing the dynamics of the algae UH in that area, which can cause bleaching where a certain type of algae competes the symbiotic algae in the coral. It's a big problem and UH. Sometimes in addition to these these things like climate change or runoff from farms, you'll have a natural disaster that comes in like a cyclone that will destroy parts of the reef that are

already vulnerable. And this has happened to parts of the Great Barrier Reef, much to the distress of ecologists who understand how critically important reefs are for the diversity of marine life. They're one of the most diverse uh and concentrated communities of sea life in the entire ocean. These reefs, they're amazing. I mean, they're beautiful to look at and they're so important ecologically. So of course when these reefs are dying or being destroyed naturally, we're thinking, well, how

are we going to solve this problem. So one thing they do is they you can use the rubble from dead or destroyed coral colonies to try to rebuild the area. So they set up they kind of gather up coral where it has been destroyed, kind of pushes it together to make a new basically a skeleton for a new reef. And even if they are able to start growing back this coral, they need to convince other marine life to come settle because these ecosystems are very very They're like

a tapestry. They're all woven in together. These species have such a close knit relationship they can be highly dependent on each other. So you need to get the whole community back to really see these reefs thrive. So they need to entice new visitors to come and settle there. And the way they did that was they set up a bunch of underwater speakers and played the sounds of a health the coral reef community. Oh wow, that's like playing party sounds. And then you get there and it's

a really lame party. It's like, wait a minute, this sounded like a rag er out there. You told me Kelly was coming. Yeah, she's coming later, She's coming later, she's coming. Wait but I heard her voice. Yeah, don't look into it. It's a phone call. That is that would be scary, Like you go to a house party. There's music that sounds of crowds. You go and then there's just a bunch of mannequins set up and like

you'd be like wait, wait wait, I know. It really makes you have empathy for these animals that are like this isn't real. What is this? Yeah, And if you're wondering, like well, wait, what does a coral reef sound like, Because it doesn't seem like a thing that would make sound other than just like water flowing around. It's actually really alive with sounds, and so I'm gonna play you a little clip of what that sounds like. Oh my god. So all those little crackling sounds, that's that very pleasant

sort of background noise. Those are often the sounds of snapping shrimp. You can see here damselfish calling various other fish making these these calls that they often do to attract mates or to communicate with their neighbors. So it's very much alive with the sounds of these fish and invertebrates and all of these animals that make a coral reef. The coral reef. Yeah, that was like very calming. I think I could listen to that for like sleep. Sounds like to fall asleep, I know. And it's makes me

feel like I'm at rainforest cafe. Oral cafe. You just kind of have to go underwater and somehow drink your my taie or banana through a straw. Yeah, yeah, now I'm seeing I'm seeing the concept now. No, I agree, it's very very soothing, and I want there to be more recordings of these reefs. I think it's kind of difficult. You need a special underwater recording device in order to capture these sounds. You can't necessarily hear them very well with our human ears because our ears don't really work

that well under water. We're used to our ears working by having air bounce around and then bounce inside of our ear drum, which signals a nerve that to the brain that basically reconstructs this sound for us. So underwater ears are pretty bad. So if you try to listen to a coral reef with our human ears, it's really you're not going to here much. But we can record it, and I hope we continue recording it because I think

there's something when you hear that. It really for me, even though I know, like, yes, they're alive, they're full of life, it's like it really gives me that sense of like a bustling city, like it's an underwater city of animals and it's so it just makes it feel all the more important to protect it. So we're gonna take a quick break, but when we return, we're going to talk about more weird and wild conservation efforts. This time with some birds that are maybe a little bit

too affectionate. M so anah. Sometimes you just gotta put a seaman collecting helmet on if you care about endangered birds, you know how that is. Yeah? Oh god, I have that on my wall. I have a crossed it so sad. When I get stressed, I remind myself i'd just have to wear a bird semen helmet. I have that same cross stitch Etsy. Did you get it on? Yeah? Yeah, I love it. Got it for Christmas a few years ago. Yeah. Yeah, it's a you know, live laugh put a semen collecting

helmet on your head. Yeah, I have that one in the kitchen. It's such a it's such a trite home decre Yeah, but everyone has it because it's true. That's yeah, that's true. I mean, you know, it's a it's a it's an age old age old saying as old as as old as time, tail as old as time, for sure. We're talking about the cocapo, which is also known as the owl parrot. It is a beautiful, green and fluffy ground dwelling parrot. I feel like it's a record. I'm

talking about two ground dwelling birds in one episode. I don't know that there's an award, So it is unusual because I'm like, wait, the like ground dwelling bird is a thing I don't even know if I fully knew that. Yeah, So to learn about two it's like, do they think they're mice? I mean the other one thought it was a prairie dog. I feel like if you ask this if it thinks it's a mouse, it's gonna be very offended. Yeah, this is the world's only flightless parrot and it is

endemic to New Zealand. Wow it is. That's yeah, that's cool. It is really cool, and it's actually kind of goofy. It's a beautiful bird, but at the same time really goofy looking. It looks like some kind of bird muppet. It's absolutely adorable. It is. The reason it's probably flightless is because New Zealand is an island and it's the animals there. Typically on an island can basically evolve into

these very specific niches. So if you don't have a lot of ground predators in your area, uh, and you're isolated from the rest of the world where ground terrestrial ground predator may be able to migrate over, you may develop these traits that are say like being flightless, like the Kiwi in New Zealand is also flightless. Of course, we also know about the dodo who was flightless, which

lived in Mauritius. Unfortunately, we know about what happened to the dodo, and this almost happened to the cacopo uh so Unfortunately they are critically endangered due to the introduction of non native predators. This includes rats, cats, ferrets, and stoats who came to the island of New Zealand with British colonizers colonizers in the eighteen hundreds. So this they almost suffered the same fate of the dodo, with total and total extinction. So the dodo is the same story.

Uh Dutch colonizers came over to Mauritius. They brought with them cats and rats and dogs, and those hunted the dodo along with humans to extinction. But in eighteen ninety conservation efforts began. I guess people, unlike with the dodo, people are like, maybe we should save this bird. I don't know, it's a coool bird that does feel early for conservation efforts, it does. I mean, we're almost to the twentieth century, which you know, I guess it is.

It is interesting. I think like there there was Probably it was because we had seen some extinction events before where we were like, oh, we made this go extinct, We made the dodo go extinct. Aby, we should not keep doing that. It took us long enough, but it has been a real struggle to keep their numbers healthy.

As of now, there's only around two hundred wild cocopos. Uh. One of the reasons they are so rare is that they only mate during very specific and short time periods, which corresponds to the ripening of a fruit called the remove, which happens only once every five years. This sounds like it sounds like something from a Doctor Seuss book, you know what I mean. That's like the coco po only mates once every five years when the fruit of the remove plant ripens. It really does every five years, except

somehow rhyming, but it's close. It's got the alliteration and it really does. And there's also a like a particulars to this that I kind of relate to, where it's like, no, I kind you need everything to be right, don't have sex, Like I really need the right music, need the right fruit at a specific point in its rights. So sorry, right, not tonight. I actually need sliced pears. It has to be ripe, and I also need some lemon hibiscus tea um, and it can only happen four months out of the year.

That's basically what these these birds are doing. Yeah, it's like they're saying they're on their period. I have a headache. Sorry, yeah, I have a headache. Well, the reason for this is that this is a major part of their diet, this fruit. It's highly nutritious, and having their chicks timed around the supply of this fruit ensures their chicks will have the best chance of good nutrition when they're young and the

best chance of survival. And cocopos live up to one hundred years, so the rarity of their mating cycles is feasible. Mm hm. Can you imagine if you saw one of these cocopos when you were like ten, and then like at age eighty nine, you see the bird fly, knowing that it's the same bird you saw when you were ten. I mean, they are flightless, so it's more of um when they fly, it's more of a sort of hop and flap kind of situations, so they can see this

bird hopping. So this mating strategy does technically work, but it doesn't make It does limit them when they face challenges to their populations, such as new predators. They have a LEC mating system. Elect is like a large area where males will come to gather. It's like an arena where they strut their stuff, and these males will make these booming calls to entice females to mate eight hours a day for over four months. These dudes are thirsty

and can you blame them? No, hey, you only get it every five years years when you're trying to get it, it's probably real pent up. Yeah, yeah, I mean they built so they build their own resonance chambers. They dig these things called bowls that will help amplify their calls. And the sound of it sounds like air being blown over an empty beer bottle, which I gotta hand it to of them, it is an erotic call. Yeah, oh god, yeah,

I mean that's erotic audio. That's like they have websites for that, you know, like those jug bands where you got like do do do do do do do do do do do do do do that's yeah, it turns beyond every time I get my right fruit and I get that jug music. You're only human, how can you not be so? Here here is an actual call of the coco po trying to desperately find a mate. Just a little flavor of that bird's beautiful, beautiful hooting sound. I mean it sounds like a jug, it really does.

It's crazy that comes out of a bird. I know, I thought I was listening to jug music. I wonder. I don't think this research has ever been done, but I wonder if you took an empty beer bottle or a jug, you set yourself up near these coco pos and blue on it. If you'd get a horny female come in your way, well you splatter a little bird poop on the walls, and you just might that plus the jug. It's all about the atmosphere. Mm hmmm h

hint to birds and human and so alike. So now something about birds in general which applies to these coco pos. They will often imprint on their parents. So when they hatch, they see their parents and they're like, that's what I'm gonna be when I grow up. If they hatch around humans or are raised by humans, they will often imprint on humans because they look at a human and they think, hey, that's an adult me. I'm a person. Oh my god,

that's so cute, it's adorable. It's what cause I don't want one of these as a pet because it'll be with me forever. I'm gonna tell you before the bird, I'm gonna tell you why you don't want this as a pet, Like, aside from ethical reasons, um in just a minute. But when birds imprint on people, that's like when if you've raised like baby baby ducks or geese and they follow you around like they're following their mommy,

that's because they have imprinted on you. Now, here's the downside is when they that Okay, I'm a human, that must mean when I grow up I'm going to fall in love with a human and have babies with them. So they will imprint on you, and then every other human they see they will assume is an adult bird that they're supposed to mate with, and they're gonna try and probably fall in love. Uh so, oh my god, oh god, I just want to know what that looks like. Well,

i'll tell you what that looks like. It looks like a bird humping people's heads. So wow, these poor birds are so romantic to their detriment. They're like, they're like rom com heroes, Like, I can really understand how hard it is to be this romantic. It's unrequited love, which is probably the most tragic of all. When a bird loves a human and the humans like, no, we mustn't and the bird is like, but my heart is crying

out for God. And then he was like, stop humping my head, And the bird is like, what is it about me that I can't find love? This is the case for the most notorious cocopo in the world named Sirocco, who has attempted to mate with many conservationists heads, including famed zoologist Mark Carowin Dean on BBC's show Last Chance to See Uh, he tried to hump this guy's head on national television adorable and people fell in love with

him for it, which I think is great. So his humping habits have made him a celebrity and he has become the official bird ambassador to Cocopo conservation and people freaking love this humping bird. So researchers hoped to actually work with Sirocco's lust for the good of conservation by inventing the birds seven collecting helmet. That's disgusting. I mean some you know, it's science. It's uh. Sometimes in science you gotta think outside the bun, and sometimes thinking outside

the bun means letting a bird hump your head. That sounds like an idea that like that guy at the office made who always has really wacky ideas, And you're like, okay, Jack, not now, it's not we're not looking for that. It's not Friday at four pm. And then one day everyone like just got drunk enough and they're like, you know what, this guy's got some good ideas. Let's let's do this firm helmet and then you wake up the next morning. Yeah, I gonna have Why do we have twenty sperm helmets?

Jack's idea? I love those birds. Yeah. Jack is from Texas, sy He won't stop trying to fuck the bird, but they keep him on the payroll because you know he's a nice guy. Lets to start talking to him. Uh so uh. When worn by the researchers, the helmet was designed to collect the you know, bird semen that was produced during the humping session. That was thought that they could use this for research samples and for conservation purposes,

potentially for fertilization purposes. Unfortunately, listen, Sirocco is a discriminating little gentleman. He's got high standards. You can't just slap on a bird semen collecting helmet and think that Sirocco is automatically going to be attracted to you, because he's not. He's actually not going to be attracted to that. He refuses to make love to people who are wearing these helmet because Sirocco is attracted to human heads without a weird bubble wrap covering. And thank you very much. So,

oh my gosh, it's true. I get he imprinted on a human, not on a sperm helmet. So he's like, I want to see that big beautiful head like and if you've seen the sperm helmet, which you can if you check out the show notes, I don't blame him. It's not a good look. No, it looks like it looks like someone wrapped their head in bubble wrap and is some kind of conspiracy theorist who thinks that bubble rap will stop the four geez And I wouldn't be I wouldn't be attracted to that, you know, No, No, yeah,

you do. I mean it's like, do I want to date someone who's constantly warning one of those conspiracy tinfoil caps. No, I'd feel self conscious. I'd be like, I don't want to be seen this person. Yeah, so I get it. Sirocco is like he's just discerning and discerning who he falls in love with. You know. Sure he gives hardaway a lot, Yes, but that doesn't mean he's just some machine who you can program to love anything. No. No, just because he's open with his love doesn't mean he

doesn't have standards. God damn it. I do think that Sirocco the Bird is begging for a Pixar movie. How do we not have a movie based on this real life bird about a bird who like keeps falling in love with humans and giving his heart away. I want to hear how you would plan to make that kid friendly. I mean, you know, maybe it's time to just blend that audience a little bit. And if kids have to find out that a bird being attracted to a human means it tries to hump its head, then so be it.

They got to learn someday. Yeah, exactly, So, preventing birds from imprinting on humans is actually a big problem with bird conservation, and sometimes bird conservationists to have to get very creative and creepy because, like obviously if you are doing a captive breeding program, a problem is if they see it's a human raising them and feeding them, they're gonna be like, Hey, that's my mommy or that's my daddy, And someday when I grow up, I'm gonna be a

big human just like them and fall in love like with a human just like them. That's a problem. So whooping cranes, I'm gonna keep saying it that way. Whooping whooping cranes are the tallest North American bird and are a beautiful white crane with red spots on their heads and black wingtips. Their breathtakingly gorgeous birds. And here is why they are called whooping cranes. Play a sound for you, okay, magnificent?

Yeah that was that was beautiful. Sounded like a siren but kind of skyrin I could listen to for a while. The it's a siren when you call nine one one because someone stole your heart because those are mating calls. Wow, yeah, you know, to each their own. It's a very open minded of you. So whopping cranes are still endangered, but at one point they almost reached extinction. There were only twenty one birds left in the wild, with only two in captivity. In they were like a bird sneeze away

from complete extinction. And this is in contrast to an estimated population of over ten thousand cranes before European colonizers arrived in North America. So they were once a thriving population of birds, but after the destruction of their habitat and over hunting, they almost were completely wiped out. And so conservation efforts had to leap into high gear if

these birds were to be saved. So there were captive breeding programs and relocation to protected areas, and that has actually allowed the population to rebound somewhat to about eight hundred birds. Um, it's still not enough, and it's it's concerning. This is one of the areas where you can see the direct impact of politics on conservation. Budget cuts during the Trump administration actually closed a major whooping crane captive

breeding program, uh the Pawtucket Wildlife Research Center. I feel like I didn't pronounce that right path puppies. While I look up the pronunciation. Your dog is the cutest little dog I've ever seen. Honestly, she's really small, but she's cute. She's just a little weener. I've seen her on Twitter. She's just so cute. I love I love her coat color. Okay, back back to the show. Uh So this actually caused

the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center to close down. They had been operating for over fifty years and had a flock of seventy five birds, and so these birds had to be dispersed to other captive breeding programs and zoos and this is expected to be a major setback for conservation efforts. So unfortunately, Uh yeah, politics directly interact kind of have

a huge impact on conservation. It really is. It really is. Um. But in terms of how this conservation works, like I mentioned earlier, they have to prevent these birds from imprinting on their human caretakers like Sarocco did, because otherwise they'd all become Sarocca and fall in love with humans. Um. And so the conservationists wore whooping crane costumes while rearing them.

This is important not just to protect humans from getting pumped buy a bunch of birds, but to make sure the birds will actually be able to successfully reproduce in the wild. Now, these costumes are not as if someone did like a Broadway musical about whooping cranes. They're not these like cute, cute, kind of like Disneyland character costumes of a big cartoon whooping crane. They're really creepy. They look like people in some kind of weird crane religious cult.

So the humans will wear these like white hazmat suits are white like almost cloaks and capes, and then or maybe beekeeper suits, and then they have a fake whooping crane head attached to their arm like a puppet, and they use this fake head to feed the cranes. So I shared a picture of it with you, and it really wild. This looks crazy. It's some kind of it, doesn't doesn't it look like some kind of weird priest. Yeah,

it looks like a cult. It looks looks like the followers of this cult dress up in these weird pope like cloaks with the weird masks and then walk around with their birdmuppet hand through like this tall grass. It's I feel like it's out of a movie. Yeah, it looks like it's a midsummer situation, but just with crane. Yeah, but look at those cute adolescent cranes when their adolescents. They actually have this beautiful like brown and white speckled coat.

It's just they're so beautiful, such beautiful birds. Um. Yes, but yeah, when humans try to pretend to be the cranes, we can't quite pull it off, at least from my perspective. So it looks very creepy, but it works on the cranes. They will see this and see you know, they're looking for these general patterns that the heads are fairly realistic, these fake puppet heads, and so they will imprint on these and learn what an adult crane looks like. So um.

They will also, uh, they use this fake head to take care of them, to feed them, so they form this attachment with these these puppets. And they will also teach the cranes how and where to migrate by having the costumed rescuers lead them in an ultralight aircraft. It's like almost like a hang glider but with an engine, and they will fly along the proper migratory route and these little uh, these these teenaged adolescent cranes will follow them and learn the migratory route like they would if

they had a community of actual cranes in the wild. Wow, you know what that reminds me of. I surely you have talked about this on this podcast Flyaway Home. Yes, yes, so uh it is just like the movie Flyaway Home. And there's a good reason for that. Flyaway Home was based on a real story. They probably had that at the beginning where it's like based on a true store

and it was. It was, and it was based on the very real work established by Bill Lishman and Joe Duff who figured out how to teach young Canada geese to follow human lead migratory patterns using those light aircrafts and their research. They helped adapt that research to be used for these cranes. Yes, it's all connected, Jeff Bridges, right, that's who it was was, So that sounds right? Yeah, wow he I mean in my mind that's who did

all the Oh Jeff Daniels, Jeff Daniels, Jeff Daniels. I understand he was playing a real person, but it's Jeff Daniels. The birds. So Anna, what if I told you that you could be a hero by throwing vomit inducing amphibian sausages out of a helicopter. I think I would like that. The idea of vomit inducing sausages sounds like it will make me vomit. But yeah, well, you don't happy sausages, you have to throw them out a helicopter. They seem like they would smell. But throwing sausages out of a

helicopter sounds extremely fun. It does, doesn't it. Yeah, I want that to be my superpower, to be able to fly and shoot sausages. Yeah, I'm down for that, you know. I figured like every superpower has some kind of like downside, like if you're immortal, you outlive all your loved ones. If you're invincible, everyone's trying to fight you all the time, and so on and so forth. But what possible downside could flying and shooting sausages have? Oh? I mean none?

I think none. Just I guess jet fuel from the helicopter. No, I'm saying if I could fly, so like if you could fly. Literally none exactly. I mean, if we're gonna get down to the nitty gritty though, So these sausages are made of what, well, they're made of toads? Uh So let me explain. Yeah, because I'm like, wait a minute, these aren't just normal sausages. I'm going to need information on that part. Yeah, you want me to show you how the sausage is made, because you may not want

to know how the sausage is made. I want to know, all right, you can't handle the truth, all right here it is. So first, let's start with a well established fact that invasive cane toads are huge jerks and they are destroying Australia. So cane toads fascinating toads. I don't actually hate the species, but because they are invasive in Australia, they are causing a lot of problems for the native species and they have been devastating to a lot of

these species that are endemic to Australia. They're found only in Australia, so it's not the toad's fault strictly speaking. Originally, the cane toads were imported by a bunch of dumb humans trying to protect cane sugar fields from cane beetles.

But the toads didn't eat the beetles because the beetles like to live high up on the cane stocks, so instead the cane toads spread out and devoured everything else in their path and poisoned any predators that tried to take them down because cane toads will seep a toxin from there from the glands in their skin, so no, there was no natural predator that could take them down, and they just kind of have been going across Australia and conquering. So once toads conquering is a really funny image,

is like toad kings and stuff exactly it. Yeah, we have the references. These are toad conquerors and they're of course they're assholes. Yeah yeah. And one such victim of these toad a holes is the Northern qual They are a carnivorous marsupial of Northern Australia. They're adorable. They look like a large spotted mouse with reddish brown coats and white reverse Dalmatian spots, pink noses. They'll whiskers and a

long fluffy tail and round ears. They're so cute. Seeing pictures like this, like seeing little rats makes me miss my dog, but I am holding her, so that's okay. But something about like rats and stuff makes me miss my dog. Well, your dog's a ween or dog. Um. Also, you're holding her right now. She's so cute. I you're you're kind of holding her like she's like she's a weapon though you're like yeah, like you could just shoot, shoot with the dog, shoot puppy kisses with the dog.

I like to I'm sorry for this tangent, but I do like to weaponize my dog. I'll pick her up and just hold her up near someone's face and she starts kissing them, So you know, weaponized kissies. I mean, my dog is a weapon because her breath is the most disgusting spell I've ever experienced. Doesn't no matter what you do, she eat, her breath smells horrendous. It's a bio weapon. Yeah, so if she tries to kiss it's like, oh god, so yes, so adorable. They are very precious

and they're endangered. So the coals are carnivores. They will eat small insects, mammals, reptiles, and hey, amphibians. So you think great, have them eat these toads. Not great, because again the toads are toxic. They are poisonous when eaten, and so these poor quols will try to eat the cane toad. Try to be our little heroes on the front lines against the toad invasion, but the toad will

kill them often because they're so highly toxic. And coals might be able to learn to avoid the toxic toads if they would actually be able to survive the deadly buffo toxin that the toad secretes, But more often than not, they don't survive it, so there's no way for them to learn. They just die. It is sad. And actually the learning curve for predators to learn to avoid dangerous prey is where we get interesting evolutionary traits like APIs semitism.

So that's when you have a brightly colored animal or plant that is toxic. So a butterfly might have these beautiful, vibrant colors, but it is warning predators, Hey, if you eat me, i'm gonna be yucky. So a bird may eat a toxic butterfly and then vomit. It's not gonna die, but then it learns, hey, next time I see one of these pretty bright blue butterflies, I'm not gonna eat it.

That's so interesting. It's almost like symbiotic relationship in terms of the poisonous animal being like, I'm not trying to kill you. I'm just trying to live, like we can do this. Just don't eat me and and we'll all be good. It is. It is actually symbiotic relationship, because any interaction between two animals where they have a close relationship is defined as symbiosis. So yeah, so conservationists are trying to step in and basically do an artificial way

of teaching coals how to avoid the cane toad. Now, we can't take coals to qual school, even though that would be so cute, Like can you imagine coal school local school? Oh, if it would be so small, such a tiny little school, you know, they would have the burrowing owls would be their teachers. I'm going to take rule coal in the coal school. Yeah yeah, that's that's a really cute image. It would all take place, um in little mini school houses. Yeah, you know I'd teach there.

I'd teach for coal school. I Also, it's like, how do I teach these coals? I gotta get the coals to listen to me. I gotta how do I get through to these coals just like sit backwards in the chairs, like listen, quols. I know I'm not a qual and you guys are all cools. But look, I know what it's like. I know what it's like to be a carnivorous marsupial. I get it. I see every animal you have introduced to me. I'm like, this sounds like a Pixar movie. Quolls too, I mean something about the name.

It just rolls off the tongue. They have these cute little spots which is made for kids movie. Yes, do you have a little coal going to cool school? Coal school? Yeah? Uh? Cool school to back in session? So uh again. Conservationists are trying to teach the quolls to avoid cane toads so they don't accidentally poison themselves. And so how do they do this? Well, naturally, they're gonna make toad sausages from cane toad legs. So they will make toad sausages. Now,

you can eat parts of a cane toad. In fact, some predators will actually come clever and learn how to only eat the part of the cane toad that is

not toxic. Unfortunately, the quals haven't done this, but researchers can take parts of the cane toad that are edible I mean strictly speaking, and make toad sausages out of them and then lace them with a chemical that doesn't kill the coal, but just makes them feel nauseous, makes them nauseated, So this will hopefully make the coals associate those nasty toad sausages that made their tummies upset and learn to avoid cane toads based on the smell. So basically,

the process of making these sausages hilariously gross. Uh, there's I have a few photos in the show notes, nothing too graphic, just like some cane toads next to a cutting board where you can see they're about to do some creative culinary cuisine with these cane toads. And then yeah, the fact that they're made into sausage feels ridiculous. It's like, I understand, you have to mix everything together and because it's parts of the toad, you can't just serve it

up straight. But the fact that they're like little hot dogs here you go to the lot dogs is very silly. Well, they need to first, they need to be able to lace it with the nausea inducing drug, otherwise the calls won't learn anything. They'll just be like, hey, free sausage, great, and it needs to survive being thrown from helicopters. So sausage can't all exactly, it can't just have a meatball.

The meatball go like splattering everything. I get it. I get now, how do these sausages not still explode when they hit the ground. I don't know. True. They must have been like, this is right, it's a durable sausage. It's gotta be like a weapon's grade sausage. I like, if you bit into it, you'd be like, oh, this is a tough sausage. That's a spicy sausage. Yeah, yeah, exactly, you'd be like, oh that's I can't get my teeth through this sausage. Somehow, somehow I crave more though, you know. Yeah.

But there's a photo of a very solemn looking man inspecting a rack of toad sausages that again is in the show notes because I do love this picture. He looks like he knows what he's doing. Is ridiculous toad sausage expert. I wonder if they like consulted sausage makers. Surely to get the technology to make sausages and the flavor, they've got to make them appealing until the cools start to throw up. So like he's got to eat it and they can smell like puke. It has to be

like a yummy sauce. It's gotta be yummy, and it's got to have that signature cane toad smell, because then they'll learn to associate the smell of cane toade. I'm sure it's like a very you know Gordon Ramsey process of like it like this sauce just raw. I can

hear the cane toad practically riveting. Yeah, I mean, what really makes it feel like it's an episode of Master Chef is this other picture you have of someone using their bare hands to rip up the toad on a cutting board of a knife, like, put on some gloves that you're not cooking in your own home. Put on some gloves, just chopp at him and crack and I'm like, you're yeah, like a crab. Yeah, like you're playing a crab. Yeah, that's that that one. Soon a spatch cock chicken. These

are toad. It's rough. I bet that all smells disgusted. Oh, I'm sure does it's there's no way. These are some stinky sausages. So yeah, yes, they have a very strong smell. You are correct, and uh they it seems like this completely off the wall. Banana's Bonker's plan is actually working.

So they they throw them out the helicopters and they are tracking these qualls seeing that the calls are taking the toad sausages, and the qualls that are taking the toad sausages do seem to avoid the cane toad bait that they'll leave out, so they'll leave out some like I'm assuming probably these cane toad baits have been rendered safe, like they're toxic glands have been removed, and then they'll

see if the calls will ignore them or not. The ones that have been trained with the tainted sausages are much more likely to avoid the cane toe bait. And it's just it's a miracle of science, these sausages. It is, you know. I think the trend in all of these that I find so interesting is like how nitty gritty it is. It's like you can't just mass produce something.

Someone's literally standing there with a cutting board chopping up the frogs making them sausages and then distributing that, or like dressing up as a whooping crane with a puppet hand and feeding them. It's so it's crazy how easily and quickly we, you know, bring these species to near extinction, and how painstaking it is to conserve them. A pound of prevention is worth an ounce of toad sausages? Is the age old a dodge? Do you have that crosstitch? Yes?

I I also have that crosstitch from Metsy here in my office. Yes. I see. It says work, bitch work, and then it says uh that one. I see. We peruse the same Metsy stores exactly. Yes. Motivational quotes relating to conservation, Yeah, I mean, I think it is one of those interesting things where you think about someone who goes into conservation work or into evolutionary biology. Did they ever imagine they'd be dressing up as a crane or making toad sausage? I don't think so, I really don't.

But there's something so sweet about that. It like it shows you really have to care because you are. It's like being a really good teacher where it's like you gotta get in there, you gotta sit down with that student one on one and be like, Okay, so I hear you like uh Digimon? So I printed out a bunch of Digimon cards. I'm assuming the year is is a hit show. I'd love to see you try to teach teach a classes zoomers and be like, you guys think of algebra is like POGs. You know POGs, you

know bogs. They're like, what are you talking about? Is that an app? And I'm like, how do I reach these kids? How do I reach these coals, these qualls? Right? Because in this example, I am in cool school. If that was not clear, Yes, I love it, I love I love qual school. But I think we have We've done it. We've discovered all these amazing conservation stories that are both They are inspiring, they are wonderful, and they're also weird and full of sausage. So what what more?

What more can you ask for? I think I, for one thing, I don't want to eat sausage anytime soon because I keep coming back to this picture of the chopped up toads right next to sausage, and I'm like, Jesus Christ, doctor ruined for me. I am a vegetarian, but like even my smart pups are ruined for me. But um, my life will never be the same now that I've seen how cute quolls are, and I'll have to start thinking about that Pixar movie. That's wonderful. I

guess we were actually taught in the school. It turned out the quolls where the teachers the whole time. Anyways, moving on, before we go, we have something very important to do, and that is answering the question we posed last week, which was guests, who was squawking? Who was squawking? What's going on? It's the Mystery Animal Sound game do I don't know? Uh, some kind of game show music going on. We play this every week. We play a mystery animal sound noise and you the listener, and you

the guests, try to guess who is squawking? Who's making that noise? And last week's hint was, damn, what a weird baby? Here is the sound? So Anna, who do you think is? Who do you think it's making that noise? It does sound like a baby. Um, I feel like it's I'm going to say, like a duck, A kind of a duck maybe, mm hmmm, kind of. I know I'm wrong, but I'm going I'm going bird at least, I mean, you're trying. You're you are incorrect, um, but you know you're not as far away from the truth

as you may have thought. It is not a bird, but it is an aquatic animal. Um. And so a big congratulations to Michael m, Emily m and Aaron Kay who all correctly guessed a baby beaver. It's a baby beaver. That's insane to guess that. Those people who guess that are brilliant because that did. I. First of all, I never knew what a beaver sounded like, And to put those two together, I'm like, what, I don't even have

beaver top of mind. Ever. Yes, I you know, even though I make this game, it doesn't mean I necessarily be that good at playing the game. So I feel like my listeners are actually probably better than I would be at this game. Uh, it's an adorable sound. It sounds kind of like a little baby being fussy. Fortunately, this is a happy baby beaver. Uh. It is eating a sweet potato slice at Second Chances Wildlife Rescue in Kentucky,

and it is making happy eating noises. So beavers are social animals and will often eat together in these dining rooms that they build inside their beaver lodge. All the theme of this episode has to be a little restaurants and hotels that animals make. We're really getting a cute little world here. It's tiny things. I guess beavers aren't that small, but beaver dining room is cute and definitely wood panel. It is cute. Yeah, beavers aren't small, but

they are cute with their big orange iron teeth. Um. It is possible that these little happy grunts are social cues for it's eating time, it's snack in time, and entices other beavers to come and join. I read one account where it seems like they would make these happy noises when they're sharing food with each other. So absolutely adorable, sweet little yummy sounds. I should start doing that when I'm having a dinner party. Yeah, you're just hosting and saying, oh, yes,

how's Kevin's word coming along? Brochette is ready memium. So onto this week's mystery animal sound. This is another baby aquatic mammal with big teeth. Adorable, but you'd better pray mom is not around. Huh h h h h. So who do you think is squawking baby rhino? Interesting guests? Interesting guests? Well, the answer will be revealed in next week's episode of Creature Feature. And if you think you know the answer, right to me at Creature Feature pot at gmail dot com. You can reach out to me

on other social media. I gotta warn you, I am the best at seeing your responses when it's through emails, So if you want me to see your guests, most likely I will see it if you email me at Creature Future Pod at gmail dot com. But I am also on Twitter at Creature feat Pod that's f E T not ev et that is something very different, and at Creature Feature Pod on Instagram. UM but Anna, thank you so much for joining me today through this weird

and wild journey through creative conservation. Where can people find you? You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Bad Comics with an X, Bad Comics by Anna, That's Anna with two ends. Um and I also make my comic on Instagram and I highly recommend the comic. I I love how she personifies emotions in her comments. They are wonderful. Thank you so much for listening. And if you're enjoying the show and you leave a rating and a review,

I read all the reviews. I really appreciate it. All of your kind comments, even if you have some creative feedback, I would love to hear from you. And thanks to the Space Classics for their super awesome song Exo Lumina Creature features a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the I heart Radio app Apple Podcasts, or Hey, guess what? Why do you listen to your favorite shows? See you next Wednesday.