How Charismatic Megafauna Work

too much? I guess, or you're stressed. I was under the impression that, aside from these two hours, you just sort of sit in silence and you and you meet pantomime right everything we do? Uh, interpretive dance. Yeah, I gotta say my my vocal courts. Babe. Well, I'm sorry to hear that you sound normal. Well, I'm glad I saund normal because I don't feel like I do. But if I sound normal, who cares about how I feel? Oh?

Come on, everyone cares? No. Uh. This podcast, by the way, has perhaps the best band name ever right there in its title. I think it's overdone. Charismatic Megafauna. What do you mean, like there's so many bands name that, or you just think the name is too much the ladder of those two, he's pretty good now, charismatic Mega fauna. I mean maybe for your second band, your side gig. No, no, no, like the second before you know, your third, fourth or

fifth one where you finally hit it. I'm still waiting on that. Are you know the first? But a hobby that offen the omega and nothing in between? How do you like my Latin? Is that Greek? Now this is off to a terrible start. No, this is great. So I saw a T shirt the other day. Um, I should give credit worre credits due you me saw a T shirt the other day and showed it to me. It's pretty awesome, you know. Um it was a World Wildlife Fund logo because you were just walking around kicking rocks.

She's not looking up. Look up every up, she panomimes, look up now, pano back. Um it was the World Wildlife Fund logo with the panda, but there was another panda coming up behind it with a folding chair, which is a play on the w WF. I've seen that before. Great, great T shirt, um, But the fact that the panda is the front man for the World Wildlife Foundation, one of the biggest conservation organizations in the entire world. Is actually a pretty good um example of the use of

a charismatic megafauna. Yeah um, which is also called a flagship species, and it's um a term that came around in the eighties. I tried to find track it back to the person who thought of it. Couldn't either. I couldn't do it. Let's go with Jack Hannah, all right, possible, Yeah,

it's possible. But basically it's very simple. This is a koala or a panda right now, but sort of yes, um, it's an animal that is like the poster child in advertising for zoos and conservation groups because they're so stinking cute and charismatic that people open their wallets to give money towards conservation efforts. You just make it rain on them. Yeah, Like, look at that panda. I can't My wallet is out all of a sudden, and I'm just pulling Benjamin's out

and dropping them along this pandis trail. Yeah, that is charismatic megafauna. It is. It's it's as simple as that. And along the way, since it was kind of picked up and coined and started to take seriously by conservationists. It's become you know, much bigger and debated and everything. But it really helps to understand it and bring it down to size when you realize that it's actually it's

a conservation idea, but it's actually a marketing term. That's That's what the whole thing is that it has nothing to do with the importance of the species to its ecosystem, not necessarily. It doesn't even necessarily have to do with, um, how endangered the species is. UM. It really has to do with how cute and relatable humans find the species so that it will generate the most financial contributions possible

towards conservation. Yeah, it's pretty int thing. And this UM we did an episode I think a pretty good one on zoos quite a while back, and the controversy around zoos and if we should even have zoos, and I think I think I remember us both sort of agreeing like some zoos are terrible, and then most zoos are. I don't know about most, but many zoos these days

do such great work they are now necessary. And um two conservation efforts or go a long way towards conservation efforts, but we still like it's a little creepy sometimes when you see an elephant that should roam for thousands of miles in a you know, relatively small area, it makes you think they who knows? Yeah, But then like, man,

it's just that thing with zoos again. Then you also see like a child get inspired to grow up to be a zoologists because they fell in love with the elephant at the zoo, and then they lead conservation efforts. So there's captive breeding programs that bring animals back from the verge of extinction. Um, right, all this is stuff to happen, but how often does it actually happen? Is? I think the conservation efforts are constantly happening at most

zoos you need specifically bringing an animal back. Yeah, how many zoologists are actually inspired by going to a zoo as a child, like I mean, and is there a better way to do it? I'm sure we got into this in the in the Zoos episode. Since that, I don't think I've been to a zoo. I think I've been to a zoo once and I was like, I can't go to zoos anymore. Well, I went to the

San Diego Zoo when we did our show there. Um, and now I'm a member of the Atlanta Zoo because I have a small child, And it's a great thing to do with a small kid because it introduces them the animals, which they love. It's really neat for them to be able to see these things in person, and it quite frankly wears her out, which is kind of the one thing you're trying to do. Disappearance your child exhausted.

How crazy that chimpanzee is from being locked up its whole life, Like I bet you can't run from one animal exhibiting zookosis to the next as fast as you can. Um. So, anyway, I've been to the Atlanta Zoo here a few times recently because of that, and still have mixed feelings, you know, but it's hard to not see like your twenty old delight at seeing. I mean, one of these visits, we caught a full on ape show. Really yeah, Like you know,

sometimes you go to the zoo and everyone's hiding. You're like, yeah, well that's neat. There's a tiger behind that rock somewhere. But um, we had a good day where these this family of apes was just playing like crazy and like this huge was it a gorilla? I can never remember which monkeys which are apes. I think a gorilla is a great ape. Well, this big daddy gorilla, I mean, just to see the strength of this dude moving around

and jumping around was amazing. And he would jump off of a rock and clap his hands, and the little kids were playing little baby gorillas and everyone was just like literally in awe of what they were witnessing. It was like they pumped them full of steroids cocaine they did. Right then, that guerrilla family was showing off their charisma. Yeah, they have natural inherent charisma as far as um being a charismatic species goes, because they're so relatable by humans.

Well yeah, I mean that's one of the things like, hey, this one kind of looks like you. Don't you like it more than other animals? Don't you want to give us some money to protect them in the wild. And that's the point of the charismatic mega fauna usage. Yeah, that we're talking guerrillas, pandas, kualas, tigers, dolphins, killer whales. Thanks free Willy. Uh. They include lions in here, and I guess so because they're magnificent. But lions don't do a lot. Most of the big cats just sort of

lay around. Sure, they're not running around like the gorillas. You gotta throw your beer can at them to get them going. They had an elephant paint a picture. They did this little like it's a zoo, huh. They Yeah, they put a paintbrush in its mouth and would hold up a canvas and the elephant would like someone else, it's smacko with the riding crop until it But you want to know it wasn't like that. But that's actually you can buy um paintings by elephants, but apparently they're

not very well treated. Yeah, I don't think that's. I think at the Atlanta Zoo they treat their animals very nicely. Sure, sure, I'm not saying that, but I mean on the internet you can buy paintings by elephants, and yeah, if you actually look into how the elephants are treated, probably wouldn't want the painting. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be super activist person, but I don't. I don't mind. It's

a you know, it's a controversy. And you know what, there was a tiger there that was clearly exhibiting zukosis. He was pacing back and forth, and all I could do was think about how much that sucks for that tiger to be there. Well, it goes to that solitary confinement thing the episode that we did, it's virtually the same thing. I think you even brought up suitcases in that episode too. You know, man, that's quite a long winded, uh sort of intro. Huh, I guess so should we

take a break already? And yeah, I'm a little worked out. Get it back on the tracks. Yeah, all right, I shot Josh with a sedative from an elephant gun. Now you're drifting off, I'm a little I'm feeling pretty good. We got a pretty good bush. All right. So we're talking about well a lot of things, but let's get

back to characteristic, charismatic. What's wrong with me today? So I read this this article UM on charismatic mega fauna and then it was a survey of other journal like scholarly articles UM, and I think they read like seventy of them because they're basically trying to figure out what a charismatic mega fauna definition was. UM. Apparently it was just all over the place. It was. It's it's extremely non scientific, and I think it is part of the

problem because it's a marketing tool. Man. These people were trying to like whip it into shape. The best definition they found, um or, the best explanation of what makes an animal charismatic was from a paper called Non Human Charisma by A. Jay Lorimer written in two thousand seven. Um there were I think four points. One was detectability and distinctiveness. Anybody can look at a pan and be like, that's panda. Oh yeah, I love panda's. Look at there's

one right there, there's a panda. Well, and I think um In the they interviewed a couple of zool just some one of them and said, you might even know a few facts about this. It's just a regular non zoo enthusiast, Like panda's eat bamboo. Well, I was gonna say that, but then I thought that was a koala, and I was gonna koalaz eucalyptus. Yeah, yeah, that's right, yeah, pantasy bamboo by the bushel. But you can point out a pan and you're not like, I can't tell if

that's a camel rat or a humpback rat. You know, like where it's it's just the same as everything else. It has to be its own thing. That is really that stands out. Another one is socioeconomic biases, So basically how a society feels about the animal, right, So like do I want to kill the rat or hug the panda? Exactly? That's exactly right. Um. Aesthetics is another one, like is it cute? Is it cuddly? Is it beautiful? Is it majestic?

Does it look like um, you know, uh uh, I don't know a fat dude, right, you know, does it like kind of look like it should be wearing a hard hat and carrying like a lunch pail that kind of thing. Is it relatable? Yeah, that panda, it looks like Kevin James was wearing a black lone range of mask. He doesn't love Kevin James wearing a black clone arrangement man. And then the last one is the potential to generate satisfaction. Right. So let's say that you see a panda and you're like,

I want to know what that is. I want to know all about pandas, and you find out pandas are really boring. There's not a lot to them. There's not a lot to be said. Um, they do they don't do anything it's not going to generate much satisfaction intellectually. So if if you have an animal that checks all these boxes, it's relatable, your society feels good about it. It's cute, it's cuddly, it stands out on its own, and and um, it has a lot, a lot to

offer intellectually, You've got a charismatic animal. Yeah, wow, I like that. Well tell Ja Lormer, do you like it? Jay Loremer? If you're out there, it's wonderful work. Uh. So we're gonna cover sort of the good points and bad points about this characterization. But um, when it works is when the character uh keep saying characteristic, what is

wrong with me? Charismatic Megaphona functions as what's known as an umbrella species, which is to say, um, because people are giving money to some sort of conservation effort towards this animal. Um, it's helping two protect and serve other animals within that ecosystem the cop Yeah. Yeah, And by the way that that makes sense, it does it does? You have to kind of step back and think about it though, you know, like, how does protecting, say like

a wolf help the rest of the ecosystem. Well, a wolf feeds on smaller animals, let's say small chill under the right circumstances. Unfortunately, Um, they typically they'll feed on smaller animals, which say feed on insects, which say, feed on plants. Um. So that means that if a wolf is happy and healthy and it's normal ecosystem, that means that all these other species that make up the food web that the wolf is a part of must be

happy and healthy too. So and that's it's an it's an umbrella species, like you said, where if you take care of the wolf, you're inadvertently taking care of the rest of them. So that's fine. Yeah. And in one of the interviews in here, um, who is this person Braccini? Was that from the Atlanta Zoo. Yeah. Dr Stephanie Braccini, she says, and this is to me kind of says it all. It would be nice if endangered species status was correlated to a charismatic variable, but that's not necessarily

or often the case. And she brings up the point of muscles spanglers. Freshwater muscle is critically endangered but has no charisma, so you know, there's no correlation there. In case the panda, there is because they were endangered, and I think now they're just threatened, right, But there's not always that correlation. She's like, it would be kind of

great if this was you know, this is always the case. Yeah, I think the point underlying the use of charismatic mega fauna is just knowing that something is on the verge of going extinct has been proven not to be enough to get humans to act to do anything about it has to be cute too, And so what conservationists are saying, after God, you're so stupid, they say, Okay, we can

work with this. See this cute little animal, save this animal, give us your money, and then they take it and and actually use it for the whole ecosystem rather than just the animal. Yeah, and that's such a human thing. Like the same can and has been said about like kidnapped children or uh or the sex trade, Like it takes some you know, cute little blonde girl to make the news, you know, right, And that's kind of always been the case. Well, and it's not it's not just

social either. It's not just society, although society definitely values attractiveness. There have been plenty of studies about people with facial differences, right, which is Um, like the people used to call them

disfigured people. Now it's called facial differences. I think that's a great improvement, right, But um, they have been studies with babies and they prefer people who, um, don't have facial differences, who follow more like a typical facial profile or feature, right, compared to people who have facial differences. And that suggests that it's hardwired. So babies pause up

on this. Yeah yeah, yeah, Um. And the idea that you're basically born to prefer, say, facial symmetry or something like that, it really kind of falls in line with this too. It's almost like you you can't help but say, yes, I care about this cute little baby pand or whatever because it's cute, whereas this other thing that is way more endangered and deserves our attention way more because it's actually a keystone species, which we'll talk about. Um, it's

not cute, so I can't really care about it. I'm not hardwired to do that. Yeah, it's kind of like that thing we've talked about before and I think recently, where you prefer things that look like you because evolutionarily anything else Back in Took Took's days might have been a threat exactly. Yeah, right, So it's easy to be hard on people, but when you kind of look at the evolutionary aspect of it, like, you know, well they did to understand as well. Yeah, that whole in group

outgroup thing. If we can get past that, it seems like we are we've evolved socially faster than we've evolved biologically, and that it just hasn't kept up. If we could just get past that whole in group out group thing, who knows what kind of world we'd be living in. High school would be so great. Yeah, everybody would be like, I love high school. So um. You talked about keystone species. Uh, that is a species that actually performs like a really

vital role in their ecosystem. Yeah, where like if you took them out, the ecosystem would be so altered, so drastically altered, it probably wouldn't resemble itself any longer. It may just go away altogether, like a honeybee or like coral. Yeah, you know where like if it's gone, you're in trouble. The thing is is a lot of charismatic megafauna aren't keystone species. It actually doesn't really matter as far as

the ecosystem is concerned. If the pandas there, so there's some other species in that ecosystem that will do the same play the same role that the panda oil. There's pandas right now listening that said. Did you just hear that guy? Let's go kid him. Have you ever seen a panda attack and kill a podcaster? Yes? Once, It's very distressing. Pandas are supposed to be super vicious, are they? Oh? Yeah, I thought that was a koala. Koala's as well. They're

all vicious, aren't they. Did you see the giraffe give birth? No? I heard a lot of people talking about sitting around and watching it forever and ever, but I didn't check it out. It was hilariously sponsored. The webcam was sponsored by Toys r US. You know Jeffrey giraffe, his family. Well there you go. Interesting. Um, there's no accident, right, I don't think so. Uh. They're also something called or

there is also something called an indicator species. And this is like if you want to know how an ecosystem is going. Uh, like, let's say, how's the the bayou doing. Let's go look at the crayfish, because that would be a good indicator of how everything else is doing. If the crayfish numbers are down, that means something's going on, right, or if there's if the canaries are dying off in

the coal mine, you've got gas right. Well. But in the same way though, it's just uh, an umbrella species can also be an indicator species, and that like if the wolf can't survive, that means that all the other parts of the food web are messed up too, and they can also be an indicator species. Yeah. I don't think that's that's how indicator species is used every time, but it's a it's a an argument in favor of

using charismatic megafauna for conservation. Um. So we've been talking a lot about you know, people want to give the things that look like them and that are cute. Uh, that this has been proven out with studies. We're not just bloviating. Um well, I guess we are. But in addition to bloviating, we're not making stuff up because the University of Arizona go wildcats right, Yes, they did a study and did find that people support preservation efforts. Oh wait,

now that's the sun devils. No, that's airs on state. Okay, Yeah, wildcats. Uh, people did support efforts for animals that are attractive and that do look more human. Um. And they even found that women support uh scary animals even less than men. Right, Like you know, preservation for a snake population or uh maybe an insect or something. Yeah, so this is like

a barn as In approach to conservation. Yeah, promoting conservation. Um. Also if you're if you are using charismatic megafauna for conservation, um like it. It actually can have beneficial results, right, It's not just like theoretically this should help. Like elephants, everybody loves elephants. There's not a personal life who doesn't like elephants in the West, I should say, right, um,

the and who knows why. They're very cute, they're very sweet, they grieve over their dead, they do all sorts of interesting stuff, right, Um. And they've used elephants to uh basically as poster species for poaching campaigns. A lot more than just elephants are poached. Everything from whale sharks to rhinos to uh, well, elephants are poached. But the idea of giving money to andy poaching campaigns because you you feel like I want to help that elephant here's a check.

It's actually going and helping all these other species as well. There's supposedly there's like thirty five thousand species that are subject to poaching. Yeah, and the other example they've given this article is the American bald eagle, which in the sixties and seventies there was a big movement They're like, this is America's bird. Yeah, dang it. You know Ben Franklin wanted the turkey. I think I didn't know that very interesting, not that you're ducking no, that would have

been even better. But yeah, in the sixties and seventies, people were like, this is America's bird, we have to save the American bald eagle. Um, and it worked there. I think it's not even endangered any longer, right, I don't think so. My in laws just saw one in Florida. Yeah, pretty neat. Yeah, kind of just think associate them with like Alaska and yeah, Pacific Northwest. But there was along

the Gulf. Yeah, there's like a whole group in the Gulf, and there's a whole group up in the Great White Way. Well above that, that's the Great White Way. I think it's Broadway, isn't it. I don't know, I've never heard the Broadway or Canada. I think it's Broadway. But I thought it was Canada because I heard Scott Thompson from the Kids in the Hall called Broadway that. So I was like, I guess he's talking about Canada, and then I found out he's like, it was Broadway. I think

it's Broadway. That was way more complex than I thought. Um and the panda, you know, we mentioned um there come back. They have a wild population increase over the past ten or so years, largely because you know, people love pandas. They'll open up the wallet. And again, I mean not necessarily specifically with pandas, but with some species. If you can say their their populations coming back in the wild, then it also indicates that the their ecosystem

is getting better healthy again as well. So that's all well and good. It's good that it it's made some money, right sure, but there's also plenty of criticisms to using charismatic mega fauna. Uh and let's take a break and we'll talk about it right after this. So Chuck, yes, what's what's the problem with using a cute panda or an elephant or something like that to get money for conservation. How could there be anything wrong with it? Well, that's there.

Another word for this is the Bambi effect, like when you care only about the cute thing. Um. And they interviewed for our own article, it's interesting that the Atlanta Zoo u zoologists was like, this is kind of great and it's working. And then they interviewed Christina Simmons of the San Diego Zoo Global UH, and she was a little more like, you know what, this is an eighties thing and we have moved past that here in San Diego. Ignore that panda on the brochure. We've moved past it. Yeah.

I thought that was funny. The article pointed out that they had plenty of charismatic species on their website even though they supposedly moved past it, So apparently in their projects they stopped focusing on charismatic Mega font is what she was saying, right, Yeah, she said that they m what they're trying to do is focus on an environment more than like. It's not like they don't focus on animals, but they try to look at at it from an uh. I guess from an ecosystem point of view? Is that right?

I think so? Or they're looking more at animals that um have a bigger impact on their ecosystem, right than than charismatic megafaunta Mike right, Yeah, and and um, I don't think it was or maybe it was her. They kind of put it in an interesting way that I hadn't thought of. It sort of creates a class struggle, a bit um between quote wealthy animal end quote and a poor animal as far as their richness being determined by their likability. Yeah, and I mean it's as simple

as that. And it's not just public awareness of you know, these species being endangered, whereas there's plenty of other species that aren't charismatic that are way more in trouble and in danger of being extinct. Um, it's scientific money too,

Like scientists need funding to do their studies. And if there's plenty of funding around to focus on pandas but not say, those muscles that went extinct, well there's gonna be a lot more scientific study directed towards pandas and saving pandas than saving those muscles, even though those muscles probably keep their aquatic ecosystem clean, whereas pandas just poop everywhere and they don't do anything to clean up their ecosystem.

I wonder what the scientific ethics are. Maybe a researcher can tell us about where funding goes, like if you know, if they're like, well, let's divert some of that to um this other species, whereas the individual who donate might be like, no, just pandas. Well. That was actually brought up in the in this larger article that survey of like the seventy other articles about charismatic megafauna, and they

said that that could be an issue. Some donors want to know that their money is going towards what they donated it. And if you think you donated it to save pandas, and these guys are being like, yeah, yeah, we're helping pandas, but we're also helping these snakes. But you hate snakes. You might be unhappy that your money's helping snakes, you though the snakes really need the help. Yeah.

One thing I have noticed with donation sites is a lot of times they'll have that and then let's say, would you also like to donate five dollars to the general fund um stuff, you know, so you can help the snake. Yeah, And there's not one that says the general fund and no, but no, snakes right now, there's not an option you're doing. You're donating the snakes with the general fund. You know, there's also the issue of

it being a totally unscientific idea. It's completely subjective. Like even here in the West, people are like, well, lions are beautiful and majestic, but if you talk to um school kids in Tanzania, they'll say, actually, lions are quite fearsome because we live near them, and um, I have a friend whose uncle was killed by a lion. Right, so you can't even agree on what what um what

animals have charisma? Even even you know, it seems like a foregone conclusion to us, the people who are carrying out these conservation efforts and who are donating the conservation dollars aren't the ones who have to actually live with these animals as well. Right, So, if you're an organization who's getting conservation dollars from these people to save these animals that the locals actually hate, you're gonna have a

problem here. So what are some of the solutions to these to to what what can you do as a conservationist if you're facing this this issue where you need money but you also need to be realistic at the feeling you have an answer and wait. Well, one of the one of the great suggestions that I've run across is um you can talk about these species that people like, but just talk about them in in realistic terms and

don't say how cute they are and all that stuff. Yeah, or don't make it sound like they're the most important animal on the planet, right, like put it in its relative context, right. Or this one is even better. Take an actual keystone species from an ecosystem that's in real danger of becoming instinct, and then put your marketing people to work on creating charisma for that animal, because you know what, they could do that in most cases, unless

it's a komodo dragon. No, it's actually a really great example of of them doing that. Well. I was about the reason I mentioned that because I was that was one of my favorite animals at the Atlanta Zoo. Was. I could sit around and watch that komodo dragon for days. Yeah, he was so cool looking, but a lot of people might not think so. So Like Charon Stone, apparently there was a huge what Jaron Stone's ex husband was bitten

by a komodo dragon very famously? Was he hurt? Ye did he die, No, that's not why he's an ex. Did he lose a toe? Well, I should say he's an ex because he got bitten by the komodo dragon, but just because she was embarrassed by it, so she divorced him. No, okay, she's like, oh my god, I can't even go out in public now see you later. You've mortified me. Yeah. I figured you would have known about that. It was a very not funny for him, funny for everybody everyone else. No, but apparently there was

a big local push to save komodo dragons. They were not well liked, but they put some top marketing people on it and gave the komodo dragon chrisma, like just pointing to a panda bear and being like pretty cute. Huh. That doesn't take any marketing skill. It takes real marketing skill to take a hated and reviled animal that needs human help and make it charming. You know who could solve all of this, God Disney. Oh yeah, you know. All you gotta do is make a movie about a

Komodo dragon is the hero. Sure, and and literally that would change everything. Somebody needs to throw out Walt Disney. Yeah, he's still frozen. I don't know if that's true or an urban legend or not. We should get Holly from my stuff you miss in history class in here. Well, we did an episode on criegenics, and I'm sure we covered it, but that was a long time ago. Holly, for all I know, might have Walt Disney frozen in

her house. She might you know, being held captive. Uh So should we talk a little bit about bio diversity. I think we should and why that's important because that's kind of what we're talking about here in a roundabout ways. A healthy ecosystem depends on biodiversity. And that doesn't just mean what's known as species diversity or species richness, which is, you know, a lot of different animals. That's what most people think of when they think of biodiversity. It's a

lot more complex than that. Yeah, So there's, um, there's species diversity, like you said, there's also a genetic diversity, which is the combined number of genes that's available to uh species worldwide. And the more genetic diversity of species have them, the easier it can withstand um things like disease.

Uh Yeah, some individuals are gonna die, but overall the species should be able to survive it because there's probably a gene in there somewhere that can combat this disease or is immune to this disease, and they'll develop an immunity to it. The species will go on. So species diversity is a very important type of biodiversity too. Yeah,

like bald eagle again, genetic diversity. Sorry, yeah, yeah, bald eagle good example because they are spread out all over, Uh, well not all over, but in those certain places in North America give them good genetic diversity. Uh, Thus they were able to come back. The cheetah um not so much. Back in the day, there was only one species, I think around ten thousand years ago. Yeah, I didn't see what happened to the species or the cheated Did you what all the other species? Yeah, I don't know. That's

pretty bizarre. Just one survived, Yeah, the uh sen Nick's jubats. I think that's right. In Africa and um, that was a problem because when you just have one species, you're in breeding a lot and your genetic diversity goes way down and all of a sudden, you uh, one thing could come along and wipe you out. Exactly when one disease or something um And then there's also ecosystem diversity, which is the number of different types of ecosystems around the world, and the more you have those, the better

off you are. It's kind of like bio diversity is a really good example of not having all of your eggs in one basket. Yeah, you want to diversify. It's the same thing with stocks and bonds, that's right, you know. Uh, And as humans, bio diversity is a big deal because of medicine that we use that comes from plants. Let's say, uh, what else, clothes that we wear from plants, and animal fibers,

what we eat. That's another big one too. Can't forget that. Yeah, And the point is it's all linked, like you talked

about earlier. The wolf population will have a or the honeybee population will have an effect on down the line because it's all one big linked puzzle, and something like colony collapse disorder can foul it up to the point where just because the honeybee are the crop production as a whole in the United States is in trouble right right, So there's and it seems kind of remedial that to go over it, but it's important to point out, like,

what's at stake here when you're talking about extinction? Right, It's not like, oh, we don't have honey anymore, right now, there's the entire ecosystems can fail, And when entire ecosystems fail, the world gets a little less bio diverse. And when that happens, it's a little more fragile, and it just keeps getting set up more and more and more for some sort of larger collapse that's more than just say

a honeybee collapse. UM and apparently the big one, the big daddy as far as UM as reduction of biodiversity goes, Well, there's two of them. One is invasive species. Yeah, I didn't know we should do a show on We're gonna do one on cuts at one point. I don't know if that's two separate shows or not. I don't know, but I did and realized that invasive species caused that

much damage. Yeah, there's something like um half of all of the extinction special extinctions since the sixteen hundreds they attribute to invasive species, where it's just you know, you've got a species that's introduced into a new um ecosystem, doesn't have any predators, so it it preys on other things and reproduces unchecked and just totally throws off the ecosystem. Right.

Half of extinction comes from invasive species, and then another third, six percent apparently comes from deforestation, right yeah, I mean the other two big ones are over hunting, um, like we were talking about with like the rhino and elephants and stuff like that, and back in our pigeons episode literally calls the extinction of the passenger pigeon. Uh. And then climate changes the fourth which um, sort of just

getting started on that one. So I would that's an increasingly becoming a problem with animals force from their habitats. But deforestation is the big daddy. Yeah, and apparently one of the big issues with deforestation, although there has been a lot of headway made with slowing deforestation. Um. But the rainforest is particularly vulnerable because it covers about seven percent of Earth's land mass, but it houses about half of Earth's species. That's crazy, right, So there's that problem

with a lot of eggs in one basket. If you mess with that basket, you're you're in big trouble. I think that's how the saying goes, right. So um, one of the problems with deforestation is that if you are developing economy and you've got a lot of economic activity that can be gained by cutting down the rainforest, it's kind of tough de fault that that economy to say, what are you doing? You know, we as humanity need that.

That's nature's pharmacy, right. Um. There's also apparently a lot of issue with indigenous peoples in rainforests as well, that a lot of them are like, well they're indigenous people, they know what they're doing. Well, they're also like deforesting the rainforest themselves as well. So there's a lot of programs that have been put into place to reduce deforestation,

and like I said, they're having an effect. Apparently, within the last couple of years, deforestation has fallen like year over year in Brazil, which is where a lot of it was happening. So the idea of deforestation not happening

in UM Brazil are happening less. That's a big deal. Yeah, And they have found a direct correlation between um the local economy being less reliant on the rainforest and having like a healthy economy doesn't that doesn't depend on the rainforest and deforestation decreasing, so it's you know, it's not rocket science, and thanks to Don Henley it's all getting better and Al Gore and Tom Petty. All Don Henley does is helped the rainforest and be a jerk and

sue people. Who does he sue dude? Done. Henley sues everybody, sue everybody, shoes, sue. He sues Sharon Stone's husband. I think so now he's sort of a notorious jerk as far as like, oh you you know you used this Eagle song when you weren't supposed to and taking you to court and then I'll cut you. Man. He like one of my favorite bands, and then I'll cut you. That's not a peaceful, easy feeling at all. Um Okerville

River one of my favorite bands. They kind of reworked a Don Henley song as a homage and a tribute and it didn't even like I think they just put it on the web. They weren't like trying to make money off of it, and they're like, man, we love this song. We kind of reworked it and like here it is. And he was like, shut it down, get it off the internet. I'm suing you, little indie band. Yeah, And then will Chef there, uh, their lead singer and songwriter.

He was just sort of like, man, really thanks a lot. Yeah, I'm gonna have my Eagles tattooed. Grade it off, no more, no more homages to you, sir. It was the end of will Chef's innocence about Don Henley. Uh, I'm gonna see Joe Walsh to More Night and Tom Petty he's opening up, wow, which I'm pretty excited about. Usually openers at those big shows or I don't know, they don't do a good job pairing them sometimes. Yeah. Like I saw Elton John once and he had these two cello

players yo yo maa yeah, and his and his brother. No. It was I mean it was kind of neat. That's the only cello player and they were I can't remember their names, and I'm sure there are tons of people that are fans of these guys because they play like like A C. D C songs on the cello and it's really sort of yah. I mean it was cool,

but I don't know, like I just wanted to. I want to see Joe Walsh open up for everybody, so um you me and I went and saw Cindy lawper a couple of years ago, and Dr John opened for Yeah, that's not a good pairing. It well, so it was an amazing show, both of them were, but um, it was like the Doctor John show happened, and then everyone left, everyone came in for Cindy Lauper. It was a very weird pairing. I think Cindy Lauper's is like a Doctor John fan and wanted to make sure he got some

money that year or something right. But it was like two different shows, like an early show in a late show as far as the audience was concerned. Yeah, I saw Josh Grobin open up for Iron Maid, and I thought that was strange too. Well, Bruce Dickinson is a well known operatic singer. Oh that's true, so I can Yeah, tattooed millionaire pilot man. Not what a great ending? Or are we done? Did you have anything else? Nope? All right.

If you want to know more about Iron Maiden bio diversity, Josh Groban, yo yo, ma, all that jazz, type those words in the search bar at how stuff works dot com and press your luck. Since I said press your luck, it's time for listener mail All that Jazz, and then of which was jazz. Alright, Um, I wonder where that term came from. Just I think it's from the Great White Way, right. I mean there was a show called All That Jazz, But I invent that, I think, So okay,

that's all it. This is from I'm gonna call this from our old buddy, Sarah Law. Who's our oldest. Um. I always say oldest like she's night long the longest lasting, longest running band. Yeah, long standing listeners from Canada. Hey, guys, Josh, Chuck and Jerry. Can you still not spell Jerry? Right, Sarah after all these years, I just spell it Gary with a G Gary j E r I everybody, Um, I know you guys love animals, so I thought it'd be great if you could share this, uh stuff you shnow.

Army story friend needed to give up his cat for adoption because he's moving out of the United States due to health issues of the cat. Shelters would not take her. He was going to have to put her down, which I can't believe that's the solution, Like I gotta move, I'll just put you down. That aside. Um, I put out a ninth hour call. I think it's eleventh hour in the United States. Apparently in candidates a night hour.

Uh put out a night hour call to this stuffy snow army and a nice person named Kevin Lyman asked everyone he knew if they could take her. And I'm happy to say that Evan's coworker cat. But the k picked Ava up and Ava as a cat from the vet appointment to save her life and then took her to be put down. No, I saw a picture. This cat was adorable. Uh, never underestimate the power of the stuff. You should know, Army and I think she shared this

on Facebook and it, you know, it kind of happened that. Yeah, that's great. I love the show. Thank you for enriching our lives in so many ways. Your Canadian friend Sarah O x O thinks a lot. Sarah though was a great story. Yeah, it was appropriate for this. I told Sarah that, oh yeah, do you think about that? Cats are charismatic mini fauna. I told Sarah, we uh, an all likelihood are going to be coming up to the Great White Way, and I hope that's what it is

for some shows this year. We're gonna be hit in Canada. I think so at least one. Yeah, we've been teasing these shows, but we're kind of nailing it all down. So listen up, all eight of you who still listen this deep into the show. We might be coming to a town near you. Yeah, and let everybody else know. Uh. If you want to get in touch with this, you can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us email to stuff

Podcast at how stuff works dot com. Has always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com