Hello the Internet, and welcome to season three oh nine, Episode two of Dally's Guys production of iHeartRadio. This is a podcast where we take a deep dive into America's shared consciousness. And it's Tuesday, October seventeenth, twenty twenty three. I don't know, Come on, Jack, guess guess one of them? Yeah, I guess. Yes.
One is something that's like where two full weeks out from Halloween.
Yeah, but there's one. There's one. There's one food.
That gets a day to day that is just like a It's just like a food that everyone eats.
It's a food and it was stolen.
In by the Italians from pasta. Yes, okay, National Pasta Day, National Mulligan Day, let's see. Oh no, pro life Day of Silence are no, sir, I'm going to do that one. But we will do this Black Poetry Day, National Pharmacy Technician Day, shout out to the homie at the pharmacy that cooks up their homebrew WAYGOVI for the people in the community.
Uh.
And also National Edge Day, which I believe is for the straight edge.
People out there, okay, for people who are edging sexually? No, no, no, this is frustrated. Although you guys can always do your thing. You know we're not getting you don't need a day to do to do whatever you need to do. I feel good whatever it is you do. Anyways, my name is Jack O'Brien aka he got legs that it seems to me reminds me of childhood memories. Lyon my mom, that's my piss. It's Italian ice. Wow, sweet Jack O'Brian. That is courtesy of Laccaroni on the discord. How did
you find out? Are you talking to my mom about melted? Yeah? I went on that roller coaster and came off and it's just water's almost water ice call over my dang it. Anyways, I'm throwed to be joined as always by my co host, mister Miles Gray.
Miles Gray aka you gotta van mow me.
You gotta van mow me when eggs ain't that cheap?
Just remember that I got you Next week twenty bones would be sweet because you gotta I thought I knew the militia, but it's just enough to get you started.
That you gotta van moon me doom.
Shout out to Randa Dixon Art because yeah, eggs are pretty.
They're kind of going up and down.
Gas though, Yeah, shout out to Shout out to plug in hybrid vehicles.
Yeah, save you that sweet sweet dough. Shout out to Randy Newman for being able to stay on It's meat Live. You know.
That's one where I'm like, it could be a mulligan, Yeah, or it could go not a mulligan, but it could be a push.
It could go either way with me, truly could. He's alive, great alive on seventy nine. Good shout out to him. I did not like when Susanne Summers passed r P. I was like, oh, oh damn, I thought never mind. Okay, Miles. We are thrilled to be joined by an acclaimed wildlife ecologist and conservationist who specializes in researching how human activity
influences the behavior of wild animals. She's a TV host and the host of the PBS Nature podcast Going Wild with Doctor ray Wing Grant, which makes sense because she is doctor ray Win Grant.
I'm here here, welcome back.
Oh.
I really love having so many memories, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah, we loved having you last time, and we're like, now that we're talking to experts, let's talk to it let's really digging to a real expert.
Yeah, I spent some time doing some research and like just you know, really square up make ourselves seem extremely smart. And that's what we're doing. We put put our brains together and have put together a list of some of the hardest hitting science based, deeply researched, science based questions in your area of expertise.
This is like my all over again.
Yeah, yeah it is, and this is on and it's going to be on the.
Record, right right.
Stakes are highs, incredibly high.
So we're going to get to that in a moment. But before we do, we still like to ask our guests, what is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are or what you're up to.
Oh, well, I have something. I hope this can kind of be the great equalizer. Perhaps because I'm a scientist, right, I'm an environmental scientist, a wildlife ecologist. I have all this expertise, and yet ever so often I have to google like the simpler things just to make sure that I'm explaining it correctly. So two weeks ago, I was with a film crew and filming a television show. It's called Wild Kingdom. It's great. You can watch it. It's
on NBC streaming on Peacock. And I was with the crew and we were in a place I meant, gotta gotta sneak it in. We were in Texas, or in Central Texas, in a place that has dinosaur footprints, right, Like this part of Central Texas used to be an ocean and then at the point that there were these dinosaurs, it was like more of a swamp and they sunk their giant feet into the mud and then it just like there was a drought and they just solidified and
they're still there. It's amazing. So I'm talking to the crew about dinosaurs. This is just like rural central Texas too. And somehow we got into the topic of fossil fuels, and one of the producers on the show didn't know where fossil fuels came from, Like she didn't understand the word fossil that's part of fossil frut. So fossil fuels are like you know, the gas you put in your car is a type of fossil fuel, right right, It's
what's contributing to climate change. And so I was explained to her, like, girl, yeah, it's when dinosaurs lived and then they died, their bodies decomposed and sunk into the earth. But because it's been millions of years, those decomposed dinosaur bodies have liquefied because it's so hot down there and turned into essentially like oil that we drill up and used to put in our cars and used to you know, power stuff, and we've you know, contaminated the whole atmosphere
because of it. And her mind was blown to the point that I started getting like a little bit concerned. I was like, that is that right?
So that what we would sometimes call fossils, those slowly, over a course of long decomposition became fuel.
So just say I was right. I mean I had to google it because I was like, I mean, I study living animals, not dead runs. But I mean, but that is accurate, right, So fossil fuels like scientists throw that turn around, politicians thrown around, but it's literally fossils. We have them because it's decomposed dinosaurs from under the earth. So like the gas you put in your car is dinosaur body gas, right that we drive and it combusts and you know, makes a dinosaur.
It's not It's not like plant body or something.
It's not plants. It's like decomposed animal matter. So it's like dinosaurs. It's like all those old crustaceans. And I mean it's it's a bunch of stuff that used to live. One day humans will be that same liquefied substance and people could use.
Us al Wikipedia, Why does Wikipedia says, are they?
I think it's like they might be or I might be wrong, but I believe it's like if it's plants, it's from those like ancient oceans, right.
That like like not like not like you know, the grad Yeah.
It's all prehistoric from before there were people to take down the data of like how it all started and what decomposed. It's just like organic matter, but it's a lot of it is like really big animals like dinosaurs using their bodies.
I have to apologize to the listeners. I've been calling fossil fuels dinosaur farts that were just cooking dinosaur farts for our guess, so I'm looking them. I always said, I said, yeah, what is that cooking farts? Yeah, yeah, we're cooking them to get our cars started. But yes, it's the bodies, not the fart.
I mean I feel like that's like click baity enough. Like a lot of people, you know, you just hear this word over and over and you're just like, I get I guess that just means like dirty gases that go into the atmosphere. But it's like, really, I mean, it was interesting to make the connection while looking at a dinosaur footprint and like marveling at it to be like, oh, I interacted dinosaurs all the time.
Right, And you're also likely you will have your come up in dinosaurs. You will help destroy.
Our they remain relevant.
Dinosaur fart to dinosaur fart, as the Bible says, Yeah, my my, how I would have searched that. What you were just talking about is how dinosaurs footprints Texas? Because I only talked to Google in the dumbest phrases.
But we were in Glen Rose, Texas. If you ever go there, you'll be astonished because there are legit huge dinosaur footprints, like and it's just there's just out in the in the community. It's just it's this rural, rural part of central Texas that is like you know kind.
Of oh, do they have like like dinosaur statues there too?
They have the other big statues like off the highway kind of statues. But it is the country like it is like it is not urban, it is a wild place, but it's just very accessible. So let me just say, dinosaur footprints are super accessibly, just like I got a walk upon them.
Really, I'm looking at a picture from the Smithsonian magazine and it has the dinosaur footprints. And then to make sure you know that it's Texas, somebody just dropped a cowboy hat on top of them. For scale. Yeah yeah, scale scale, Yeah, how many cowboy hats tall? Are you? Jack? If we're doing the Texas measurement? That's right? Uh? What is something you think is overrated?
Oh? So this is an unpopular opinion I think, maybe not in this group, but overrated, especially right now, like all the pumpkin flavorings that we see going on. I think, Okay, I know this. When I was a kid, I ate an entire pumpkin pie one Thanksgiving and I barfed everywhere. And now I can't even think about a pumpkin flavor without like getting nauseous. So I can't. I can't handle it. So all the you know, like no offfense install the
pumpkins don't worry about it. And I love me some you know, apple cider or whatnot, but I just can't do the pumpkin flavor. I can't. I can't. I can't overrated.
That's wild. How like one bad experience can totally mess you up.
Like some folks have that with candy corn, right, Like, eat too much candy corn, you can never eat it again.
I didn't even eat too much. I just had one and I was like, this is disgusting and a joke, like.
No need to eat wax.
Yeah, the hatefulness, the anti candy corn. And I personally like candy corn and the little freeds because I like as much sugar. I like a sugar de treat and that that's just giving you pure sugar, like sometimes you bite into it and it just like dissolves into a pile of sugar in your mouth. But the hatefulness with which the candy corn people describe divisive.
Yeah, I just have a very strong opinion about what I want for Halloween, and I'm only looking at through that prism and I'm like, well, I hate this, so your back, you know, give me chocolate.
It's like the people who hand out fruit or something. You're like just don't open the door like mad.
You just fight me instead. Yeah, if you're gonna do that, oh a fucking apple. Okay, why just why don't just smack my mother? That's with me, and then we can just get we can just get there a lot sooner, sir. No, I do loose handfuls of loose candy corn in the kids bags every year. That's just yeah, just scattered and sweaty with your sweaty palms and all some stick. My hands are bright yellow and orange by the time, by
the after by the evening. No that, yeah, I never got candy corn in like that was not a problem for me, like that people were giving out a significant amount of candy corn. I always associate candy corn with, you know, just being places where candy wouldn't normally be. Yeah, I don't think it's an appropriate replacement for like Reese's peanut butter cups prinstance.
No, candy candy corn is the oh I hit the CVS right before I came to your birthday.
Yeah, candy like it has that energy, like it's like.
At the like like at the secretary's desk right like like in the main office at school.
Like, Yeah, I think My family just got like a bunch of candy corn and pumpkins one year, and I was just feasting on them and just have the pumpkins in particular.
They're filling. They're actually they're filling.
It is like the most sugar that you can get in like a single piece of.
Can wax, Like I keep saying, I'm like, it is made of wax.
I think, is it?
I think it's like a dinosaur. IX. Tell your kids, Jack, tell your kids. Yeah, that's like the thing.
I mean, yeah, the whenever you have a bad experience and then you end up, you know, having to vomit after, it does put you off. Like and I'm not trying to cast dispersions, but one time I had like a somebody from Firehouse Subs.
I can't even fire House Subs anymore, and now we can't have them as a sponsor. Sorry.
Here's another one, Jack, I'm about to completely fuck us over with ninety nine bananas. I drank a whole bottle in ninety nine bananas, brain liqueur and vomited. Ever, I can't even eat bananas anymore, Oh my god.
But a bottle though, yeah.
Yeah, somebody some people said there was a mistake starting with ninety nine bananas.
But I had to just the quantity also.
And I misunderstood what you were describing when you said you ate ninety nine bananas, that it made you sick. And I tried it myself and just ate ninety nine bana and it made me very sad. Yeah, not sick enough to not love bananas. I love them always and forever. Good for you, doctor Grant. What is something you think is underrated?
Okay? This is like, this is a little eye rolly, but this morning. Okay. So I have a girlfriend who has four kids. Shout out to Dana if she's listening to us, Wow, And she knows how to run a house like she is. She's also an attorney, Like she's so skilled, but she knows how to run a house. And I have two kids and I am constantly like, feel like I'm a hot mess. So I reached out to my friend and I was like, how do I not like lose control by the beginning of the day
every day? And she's like, you have to wake up at five am, Like you have to. That's the only way you If you wake up at five am, you'll have enough time for yourself imagine that, like you can take a shower and get dressed and be a person. You can like get a head start on the day. You can finish up any work you didn't finish the night before, and then you can be ready for the kid chaos, and then you can jump into your work day. And I was like girl five though like that, like
like we're old now. I don't know if I could do that anyway. So I've been putting this off. I've been procrastinating for weeks and this morning I set my alarm, I woke up at five. I only hit this news button one time. Yeah, and I got up. And So what I'm saying is underrated is sunrise? Right, like walking the sunrise. I'm kind of like this is underrated. This is so peaceful, you know, like I'm like real groggy
and not real happy. But as soon as like I get to experience sunrise and don and I like, wow, what a gift, what a blessing? You know. So I'm a new person. We'll see what happens tomorrow. But essentially, I did that once, and I did it once, and I'm here on your show to say, yeah, I.
Did sunrise once. Yeah that sounds nice. Yeah, it's just I will get on a kick of like I gotta wake up before these kids because otherwise, like they're just all over me. And I also have this thing I tell myself that they like have a sixth sense that when I'm awake, they will also wake up right right. That is a that is a rough couple hours to spend with a wide awake five year old. And what's going on? What's going on when you're doing out here? Dad?
What's going exactly? Just sitting there? Well, I'm trying to catch up on emails and I'm mad because the sun's not up. But yeah, it's it's just so it's so hard. Little kids are so hard.
Little kids are so hard because I mean, but there's something so stressful about like the moment you open your eyes, you have to be actively parenting. And so this is like getting ahead of that. I'm like, even if I have ten minutes before, I'm like actively parenting. Like, my little list is three and she is a complete maniac. Like, yes, she's the wildest kid. I never thought I'd have a kid so wilder than.
Some of the beasts, wilder than the beasts.
Okay, do you that? Yeah? Before like, how do you like, you know, are you ever afraid? I'm like, I can't wait to get into the wilderness.
I would rather face a den of bears, oh my god, and I'm holding one of their cubs.
Yeah, at least I know what to do. I've just come around to the idea of like, okay, so I am going to be more tired at the end of the weekend than at the end of the word. Yeah, and that's okay, That's how it was meant to be for for a time.
There's no t g I f that's not no.
And I think it took me a while, Like I was like, why are my week Why am I not like loving these weekends? And it's like and I do in spots, but I am very tired. I'm so exhausted. Yeah, so sweet. Have you tried the Vietnamese coffee yet? This is not going to help me in the long run. I wired.
I've been waiting to hear your report of how you had to chain yourself to a radiator in the basement because the caffeine is just hitting too hard.
From the view. Should do it on the Halloween night?
You can like sip it over the course of the day.
You.
I mean that is a good point, Like with one of those the Vietnamese coffee with the condensed mell sweet and.
Drink sip it.
You sip it over the whole day. Yeah, like a sustained fake Wow.
Okay, I do it in one go and then have an existential crisis for the next eight hours.
So sweat through your chair and then god like it's a damp in here. Oh my sweat. Yeah, amazing. All right, Well we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to get into the hard hitting science. Yeah, and so we'll be right back. And we're back. We are, And so we want to take this opportunity to check in with you, doctor Grenn, about how you, as a scientist, perceive some of the news that we cover on a regular basis, and that is
entering the zeitgeist on a regular basis. As the sign in my front yard will attest in this house, we believe in science. Okay, no, but we we do believe. We don't think COVID was caused by five gen Okay, speak for yourself, speak for yourself. We don't think vaccines killed every celebrity who has died since twenty nineteen, since before the pandemic.
Yeah for the pandemic.
Yeah, okay, that's good. That's good, but good solid take. So I guess you'll be shocked to know Miles is not a scientist. But I am also not a scientist. How do you think about communicating as a scientist to non scientists? Like how strategic are you when communicating with with those of us who may not I'm not going to confirm that I don't have a PhD in the science.
Well, look, I think getting I'm on Reddit are slash science, so I think I have a good.
Grasp on things.
But yes, how how would you in a world of contentious information? What's what's it like?
What do you do? How do you know? You know?
I gotta say I got to say that I work really hard at it and I am also gifted with a type of science that I do that is highly vis right, Like there are like chemists out there, people who study like micro organisms, that it's harder for them to show the science as they're doing it right or might not aways interesting to look at. But I study
large animals. I study large carnivores, bears and lions and mountain lions and wolves and the science behind setting them might be very technical or like you know, very mathy or very analytical, but kind of the basics of it are fun to look at and highly engaging. So I just I get that benefit just automatically that like people might tune in if I show like a hibernating bear, there's a huge science behind that. But the visual also
speaks volumes, so there's that. And then I also want to just shout out how identity plays a huge role into how I approach science communication. And I even think how I got into it because as a you know, almost at a young black woman, but I should create that as a as a millennial.
No, no, we're young, we're were you?
That used to mean young? As a millennial black woman, I always was a part of my community, right, Like my professional community was always so different from my personal, my my you know, social community. And because of that, I was always telling stories about what I was doing to my community, which is predominantly Black women my own age, right or maybe their brothers and their husbands or their
boyfriends or you know, my family. And so because there was such a disconnect between like ecologists and the people I spend my free time with without really trying, without being purposeful, I would talk a lot about what I do or where I had been, or why I was going these places, or the cool stuff that I found. And so I found that just naturally, storytelling or just science communication became a thing. And then of course I was also like growing up, I was such a nerd.
So imagine me in college. I went to college in Atlanta, and there's this wonderful black community, and I was the girl who was like obsessed with recycling, right, like environmental health, like picking up litter. I was the recycling coordinator from my dorm, right, And so I was also that person no matter what my identity was that was like knocking on people's dorm rooms and being like it's recycling day, Like bring me out of your bottles of ninety nine bananas or whatever.
No, I'm collecting them. I put them up on a pyramid out of them next to my gray Goose bottles, so they know I at one point could afford great.
I have class. So so I think that in so many of the ways that I've been involved in science, there's been also a practice to it that you can see, right, you can see someone collecting recycling, right, But there's like a science behind why that's important and how it works. And you can see someone like hiking in the wildernes
looking for a bear, and there's a science behind that. So, you know, I think that I might have been super challenged in other ways, but I've just had this amazing benefit of what I do or what I care about, and how visual it is and how a person can kind of symbolize a lot of that, and so I haven't struggled too much. You know, I get like I
do get the like comments on Facebook I got. I recently got an email through my website about someone like kind of threatening me to tell a story the right way, right. It was really interesting. There's a bird called the Atwater prairie chicken in central Texas. It's a highly endangered bird that has this terrible name because the word chicken is in it. But it's actually one of these like remarkable
birds in the sage grouse family. So it has these like yellow cheeks that puff up really big, and they do like one of those mating dances that you'd see in all the natural history shows. It's like an incredible bird. And this guy sent an email and he was like you better like if your shit h does a story on the atwater prairie chick, and you better do it right because so many other people have done it wrong.
You know, that's what those things are. I was like, you don't even know what we're doing, you know, you know, like like there's no context here. But he was like threatening me, like little old me about this prairie chicken, you know. And so it's just very interesting that I do get people who don't like my communication, you know. I do get people who find problems in it, usually for no good reason, sure, but I don't get a lot of deniers when it comes to what I'm communicating.
And and that is special.
To continue down this because I think this is it's relevant right because we're it's such an era to where it's people like I got to see it to believe it. For a lot of scientific stuff, like they're like I don't know how a vaccine works, and like and I remember like the like like was it the CDC's like here's a fucking video, man, Yeah, I'm not gonna watch that.
It's fucking nonsense. But like for things that are measurable, right, and like for people like if seeing is believing a lot of times, how I guess in that sense, how
are you seeing climate change? Because this is another thing that people are like it's cold today, therefore, like fine, shut up, but how are you seeing that sort of manifest in the physical world that of like these environments of the species that you study, because that's one thing, like obviously you're not like an atmospheric scientist, but you
very much do understand how climate is impacting animals. So in that sense, how are you seeing this play out like at that scale, because I'm sure that's indicative to like the sort of chain reaction that could happen with our environmental systems.
Right. And you know, it's really interesting that you bring that up because I kind of want to put this disclaimer out that climate change impacts wild animals tremendously in a way that's not okay, But I think that we need to solve the issues of climate change to help people. First.
You know, there's a lot of people who like kind of care more about animals than people, or they might be more convinced to care if there's an animal story rather than like, oh, people in this developing nation are suffering kind of story.
But to see how they're how emaciated their dogs are.
Exactly, no, exactly exactly. So I always want to point out, like I like I live and breathe wild animals every day. I've dedicated my life to saving them and keeping them on this planet. And I think people are more important and more urgently need saving, right because climate change is devastating entire communities of people right now. With that said, bears, right, bears are a perfect example of in studying bears for thirteen years and we're seeing how climate change is impacting
all different kinds of bears. So one of the things that we love about bears, as like Americans, is that they hibernate in the winter. It gets cold, and they go into their den and they hibernate and they sleep for you know, two, four or six months at a time. Well, they actually need all kinds of environmental cues to enter hibernation, right.
So it's not like they just like look at a calendar and say like, oh my gosh, it's November fifteenth, like yeah, time to go, right, It's like their ecosystem has to signal to them winter is coming, the temperature drops, maybe precipitation, increases, maybe because some snow right the trees stop producing food. The other animal species they eat, whether it's fish or deer, go away. Everyone is locking down and there's nothing to eat. That's when bears chemical balance
changes and hibernation starts. The actually their metabolism slows down, right, that's like body chemistry within them. But that's not going to work if it stays warm, right, if the trees keep producing, if the bunny rabbits keep hopping around, that that doesn't happen. So in some of the places that I've studied black bears in the western United States, there have been these winters recently where the temperature hasn't dropped and the snow hasn't fallen until like February, and so
the bears have remained active. But then when February comes and in one week it's you know, three months of snow, and everything shuts down. They're not hibernating already. Their bodies haven't gotten into that hibernation state. They might not be able to get there in time, and they may starve, or they may freeze to death, or they may die, or they may come into your garage and look for
a warm place and some food. So we're finding that climate change not only impacts like the bear's perception of what season it is and whether or not it's time to hibernate, but it could also increase conflicts with people, right because they kind of freak out. They're like, all I need is some food. It was available last week, it's not this week, So where can I find it? In your trash can? And that is also a problem.
It's got to be a heart just like on their natural like if they're not getting the rest that they had in the past, right like that, that doesn't that affect them?
You know?
Are they cranky? They are cranky. Bears are a lot like us. They just aren't. They're hungry. They have they're angry.
I just need three months of sleep in the water.
They're hangry, like as do I. There are bears in warm places where they never hibernate. So there are bears in Florida right like in the Everglades. It's swampy, it's warm, and they don't hibernate in the winter. But let me clarify that setting up a hibernation den is the most important and the most critical for surviving periods where there's no food, right, So like classic winter when there's no food and female bears give birth in hibernation, they need
to set up a hibernation den. They need to slow down their metabolism, they need to go into a hibernation state in order to give birth, because when they do, they give birth. Every January. Every bear that's ever lived in the history of no North American bears has given birth in January, every single one. It's the most. It's like my.
Favorite doctor, I'm gonna have to fact check that, check it now.
Like you have my you have my permission. They're born in January.
Let me call it Tim Ferris. Really quick, they realize how much better they'd get it, Hockey if they were born a little bit later.
Oh just slightly later.
Oh wow, you're really going to Malcolm Black, aren't you.
YEA. When I was doing my PhD research in the Lake Tahoe area on black bears, we would just give
every bear a January first birthday. It was more about it was less about when they were born and more about what year right, as opposed to like what day or what just January, And so the moms and mama bears like have to stay in their den for you know, sixteen twenty weeks, because they give birth to these one pound like hairless, kind of blind little cubs, right like they're they're they're little, are huge, right, Bears are bigger than people and they give birth to these tiny, little,
like fist sized cups.
Right.
I mean, I personally am jealous, like human beings should be able to do that, right, Like, we are smaller and we give birth to these enormous babies and it turns us apart. So bears they have these like nice little bursts. The babies just slip out right, and then they just nurse from their moms and the protection of this hibernation den for a couple of months, like two or three months, and then they emerge from the den altogether.
So the mama bear needs to prepare for hibernation by packing on the pounds, getting as fat as she possibly can in order to not eat, not drink, not urinate, not defecate, and justurt birth and nurse some babies for several months. And if the climate is not giving her that signal that it is time to do that, then she won't be ready.
And the like. If you play it out to the worst possible outcome.
It's that like the cycle gets disrupted, disrupted to the point that the the population just begin dwindling.
That's right, we just stop having births like successful berths.
Right.
So it's less about sometimes people are worried about like hunting them, right, like outright killing of them, and it's more about like females of reproductive age, like having successful berths over and over, and that's if we don't have that, then we don't have a future of the species.
You said something really interesting earlier that I wanted to touch back on. They don't And I was always curious about this. They don't pooper pee that whole time.
Yeah, isn't that crazy.
I always wondered how that. I don't know.
I remember as a kid hearing that. I'm like, they got to poop a little bit, probably.
They Okay, okay, So let me just say because scientists are always going to give a good like, it depends, right, So here's my scientist. It depends for accuracy. There haven't been a lot of studies done on hibernating bears. You can imagine why, right, Like it is very hard to study these animals.
Right, Yeah, it seems so cozy in there. I would be all about that. If you need somebody to go in there, you can all right, cool, I'll be back in a couple hours.
Like it says, it's like pretty dangerous and like they don't want to be bothered, and a lot of these things out very important. And then it's hard to study hibernation and captive bears like at the zoo because again, their food source doesn't go away in the wintertime, and so they often don't hibernate because they're like, I'm I'm cool, I'm chilling. I have like a heater and a you know, person who brings me food. So there aren't a lot
of studies on this. But what we found is that in this metabolic state that they enter, they recycle all of their waste and urine, so that's why they don't drink anything, and the liquid in their body is being recycled like over and over. It's fascinating and there's a lot that we can learn about human health and you know,
biomedicine from studying hibernating bears. In fact, there are some hypotheses that they're plasma changes, so we can detect the chemical changes down to the blood and the plasma level and their organs are actually preserved because the like just
from recycling molecular components of their plasma changes. I've had a researcher come to the field with me in Minnesota who was a cardiologist and was studying, you know, human hearts, and the idea was that they wanted to take a blood sample from a hibernating bear, which we were able to do, not without drama, but we were able to do it. And they wanted to see if the blood of a hibernating bear could preserve human organs because we need a way to make organ donors. Organs oh last longer.
When there's an organ donor and there's a recipient somewhere in a hospital waiting for a lung or a heart or a kidney, often the organ will die in transport because we don't have a good way to keep them alive. But apparently bear blood, hibernating bear blood might be the thing we need to like if we can replicate it to figure out how to preserve organs for double the amount of time so that more lives can be saved by organ donors.
That's incredible.
See this is in learning new stuff too. I'm gonna start going poop and pee in the recycling can.
Yeah right, I mean that's what I'm saying.
That is, I think we got what you recycle your way to live. I mean, you know, talking about the vaccine and you know the like, there is a lot of people who had some ideas about how you could recycle your own You're protect you from Jack. I think you just endorsed that, right, so we can just move along.
That's the joke stuff, Jack. Why don't you want to ask a serious question?
Yeah? Okay, so you wake up and you're a bear. I have an answer to this that I'll get first. But like, what's the first thing you're doing? Like, I personally feel like showing the other bears water slides would be high on. I feel like bears would love water slides. And I don't think i've seen a bear like I've seen them enjoy a pool. I've seen them enjoy hammocks, love a hammock, but like a water slide park, like me and my bear friends go ride on water slide park. Yeah,
that sounds pretty fun. What would what would your be other than that?
What would be the first I guess realistically? Yeah, sure, that I do as a bear. I mean, you know, they're just so motivated by hunger as am I. So I think the first thing I might do is like hit up like a buffet, you know, like like a good Like what's a good buffet? I mean, Sizzler is classic.
Yeah, just in my family pizza hut salad bar oh.
From the nineties. Yeah, pizza hut salad bar I thinks used to have one. Yeah, okay, yeah, you know, like a solid buffet I think would be what I do. But I might also, like, you know what's funny is that what people talk to me about bears all the time, right, And so often they'll bring up like Yogi Bear, right, the cartoon, and they'll talk about like picnic baskets and like going for a picnic and all that kind of stuff,
And I'm like, maybe that would be cute. Maybe if I woke up as a bear, I might be like, Hey, let's let's like let's actualize this. Let's like go for a picnic at a picnic table in a public park and blow people's minds. You know, let's just like screw with people and make this whole Yogi Bear story real. Yeah, and you know, do that play the part.
I like that. Sorry, we're just furiously crossing off the five Yogi bear questions. Yeah, might not that one. Those might come off as hack. Now that's another one.
Oh okay, So to that point right about you know, bears taking a pie off a window sill and things like this. So we constantly read stories or I'm constant seeing stories of like, you know, black bear shows up in a backyard, and you know, the species are increasing. The BBC over the summer was like.
Bears are returning to the Alps.
Here's what you need to do to avoid, you know, having a horrible encounter. We're in how to stay safe in bear territory. Some things feel and then other things I've read about how I think Louisiana may have a bear hunting season for the first time in a long time, and that like populations are rising to levels where before it seemed like it was pretty fraught with potential of like, you know, extinction. Are these stories like are they part
of a bigger picture? Are there people who are just looking at these bear communities being like trying to other the bears and make them feel like a threat, and how we have to control them or is it something that has to be hunted. That's one thing I'm seeing constantly, aside from also locally, especially in like La, people who live near the Angelus National Forest, increased anecdotes and like local news about bears like showing up.
And I'm curious, from your.
Perspective, is it like this is a good thing, like right, like like conservations working and we're able to like help repopulate or this is or it's fine lines?
Where are we got so.
Much to say about this? I'm gonna save the hunting stuff, okay, because I have a personal opinion about hunting and I have a professional opinion, and they're different.
Okay.
But to answer your first question, I just want here's a little anecdote. When I was in grad school, my advisor said to me he had been studying carnivores for his whole professional career, and he said to me, when it comes to carnivores, people think there's either too few or too many. They never think there's the right number. And man, oh man, does that ring true? Because when bears are on the endangered species list, like people are
like save the bears, We love bears. We got to get more bears, bring them back by any means necessary. And once we get like a good number of bears around and they're like, oh, look, my ancestors used to live here. I'm going to come back to this space all of a sudden, right like people are ringing the alarm, like bears are everywhere they've returned, Like what are you
to do? They're eating your puppies. So that's like my thing I would actually, I would I would call on everyone listening to really think about, like, like where do you fit in this? Like you do care about wild animals, and you care when there's not enough of them, but when there's like plenty or when they're doing well, and when you see them, does that mean there's too many
or does that mean you're uncomfortable? Because I think that's a huge, huge difference because like, on one hand, when it comes to black bears, like we've been doing conservation on them for several decades, it's been working pretty well, and black bear populations are rebounding. But there's not like so many black beers, right, I mean, considering how many there used to be before, like you know, the colonization of North America, there's a fraction of that number here today. Right,
there's no habitat for them. I mean, like you know, you look at New York City. New York City used to have bears before it was New York City, and now you're not going to find a bear anywhere you're there. So you know, like San Francisco, Los Angeles, grizzly bears like walked in those spaces. You're not going to find grizzly bears in California. So I have such a strong like pushback on people who are like there's so many, they're everywhere. They're in my backyard. So it's like, well,
it's their backyard. Actually, that's like they're in their backyard, like they're at their house. It's like they came first. Bears existed in North America from what we can tell from like the evolutionary timeline. They were here before people, before indigenous people, before any human beings walked on the continent of North America. As far as we know, black
bears were here first. And so this is their land and we need them right Like they helped to control the herbivore population, that helps control the vegetation community, and that gives us deeper roots in the soil that prevents erosion, and that's a really big issue. I mean, there's a
lot of reasons we need these predators. Okay, the next thing I'll say is that COVID, man oh Man, COVID actually plays into this because when the world shut down and everyone had to start working from home in twenty twenty, we started like noticing shit, Like people started like looking out their window and being like, oh my gosh, there's a coyote out there. Oh my gosh, have you seen how many raccoons are in the trash? Oh my gosh.
The combination of people being home and being able to notice what happens in and around their home, and also like not going out at night, right Like, we're not going to the club, We're not like going to places. We're just like watch. We're on bare watch. We can hear. We can notice people spending more time in wild places, right Like when we were able to travel getting COVID, it was safer to be in nature than other places.
And then technology, everyone has like a ring camera, right Like you used to have a doorbell and now you have a camera at your door. Everyone is ape and they have a camera at the front door, at the back door, all around the house. Door cameras, the doorbells have cameras, Like there's so much monitoring. There's also like I'm flashing my iPhone at y'all because when I first started studying bears, we didn't have cameras with phones or phones with you know what I'm trying to say, camera phones,
and now we do. So like the amount of bears that I can show that I'm working on today when I do field work is an order of magnitude bigger than before. So anyone who interacts with a bear in twenty twenty three can prove it, can show it, can put it on the internet, can spread this information. Whereas ten years ago, fifteen years ago, you just had the story to tell and it didn't get very far.
I didn't believe so existed. It was like Bigfoot.
To me, it was yoking bear and I was like, yeah, that's.
That's a cartoon, you fools. Sure enough, And then I got a cat, sure enough, was one of those real ones.
So it's like talking to There's like this combination of things, right, there's just a combination of things, like, yes, there are more bears, there's not very many more bears. Like it's going well it's going, well, there's more coyotes. There's not that many more coyotes. There's more coyotes caught on your nest camera. Right, That's what it is like you just didn't know that coyotes are mining their own business on your property, you know, five years ago, But now you know,
and now you have a feeling about it. And so there are so many scientists, a lot of folks especially I have to highlight like UC Berkeley has this incredible lab, the Shell Lab sh e ll, run by a black man who's a wonderful wildlife ecologist, and they primarily study like urban carnivores, and they are actually using data from next door you know that terrible like app of people on the sist.
Yeah, yeah, kind of data are they getting? Yeah, those people are selling stuff outside on their corner.
Oh, so like filter out all of the disc m minatory like posts on racism and anti homeless rhetoric, and you get people talking about animals and they're actually using data from next door to kind of measure like are people reporting seeing wildlife more often than before? And the answer is yes, So we have like a few more animals, but a lot more reporting, a lot more discussions, a lot of people sharing it and seeing it, and I think that's good. I think it normalizes wildlife being around.
But people got to like stop worrying that they're not going to be okay, cause it's like, when was the last time a coyote like killed somebody. We don't have that, Like that doesn't happen a bear. Yeah, Like it's not like you're okay, Like you're safe, you just might not feel comfortable.
Right, Yeah, it gets to your point about awareness, Like the more I see it, the more I'm like, I actually see more videos of bear encounters where people like successfully are just like who know what they're doing and like the bear leaves, And that's actually given me a little bit more being like, Okay, they're not out here to fucking eat our pies.
You know, they're just doing their thing.
And if you if you happen to have an encounter, there is a way to exit about being like, get your fucking.
Gun tall this bear, all this bear pie fear mongering is getting out of hand and it's unbearable.
Actually, okay, we need to wage your campaign.
Yeah, we need to take a quick break and then we're gonna come back and I want to ask about bear videos just generally, because I think you've mentioned it a couple of times, but bear videos rule. They probably make your job a little bit easier. So we're gonna talk. We'll be right back, and we're back. And yeah, so, I mean, cat videos is the thing. Everyone's like, the internet full of cat videos. Bear videos for me for
my money better? They rule? So first of all, do you like is it annoying to you as somebody with the superior animal to cat? Yeah? Like, are you like enough with the cat videos? Have you seen these Russian guys whose best friends are literally a bear?
I have to say, I have to say. I don't want to offend anybody who's listening. Oh boy, but like I get sent so many bear videos and get me alone so every day, like whether it's text.
Hold on, have you seen this one though? Check this one out? This is one where the bear catches bread yet have you seen this one? First? Sits back? Impressive and this is probably not advisable. Bears start waving from no, look cat. Have you seen that one? Okay? Okay, how about this other one? Uh?
Impressive?
Okay, that was impressive.
Okay, the ketch was impressive the catch was impressive. I'm never gonna champion like captive bears like facility, like I studied wild bears.
Okay, but that bear was behind the smallest fence I've ever seen. But it was like chicken wire. I was like, I'm sorry, is okay?
It's an extremely tame bear.
Yeah right, okay, I got it. Like I love watching bears enjoy a hammock. I particularly feel like that, like because they they are perfectly physically expressing the weird, unstable feeling of getting in a hammock for the first time, like that if you like had a genius comedic actor, like doing a routine with a hammock. This is kind of like, so this one is too little baby cubs doing it, says Woman Records. Rowdy Bear Cup. They're so rowdy.
They look half like, you know, they're perfectly inhabiting the weirdness of being on a hammock, and half they just look like if you gave my kids a little bit of sugar and let.
Them and they flipped over.
That's so real.
Yeah, no, you're right, that's so real. Like hammocks are super awkward and they're just having the weirdest time and it's like who really spends that much time in a hammock because they're like it's just so awkward and you never feel totally like like you know, stable.
But then sometimes they get in there and they're really they're soaking it. Yeah yeah, oh yeah.
Bears love to play, you know, especially the cubs. Like like baby animals have to play, but the cubs are so much like human beings, like we can just see it. And when a bear is good and full, it has time to play. And so we get a lot of those videos of like bears splashing around people's swimming pools or like like sitting you know, in their hot tubs, or like you know, playing on the hammock or going
on the swing. Because they're curious and they like to play, and that is one of the reasons that they show up in the other kind of video, right, like where they're trained. That's the reason that like we used to see bears in the circus, yeah, right all the time. It's like they aren't easily trained. They're really smart animals. They are very agile, right, Like their bodies work in weighs a lot like ours, and so they they have fun as long as they're I'm going to say it again.
As long as their belly is full honey, like, then they can have a good time. And I think that is just so endearing about that, right, like relatable, relatable.
Yeah, I want to I want to show you this other one how to. I haven't seen the.
Video, but as a really freaky title, it says, eighty five Bears destroy Patriots.
Oh my god, it's it's.
Just apparently a group watch a group of like eighty five bears. I don't know, have you seen?
Have you?
Do you know of these specific bears them, there's eighty five of them. Apparently one of them is called the Refrigerator and then one is called Walter Peyton.
Yeah a sports team, yes.
Oh ship, No, okay, this is the this is the super Bowl? Never mind, Okay, because I don't want to look stupid, but I just.
Want to point out I think it would be amazing one day to like work with athletes to see what in fact they know about the animal they're representing, because like mascots are always animals. It's like the timber wolves or the Eagles and the bears, right, But it's like, do these people like have any like knowledge of the animals. I should be a consultant. I should just go clearly, you don't.
Yeah, you can live in Chicago. The Bears the Cubs.
Do a little science communication because everyone comes to a football game for science, you know, perfect fit.
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, So I thought you were going to say it would be fun to one day set eighty five Bears loose against eighty five self described patriots, because that would be have similar results. Yeah, eighty five faral hogs. Yeah, gosh, do you think the Christmas episode of the Bear needed to be a full hour? Oh?
I haven't seen the Bear?
Oh okay, ok wa.
Wait, this is what I wanted to say before, when I was like, I don't want to offend anybody out there, because people send me bear stuff all day long, like mostly people that I'm friends with, like people my friends and family send me bear stuff constantly, Like for gifts. I'm always getting like bears as gifts, right, Like I want folks to know, like I care about bears so much, it is my life. But like after like five PM, like I care way less about what bears are doing.
Like it's like it's like a nine to five and like maybe a little bit on the weekends, Like I can't be obsessed with bears constantly, Like I like, I can't, It's not my identity.
So it sounds like we only have four and a half hours left to keep asking these questions.
Yeah, okay, how about how about this though, considering the fact that you know, bears occupy you'r nine to five, what's something scientifically because you do have you know, you're around other learned scientists, what's like a scientific breakthrough that has caught your attention from you know, like, what's what's got you excited when.
You're around these other scientists? Science in it up? Oh?
Oh my gosh, I have so many friends doing so much work. I okay, here's something. Here's something like just as a brief departure from bears, Like, wolves are doing some amazing stuff and I'm friends with some of the researchers who are studying the wolves that are coming into California.
So like the state of California hasn't had wolves in one hundred years or something like that, or maybe over one hundred years, and wolf conservation has been going on in Oregon, and naturally, like without anyone helping or tempting them, they are coming into California and some of them are traveling down south. We had a wolf two years ago that made it all all the way to La County, Wow, from Oregon. That went on as he had a he had a GPS collar on, and then it died like
around the central coast. And unfortunately, the reason we know he got so far was because he was hit by a car down at l hit by a car after that huge journey, But it looks like wolves are repopulating where they used to live in California on their own. Conservation has done like a little bit in Oregon, but
not a lot in California. And it's a powerful story to me because it's this like triumph and perseverance and like you know, a reclamation of like land right that was once theirs that they were literally killed off of. It's not like people removed them and took them somewhere else. They were shot to death and killed and they're coming back.
Figured the spot.
This is coming back, Yeah, And you know they're not going to be again. They're not going to be like in your backyard, but they're gonna be in these forests and in these mountains and in these landscapes where they used to once live and to me, that's just so special. So I'm following that closely. And there's some colleagues of mine here in the California kind of academic space that are doing that work and I'm a big fan.
That's cool. Do you have a favorite real bear? Like, is there are they to a five guy girl out there who you're just like every time I see their tracks or their leavings. Yeah, just like doing something cool with being a bear.
Yeah, well, like I'm basic, Like this is how I'm like basic. I don't know, are we allowed to curse on the show? Yeah, okay, so this is where I'm like a basic bear bitch right. It's like there's a bear called three ninety nine and she's the famous bear. Like if you know of individual bears in America, then you know who three ninety nine is. If you've never thought of this before, I suggest you look up Bear three ninety nine. She lives in the Tetons in Wyoming,
and she's super old. She's fabulous. She's super old, but she keeps having litters of cubs and people keep waiting for her to die, but she keeps showing up with babies and she's just like this incredible mom she's given birth to. She's a grizzly bear, I should say, so it is also extra special. Grizzly bears are an endangered species. So she's a grizzly bear. She's lived in Wyoming for many, many years. Three ninety nine. She just keeps having babies, honey, Like,
she is fertile and fabulous and super old. So she's my favorite. And if anyone has a favorite bear out there, it's probably three ninety nine.
That's so wild.
There's even an there's an ig account called grizzly Bear three nulous.
I am telling you, like fabulous, like get into three.
Ninety nine, okay, because yeah, out here everybody was all about Pete twenty two, you know what I mean, which is nan.
Like he was wonderful. May he rest in peace?
Yeah, so now we can shift our focus to three ninety nine.
Yeah, do we want.
To probably ask one of our probably like more serious questions before you sign off here?
Yeah? You do? You have one that you're trying to get in there? Okay, I figure while we have you here, doctor Ray, like, what's like the worst dump you've ever seen an animal? Do poop? Yeah?
Oh, I spend so much time with animal poop right right through it with my hands.
Like Doctor Grant and Jurassic Park see meant to be Mexically shout out for that synchronicity.
There you go, Although it was Laura Darren who really dug went up to the hilt, up to the arm, up to the shoulder like.
That glove on. See Laura Darren, if you're listening to this, I'm your neighbor. We live close to each other. Come find me. Let's talk.
Oh yeah, let's talk about sticking our whole arm into big put talk about how I will never not be rich from big little eyes.
So okay, So I just sent a whole bunch of bear, mountain, lion, and bobcat poop off to a laboratory to getting analyzed to see what these animals are eating, right, Because a really good way to figure out like what the bears and the lines I'm sending or eating is to like look at what's in their poop. And if I can't tell you, send it to a lab and they tell you,
like what's in it. So I'm actually like hoping to find some interesting information that, like my bears are eating like a lot of wild pigs or like deer or you know, like the big awesome stuff. So honestly, like I just A'm so desensitized to giant like piles of poop from the large animal. I also have a toddler at home, right, so it's like it's at work, it's at home, Like poop has become.
My life, okay, but like what's the worst I'm sorry to get you like.
Send it off to the lab with just like a nasty written next to it. Nasty.
So the thing about bears again, there are like a lot like people. Maybe this is TMI, but like depending on what bears eat, it just shows up in their poop, right, So like bear poop can look super different. It could be like it could be full of like berry seeds, right, like just like totally full of seeds. You could get a big pile and it's like red in color because it's like they ate all these berries and there's all
these seeds in it big pile. Or maybe a bear like went into a bee hive, right and like ate a whole bunch of honey and honeycomb, and then you're gonna get a big pile of poop that's like a darker color, and it has bees in it, like the actual insects are like dead in that they eat the bees and it like goes through their system and you'll get like little bee butts in the pile of poop.
And then sometimes bears eat a lot of fish, right, Like let's say there's like a river or stream and it's fall and the salmon are spawning, and that's when it's super gross because it's just like this black, tarry poop and it has this like fishy smell and it's more liquidy, right, Like you'd think because it was protein, it would be firmer, but it's yeah, because I eat like the fat, like they eat like the brains of the fish and like the cakes. So it's all like
lucy black. Like yeah, like gross, super gross.
Okay, so the worst kind of poop is a bear that's been eating a bunch of fish.
Yeah, all right, all right, yeah you're right, Jack. I was gonna say it was if they've been eating candy. Oh yeah, yeah, because that's kind of like me.
Yeah, and the poops you find that in woods, Like people sometimes are like, does a bear poop in the woods? And I know the answer to that, And I don't quietly have a panic attack because I don't know the answer to that, and everybody else seems to. But just like in your profession, if you had to get bear bears, do pooping them with.
Bears, poop wherever they are.
Okay, good, that's so good. Have confirmed. I mean, I've always known that. I've always known that, and I was not just being falsely confident. Now you can say that to your kids with confidence. Jack. Finally, uh, doctor ray Win Grant, thank you so much for joining us, for putting up with us. My pleasure, What a pleasure? Where where can people find you? Follow you here? You see you all that good stuff?
Oh follow me. I'll talk about bears amongst other things. I love a good social follow. So all my handles are the same at ray Win Grant. That's R A E W Y and N G R A n T. Check out my website. It's new or it will be new in like a week or two, so that's a raywind Grant dot com. And check out my podcast, Going Wild with Doctor ray Wind Grant. It's on PEP it's for PBS Nature. You can get it wherever you listen to podcasts, wherever, whatever app you use, that's where you
can find it. And check out my new television show Wild Kingdom, which is on NBC every Saturday and streaming on Peacock every single Sunday.
And I see I've heard of them. They're Yeah, they're one of the channel you know notable.
Yeah, they have SNL and they have my show.
So yeah, that's all you need. Yeah, And is there a work of media that you've been enjoying?
Oh, really love my podcast at my TV show. But I will just say, I mean, like if you want to know, like who I am after hours, I have been loving this show on Netflix. My husband and I watch it like together, and maybe this is how I'm just like a bear that I'm constantly hungry. But it's called American Barbecue Showdown, And like, you never knew a
show about meat like could be so entertaining. So like, my husband and I stay up late and we watch American Barbecue Showdown on Netflix, and that is a piece of media that I'm enjoying. So I guess I'm just just like a bear. I just can't get enough.
There you go, amazing, Well, thank you so much for joining us. Miles. Where can people find you? Follow you? Work a media you've been enjoying.
At Miles of Gray all over the place where you got them in the Angelist National Forest, looking for the grossest animal poops imaginable for my other Instagram at worst nature Poops. And then you can find us on our basketball podcast Miles and Jack got Mad Boosties, where just the preseason delivers. I don't know why people are getting mad that people look this great in preseason. We're seeing something really cool. There are people being like, calm down,
it's preseason. It's like, I don't care. This is so fun. Freaking giants out here wind milling on us all and then you can find me on our night on My ninety Day Fiance podcast for twenty Day Fiance and also The Good Thief that's a true crime one, but it doesn't have any killing. It's only about kidnapping millionaires and.
Giving them money to port people. Pretty cool.
Let's see tweet I like is from ronyverir at ron ue r O n n u. I underscore tweeted Twitter ads in twenty twenty one. Try drinking a refreshing pepsi when you see a movie. Smiley face Twitter ads in twenty twenty three. My name is Mike the Ratman, and I discovered.
The real pizza hut. It's so fucking true, so I just love to tone it out. Amazing tweet. I've been enjoying mert at Mert Century tweeted hitting a vape that's attached to a desk by one of those chains they have on the pens at the bank. You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore O'Brien. You can find us on Twitter at daily Zeikeist. We're at d daily Zeikeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook fan page on a website daily zeikeist dot com. We'll post our episodes
and our footnotes. We're going link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode, as well as a song that we think you might enjoy. Miles, is there a song that you think the people might enjoy? I think you're gonna like this one.
This is from a UK rapper in it names bliss N A M E, S B L I S s uh and a really cool I just first of all, I got attracted to. The track is called Iniesta Flow, obviously a reference to the great Spanish footballer on DRIs Iniesta, but the lyrics.
Are great and sometimes hearing rap in that beautiful UK accent.
This is like it's like an entirely new genre, but the beat on it is really dope too. So for you know, geriatric millennials of a certain age, you're gonna.
Like this one. It's called any Stuff Through Amazing. Well, we will link off to that in the footnotes. The Daily is the production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast. Wherever you listen to your favorite shows, that's gonna do it for us this morning. We're back this afternoon to tell you what's trending and we will talk to you all then bit by bit