Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of the Weekly Zeitgeist.
Uh.
These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza.
Uh yeah.
So, without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist.
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. M m 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.
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 into a real expert.
Yeah, let's spend 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 exactly. This is on and it's going to be on the record, right right, are high stays 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's on NBC
streaming on Peacock. And I was with the crew and we were in a place I mean, I 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 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 let me 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 all.
These dinosaur body like 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 a cool Wikipedia oil.
Why does Wikipedia says they I think it's like they might be or I might be wrong, but I believe it's like if it's plans, it's from those like ancient oceans, right that like right like not like not like you know 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.
Okay, so 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.
Looking them, I always said, I said, yeah, what is that even 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 that atmosphere. But it's 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 will have your come up in dinosaurs. You will help.
Destroy our remain relevant.
Remain 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?
Instead 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 the dinosaur footprints are super accessibly just like kind of 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 with yeah yeah, scale, Yeah, how many cowboy hats tall? Are you? Jack? If we're doing the Texas measurement? Joe, what's something you think is over it?
Las Vegas? A lot of friends who Las Vegas is a destination. First time I went, I was like, I cannot believe how much of a scam this openly is, Like like they're really not hiding it, you know, they're they're selling the high roller lifestyle to people who can't afford it, and those people are hopping it up like dogs, And it's really it almost doesn't even feel like deception because it's it's all there. You could all the information
is there. You will go and you will lose a ton of money with the promise, with a very American promise, that you could get rich buying into the system that is built specifically to take everything you have.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I love it. I love it. Luck be a lady. Hey, you're to win with that attitude, Joey, Let me tell you something. Let me tell you gotta lose three hundred to make three hundred.
You know what I mean, to lose money to make money, you gotta lose your two hundred. You never were in the game, pal, you gotta lose your children's entire college fund to make children's college.
At a blackjack table and he already and I'm like, yeah, dude, I'm broke. They're like, you gotta lose, like you know, you gotta look come out three hundred to start winning. I'm like that sounds a fucking wild, dude, Like I was like reckless even cashing in like a hundred bucks here, right, No, totally.
And I'm also like really astounded by how not I mean, like we were affecting that kind of rat packing voice. But you go into a casino and there's there's nothing classy about it. It's just like a bunch of flashing lights. Everything is like a giant iPhone, you know. It's yeah, you.
Know an that take your money?
Yeah.
Yeah, he's like huge screens where at least I don't know, maybe at one point there was a charm and you can still like pull a lever if you want, but most.
Of it is digital.
Yeah, just just gaudy and not like you kind of want. I mean, I would want like, oh, let's get a little bit of a little bit of velvet, a little this, and maybe you can get that some places, but for the most part, it's all just really yellow and gross.
Yeah, it's so funny, Like I have such a I used to go there a lot when I was younger, you know, because I was just kind of into like, you know, it was a lot of my friends are just into that, like let's go going Vegas man, right, And then I hadn't gone for a few years, and then Jack and I recently went over the summer to go see like the NBA Summer League, and it was like surreal, where like I was feeling like I was watching like an old part of myself die while I
was there, and also seeing like a new future from us. Like I was like, wait, these smells. Like I used to be blacked out in these lobbies, like not knowing what was going on, and now I'm like, uh, it feels a little different. I just is it an.
Underage drinking destination like when you lived three hours from it? Cause like I when I was in high school, I drove to from Boston to Montreal.
To to get fucked up. Wow. Yeah, Nah, I mean, that's how my think problem was. It was just like to Joe's point, like it was like I was on that mirage ship where I'm like, let's go to Vegas. Now i only have circus circus money, so like to stay there. So like for sure the place I'm gonna stay is so fucked up that I'm just gonna be so fucked up that i don't have to go back to that room until like four in the morning. Right.
And But at the same time, like I was always like feeling myself when I was there because I was putting so much like weight into like partying in Vegas and stuff. Got it? Yeah, yeah, Hey, but you can drive a Lambo out there and shoot a fucking machine gun. So yeah, you know, so that's all that matters.
Got me right back, That's all I want to do when I wake up in the morning, I wake up quaking with just a desire to shoot a machine gun out of the window of a Lambo and drive by.
Yeah, Gabe, what's something you think is underrated?
All right, I'm very passionate about this because sushi is expensive everywhere. There's a twenty four hour grocery store next to my apartment that for like six bucks, you can get a sushi roll and it is just powering my whole life. Yeah, So grocery store sushi when it's good under.
Yeah yeah yeah, if you can get it. Like there's a there's a local market that I'm surprised sells sushi, but it seems like they have a business where like this sushi company owns the refrigerator case that they're just asking like their market to have in there. So I found out when they come drop the ship, and so the times I've gone for the drop and I'm like, oh, yeah, this is fucking this is great for fucking seven bucks. Absolutely,
I knew it was good. When they started to use that health food store as a as like a sham restaurant on grub Hub where you buy sushi and you don't know, I'm like, oh, they think they're a whole restaurant.
Hell yeah, I love I love outing a good ghost restaurant.
That's always yeah favorite. Yeah.
Remember during the pandemic, it was Chuck E Cheese.
They changed the name.
They were like raise famous and it was just a Chuck E Cheese up and the Chris is.
Hot Chicken, and you just it's like this is Denny's. Yeah, yeah, what the fuck. Yeah, there was a few different ones that everyone yeah, everyone just was like Squally's that's what.
Yes, well done, well squaleh yeah, man, that's fu. But the other thing though, too, if you got an Asian market nearby, or like someone has like a good fishmonger, you could save money buying sashimi grade fish and just buy your own microwave rice and put a little bit of sushi, Like, buy yourself some sushi seasoning vinegar for your rice, do the microwave pack, and you could buy a fucking big ass piece of fresh salmon for fucking like six seven bucks by my house and I'm my bro, slice this up.
Shit fuckish. I love that TikTok guy, the sushi guy. He goes to Costco and buys a big piece of salmon and just turns it into sushi.
Oh, breaks it down. Okay, yeah, you gotta do that. I'd be afraid of the parasite. Yeah, he explains all that. He explains that they're in there. You'll be good.
You just take pills for that. They eat the pills your life. Just take iodine. You'll be fine. You'll be fine. You'll be fine, you'll be fine. All right, We're gonna take a break. Let's come back and we'll talk about the life and times of Donald Trump after this. 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, 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 you know?
You know?
I got to 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 visual, 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 mighty 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 studying 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, right,
So there's that. And then I also wanted 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, I almost had a young black woman, but I should create that as a as a millennial, 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'd been, or why I was going to 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 was 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 form my dorm, right, and so I was also that person no matter what my identity was. That is like knocking on people's dorm rooms and being like it's recycling day, like bringing all of your bottles of ninety nine bananas or whatever.
No, I'm collecting them. I put them up on my a pyramid out next to my gray Goose bottles, so they know I at one point could afford I have class.
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 wilderness 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 on 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 show does a story on the Atwater prairie chicken, 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, 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 too 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 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, I don't have 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 convinced to care if there's an animal story rather than like, oh, people in this developing nation are suffering kind of story.
But you 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 been 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
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 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. 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 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 got 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 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 need three months of sleep in the world.
They're angry like as do I. Yeah, 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 down. 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 checked it now, like you have 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.
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, and 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. Bears are huge, right, Bears are bigger than people and they give birth to these tiny, little like fist sized cups.
Right wow.
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 births. 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 bearon 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 just urt 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 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, 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.
Yeah, it seems so cozy in there. I would be all about that. If you need somebody to go in there.
All right, cool, I'll be back in a couple hours.
Yeah, Like it says it's like pretty dangerous and like they don't want to be bothered, and a lot of these things are 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,
a 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 there 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 like 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 want 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.
Right. See, this has been learning new stuff too. I'm going to 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.
I mean, you know, talking about the vaccine and you know the like, there's a lot of people who had some ideas about how you could recycle your own you're help protect you from Jack. I think you just endorsed that, right, so we can just move along.
Let's get past the joke stuff. 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 my 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 water slide park, Like me and my bear friends go right on water slide park.
Yeah, that sounds pretty fun. What would what would yours be? Other than that obvious? 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?
Yea based in my family pizza hut salad bar oh.
From the nineties. Yeah, pizza hut salad bar I think Tuesdays used to have one. Yeah, okay, machine, 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 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, but 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 are rising to levels where before it seemed like it was pretty rought 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 it's it's fine lines. Where are we at the bear?
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 going to do? They're eating your puppies. So that's like my thing. I would actually I would call on everyone listening to really think about, 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 bears, 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 near 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,
cause 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, and 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 be like, oh my gosh, there's a coyote out there. Oh my gosh, have you seen how many wrecks boons 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 where just like we're
on bear watch, we can hear. We can notice people spending more time in wild places, right like when we were able to travel again in 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 came, 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 camera. 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 and 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, feels 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 the coyotes are finding 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 L 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 people on therasist.
Yeah, yeah, data are they getting? Yeah, how those people are selling stuff outside on their corner, So like filter.
Out all of the discriminatory 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 animal 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 because it's like when was the last time a coyote like killed somebody? We don't have that, Like that doesn't happen a bearing.
My baby, you know.
Yeah, Like it's not like you're okay, like you're safe. You just might not feel comfortable.
Right, Yeah. I mean 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 of 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.
I actually, okay, we need to wage your campaign.
Yeah, we need to take a quick break, and then we're going to 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 going to talk.
We'll be right back, and we're back, And so I guess. October sixteenth, two days ago, was the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Walt Disney Company.
Yeah we did it. Hell yeah, time past.
Speaking of racist caricatures. So you know, it is good to see that there are people pushing back on this monoculture of Disney. Oh wait, sorry, it's people who are like it should be more racist.
Oh right right.
Daily Wire co CEO Jeremy Boring. Yes, the man behind this terrible entertainment platform literally named Boring, kicked off a video announcing his new company called bent Key, with a rant about how Disney is trying to indoctrinate our kids, adding that while Disney still uses Walt's name, he's like on a nickname basis with Walt Disney, they have all been abandoned his legacy, presumably meaning his legacy of racism and anti semitism.
But they come back. Yeah.
So they go on to announce a new app which will feature license program and also original children's shows, including Chip Chin Chip Chilla'.
That's a mouthful. Yeah, so it's just chip Chilla.
It's about a it's just a blue rip off with chinchillas instead of dogs.
Fucking terrible blue ripoff. Just a terrible blue rip off. Featuring the voice of Rob Schneider.
Yes, you gotta have the canceled, the voice of the canceled to power this kind of creative endeavor and like, it's wild when you look at this. The pictures of chip Chilla are So it's just like so blatant that it's a rip off with Blue. Don't they understand how kids' minds work. As a kid, I rejected anything that I suspected of being not the genuine article, you know what
I mean. If it's like you're too good for gobots? Yeah, absolutely, Like you know if your my mom be like, oh, we got that at home, and I'm like, we don't have that at home. It's in the store. The thing you have at home is like this other version, or it's like there's this other toy that's like the thing I like, it's like, it's not the thing. So I can't imagine there'd be kids who are like seeing this
and they're like I want Blue. Ye, Like right, unless you're able to start them off on this early, you know, don't you think the.
Kids will inherently respond well to chip Chilla's inherently more heteronormative household roles. Where Rob Schneider his father character, is a distinctly alpha father named chum Chump.
Chip Chilla is also homeschooled because his family doesn't trust the school system.
I'm sure when are those ones gonna come out to like where it's like the teacher at school said I needed to get a shot to keep the other kids safe, right inevitably, Right.
That's actually I'm kind of okay. So, like I write a lot of I write for kids TV a lot. Yeah, and I've seen this new story. I'm obsessed with it. Like me thinks like, oh yeah, this is insane, But part of me is also thinking, like what sort of crazy bullshit could I pitch to them to get them to buy, Like if I like teenage mutant ninja firearms, or instead of turning into turtles, they turn into guns, yeah, right, like sol sold or just like Garfield, but instead of
hating Mondays, he hates being woke. He's always that ban or like instead Thomas the tank engine, it's just like Thomas the tank cannon or something pro military.
Would they be like Thomas Thomas the crowd dispersement vehicle. Oh no, the people are complaining. Go Thomas is the.
Trend that broke up that union protest with like machine guns on the back.
Yeah, Or he's the thing that like yeah, crashed in like East Palestine, that horrible trained derailment. It's like they're just they're they're they're mischaracterizing me.
Wait, can I put you all my dream Daily Wire project please?
Okay.
So it's about a vampire who, instead of drinking your blood with fangs, he injects vaccines into you with than His name is his get this, His name is Vacula Vcula. I think that it stars Scott BeO, canceled actor Scott bo is.
Like a cop who got canceled just for doing what's right or something like that exactly.
I think that it's revealed halfway through the Vacula is Hunter Biden, and also Joe Biden's a villain too.
Yes, of course.
And there's definitely gonna be a line of dialogue in this movie where the Scott bo penciled cop is holding a shotgun and a scientist is telling him, like, you just got to trust the science on this, h Why don't you just like look at our research and appreciate it. And then Scott Bayo will say, I do my own research and then caca shotgun.
Yes? Who hell? Yeah? Now is there room for Dean Kine and Kevin Sorbo in this?
Oh?
Yeah, yeah, Look, there's got to be a lot of uh, there's gonna be a lot of heroes in this movie. Yeah, yeah, James Woods Daily Wire. If you're listening to this, hit me up. I think we could have you know, Rob Schneider could play Vacula or like who's that former SNL guy who's like who was goat Boy? Yeah, Jim Brewer, I'd be great, he.
Would be He's a mess, dude. Have you seen his stand up recently?
Oh?
It's insane. It's fucking it's morbidly bad. Like it's like not even it's bad to a point where you're like if that movie The Wrestler, we're about a stand up, Like it's like we're seeing that version, like Mickey Rourke is just like a down and out. It's just it's so that's so distressing.
But what's okay. So what's wild about it is the stand up. The jokes are bad, but he's performing largely in front of churches and like very right wing friendly audiences, and if you if you listen to the audience, it's like they're watching like Eddie Murphy's raw, Like it's just they're like eating it up right.
It's because like he does like this thing where he'll be like and then you got like these democrats are Democrats. Yeah, yeah, we like he just's like just over the top, like just like Garl sounds and stuff.
You're like exactly, Yeah, yeah, I think there's something where it's just like the Democrats sound like parakeets.
They're always like trust the science booker.
Yeah, that's his, that's his closer, right, Thank you so much.
I'm Jim Bury.
All right, you could hear me on the coming upside of chip Chilla playing a racist cop, yeah.
Who actually saves the day it turns out. Yeah, it's got some interesting things to say.
Racist cop who has some some real truths or whatever.
But they're also doing like live action right like on this bench. Oh yeah, platform have.
We got one kid Explore a show called Kid Explorer that appears to be like a recruitment tool for the US military.
They all, they all appear to be a room tool for the US military.
Yeah right, yeah. Even chip Chilla is about being like, hey, and if you're too weak bodied, we can still use you in like a drone operating trailer. Who knows, you know.
There's also apparently other Daily Wire movies they released. They came up with a movie called Terror on the Prairie in two and part of me is like, party wants to watch the trailer, and then another part of me is like, oh, I know that's going to be racist.
Advanced error on the Prairie sounds like it could be something that's poignant, right, but it's just gonna go the other way. Oh yeah, it it did go the other way.
Also, in terms of box office, it made a total of eight hundred and four dollars at the bottom.
I'm just saying that they like fucking hurt my throat last.
I'm sorry, I'm just saying if they would green light Vacula, that would make twice that.
Oh yeah, that would kill.
By the way, it does reflect our Like we've talked before about something in my childhood made me think that Dracula had hollow fangs that sucked the blood through the fangs.
Oh yeah, yeah yeah, like a like yeah, like a reverse Cobra or something.
Yeah.
Yeah, And people, I don't think that was an assumption made by everyone, but no, we kind of mentioned it that it proves it.
Yeah. Yeah, we're team hollow. We've been hollow for We're team hollow fangs. Yeah, I'm team hollow. I'm for that, all right? Cool? Like yeah, update the update. The reesis commercial. So there's like two holes, you know what. Yeah, so you can see, oh there were I think I think Reces is team Halo Fang.
Yeah, I think, okay, but I'm just saying, what if instead of having Holo fangs, he had fangs that had little syringes that came out absolutely hard selling vacula.
Those fangs go two ways?
Yeah?
Yeah, oh, I think we're saying the logic of the Reces being team Hollo Fang wasn't because of the indents, but because what the indents represented was yeah, the peanut butter. Yeah yeah, so put but I was talking about, like how you represent it doesn't matter because I don't understand.
Okay, so I guess okay, so my my, so my bump there is that I'm also very much team Hollow Fang. But like blood is a liquid, I feel like if you drank peanut butter, like you drank blood, you'd like choke, right.
Total mess. Yeah oh yeah, it would just clog up your fangs. Yeah, clog up your fangs. Yeah. The dentist would be like, oh man, you're doing the peanut butter thing again. I told you it's hard to get out.
Also, I feel like that would be like a real pain to clean inside your fangs.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, said nobody said this Dracula stuff was going to be easy. Man, it's yere right, you're you've been turned by him, Like what the fuck?
Man? Like the maintenance and ship on the fangs, you never told me. It's like, hey man, no, yeah.
I gotta buy Yeah it was, yeah, I got so that sounds as you're sadly cleaning your fangs with pipe cleaners, my.
Little pipe cleaners going in the points of your fangs.
This this like a New Explorer though. These images from the New Explorer show are fucking like you can already tell, right, Like there's a kid in like a fucking bomber jacket in front of like a dream from Yeah man, this is how we this is how we make it rain. And then another one that seems like a Revolutionary War soldier but with a Thompson gun. I don't know, I don't know. I don't know what they're going to say here. I don't know what kind of cool stuff they're going to be saying.
This facial expression suggests he's in the middle of murdering someone of the Revolutionary War Kid is like this or.
Yeah, it has the feeling of like a nineties toy commercial. Yes, yeah, like the Red Coats, Yeah, like that kind of shit. Yeah.
They're also on that note. They're making a Ryle snow White movie. Where get this snow Whites played by a white woman. Yes, well that's a big change. Yeah, yeah it is.
They've been really upset about the snow Like. It seems like the snow white thing is the whole impetus behind this, right, just they've been so mad that the star of Disney's Actual Snow White, which they might have to change the title to Disney's Actual snow White. Rachel Ziggler had the goal to call the original movie dated. It came out
in nineteen thirty seven. I actually rewatched it for the Bechdel cast, And it's not just it is like the most profoundly sexist, Like if you do a close reading of the movie, like what it's saying about snow White.
It's like, if you kiss a lady while she's a sleep, she has to love you.
Yes, and if she only like every time she does something she is putting herself in dates, she's just like dizzily wandering into life threatening situations. The entire movie, she like runs away from the hunter and like runs into the woods and passes out and is like surrounded by a bunch of wild animals and the only reason the wild animals don't like eat her is because she's like really pretty when she's asleep. And then she also almost gets murdered. She like break breaks into the seven Dwarfs
home and like falls asleep in their bed. They almost murder with.
A pick axe. She rolls over it in her sleep.
And they're like, ah, she's so pretty. And then like when she eats a poisoned apple, like that is clearly put like the person giving it.
To her is given snake exactly.
And then the only thing that saves her there is again when she's asleep, Like she has to be asleep for good things to happen, be beautiful and passive to succeed. Be beautiful and passed out is literally the message of the It's fucked.
So what do you think the message will be with this one? Huh?
Probably the same, Like I don't know, like I don't know if they could even do it, but I'm sure they could, Like it feels like they'll find it.
Updating it for modern times. Yeah, are you? Yeah?
Yeah, the Daily Wire will find a way, Yeah, as they always do.
Yeah.
The teaser trailer suggests the movie has not been shot yet, but does reveal that they cast a white actress of snow white and also have access to stock footage of a national park. Okay, okay, but yeah, but yeah, there are movies up to this point have averaged two hundred and thirty six thousand dollars at the worldwide box office.
Oh and this is These are movies produced by Ben Shapiro, person who like went to see Barbie on opening day and like did created like seven hours of content just railing about like.
How destroys Barbie for three hours or whatever that videos called.
Yeah, and it tanked the box office for Barbie, but nobody wants to see it after.
Yeah, yeah, he really got his way. So that's really funny.
Like how heavily the Go Woke, Go Broke Brigade was like really attacking the Barbie movie only for it to make one one to make one point five billion dollars of profit, like.
Just the most successful movie. Yeah, yeah, yep, go broke. Yeah, too bad, they went broke. Uh huh uh huh. Ours, that's why you really want to be shooting for around two hundred and thirty k Yeah that's the real or like eight hundred dollars five weeks. Yeah.
Yeah, it's like, Okay, it made two hundred billion dollars, but did it make eight hundred dollars? Check meate whoa whoa brigade.
And they have been.
Defending the movie's performance, being like we didn't even like put it out in wide release, like they wouldn't have if they have, like the choice that they made.
Actually, we don't even want people to see this movie. That's like the whole point, dude, And that's why you don't get it. That's why you're like a part of the mainstream like fucking echo chamber broke idea, but no legit.
Like that's something that I'm kind of thinking about with like all of this stuff is like specifically Daily Wire stuff is like is this just Ben Shapiro trying to steal money from VC funders like because oh yeah, yeah, you know it's like this feels like a tax scheme.
Yeah totally. Man, damn took huge losses on all those movies. Yeah, yeah, like what are the budgets because that's what you're really going to see. The magic in the in the accounting happen.
All Right, that's gonna do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist. Please like and review the show if you like, The show means the world to Miles. He he needs your validation.
Folks.
I hope you're having a great week end and I will talk to you Monday. Bye.