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Animal Migration: Where's that gnu gnoing? · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
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  Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, right,
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  Speaker 1: and this is Stuff you Should Know the podcast edition
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  Speaker 1: of the podcast. But we should change the name of
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  Speaker 1: the show to like stuff you might want to know
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  Speaker 1: if you're you know, if you care about being an
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  Speaker 1: enlightened individual. We need a colon in there. We've been
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  Speaker 1: using colons alt l. Let's not change the name. We
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  Speaker 1: should change the name to just try and find a pulse.
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  Speaker 1: That's good, Thank you, Chuck. Yes, have you ever seen
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  Speaker 1: him animal migrate? I see my dogs migrating to the
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  Speaker 1: food bowl at five o'clock every day. Yeah, I guess
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  Speaker 1: that is kind of migration. Yeah. Actually I see them
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  Speaker 1: migrate to me at like four thirty and starts staring
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  Speaker 1: at me like you know, you gotta Feti's right. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: we talked about that and can dogs perceived time? That's right? Um,
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  Speaker 1: I have seen animals migrate on the YouTube's Oh it's gorgeous.
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  Speaker 1: It is, I mean, it's unbelievable. It is, especially depending
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  Speaker 1: like the monarch butterflies. To everyone's like, that's the money migration,
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  Speaker 1: not to me. Have you seen the bats, the fruit
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  Speaker 1: bats in Zambia. That's pretty amazing. It is amazing and
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  Speaker 1: like horrific. If you don't like bats, I like the
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  Speaker 1: mammalion ones, like the elk, thousands and thousands of them
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  Speaker 1: steaming across the tundra. Uh. And the the yeah, caribou,
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  Speaker 1: that's another one. Um. Will the beasts also called gnoos
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  Speaker 1: no canoes is good gnoos? Gary, Did you know that?
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  Speaker 1: I didn't know that the will the beast a k a.
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  Speaker 1: The canoo is also known for its huge migration, and
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  Speaker 1: that doesn't always go very well. Did you know that?
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  Speaker 1: What with? Uh? What happened in a river in Kenya
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  Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven ten thousand, Will the Beasts
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  Speaker 1: drowned at this one spot in this river because one
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  Speaker 1: of them went in and got swept away, and the
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  Speaker 1: rest of whom were like, oh, we went in, Well,
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  Speaker 1: I guess we all just crossed and that's really sad. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: One person of the population of the African will the
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  Speaker 1: best population, died in that river that day. Quite a
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  Speaker 1: mess too, I imagine. Yeah, I mean that would probably
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  Speaker 1: damn up the river. I would think, I would think.
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  Speaker 1: So ten thousand canoes will the beasts? I mean they're
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  Speaker 1: about four and a half feet tall at the shoulder.
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  Speaker 1: They're big, um and yeah, ten thousand of them, that's
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  Speaker 1: a lot of biomass. It's like when a whale gets beached.
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  Speaker 1: Do you remember the one in Oregon in the seventies
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  Speaker 1: that they blew up with kin of mine? Yeah, so
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  Speaker 1: that's migration, Chuck, you got anything else, listener, mail it
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  Speaker 1: just blacked out, Josh. Migration if we should define it
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  Speaker 1: for our foreign friends, exactly. It is a large scale
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  Speaker 1: movement of an animal species, and typically it's because of
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  Speaker 1: a few things like whether or mating, or food trying
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  Speaker 1: to find resources. Yeah, so when you said that you
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  Speaker 1: see your dogs migrate to their food bowl every day,
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  Speaker 1: that does technically count its migration because most of the
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  Speaker 1: reason things migrates food, and then the other ones are
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  Speaker 1: generally secondary. Josh, what are the three types of migration?
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  Speaker 1: There is irreversive migration, eruptive migration. I just made up
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  Speaker 1: a word. Irreversive and not eruptive is in the volcano.
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  Speaker 1: But I are are compeat. That's right, um, And that
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  Speaker 1: doesn't follow a pattern. Uh. Usually it kind of the
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  Speaker 1: basically the species is making it up as it goes along. Um.
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  Speaker 1: The wilder beasts are known for eruptive uh migration because
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  Speaker 1: they follow water and wherever the water is, they're going
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  Speaker 1: to it and apparently drowning in. And they said to
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  Speaker 1: in this article, which is crazy that they will. Their
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  Speaker 1: migration patterns can be based on like thunderclouds. Well, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: they hear thunder, go to the thunder because that's where
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  Speaker 1: the rain is, meaning that's where the water is. It's
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  Speaker 1: just so cool. How smart the stupid looking cannon is
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  Speaker 1: means didn't carry you to wear a turtleneck and a jacket.
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  Speaker 1: I think it was a dickey okay, uh josh. Another
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  Speaker 1: one is complete and partial migration. Um. Obviously, complete is
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  Speaker 1: when the entire species migrates. Um. Partial usually happens when
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  Speaker 1: you have such a range in your species that some
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  Speaker 1: of you live where it's nice and warm you don't
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  Speaker 1: have to go anywhere, and some of you live where
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  Speaker 1: it's cold. And the barn owl is a good example
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  Speaker 1: of that one. Partial migration is basically just species showing
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  Speaker 1: off how much range. It has like some of us
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  Speaker 1: don't even need to migrate exactly. There's also um altitude
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  Speaker 1: altitudinal migration, where you're a billy goat up in the
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  Speaker 1: Alps and it starts to snow and get a little
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  Speaker 1: cold for you, so you move a little further down
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  Speaker 1: the mountain. Yeah, being banged boom migration done. And the
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  Speaker 1: final one, actually I think I said three, this is
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  Speaker 1: more like five. Uh, is the saddest one of all,
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  Speaker 1: and that's removal migration. And that is when wherever you're living,
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  Speaker 1: for one reason or another, whether it's deforestation or drain
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  Speaker 1: swampland swampland or climate, is just not the place to
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  Speaker 1: live anymore, and you just pack your bags as a
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  Speaker 1: species and leave, never to come back. It is the
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  Speaker 1: saddest migration. I think. So um, so chuck. That's the
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  Speaker 1: types of migration, the three slash five types three to
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  Speaker 1: five yeah. Um. And what we're finding is from the outside,
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  Speaker 1: it looks like people who studied migration, before we studied migration,
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  Speaker 1: it was just like I like, the animals are moving again. Um.
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  Speaker 1: But people have given it a lot more um evaluation
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  Speaker 1: over the last decades century. Year two right, um and
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  Speaker 1: they're finding that there's pretty much well, like we said, food, breeding,
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  Speaker 1: in mating, and um climate climate, those are the reasons
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  Speaker 1: and they all equal survival. Yes, that's the whole point, right,
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  Speaker 1: you said that um partial migration is based on range. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: what animals need is food. You gotta have food to survive,
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  Speaker 1: and for the most part, that's why animals migrate is
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  Speaker 1: for food. And what's interesting too, it's it's not always
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  Speaker 1: a migration to like, oh, let's go find because there's
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  Speaker 1: tons of food over here. Sometimes they're smart enough to
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  Speaker 1: know we'll deplete all the food here if we don't
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  Speaker 1: move around some and we want to survive as a species,
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  Speaker 1: so we're not going to take all the food here.
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  Speaker 1: We're gonna migrate over and kind of spread it around
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  Speaker 1: so we can all live. Right, It's pretty cool. Water
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  Speaker 1: also falls into that category of survival as well, like
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  Speaker 1: the wilderbeeste which we were talking about, right, Um. And
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  Speaker 1: then there's breeding and mating as reasons for migration. Whales
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  Speaker 1: are very very famous for migration for both actually for
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  Speaker 1: feeding and for breeding. Right, So they migrate to the
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  Speaker 1: poles in the summertime thousands of miles. Yeah, Um, they
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  Speaker 1: migrate to the poles in the summertime to go feast
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  Speaker 1: on krill, but their calves when they're born don't have
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  Speaker 1: enough lover to survive in the polar climate that's adorable,
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  Speaker 1: so they go toward the equator the tropical climates to
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  Speaker 1: um mate and and reproduce. Do you ever look at
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  Speaker 1: animals and think they figured it all out and humans
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  Speaker 1: are just messing it all up? Yes, frequently, I say
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  Speaker 1: that all the time to myself. The chinook salmon josh
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  Speaker 1: is one in relation to mating and breeding, and they
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  Speaker 1: are famous for heading out to see as adults after
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  Speaker 1: they're born in the river, and then later in life
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  Speaker 1: they swim back upriver and they lay their eggs at
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  Speaker 1: the same hospital where they were born, the same little
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  Speaker 1: river spot, because they're going to be eaten in the
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  Speaker 1: open sea, so they go back to where they're born
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  Speaker 1: because it worked for them. Well, that's exactly why they
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  Speaker 1: do it. That's amazing because they know that the spot
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  Speaker 1: is because I'm alive, it's safe. I know this is
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  Speaker 1: a safe spot for me. Plus I haven't been by
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  Speaker 1: there for a while. I need to say hey to
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  Speaker 1: the to the old neighborhood exactly see what's going on?
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  Speaker 1: And check you're talking about removal migration. UM. There's a
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  Speaker 1: pretty there's a good example of UM. What happens as
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  Speaker 1: a result of removal migration UM in the whooping crane? Right,
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  Speaker 1: this is the best story. Do you like this one?
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  Speaker 1: It's really awesome. The being crane UH in the United
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  Speaker 1: States went down to twenty birds in the wild for
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  Speaker 1: a little while. That's not a good part, by the way,
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  Speaker 1: that's the funny part. Here's the good part. UH. The
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  Speaker 1: eastern population of the species was completely wiped out and
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  Speaker 1: the western population was pretty much keeping the species alive.
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  Speaker 1: So I guess to oppose removal migration, is it Rutgers?
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  Speaker 1: I believe it was Rutgers ornithologists UM really started to
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  Speaker 1: take a real shine to the whooping crane and and
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  Speaker 1: wanted to get the population back up, and so they
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  Speaker 1: started breeding them in captivity. The problem is the annual
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  Speaker 1: migration of the whooping crane is about twelve miles. They
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  Speaker 1: go from the north down to Florida. UM. They learned
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  Speaker 1: that that's intergenerational knowledge, right, So the ones in the east,
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  Speaker 1: they have no idea how get from there there where
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  Speaker 1: they live during the summertime, down south in the winter.
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  Speaker 1: They don't know the route because those people who used
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  Speaker 1: to or those cranes that used to have that knowledge
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  Speaker 1: died out right. I know, it's so sad, So tell
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  Speaker 1: them what they're doing, Chuck, Well, this is the cool thing.
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  Speaker 1: As sad as that is, and as down on humans
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  Speaker 1: as I am, there are humans that do amazing things
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  Speaker 1: like this. They basically dressed up and whooping crane costumes
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  Speaker 1: from the time these little chickies were born to acclimate
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  Speaker 1: them to to you know, the adults and uh, the
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  Speaker 1: sound of an ultralight aircraft from the time they were
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  Speaker 1: little ones. Stick got them used to that sound. Then
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  Speaker 1: when the time came to my great Josh, the birds,
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  Speaker 1: a guy got into an ultralight aircraft dressed dressed as
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  Speaker 1: a whooping crane and flew from Wisconsin to Florida and
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  Speaker 1: lead these birds and basically said, this is the way
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  Speaker 1: to go, This is how you're going to survive. How
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  Speaker 1: awesome is that? It's pretty awesome and it worked so far.
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  Speaker 1: So far. They're what they're hoping is, obviously in generations
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  Speaker 1: to come, that they have learned this and they'll be
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  Speaker 1: able to pass it down. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, that's so awesome. UM.
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  Speaker 1: That's pretty rare actually that we understand why or how
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  Speaker 1: a species UM migrates for the most part, how and
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  Speaker 1: when or how they how they know to migrate. It's
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  Speaker 1: still relatively a mystery. UM. There's different ways that that
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  Speaker 1: we think an animal species can say, Okay, it's time
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  Speaker 1: to go to Florida um. And one of the one
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  Speaker 1: of the big ones, is called the photo period based
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  Speaker 1: on the Circadian rhythm or the Circulean rhythm. Sunlight