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Short Stuff: Dingoes! · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Chuck and Dave's here in spirit of course, and this
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: is short stuff on dingoes. And I can bet you
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: a trillion dollars the next thing that Chuck is going
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: to say, hmm, could be one of two things. No,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: it's just the one I met dingoes in Australia and
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: I just lost a trillion dollars because of you. Were
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: you gonna say a dingo ate, my baby? I was
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: going to say that. You were going to say that. No,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I really was going to save that uh. And and
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: talk very briefly about when we went on our tour
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: of Australia and my buddy Scotty met me over there
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: and we were able to take a couple of days
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: and go to this uh and we did a lot
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: of stuff. But one day we went to this I
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: guess a game ranch. I don't know what they call
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: him over there, but you know, we hold koala bears
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: and all that stuff, and we got to have the
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: dingo experience where we out into a dingo pin. Yeah.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I fought him, Yeah, I fought him to the dead.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: It was cool and it was it was like, did
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: you see dingoes when you were over there, did you
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: meet anything? No, I I know, And it's weird, like
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: because because you did something like that too, right, Yeah,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: we saw I don't think I saw dingoes. We went
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: to one of those things. We hung out with kangaroos
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: and hung out with koal and all that stuff, But
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I don't remember seeing a dingo. And I looked up
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: dingoes and I was like, that is not what I
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: had in my head. And I realized I've been thinking
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: hyenas this whole time. Yeah, it's they were, you know,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: because you want to as a dog owner for my
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: whole life, you wanted to be like, oh, it's just
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: a dog. But it's not just a dog. It was different.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: It had a different disposition, they walked a little different.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: It was um it's sort of like when you see
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: a coyote and you're like, oh no, no no, no, that's
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: not a dog. Yeah, it's a wild dog. Yeah. And
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: a dingo. Actually inteen got its own designation as Cannis
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Familiar RS. And this was all in my research to
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: find out, like, is a dingo a dog really? And
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: I think that they are descended from the same line,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: but they have their own distinction. Now, well, Caine is
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: familiaris is the dog that's the domestic dog, like momos
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: a Kene is familiaris Lucy's kines. No, there was another one.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Then they came up with a new name altogether. Okay,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: so it is its own species thing because I saw
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: somewhere um that that host on a I think it
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: was called Animal Logic, uh did a YouTube video I
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: watched on them, and she said that that they may
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: be their own species. So that's a new thing. Then
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: I think I'm double checking now because I feel like
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: a dope. It says dingo declared a separate species. I
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: think I just got the name wrong. God, look at
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: those cute little guys. I know they are cute. They
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: look you know what, they look a lot like or
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: she but he knews they totally do. My friend Meredith
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: has those and they look a lot like those. Yeah,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: and which would makes sense because they have definitely connected.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I don't think definitively, but let's say that they definitely
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: and that somebody carried out a study. So they definitely
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: carried out a study, but that they connected dingoes to
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Southeast Asian dogs and uh, sheba, you knew are definitely
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Asian East Asian UM. So it's entirely possible that they
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: are highly related. At the very least they look a
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: lot like sheba, you knows, and we can at least
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: leave it at that right, And of course they are
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: still in Asia today as far as their distribution. But
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: they really you think of Australia when you think of
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: a dingo, They've been around for thousands of years there.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: They are UM I think, the largest mammal carnivore in Australia.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: And depending on where you find these guys in Australia,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: they might be different colored if you what you usually
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: think of is that sort of like the sheba's, those
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: sort of ginger coats with a little white feet, a
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: little white feet socks. But apparently they can be a
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: little more golden yellow UM in the desert, I think yeah,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: And they can also be the ones that live along
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: the edges of a forest are usually a darker brown
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: or even almost black too so, and they can they
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: can live wherever. Apparently it's a source of water is
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: the thing that really limits them because they'll eat just
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: about anything and their opportunistic feeders. But depending on where
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: they live, their their coats will have developed a different color,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: that's right. Uh, they breed once a year and they
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: have five or six little pups and they'll raise them
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: cute and uh they raise them in like protected areas,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: like a sheltered rock area. It says here that they
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: can they can be raised in wombat burrows or rabbit
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: warrens or hollow logs. And I believe they wean at
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: about two months and they could either be left behind
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: there that the mom and the dad both help raise,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: which is kind of cool. But at that two month
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: period when they're weaning, they can either be abandoned or
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: they might hang around for about a year and freeload
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: on the couch. All right, Yeah, they're cute too. Man.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Have you seen like little dingo pups now? But I
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: I saw that between six and seven months they're basically
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: totally equipped to be on their own if they need
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: to be. That's right. They can reak havoc. They're kind
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: of known as a pest in Australia. Yes, especially if
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: you're in the livestock industry. Yeah, they can reabo on
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: the lads stock. And I don't know if it's still
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: the biggest fence in the world, but at least at
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: the time, the largest fence on planet Earth was erected
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: to protect grazing lands from protective sheep from these dingos
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: five thousand kilometers long. I bet it's still the biggest one.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: It's got to be. It's still up for sure. But
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: it was raised in the nineteenth century by the livestock
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: industry saying, like dingoes, you stay over here. And it
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: worked so much so that they're finding that, um, you know,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: dingos are an ape tex predator, like you said, they're
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: the largest carnivore on the continent in Um Australia UM.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: And as an apex preator, they kind of keep populations
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: in check, and there's all sorts of knock on effects,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: like they hunt kangaroos, and apparently they found that kangaroos
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: that aren't predated by dingoes um tend to overeat and
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: the population can actually starve because they eat too much
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: vegetation and strip the land of its vegetation, and dingoes
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: actually helped keep that in check. So there's supposedly, according
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: to animal logic, at least a debate over whether to
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: let dingoes back over the fence, but the livestock industry
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: is like nay, not like of course yes. And if
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: you're wondering if those dogs, those dingoes you're seeing our
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: part dog in Australia, Um, there's about a thirty percent
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: chance that it is been doing the deed with the dog. Yeah.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: I think a third of Southeastern Australia's dingoes or hybrids. Right, Okay,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: so chuck, let's take a break and then we'll come
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: back and spit some more dingo facts after this stop. Okay,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: so we're back. I have one, Um, dingoes supposedly don't bark.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: They can howl. They communicate by howling. It's not like
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: they just sit there quietly and just shrug like they bark.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: They don't bark, is the thing, which is kind of
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: interesting because well I don't know why it's interesting now
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: that I think about it, but it seemed interesting at
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: the time when I first heard it. Yeah, I think
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: they can bark, but they tend not to. They tend
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: to communicate with those little holley sounds. Right. So um,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: that was really I think the last great dingo fact
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: leading up to the big finish, don't you think? Yeah,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the big question did a dingo eat that baby? Well,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: tell everybody what you're talking about, especially the ones who
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: haven't seen Seinfeld aren't fans of the Meryll Meryl Street. Yeah,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: there was a movie called what was a Cry in
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: the Dark in nineteen or just Crying the Dark in
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: nineteen where Meryl Streep played Lyndy Chamberlain with the very
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: famous Selacious murder trial that happened in the nineteen eighties
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: when very very tragically Um her her young daughter, Azaria Chamberlain,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: was nine weeks old and disappeared when they were camping
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: in Australia and she was She went to prison for murder,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: they said, they concluded, and this is without any kind
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: of evidence whatsoever. They concluded that it was actually a
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: sort of a lack of evidence that helped convictor Um
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: that she like slit her baby's throat in the car
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: and then went back in was with her camping, you know,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: with her family camping, and then went back into the
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: tent and started screeching out the famous lines A dingo
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: either took my baby or a dingo ate my baby, yes,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: and like so Australia didn't show its best face on
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: this initially. There was like basically a like Australians just
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: didn't believe at the time that dingos would would unprompted
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: or unprovoked attack human and carry off even a nine
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: week old baby. It just didn't make sense. There was
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: no record of them ever doing that, so it seemed
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: unlikely to begin with. But I read also that they
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: that there was apparently a bit of um xenophobia against
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: the Chamberlain family because they were Seventh Day Adventists. I
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: think so, like there were rumors that the daughter's name
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: meant um sacrifice in the wilderness um, and just weird
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, like like nothing pretty um. And and
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: the idea that Lyndy Chamberlain was actually put in prison
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: on just total circumstantial evidence. Uh, it's pretty significant she
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: was finally released, and I think the family was paid
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: by the state um because she got railroaded and everyone
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: knew she didn't actually do it. But there was just
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: never any conclusive evidence that a dingo did eat her
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: baby until another kid got attacked, right, Well, I didn't
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: hear about that. Um. One of the big pieces of
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: lack of evidence was the fact that she said that
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: her baby had on a what's called a Mattinee jacket.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: It's like a little it's sort of like a little
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: cape cardigan thing that you put on a baby, and
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: they didn't find that thing anywhere, so they were like,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: she's lying because a mother knows how they dressed their babies.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: And they recovered the baby clothes, but um which had
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: some blood on him around the neck, which is why
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: they thought she slit her throat. But they didn't recover
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: this Mattinee jacket, and so that helped convict her. And
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: then uh, in nineteen eighty six, a guy was climbing
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: uh in that camping area, fell to his death, and
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: when they discovered the remains a few weeks later, they
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: found that little Matinee jacket and that helped. Uh. That
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: helped spring her from prison. Okay, well, then maybe it
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: was the popular public opinion changed when it emerged that
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: like other kids had been attacked by dingoes or were
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: later on. And then finally, I think in two thousand twelve,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: you dug up a New York Times article that UH,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: the fourth coroner's inquest into the death of his area
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: chamberlain UH finally vindicated Lyndy Chamberlain said that no dingo
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: did kill this little girl. It's definitely not her mom,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: and they amended her death certificate finally final, like true vindication. Yeah,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: but apparently Lindy Chamberlain was like, I'm not giving up.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: I'm going to keep agitating for these corner in quests
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: until I'm finally exonerating. And then she finally was so
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: that's dingoes. Uh. You can try and sugar on them
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: like dogs, but the ones at this game wrench weren't
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: weren't dogs. They didn't want to snug as much. Okay,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: good advice. I pulled out all the stops. I know,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: all the tricks you tried to give him, pap RONI. Yeah,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: I gave him all the scritches and all the right places,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: and they were just like, okay, I'll be over here. Yeah.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Thanks human. Let's stop doing this immedian and speaking of,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: let's stop doing this immediately. Short Stuff is out. Stuff
• 12:28
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• 12:31
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• 12:34
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