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Our Wild Familiars From Dan Werb Nature Is Regaining Control Of Our World · Arroe Collins Like It's Live

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Speaker 1: How many times have you wandered into Barnes and Noble
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Speaker 1: or even onto Amazon dot com and you see this
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Speaker 1: incredible book right there in front of you. In fact,
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Speaker 1: Audible is guilty of this as well. You have this
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Speaker 1: incredible book, but you know nothing about the author. Oh
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Speaker 1: it might be their voice on Audible, but is it them.
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Speaker 1: That's why we created view from the Writing Instrument on
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Speaker 1: ero dot net A r r oe dot net. Don't
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Speaker 1: just read the words from the author, get to know
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Speaker 1: them A r r oe dot net. Enjoy your exploration.
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Speaker 1: Hello and good morning everybody. How you doing today.
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Speaker 2: I'm good, I'm good. I heard you have some storm issues.
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Speaker 3: Oh my god.
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Speaker 1: Well, any it's very typical this time of year for
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Speaker 1: the Carolinas. But it's it's going to be one of
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Speaker 1: those days, man, and it's like you just deal with it.
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Speaker 1: And especially with El Nino coming through hearing them in
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Speaker 1: the weeks and months ahead, I mean, I expect to
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Speaker 1: see a lot more changes. In fact, I mean you're
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Speaker 1: right on a subject here that that really kind of
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Speaker 1: goes with El Nino. As that storm moves across the country,
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Speaker 1: it's going to be bringing those wild plants. But by
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Speaker 1: the seeds into this area. That's what I think is
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Speaker 1: so fascinating with nature is that with every storm comes
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Speaker 1: a brand new plant.
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Speaker 2: It's so true, it is.
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Speaker 1: And the thing is, I mean, how do you feel
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Speaker 1: when people don't pay attention to it. I mean, I'm
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Speaker 1: like a kid out here in this forest and and
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Speaker 1: it's it's like, oh my god, look at this one.
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Speaker 1: Oh study it. Take a picture, draw draw things around it,
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Speaker 1: find out its history.
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Speaker 2: I mean, I get people feeling disconnected from nature and cities.
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Speaker 2: But that's you know, like that's why I wrote this book.
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Speaker 2: I feel like, you know, like no judgment at all,
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Speaker 2: but their nature is there for us to connect with.
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Speaker 3: And you know that that.
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Speaker 2: I feel like people just kind of need a user
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Speaker 2: guide a little bit.
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Speaker 1: Well, it also proves to me that that man is
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Speaker 1: not just the most dominant figure on this planet either,
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Speaker 1: because plants will sit there and say, Okay, I'll patiently wait.
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Speaker 1: My day is coming. I'll wait until you get done. Human,
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Speaker 1: do what you gotta do.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
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Speaker 2: I mean there's a chapter in the book about kudzu
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Speaker 2: you're probably familiar with. Really you think, yeah, like talk
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Speaker 2: about patient right, I mean, you see the way actually
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Speaker 2: in a way, it's sort of an inpatient plant because
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Speaker 2: it can move. It can grow foot a day, so
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Speaker 2: you know it's like practically, you know, it can practically move.
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Speaker 2: You know. But amazing how plants have been able to
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Speaker 2: adapt to cities and really like, at least in the
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Speaker 2: case of kudzu, like completely take them over.
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Speaker 1: Well that in bamboo, I mean, aren't those replanted plants
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Speaker 1: anyway in the way that they brought them in to
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Speaker 1: help get rid of erosion.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, in the case of kadzu, you know, there were
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Speaker 2: It started with the eighteen sixty seven I think it
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Speaker 2: was World's Fair, and there was this effort to have
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Speaker 2: farmers use kudzu as a crop to feed cattle. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: and no one really took them up on it. And
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Speaker 2: then in the thirties, during the dust Bowl, you know,
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Speaker 2: the like a lot of states, particularly in the Deep South,
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Speaker 2: started planting millions and millions of kudzu seeds. So in Alabama,
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Speaker 2: I think it was ninety three million kudzu seeds across
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Speaker 2: across the state. And you know, you travel through Alabama
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Speaker 2: now one of the things I did for this book,
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Speaker 2: and like you can see how how tenacious this plant is, right,
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Speaker 2: and how hard it is to get rid of once
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Speaker 2: it's once it's established itself in an area.
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Speaker 1: Well, what's really interesting, and maybe maybe a lot of
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Speaker 1: people outside the South don't understand this, but when Kudzuo
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Speaker 1: takes over, you're going to lose a lot of things
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Speaker 1: that were once respected. And I'll give you a good example.
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Speaker 1: My friend Steve his his goal in life is to
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Speaker 1: go out and find all these cemeteries that have been
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Speaker 1: taken over by kad Zoo because you don't know they exist,
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Speaker 1: but they're there. You've just got to know where to
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Speaker 1: go get them, and then find the respect for those
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Speaker 1: cemeteries by backing down on the kudzoo. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: And you know, like I went into the archives in Birmingham, Alabama,
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Speaker 2: and there are articles about this exact issue dating back
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Speaker 2: to the forties where you've got people riding into you know,
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Speaker 2: the advice columnist in I think it was the Birmingham
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Speaker 2: Times or I can't remember exactly, but you know, basically
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Speaker 2: asking you know, what do I do that my family
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Speaker 2: cemetery plot is being overrun by kudzu?
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Speaker 3: How do I protect it?
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Speaker 2: There's another story of a woman who left her house
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Speaker 2: for a month to go on holiday to Cape Cod
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Speaker 2: and came back to her home and she had accidentally
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Speaker 2: left a window open and kudzu had entered through the
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Speaker 2: window and absolutely covered her entire house. Like she had
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Speaker 2: a piano that had been completely overwhelmed by kudzu and
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Speaker 2: all her family photos and everything. So, I mean, it's
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Speaker 2: a it's a it's a it's a super villain of
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Speaker 2: a plant.
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Speaker 1: Well, let's let's break it down here, Dan, did did
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Speaker 1: the farmers really get their their feed for the cattle,
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Speaker 1: because I sure in the hell don't hear a lot
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Speaker 1: of farmers talking about that.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think in the thirties it was
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Speaker 2: kudzu was billed as this miracle crop that should stop erosion,
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Speaker 2: and so people people were encouraged, farmers were encouraged to
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Speaker 2: use it. There were little pamphlets that the Alabama Agricultural
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Speaker 2: Department put out just basically saying, you know, this is
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Speaker 2: America crop. You can use it to stop erosion, you
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Speaker 2: can use it to feed your cattle. And oh, by
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Speaker 2: the way, if you've heard any rumors about kudzu being
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Speaker 2: the problem, just ignore that.
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Speaker 3: That's that's not real. Now. The thing about.
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Speaker 2: Kudzu is that you planted, and it creates these rhizomes
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Speaker 2: which are like, you know, like a potato basically under
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Speaker 2: the ground, but these potatoes can in some cases apparently
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Speaker 2: grow up to three hundred pounds what and so like,
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Speaker 2: once it's established there, you're not getting it out. You
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Speaker 2: can't get it out by you know, any kind of
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Speaker 2: like normal telling of the soil or anything like that.
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Speaker 2: It takes real effort. And unfortunately, it turns out that
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Speaker 2: because it is actually not that good at preventing erosion,
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Speaker 2: because it creates these massive rhizomes rather than kind of
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Speaker 2: smaller like a network or a grid of smaller kind
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Speaker 2: of roots that can hold an entire areas of soil together,
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Speaker 2: it just creates these massive and you know, as I said,
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Speaker 2: like almost impossible to get rid of huge growths under
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Speaker 2: the soil.
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Speaker 1: Well, there's a lot that's going on eat the kud
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Speaker 1: zoo as well, and a lot of it. There could
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Speaker 1: be a copperhead snakes. We see that a lot in
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Speaker 1: this forest that I live in, and the the the
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Speaker 1: copperheads don't give a crap you come anywhere near them.
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Speaker 1: They're coming after you. We also see a lot of
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Speaker 1: fox that will come in there and use kud Zoo
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Speaker 1: as a place to hide and and to watch the
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Speaker 1: world go by. I mean, there's a lot of stuff
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Speaker 1: that's going on. I mean, you can't just walk into it.
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Speaker 1: To me, it's it's almost like the hornets around here
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Speaker 1: when when it comes to you can be mowing a
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Speaker 1: lawn and you wake up those hornets. Your butt's going
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Speaker 1: down and and and that. And that's the thing and
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Speaker 1: same thing with kud Zoo. You go in there and
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Speaker 1: you start messing around with that. There's an entire world
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Speaker 1: beneath that cud zoo.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean one of the one of the
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Speaker 2: stories that I tell in this book is of uh,
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Speaker 2: you know, an effort to rid Red Mountain, which is
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Speaker 2: this really large park in uh in Birmingham of kudzu.
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Speaker 2: Uh So, they hired this guy from U Virginia to
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Speaker 2: bring his four hundred goats down and get his four
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Speaker 2: hundred goats to eat the kudzu, right, and it seemed
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Speaker 2: like the surefire way or the way of doing it.
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Speaker 3: You basically, you know.
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Speaker 2: You let loose a you know, a herd of goats
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Speaker 2: and they will eat absolutely every single green thing and
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Speaker 2: everything that that green thing is connected to within a
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Speaker 2: matter of weeks and so slowly over time, you know,
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Speaker 2: over a period a few months, they moved all the
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Speaker 2: way through Red Red Mountain, which is, you know, fifteen miles,
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Speaker 2: you know, fifteen square miles. But by the time that
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Speaker 2: they had been that they got to the last bit,
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Speaker 2: they went back to the beginning, and the kudzoo had grown,
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Speaker 2: you know, twice as thick yep nutshocked like it was
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Speaker 2: just it was it was an impossible task from the beginning.
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Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean, it's a real tenacious, tenacious plant.
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Speaker 1: When did you realize that you had a book on
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Speaker 1: your hands? And the reason why I bring that up
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Speaker 1: is because I remember sitting inside this forest in nineteen
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Speaker 1: ninety seven with a hansel and a notebook and just
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Speaker 1: drawing out how I wanted to plant seventeen hundred trees
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Speaker 1: in here because I believe in replenishing and it's just
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Speaker 1: one of those things that I think that's how I
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Speaker 1: became so fascinated with the land. So when when did
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Speaker 1: you know that, Oh my god, I've got a relationship
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Speaker 1: with what's happening when it comes to nature.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think like a lot of people, you know,
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Speaker 2: So I live in a city. The majority of the
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Speaker 2: human population on the planet lives in an urban environment,
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Speaker 2: either a city or a town, and you know, that
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Speaker 2: always struck me like, I've always appreciated nature, but I
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Speaker 2: haven't always felt totally connected to it. And then especially
9:37
Speaker 2: coming out of the pandemic, you know, I think a
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Speaker 2: lot of people just felt really disconnected from the world.
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Speaker 2: I've written a couple of books about, you know, the
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Speaker 2: last one of it was about the rise of coronaviruses
9:48
Speaker 2: and sort of the pandemic. I've written about, you know,
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Speaker 2: some of the craziness in Tijuana and the way that
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Speaker 2: you know, the border and cartels put people at risk there.
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Speaker 2: I'm using sort of like an epidemiologic lens on that.
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Speaker 2: But for this last book, or for this newest book,
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Speaker 2: I really wanted to write about something that would connect
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Speaker 2: me with nature and get me out into the world.
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Speaker 2: And I stumbled upon this word synanthrope, who which I'd
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Speaker 2: never heard before. And as a writer, you know, sometimes
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Speaker 2: all it takes is like a really cool word to
10:22
Speaker 2: just sort of get you excited. And so synanthrope is,
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Speaker 2: you know, a creature that has found a way to
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Speaker 2: live in human modified environment, and you know, from there,
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Speaker 2: I just sort of followed that thread and it opened
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Speaker 2: up an entire world that honestly has just been kind
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Speaker 2: of hidden from me and I think from a lot
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Speaker 2: of people, which is the vast biodiversity and the ecological
10:51
Speaker 2: complexity of cities and towns and other urban environments. And
10:55
Speaker 2: you know, that was a really really exciting moment for me,
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Speaker 2: and I hope that that is you know that readers
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Speaker 2: get that as well reading this book, where you know,
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Speaker 2: you don't have to leave your city or your town
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Speaker 2: to connect with nature. So true, you just have to
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Speaker 2: sort of look at it in a little bit of
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Speaker 2: a different way. And it's remarkable, you know, the evolution,
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Speaker 2: the adaptation, the ecological complexity that is happening all around us. Wow.
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Speaker 1: Being a forest farmer, this stuff is exciting to me.
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Speaker 1: You know what about a regular farmer farmer or a
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Speaker 1: city slicker farmer. Come on, this is all good for everybody.
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Speaker 1: We're going to be right back with Dan Werb, the
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Speaker 1: name of the book, Our Wild Familiars. We are back
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Speaker 1: with Dan Weerb. And I think one of the reasons
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Speaker 1: why I became so attracted to this area was because
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Speaker 1: I have a ninety five foot drop from the front
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Speaker 1: of the forest to the back, and I needed to
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Speaker 1: figure out how I was going to stop that erosion.
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Speaker 1: It was horrible, and so I tried to use the ivy.
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Speaker 1: I tried to use everything humanly possible, and then in
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Speaker 1: my heart it said, go natural, just go natural, give
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Speaker 1: it back to the forest. It's no longer a yard
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Speaker 1: that's going to be at home. Deep over lows. Go natural.
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Speaker 1: And that's where I really and I started paying attention
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Speaker 1: to the migratory birds because they come in here and
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Speaker 1: they eat the wild grapes and the apples are done
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Speaker 1: by other wild animals that come through here. And if
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Speaker 1: people would just pay attention in taking care of the
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Speaker 1: wild animals, there's a relationship there.
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Speaker 2: Dan, Yeah, absolutely. I mean what's fascinating is that, you know,
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Speaker 2: and again these are things I've learned right in this book.
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Speaker 2: Is you know, for a long time, scientists just assumed
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Speaker 2: that cities were biological deserts, so places where nothing could
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Speaker 2: really live right, where it was just humans and concrete
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Speaker 2: and nothing else. But over the past twenty years or so,
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Speaker 2: as the field of urban ecology has kind of glown,
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Speaker 2: we've discovered that actually that's not the case. At all,
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Speaker 2: and in fact, a lot of cities are unbalance more
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Speaker 2: biodiverse than the areas that surround them. In North America,
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Speaker 2: we're also going through this period called the Great Urban Shift,
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Speaker 2: which is essentially thousands and thousands of animal and plant
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Speaker 2: species that are moving into cities at an unprecedented rate.
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Speaker 2: So not only are cities in towns super biodiverse, they're
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Speaker 2: becoming more biodiverse every day. And you know, that is
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Speaker 2: an invitation, I think for us to think about our
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Speaker 2: cities in different ways and to see them in different ways,
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Speaker 2: to appreciate the connections that we can make with the
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Speaker 2: natural world, and then, as you say, to kind of
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Speaker 2: think about strategies that can enhance that biodiversity, that can
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Speaker 2: create more harmonious relationships between you know, humans and all
13:46
Speaker 2: of the other species that surround us. And to me,
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Speaker 2: that's a really exciting place to start when you're thinking
13:53
Speaker 2: about you know, all of the problems in the world,
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Speaker 2: and you know, climate change and habitat destruction, Like, let's
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Speaker 2: just go back to first principles. Let's go back to
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Speaker 2: the communities that we live in and think about them
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Speaker 2: as sites of conservation and think about the strategies we
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Speaker 2: want to use to make them more beautiful places, which
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Speaker 2: will in turn make them more hospitable places for animals
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Speaker 2: as well.
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Speaker 1: And a lot of people don't understand this. I reached
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Speaker 1: out to the North Carolina Forest Service. They're the ones
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Speaker 1: that came and helped me with the Boy Scouts and
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Speaker 1: they and they continue to sit here and observe what's
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Speaker 1: going on. And you know, because I do have a
14:27
Speaker 1: relationship with my dear. I got my babies out here
14:29
Speaker 1: right now with their fawn. I've got Timmy the turtle
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Speaker 1: that's running all over this force. And you know, and
14:34
Speaker 1: you do you you name them, you work out together.
14:37
Speaker 1: I mean, I could be out there in that force
14:38
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, this owl just comes and
14:40
Speaker 1: sits maybe ten feet from me, and we just sit
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Speaker 1: there right. But I'm so into this book and I
14:46
Speaker 1: just wish the hell that I would have had this
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Speaker 1: book Dan back in nineteen ninety seven. And I'm jealous
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Speaker 1: of the people that you're going to reach today because
14:53
Speaker 1: you know, they've got something that I didn't have. And
14:55
Speaker 1: that's why I endorse your book because it is something
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Speaker 1: it is so valuable to where we are right now.
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Speaker 3: Oh well, thank you so much.
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Speaker 2: I really appreciate that. Yeah, I mean, look like I'm
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Speaker 2: interested in connection, right, and I'm interested in in readers
15:12
Speaker 2: discovering worlds. And you know, that was my journey for
15:16
Speaker 2: writing this book, and I think readers will have the
15:20
Speaker 2: same journey right where you just will never look at
15:24
Speaker 2: your community the same way again once you understand how
15:29
Speaker 2: how diverse the fact not only that there are a
15:31
Speaker 2: bunch of animals and plants and everything around you, but
15:34
Speaker 2: that we are part of an ecosystem, whether we like
15:38
Speaker 2: it or not. We are connected. We are affecting these
15:42
Speaker 2: urban ecosystems. These urban ecosystems are legitimate natural spaces as well, right,
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Speaker 2: Like we should respect and appreciate them because you know,
15:53
Speaker 2: they're they're real, Like it's cities and towns are crazy
15:57
Speaker 2: places and they're sort of absurd. And I get into
15:59
Speaker 2: the absurdity in this book right where you know, there's
16:03
Speaker 2: stories of baboons taking over towns in Saudi Arabia and
16:09
Speaker 2: giant Pacific octopus living in nineteen seventies refrigerators that have
16:14
Speaker 2: sunk to the bottom of the ocean right around Seattle, Like,
16:18
Speaker 2: there are so many absurd situations that come about when
16:24
Speaker 2: animals and plants move into urban spaces. But you know
16:28
Speaker 2: it's all legitimate, right, Like it's all it's all there.
16:32
Speaker 3: To be appreciated.
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Speaker 2: And I think with just like a little bit of
16:36
Speaker 2: a shift of perspective, you can feel super connected to
16:39
Speaker 2: the world around you, even if you think that you know,
16:41
Speaker 2: nature is somewhere other than where you are.
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Speaker 1: You planted an image in my head just a couple
16:47
Speaker 1: of minutes ago, and I got to bring it up
16:48
Speaker 1: because I just want listeners to understand how important something
16:51
Speaker 1: so simple that drives as crazy as actually like a
16:54
Speaker 1: second chance. You said that cities are considered to be
16:57
Speaker 1: the great desert. Well, you know, and right away my
16:59
Speaker 1: mind goes, well, what about all this concrete that breaks
17:02
Speaker 1: down and guess what comes that pops up a plant?
17:06
Speaker 1: It's a new plant. The plants are just sitting there,
17:08
Speaker 1: just waiting. They're saying, no, you do what you gotta do.
17:10
Speaker 1: And so so yeah, it's a great desert. But at
17:13
Speaker 1: the same time, I just yesterday was saying the reason
17:16
Speaker 1: why these storms are missing us so much here in
17:18
Speaker 1: Charlotte the buildings are too big. We are a desert.
17:21
Speaker 1: And I think that the heat from these cities are
17:23
Speaker 1: affecting us, and we need to get involved with this
17:25
Speaker 1: on a city level as well.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, the.
17:32
Speaker 2: South of the United States is a really special environment
17:38
Speaker 2: when it comes to plants because it is the last
17:42
Speaker 2: bastion of a lot of ancient plants that are called
17:46
Speaker 2: ancient relic that don't grow anywhere else on the continent.
17:52
Speaker 2: Is they were pushed south by the last glaciers during
17:55
Speaker 2: the Last I sage. Right, So the South is this
17:58
Speaker 2: just incredibly in terms of plant life, is so incredibly
18:03
Speaker 2: abundant in biodiverse and a lot of those plants are
18:06
Speaker 2: the last remaining examples of species that don't grow anywhere
18:09
Speaker 2: else in the world, and increasingly they're growing in cities, right.
18:15
Speaker 2: And so again, if we want to protect these native
18:18
Speaker 2: plants and these beautiful, beautiful species that grow nowhere else
18:24
Speaker 2: on the planet, like we have to look to cities
18:27
Speaker 2: as sites of conservation.
18:29
Speaker 3: And for me, like there's only upside there.
18:31
Speaker 2: Right, Like, you want to conserve plants and animals in cities,
18:35
Speaker 2: well that probably means that you just have to make
18:37
Speaker 2: cities more beautiful places to live. Everything that we do
18:41
Speaker 2: to make cities more hospitable to other species makes them
18:45
Speaker 2: more beautiful for us.
18:46
Speaker 1: And people need to pay attention to what's going on
18:49
Speaker 1: in the sky as well, because I mean, for the
18:51
Speaker 1: longest time, I always thought that the blue jay was
18:53
Speaker 1: the greatest bird on the planet until I realized they're bullies.
18:56
Speaker 1: They're migratory bullies. And so when these storms come in
19:00
Speaker 1: and they bring in these birds because you know, something's
19:02
Speaker 1: been twisting out there in the ocean and the hurricane
19:05
Speaker 1: comes ashore, it doesn't matter where, even if you're in California,
19:08
Speaker 1: when you've got one of those big surges of rain,
19:10
Speaker 1: there's always going to be something new to explore, do it.
19:13
Speaker 1: Don't sit around watching TV. Go out there and watch nature.
19:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know.
19:20
Speaker 2: One of the things that I had to do to
19:22
Speaker 2: write this book, right, like, so every chapter explores a
19:25
Speaker 2: different synanthrope in a different city and kind of goes
19:29
Speaker 2: through all of the adaptations that that particular animal, be it.
19:33
Speaker 3: A raccoon, a bat, a coyote, an.
19:37
Speaker 2: Octopus, of baboon, you know what have you, has used
19:40
Speaker 2: to adapt. And that required a ton of field research.
19:46
Speaker 2: And it's funny doing biology biological field research in the
19:51
Speaker 2: urban environment. But what I learned, right was you know,
19:55
Speaker 2: you you basically just have to change your rhythm. You
19:59
Speaker 2: might know, right, you might have walked through a neighborhood
20:02
Speaker 2: countless times. All it takes is just a slight change
20:06
Speaker 2: in rhythm for you to be able to connect with nature.
20:09
Speaker 2: You know, I ended up going to places like to
20:13
Speaker 2: track coyotes. I went to neighborhoods and abandoned you know, I'd.
20:18
Speaker 3: Go to show up to.
20:19
Speaker 2: Parks at three in the morning. I was the only
20:22
Speaker 2: person there. I felt totally out of place and uncomfortable,
20:26
Speaker 2: and you know, all of my kind of like social
20:30
Speaker 2: side was like, you got to get out of here,
20:32
Speaker 2: like this is not a place for you to.
20:34
Speaker 3: Be hanging around.
20:35
Speaker 2: But that that was exactly how I unlocked connecting with coyotes,
20:41
Speaker 2: with you know, skunks, with raccoons, with owls in some cases,
20:47
Speaker 2: you know, you just got to shift your perspective a
20:49
Speaker 2: little bit and shift your rhythm.
20:50
Speaker 1: One of the things that I'm noticing a lot of,
20:52
Speaker 1: and I hope that your book really does inspire others
20:54
Speaker 1: to do it as well, is that I'm starting to
20:57
Speaker 1: see a lot of people who love nature more than me.
21:00
Speaker 1: And I love nature because storytellers are rocks and trees,
21:03
Speaker 1: and what's happening is there are groups of people such
21:05
Speaker 1: as Caroline Rescues that goes around to these different areas
21:09
Speaker 1: and she saves not only the animals but the plants.
21:12
Speaker 1: So instead of people going over there and mowing it
21:14
Speaker 1: and cutting it out and getting rid of it, I mean,
21:16
Speaker 1: I just want more people to do that, to be
21:18
Speaker 1: able to go into these areas, because you're unveiling a
21:20
Speaker 1: brand new world here that really isn't new. We just
21:24
Speaker 1: want we just need to protect it, and we need
21:25
Speaker 1: these specialized groups to say, Okay, you're not going to
21:28
Speaker 1: kill it. I'm just going to replenish it somewhere else.
21:32
Speaker 1: And do you see a lot of that in your
21:33
Speaker 1: world too?
21:36
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely. I mean I think there's a greater understanding
21:39
Speaker 2: that you can't use the same old techniques to control overpopulation,
21:45
Speaker 2: be it a plant or an animal. So you know,
21:49
Speaker 2: in the case of let's say rats, right, which are
21:53
Speaker 2: this classic synanthrope that has completely overwhelmed the efforts of city.
21:58
Speaker 3: Governments like the government of New.
22:00
Speaker 2: York City to control the population, right like since the
22:04
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies. Starting in the nineteen seventies, the New York
22:11
Speaker 2: Sanitation department. Department tried to use anticoagulant rodenticide to control
22:16
Speaker 2: the population of rats. Well what happened within about ten
22:20
Speaker 2: years the rats had mutated, had evolved to become totally immune.
22:26
Speaker 2: And you know, since then they've done it again. The
22:30
Speaker 2: government tried another type of redenticide, and again they became
22:34
Speaker 2: immune to it. You can't control animals or plants just
22:39
Speaker 2: by trying to eradicate them.
22:40
Speaker 3: You have to shift behavior.
22:42
Speaker 2: And so you know, one of the interesting things that
22:44
Speaker 2: have happened really recently is as of June first, New
22:47
Speaker 2: York City now has a bin mandate where people can't
22:50
Speaker 2: just throw their garbage on the street in black plastic bags.
22:53
Speaker 2: They've got to stick them in bins. And in pilot projects,
22:56
Speaker 2: this bin mandate has been associated with a sixty five
23:00
Speaker 2: percent reduction in rat settings.
23:02
Speaker 3: So you know, you don't you can't.
23:04
Speaker 2: We can't kill or destroy our way out of a
23:08
Speaker 2: problem of overpopulation. Same thing with kudzu. Right, you try
23:13
Speaker 2: to mow down kudzu, Well what.
23:15
Speaker 3: Do you do.
23:16
Speaker 2: You end up spraying seeds absolutely everywhere. Yeah, And in fact,
23:21
Speaker 2: kudzu seeds need to be scored, need to be scratched,
23:24
Speaker 2: and a bit beaten up to allow them to germinate.
23:27
Speaker 2: So when you're mowing a patch of kudzu, you're not
23:30
Speaker 2: only throwing it further afield. You know, you're also buying
23:35
Speaker 2: it to Germany, so you're only going to spread the
23:38
Speaker 2: problem even further. So there's got to be different techniques
23:41
Speaker 2: that we use to to control and make our you know,
23:45
Speaker 2: our urban ecosystems really really healthy.
23:48
Speaker 1: This is every bit the reason Dan, that you need
23:50
Speaker 1: to get your book at a home depot and all
23:52
Speaker 1: these other places as well, more than just a bookstore,
23:55
Speaker 1: because I swear to God, if people just knew and
23:58
Speaker 1: they're not sitting around with chat GPT or Jim and
24:01
Speaker 1: I going, what am I going to do to get
24:03
Speaker 1: rid of it? No, listen to it, because that's what
24:05
Speaker 1: Dan is saying. Listen to it and do something with it,
24:08
Speaker 1: work with it. I'm just so proud of you for
24:10
Speaker 1: doing this book.
24:13
Speaker 3: Oh thanks so much. I really appreciate that.
24:15
Speaker 1: Now where can people go to find out more about
24:17
Speaker 1: what you're doing? And because there's got to be videos,
24:19
Speaker 1: there's got to be something where people can build that relationship.
24:21
Speaker 1: And are you working with someone like CBS where they
24:24
Speaker 1: have those programs on the weekend where you can train
24:26
Speaker 1: the younger viewers.
24:29
Speaker 3: Yeah.
24:29
Speaker 2: So if you want more information, you can come to
24:32
Speaker 2: my website danworb dot com, d A n w RB
24:36
Speaker 2: dot com or I have a pretty active Instagram where
24:39
Speaker 2: I'm posting videos of urban wildlife and preachers and sharing
24:44
Speaker 2: some of the behind the scenes from the travel and
24:47
Speaker 2: field research that I did for this book. And yeah,
24:49
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm just out here trying to educate people
24:51
Speaker 2: about how beautiful the animals and plants are that surround
24:55
Speaker 2: them in their cities in town. So no, thanks so
24:58
Speaker 2: much for having me.
24:59
Speaker 1: Well, I'm running out of time very quickly, but I
25:01
Speaker 1: do because I've become very addicted to fungi lately, only
25:05
Speaker 1: because I didn't realize there's such communicators when it comes
25:08
Speaker 1: to every living thing that is anywhere in this country.
25:12
Speaker 1: A right, what have you learned from that in the
25:14
Speaker 1: way that because that's got to be a part of
25:16
Speaker 1: this ecosystem that you're talking about as well. If we
25:18
Speaker 1: if we go out there and we destroy everything that
25:21
Speaker 1: looks like a mushroom or looks like fung guy, we're
25:23
Speaker 1: screwing ourselves, dude.
25:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I mean, look like any creature can be synanthropic.
25:30
Speaker 2: There are synanthropic fung guys, There are synanthropic bacteria.
25:34
Speaker 3: There are you know it.
25:36
Speaker 2: The biodiversity that exists in urban centers isn't just limited
25:41
Speaker 2: to anamalos and plants like it is across every living creature.
25:45
Speaker 2: And of course you know the same kinds of incredible
25:48
Speaker 2: adaptations that we see in those creatures happen with fungi.
25:52
Speaker 2: And you know it's we have a responsibility and I
25:56
Speaker 2: think an opportunity, like a really positive opportunity, to to
26:00
Speaker 2: protect it all.
26:01
Speaker 1: Wow, you got to come back to this show anytime
26:04
Speaker 1: in the future.
26:04
Speaker 2: Man.
26:05
Speaker 1: There we haven't even scratched the surface. We're just touching
26:07
Speaker 1: it right now.
26:10
Speaker 2: Appreciate it. I would love to