to receive a schedule of upcoming programs author discussions, book festivals, and more, booktv every sunday on c-span2. or any time online at booktv.org television for serious readers. ♪ ♪ healthy democracy doesn't just look like this. it looks like this. where americans can see democracy at work with citizens truly informed. our republic thrives. get informed straight from the source on c-span, unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. from the nation's capitol to wherever you are. you get the opinion that matters the most as your own, this is what democracy looks like. c-span powered by cable. ♪ ♪ >> good evening everybody. welcome to the north carolina museum ofol natural sciences. thank you so much for coming out to tonight's program thank you for tuning in if you're watching

with us live online. we've got a very special program for you tonight. we have just a whole stage fill ofl brilliant people not including myself, of course. my name is chris smith i work here at the museum natural sciences as koord coordinator fr current science programs. that job title means i get pleasure and privilege of welcoming everybody into the museum that also means that i get to meet really interesting people who are doing interesting work out there in the rounds of science technology, engineering, mathematic art as it relates to science education and more. so it is always a thrill to be here in the museum talking about science or nature, conservation or any of those great and fabulous topics. that make this museum such a great resource and such a great place to be. to my left you can see these are the brilliant people i've been joined with tonight. first, i want to introduce doctor mike koh closest to me. >> yay --

yeah we can clap for dr. koh. >> mike research for at ?asm sciences expert on rats. but i guess a particular type of rat. actually you know what -- i'm going to say he knows a whole lot about a whole lot of mammals we had an audience and they were peppering him with questions about all types of different animals from all regions of the planet, and he right at the top of his mind incredible answers to great questions if from rats live in the appalachian mountains to those in south america it was a great, great talk. so thanks for being here mike. >> thank you for having me. and to talk about pests -- >> and then across the way we have doctor roland k.. head after the battle research lab here at the miewmedz his

glass wall research lab and professor at north carolina state university. teaching zoology and expert zoologist, but doctor k. particularly skilled in the rounds of animal tracking. maybe not so much like -- like a sniffing animal tracks in the forest and knowing which way they went although i would believe that you're very good at that as well. if there's snow i can do it. that's perfect but also using more technology and more techniques particularly things like traps and gps tracking. >> great happy to be here. >> thanks. then, of course, the reason that all of the three of us here and reason we're here at the museum tonight is to hear about book pest how they create and we have a special guest doctor bethany berkshire. [applause] a science journalist you could read her work in the washington

post, new york time, slate the atlantic, and then, of course, places like scientific american, science news, was a former staff writer forri science news for students whichen i actually scrolled through the archive and just like so many things that i need to learn about -- in the archive there, so i'm going to go be a student at science news nor students. and we're very excited that we have experts and animals that some people consider pests here atat the museum, and bethany tht you about talk about your new sbook and show science and stories that you investigated. so let's get to it. if you could i'm going attack a seat -- thank you for letting me join -- tonight's conversation as well -- >> okay. so let's get started. i guess the best place to start is bethanyes tell us about -- the book what's the sales pitch for pests? >> yes. so i started -- i started researching this book

all the way back in 2016 when the idea first happened. but i have become obsessed with pests. because what is a pest? right? when you really think hard about itbo a pest is an animal that makes you mad. it is an animal that pisses you off and that means that a pest has nothing to do with what the animal is where it's going, what it's doing and everything to do with you and -- whatou you think your environmet should be like.e. who should be in it -- who belongs near you with your stuff, et cetera. and so i just became fascinated by this concept of pests. and i also realized that almost everyone you talk to when you talk about pests everybody has a pest story so my personal pest story which is featured in the book -- involves can i cuss here? [silence] i don't know ---- >> you're the boss --

>> c-span can i cuss? get a -- okay that looks like a thumbs-up so -- >> three of us work for the state of north carolina -- i do not -- okay. the squirrel that i'm talking about his name is kevin. we call him kevin for short and because three-year-old lives next door. but kevin is an eastern gray squirrel -- and kevin lives in my yard and i hate him. so much -- this kevin this squirrel we now call all squirrels kevin in my house so walking around being like oh, kevin. this squirrel is the reason that i have not had a tomato from my garden in five years. because every time i go out i plant tomatoes i'm superexcited. the tomatoes grow we thaib swell up they are green, they are hopeful, and kevin -- kevin comes into my garden he grabs a nice green tomato and he takes a big bite. and then kevin recalls he

doesn't, in fact, like tomatoes. he leaves it with its tooth marks i many it right where i cn see it on my porch because he's a jerk and then next day he does it again. and again -- and again -- this squirrel has taken a bite out of every single tomato in my garden for the last five years and i've tried many things to get rid of him including bird netting -- metal netting, cayenne pepper stray cats -- [laughter] i did, in fact, try stray cats. >> pest verse another. >> two came inside and now we have pests. but kevin just ate cat food -- > maybe kevin inside -- >> let's not -- [laughter] and i began to realized i hated this animal. but i would bring it up to my friends likeld but you can't hut him he's a squirrel. he's perfect -- he's sweet. and they would, you know, take pictures of the squirrel people

feed squirrels deliberately set up obstacle courses that go viral on youtube for these animals and i realized that every animal could be a pest to someone. it just mattered in what ways. and so i wrote this book. >> so -- i have never had a problem with squirrels. literally -- yet they've never been a pest. no -- until this morning -- when your kevin's girlfriend showed up in my attic never untilke today like getting dresd to comee to this event with bethany and there's literally a squirrel that has -- broken into miss attic had clawed through some stuff, and had a giant nest had leaves and crap all over the place, and that literally never happened in my life until today. >> i'm so proud. >> like you're cursed -- >> it is possible we actually did have one that got into my roof in one of the places that i

rented because there were holes in theau roof and big bertha because she was so big this squirrel when she hit you think they makere a thump noise no this -- [laughter] she was like guy who caught her said it was biggest squirrel she had ever seen and he took her to a farm upstate i did not inquire. >> upstate. mic at that point i hope you have a good squirrel story -- very at least say that you like squirrels? >> it is really interesting because i have been thinking about this ath lot. well -- i live a little further outside of raleigh, and my wife, my lovely wife has pet goats. and she had some sunflower seats seeds for the goats and they stayed in the trunk in her car for a long weekend. and by the end of the weekend squirrels had chewed up through the underside of the bumper into the trunk.

and glued all over what sunflower seeds for the goats and so -- yeah, that bumper was held together with duct tape for substantial amount of time. so i've never actually thought of themm as pests per se. but it is interesting that you're i mentioning this tomato thing because this is an idea that i've had for a while is like how much do urban squirrels actually consume garbage or our soft fleshy fruits and resources because they mostly eat acorns and stuff and usually not a shortage of these oaks we live in the city of oaks, right in so it is interesting to hear that they're eating other things than, you know, their -- >> birdseed. eating a lot of birdseed. >> i think of them as eating hard things not soft things. >> that's why they didn't finish the tomatoes. >> i thought this was a green nut and i was wrong. [laughter] what i found fascinating

squirrel always figured out one year like you know what nuclear option i planted no tomatoes i planted jalapeno peppers instead like oh, yeah i have this vision -- of a squirrel running away with tears streaming down its furry cheeks. squirrels cannot weep. but i can dream. anyway, he didwa not eat them. he never touched that jalapeno a single one. every single time i've grown hot peppers he knows not a single bite out of it. >> but this is moral of your book y sometimes humans need to change their behaviors instead of animals so need to become a jalapeno farmer instead of a tomato farmer. >> i figured out i learned things about spatial memory of squirrels and i learned they have incredibly highly accurate spatial memories so you have too set up your tomato cage over youryo tomatoes before the tomatoes emerge. if you come -- if you wait until the tomatoes emerge, which i tried this when the tomatoes emerged i bought a

large carder in cage i was feeling good aboutut myself ando to my friends house and i heard can you please come home i was like why? he sends this video there are two squirrels got intone the gardener cage now bouncing around like furry ping-pong balls because they can't get out. >> no -- he had to let them out 20 minutes later they were back in he let them out again -- and yes, so then it turned into a mighty anti-squirrel fortress involving chicken wire and the guarder ins cage and bricks -- but this year -- gardener cage needs to go up early because if squirrels do not taste the thing -- they do not know it is there. and they will not come and get it so the moral of the story is to learn about your squirrel behavior and set up gardening cage early. >> so it sounds -- .... least is they have to be able to outsmart us regularly if we're at least as

this the whole squirrels thing is like okay they consistently get around whatever it that we don't we set up to stop them also they consistently frustrate us because they can do those two things. and so it's like we get angry, we try to stop we try to stop them. they are just able to get around us a' every turn. as roland excited, it is about power. it is about vulnerability. animals that make us feel powerless, that make us feel scared. these animals, once they make us feel powerless and scared, our theaters to anger in our anger turns to hate and we turn to the

downside and it's all downhill from there. one of the animals that exemplifies that is the coyote. i ended up talking to roland about that. causing multiple people for issues. it was on the east coast in particular. >> the habitats and western united states. we starteddi moving in all expansions. to the north they moved into the great northern portion of canada and alaska to the south they moved into the rain forest. they can handle little bit more forest.

they moved to panama. on the verge of entering south america. and then the east coast. now it is fragmented. more fields. as coyotes moved east, they colonized the better habitat for them first. they started moving into cities. a young coyote grows up but if he goes into the nice sparky gets beat up by other neighborhoods. they can be colonizing more and more. they showed up in the county in the 90s. i in two fillmore cities or the developed areas.

and, so, they are the ultimate in adaptability. they can eat fruit, eat insects, they can do okay with big gray. they will eat some garbage. the coyote would be quite attracted to that. they come in and most ways it's probably because they got rid of the wolves. wolves were considered pets 100 years ago. coyotes have become a pest for some people in some places. a lot of places not. i think it's interesting to see a lot of places are filling in ecologically tiered rather, sometimes they use the word

invasive species. they are exotic and that they did not used to be here. they are not introduced because they were not introduced. they got here on their own. reallye, they are invasive. are they causing harm to humans? human society or other native species causing problems? there are some places that they do that in a lot of places that don't. i think wherere they are a pest, they are one of the bigger scarier ones out there. >> it is really fascinating to be how many people i interviewed for the book had personal interactions with the past. oh my goodness i had a rat it was the size of a cat. >> no, it wasn't. i amm sorry, it was not.

i know a guy bobby corrigan, he carries around a check in a wallet for $500 for the purse person that can hand him a wrap. he has never used that check. >> is there anything in the research collection? >> probably not. [laughter] >> those are big. >> it is just really interesting when we have an interaction that makes us feel powerless, makes us feeld scared. the animal grows in our mind and it becomes huge. the raccoon becomes a size of a large dog. the coyote is the size of a wolf it is not. >> coyotes do look big. they are very mean.

people know how much their dog ways. many people have like a 50-pound dog. they see a coyote in there like it wasas the size of my dog. i understand that. i have a 50-pound dog. i wouldl approximate their way o be about the size of my dog. coyotes very rarely can get to 50 pounds. on average, the east coast they are like 35 pounds. the west coast even smaller. half the size of my dog. they are lengthy. they are tall. the other thing is, if you hear them howl, it sounds like a huge pack. there must been 10 or 15 of them they experimentally play people different numbers of coyotes howling and people consistently overestimate them. it is probably part of the

evolution of their howl. they wanted to sound like a bigger group. people fall for it all the time. >> oh my goodness. i did not know that. that is amazing. reporting on coyotes in california, one of my sources was super happy. he's like' i'm going to show you the coyotes in hollywood. it's going to be great. we are there we are waiting in the coyotes come out and i'm like, that's it. >> he'ste like excuse me. >> i'm like they're so small. our coyotes are much bigger than that. i saw a roadkill coyote out of washington, d.c. the other day i was so excited i almost pulled over. like, thisea is who you have become. >> the reason they are larger is before as they were moving east, they got some wolf genes mixed

in. they have some dog genes. on average this eastern coyote is still 80-90% coyote, but it has five-8% dog genes and five-8 %n, wolf genes. a great experimented evolution. if those genes help it survive then they will survive better in their passing b genes on. some of the wolf genes, we don't know exactly what they do, we have a pretty decent idea that they are associated with growth and bonein growth and muscle growth that those genes are surviving better in helping coyotes survive better. that is why they are different ngsizes. >> i just love the idea of expanding coyotes tender profile match with anybody. poodle, poodle, lab or doodle, german shepherd, fine, i will take the poodle.

[laughter] >> springtime came along, she had no one else to breed with, another coyotes were there because she was the first one. pretty dedicated breeders. they take the next best thing they can get. >> i'm just waiting for the coyote docss and hybrid. >> what would you call that? >> a doc quixote? >> when do they become pets? i have a google news alert. a lot of times it is because they attack dogs. they are almost always small dogs. someone left their dog out and it goes to the bathroom at night

not come back. there was a video the other day of this old lady in l.a. walking her chihuahua on a leash and the coyote comest. up and you exit f the leash. we think it may be aggressive, i don't know, we don't really know small dogs and coyotes are not a good mix. >> coyote snickers. >> all my goodness. [inaudible] >> oh, yes. alligators considered pets. >> certainly, floridians do not enjoy them. i maintain at the alligators eating you, you are moving too slow. have you considered moving faster. alligators routinely kill people it is really interesting how we

are sometimes more tolerant of that wind it is happening in places that we deem to be wilderness. if it's happening in the everglades, well, that is a wilderness. brown bears kill one or two people year. they are big. they ared very big. if they don't want you to be there they will find a way to make you leave by whatever means necessary. we are okay by that. people do not realize that there is no such thing as wilderness. there is no such thing as a place that a should have no peoe in it. a playset is for animals in a place that is for humans. every place that we live we form our own ecology. some of these animals will take advantage of that ecology. >> the mention of florida puts me in mind of pythons in florida there is apparently a lot of

florida that we can talk about. a lots, of animals considered ps , perhaps. gators may be, but there's also non-native species like pythons, take use -- >> big lizard. not to mention the monkeys. >> florida has more invasive species than anywhere else, i think. >> i think florida is the australia of the united states. yeah. >> if we take the definitions given for pets, are the monkeys in florida a test or are they non-native they can survive their? are they doing harm or what harm are theyy doing and what is the

threshold? >> i think, you know, some of these species are fairly benign. small geckos and things like that. it is unclear if they played any kind of role other than pray for a big thanks. when you are dealing with these, there are reading populations of boa constrictors, anacondas, you know, as we see from the work with the pythons, they are gigantic snakes and get their crip thick enough that somehow they were, you know, mass populating the everglades before anyone noticed. >> we have no choice. >> right. i think that their impact is

unequivocal. basically no more mammals left. no more mammals left even studying parts of the everglades because the pythons have literally consumed them all. the beauty of being a python is you have such a slow metabolism that you i could last 500 days without eating if you have the reserves. they can just sit and wait for new rate to eventually migrate in their move in or repopulate. also shifting their diets. where i work in the florida keys and key largo is an endangered island ecosystem. now we are studying their impacts on the dangerous -- endangered rodents. compared to the everglades, we are only just now seeing the prevalence of the pythons increasing. effectively at the front end of

that invasion where w the population is brooke -- where the population is growing where we can manage it and maintain it we are lucky that we observed it early enough in this case. that is an easy system to work in. but i think that, you know, the northern invasion from the python, there is not really anything stopping them. cars. they get hit by cars. the state of florida has python roundups. if you look at the data, they are removing a couple hundred pythons a year. the folks out there throwing everything that they possibly can. not a just removing pythons by figuring out a way to mind the

pythons in order to remove them. that northern invasion front, it is slowly expanding northward. if you look at the climate models of their suitable nish space and what they can expand, they can make it all the way up to north carolina. that is out with -- that is without any kind of warming. >> keep your eyes open. >> a slow slithering front there but we need to be monitoring and managing up after appeared part of my work that we talked about in the book was trying to, you know, mitigate these things at the southern invasion front and hopefully we are learning something for that northern one. >> actually wanted to follow up on that. interestingly, burmese pythons are threatened. therefrom southeast asia. they are threatened by habitat loss in particular.

why are we not pleased that they are actually doing well in florida? should we be happy? well not happy, but, content? there are other species that if they made it anywhere, we would be absolutely cheering. but we are not. i found your own work is to save a rat and a mouse. >> a very special rat and mouse. >> their extremely cute. it is not their fault. it is really interesting because those are animals that you would otherwise consider, someed peope may consider pest. and a snake threatened in its home range that is exceeding elsewhere. >> this is an interesting kind of moral ethical question.

it is really unfortunate that pythons are threatened and endangered in their native range in a perfect world, we could start collecting them in florida and shipping them back and reintroducing them. >> i did ask a scientist why we could not try that. >> they have been breeding in the everglades presumably adapting to that environment and shifting to a largely aquatic diet. who knowss what their genetic potential is. they were founded by a small population of released pets. and then who knows what kind of diseases they have been exposed

to. and there, you know, invasive range. they could basically wipe out the native range or something like that. we have plenty of other species that are more common in their invasive ranges. camels are, you know, they basically do not exist anymore in the wild. i don't know that they are abundant, but they exist throughout the outback. >> they are pretty abundant. >> pablo escobar's hippos. how about that. >> hippos, camels, horses. the wild mustang. pigeons. you know, they are succeeding wildly. only one known colony of wild pigeons left in the world off the coast of israel.

there is another colony that is debatable off the north coast of scotland. i don't believe it. sorry, will, if he is watching. [laughter] >> what is the rat connection to the python. you said that there are some parts to the everglades where there are just no mammals. i know you have studied specific species in florida. is there some connection between the fieldwork you been doing, the rats that you study? [laughter] >> the connection with cats. >> okay. working in south florida has its charms. i effectively work in an interconnected web of tests. i studied these endangered rodents. which are not pass. they are doing all kinds of

dispersal and ecosystems. they live in the forest and they are not coming out into people's homes. they are doing their thing. >> they build giant cool nest? >> yeah, thiss high. then we have the non-native black rats. the invasive black rats. we have had a long running history with pharaoh and free roaming cats. consuming these endangered rodents. now we have the pythons. we have coyotes, too. coming over 18 miles of bridges and worms. >> oh, please. they've got this. we talked about this. you actually successfully managed the cap population of key largo. >> i did not do it, but i

documented some of it and followed along. it has been fun working there. i've been working there for 10 years now. a decade. time to move on. >> everybody loves florida. the fish and wildlife service has been working in the community there to mitigate the piimpacts of pharaoh and free roaming cats. live trapping them and, you know , working in the community to remind people that responsible pet ownership is ultimately the way to mitigate these issues. >> what is the one factor that led to more responsible pet ownership than anything else.e. >> coyotes and burmese pythons. [laughter] >> all of a sudden. all of a sudden. [laughter] >> how exactly are they doing that? how are they helping the biologist? >> oh. we get support from the

community because they are interested in this common enemy. >> the coyote forat eating the t >> pythons are absolutely consuming cats. they consume any mammals that they can find. anna devotedly, this is a little bit a scientific gossip but we find moree fat reserves in the pythons around the urban edges where there are more cats in the environment. presumably, the raccoons and opossums have higher reserves so they could be accumulating in multiple pathways. >> if you are putting out cap food, of course you will be attracting the cats i will come there. and the coyotes and the possums in the skunk send the rats.

you are basically making this giant concentration of mammal biomass. when a cold-blooded mammal comes around sticking his tongue out trying to find where the warm-blooded mammals are they will go there. >> and you just sit and wait. >> how many people want to feed things. they wantav to feed animals specifically. i call it the disney princess moment. not the bird landing on your hand. they want to have the deer eat out of your hand. they want to feed birds, they want to feed cats, whatever. they only -- they put out a dish of food and they honestly believe that only the one species they want is going to eat it. i'm like, if you leave a box of cookies out on the counter and

you have a family, do you honestly expect that box of oreos to be untouched when you come back? no, of course not. you may have intended it for you , but your dog had other ideas. >> the smaller the critter in the less pest like they are, so, birds, feed the birds. the hummingbirds, what could be more.ig >> pure. >> thankir you. the hummingbird the smallest of the critters. okay. someone starts feeding the raccoons. someone isot feeding a coyote. hey, wait a second, should not be feeding the coyotes. why is it okay to feed the hummingbirds but not the black bears? i think it is because they are potential to be a pest. a serious past.

as a hummingbird ever been a pest? >> not that i am no of but i'm sure give it time. small but mighty. i was working with the bear biologist. he had a huge issue. there was a dude in massachusetts that insisted on feeding the bears. he had a platform in his backyard. the bears would come every day. he would not stop feeding the bears. even though the bear biologist came to him and said in an effort to get to your food there bears getting killed on the highway outside of this neighborhood because theyy are trying to' get to where they are feeding them. he says that's none of my business. >> okay. i also think it's this habituation and resources creating this.

mismanagement of resources in terms of intentional food supplementation. there areli plenty of other this the trash and, you know, other things like that to prevent animals from getting intore the messes that they can create. putting this stuff there is not what thrives it. it is the habituation and the acceptance until all of a sudden it is no longer accept the ball. >> that is absolutely true. everyone wants photos until it is too much. that is one of the things i was looking in to. we have this idea appeared by me i mean these groups that have this idea that we dominate the

environment. we deserve to have only the animals weus want to be there. we refuse to change our own behavior when those animals cause problems. if the animals getting into our trash, it is not we who should lock up the trash it is we who should poison the animal. there isit actually another solution to this. i found that, this is a very western view and not everyone thinks this way. there are other groups that will say, okay, we need to change our own behavior. we need to recognize that these animals are here we live with them and we need to live with them responsibly. that is something that we could all probably learn from. in other news, please lock up your trash. >> there are situations where just a few people can create a pest. the pigeons are the one example.

feeding the pigeons and the city may be dependent on a couple that are doing it for their own personal reasons. we see the same thing with cats sometimes. like a hoarder, animal hoarder type of situation. >> that was actually kind of interesting. one thing i found about past is that they can be a problem of social justice. many people that i talked to that studied the social science of pigeon feeding, there are people in this world that study this, god bless academic yeah. he has that nyu appeared wrote a whole book on appeared loved it. fantastic. research appeared hed with people that fed pigeons. they were lonely. many of these people were elderly. they were alone. nothing.

they had no friends. what else are they going to do appeared it is a harmful thing to feed the birds. the birds are grateful and the birds are friendly. you canan literally reach down d pick one up. i have done it. you do understand why, but you also start to understand the business of social justice issue we could tell people that are elderly and socially isolated be less socially isolated. we could give them a community. people who feed cats are often socially isolated. people who live with rats do so because they have no choice. they are living in poverty. we could fix these problems. they are often becoming pets because our social contracts have failed. i think that that is a really important thing to keep in mind spirit. >> yes. absolutely.

>> to put it together just got to the special contract part, talking about how there is some threshold that we eventually get to within animal. we go from being okay with it to then vilifying it. to being okay and then blaming that thing because we cannot look at ourselves. it's not our fault, it has to be somethinghb else's fault and tht extends to our neighbors as well sometimes. all of a sudden the problem, it is not our problem anymore, we will blame some other person, some other type of person or some other behavior. >> yes. absolutely. that absolutely happens. some of the reporting i did was actually in homeless encampments where people are living with concentrations of rats that were excessive. it was a lot.

they did not want that. first off all, they do not want to bels homeless. let's start there. they also really do not want to live with rats. they did not want to live in an environment that was dirty. you can see places where they were organizing and keeping spaces clean. they were doing their best. it was the social contract that had failed us. it was a so society that had decided they did not deserve clean housing and to be free of living with animals. i think that that is a really important thing to think about. >> thank you. >> i'm sorry. i did not mean to get dark. >> that is a fantastic place to see if there is may be anyone here in the theater with us that has any questions they would like to share. you can just wave at me. i think that it is a great spot

to leave it as a reflection. that is a good moment. >> while you run down there, can mike tell the story the python in his pants? please. [laughter] >> you are supposed to leave that for a secret. you to read chapter two of pests [laughter] >> at such a good story. [laughter] >> december l 2007, a former lie before territorial duties here. i was a zookeeper at the palm beach zoo in 2007. i went back country camping in the everglades, by myself, and right afterbe hurricane wilma a lot of the trails had not been cleared. i needed up permit to go back or

whatever. i went solo. there was an 11 or 12-mile hike. i was six or 7 miles and i found this burmese python. this beautiful snake. i looked at it and i admired it along the trail. i was like, well, that is wild because it does not belong here. >> 2007 was like really early on , before they really knew a lot about them. >> you knew you had to catch it. >> i started walking. i kept going. i turned back and i did not really have a plan and i just grabbed it by the tail. i grewer up in the era of the steve irwin days. and i was like, okay. i had no actual plan. i had it by the tail. i took my shirt off. i threw my shirt over the head.

a simple fact is if you cover an animal's eyes they are easier to capture. so i grabbed her by the head and then it's body wrapped all around me. i was hopped up on adrenaline at that point. i was like, okay, now what. i don't know, i am sure like the coyotes and everything -- it was probably 13 feet this snake appeared i think i said it was . >> the strength of a 13-foot python. a long story short, i am an eagle scout. i am resourceful. i took my pants off, my jeans. >> one-handed. >> and i tied the legss of each of them with my teeth and then i

slowly unraveled this snake and stuffed it into my pants and put a bungee cord through the belt loop and cinched it shut and through the snake in my pants and my backpack and i slept with it in my tent with me that night and then on the way out the next morning i saw three additional burmese pythons. i was like, holy smokes. this must be a way bigger deal than anyone realizes. got back to check out i said, hey, you know. >> you walked up in your underwear? [laughter] >> i said are people finding burmese pythons in the everglades andnd the woman at te checkout, she was like, boy, i've got a better question, where are your pants. i said they are right over there on the sidewalk and there is a python in them. anyways.

[laughter] it was before the days of, you know, camera phones and everything. i have zero documentation of that other than they national park service came and collected that snake. this was early on in the research. they put a transmitter and it e and re- released it as part of their studying, studying the behavior of burmese pythons. >> you sent an e-mail to a friend in which you describe the encounter. >> the snake grows every year since 2007. so, anyway. >> now i'm back in the florida keys studying pythons again. i cannot escape the pests. >> i am glad we got that story.e i'm going to have you tell that story a lot. >> looking at the cover of your book, i was trying to understand , the biggest in my

life are insects. at first i saw only mammals including what looks like a squirrel, perhaps your squirrel. now we talk about reptiles and birds. how did you decide what to cover and what not to cover? >> the book is only vertebra spirit every time you talk about pests, i have a list as long as my arm. there are so many. seagulls, crows, wild hogs. giant land sales. they are just so many. this was about the subjective nature. the reality r is, even on an agricultural crop that we value, that i' still a suspected judgment. you cannot really get people to make an emotional connection to

everything. snakes are hard enough. i ended up focusing on vertebra 's because i wanted people to feel the tension and to feel the suggestiveness of thehe definition and kind of realize these are definitions that we pose on the animals. i don't have anything to do with the animals themselves. no animal is deliberately going out to cause trouble. they are merely taking advantage of opportunities that we provide >> yeah. >> so, i know that with insects, i don't know if this is also true with vertebra's, but if it is classified as a pests, it changes the way it is regulated. is that true?

then how do they get classified. in that regard, in terms of how it will be dealt with in public policy. >> i'm throwing that went to roland. >> i was going k to throw it to you. >> i only know that in australia >> thinking about the rabbits in australia. >> generally, what you are about to do with an animal is dependent on the game agency. they will regulate when you can hunt deer. what the seasons are appeared they will have classified different species according to that. that gets more interesting in some of these areas because sometimes if they classified them as a game species, that is different than if they classify them as more of a past. they will open up more, no bag limit, open season, more liberal

in terms of what kind of message you can use to harvest them. generally speaking with vertebra , invasive species are usually kind of, you can do whatever you want because they are invasive. it is not quite the same with agriculture because most of the vertebra do not get classified the same way. they do have often, when it gets a little interesting, something like a deer that has become an agricultural test. you have the text to follow the rules of hunting or do they have special rules? they need to apply and tell the state what the problem is. pretty easy to get permission if they are causing problems. maybe mike wants to elaborate someone that. >> i think that that is in line with what i had in mind.

i think that there is no like legal classification of pests. in terms of feral hogs in the state of north carolina, there is no harvest regulated. it is an open season. there are rules and regulations about how humane the death has to be. obviously, you cannot just throw bombs atth them or plant mines r anythingh like that. >> also lay cold traps and snares a traps are differently regulated. >> yeah, sure. depending on the species and everything. what is actually interesting and in line with that is that part of my work in the florida keys started as, you know, a follow-up to their integrated

pests management plan. that includes moving all invasive species including things like feral cats. that is where a lot of controversy stems from because people have a hard time accepting that animals that can be our pets whether they are cats or feral dogs or burmese pythons can also be invasive, deadly, distraught predators in themo ecosystem. what i find most fascinating about that is, as part of the work i'vewe been doing with pythons, we were tracking them ofin finding pythons because thy were consuming some of the prey animals in our research most recently appeared i have been fielding a lot of e-mails from people. suggesting, you know, folks from the general public have all kinds of ideas about putting poison pills on the collars of

these raccoons and opossums. in little detonators that as soon as the python consumes them they blow up or spikes that just expand out as soon as they hit the stomach acid of a python. it is fascinating because people celebrate the killing of pythons everyone is excited about these python derbies. like kill all the pythons. there is some coyote derbies as well in some places. and, yet, a lot of other species , you know, they are just as destructive in the environment and they are kind of , you know, it's like we look past that because they are cute or we associate them with being our path and not invasive predators. there is a lot of humanization

and that probably correlates with that, you know, humanization of them like royalty with the public. how much we kind of, what is the word i'm looking for, align with them. >> i think that that is very, that is something i've been thinking about a lot. we will do a great deal to protect the animals that we value. to the point that we will do really awful to the animals that we don't because we value another animal mold. island ecosystems. they end up on islands, usually because of us. a population of seabirds. people will drop millions of tons of -- and then they will

celebrate. if it is a cat, all of a sudden. >> or even rabbits. >> have you considered rehoming it? have you considered taking it somewhere and adopting it? what is the difference? it also made me ask the question , i don't know if there's a good answer to this. none of them agreed as it is traditional and i have asked them, what is the right decision and why are some of these animals more valuable? the reality is they think the routes are capable because they are pests. they are kill a bull because they are common. why is it bad to be more common? why is biodiversity considered an inherent good.

it's not to say i don't think that because i do think that, biodiversity is great. but it is also a judgment that we face. one that we have to live with the consequences. anyways. in australia, you can shoot a cat whenever you want. because they are pests there appeared or rabbit. >> all this python talk has made me realize there is an elephant on your book and no one in the united states whatever consider an elephant as a pests, but i can imagine a situation in other places where they are. i personal experience living in austin texas where a very large colony of bats lives in a man-made structure in the heart of the city. it goes south to mexico for the winters but always comes back. ulthe population sort of, people

would gather around and watch them come out at sunset. [inaudible] >> tourist attraction. thatfa city. interesting fact, the actor that played eddiean munster lived in austin, texas, also appeared we are linked. >> because of covid it was a little sensitive at the time. >> bats are really interesting. they are also very interesting in that most of the time people do not go out to trap and poison bats. if they are killed it is off did in retaliation. the elephants are appeared i got

to study elephants in kenya. i studieded african elements. i metet them uncle -- i met them so close. they killed 200 people a year in east africa and caused millions of dollars in profit damage. >> talking about the squirrel example is a pet, there are the funny pests people have relationships with them and a lot of people are annoyed with them as pests. then there is the elephantale,. some of the other species in your book that have like, topic.

he actually kind of classified animals into a cubes of human judgment which i adore. the three dimensional cube situation. we are in your ex is how common the encounter is, how severe the encounter is and the middle is how positive or negative it is. so, it could be different. it is hard to remember three dimensional. i don't manipulate objects in my head very well. it is very interesting because we think of animals where consequences are rare. very severe and negative. those are predators. brown bears, sharks, things like that. very rare, very negative. then you have encountered, it goes on a gradation, less severe

but moreeg common. most of the time when they have negative encounters with elephants they heavy in their entire crop of the season. not because they are killing. if they kill it by accident, elephants are smart. most of the animals that we think about pests, canada geese, yeah. the interactions are extremely common. extremely mild and only slightly negative. people really hate goose poop. what i find fascinating about that is every group of canada geese that you see on a golf course orgh lawn, we brought thm there because we thought they were picturesque and they stayed and now we are mad. i love that for us. it kind of makes me happy. [laughter] >> let's give our guests one more round of applause.

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