american history. featured in the series provoke thought, won awards, led to significant societal changes and are still talked about today. hear from featured renowned experts who will shed light on the profound impact of these iconic works virtual journeys to locations across the country, intricately tied to the celebrate authors their unforgettable books. among our featured books common sense by thomas paine. huckleberry finn by mark twain, their eyes were watching god. and free to choose but milton and rose freedman. watch our 10 part series books that shaped america starting monday september 18 at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now free mobile video app or online at c-span.org. ♪ good evening everybody. welcome to the north carolina museum of natural sciences. thank you so much for coming out

to tonight's program right thank you for tuning in if you are watching with a slight online. with a very special program for you tonight. we have a whole stage full of brilliant people. not including myself of course. my name is chris smith i work at the museum of natural science as a coordinator or current science programs. that jumped on it meansns i get the pleasure and privilege of welcoming everybody into the museum. it also means i get to meet really interesting people who are doing interesting work out there in the realms of science, technology, engineering, mathematic art as it relates to science education and even more. it is always a thrill to be here in that museum talking about science, nature, conservation or any of those great and fabulousm topics. that makes this museum such a great resource and great place to be. to my left you can see these are the brilliant people i've enjoined with tonight. first i want to introduce doctor mike covid.

[applause] we can clap for doctor covid. mike is a research curator here at the museum of natural history in sissy is an expert on rats. i guess a particular type of rapid actually i'm going to say he knows a whole lot about a whole lot of mammals. weth had a bit not too long on e at the museum the audience was peppering doctor covid with questions about all types of different animals from all regions of the planet and right at the top of his mind incredible answers to great questions from rats live in the appalachian mountains to cap affairs in south america. it was a great, great talk. thanks for being here, mike. quick sense for having me. i'm here to talk about pests. >> and then across the way we have doctor roland kays. the research lab here at the museum.

glasswalled research lab is in the nature of research center but is also professor at carolyn state university. teaching zoology and expert zoologists. but hisil particular skilled and animal tracking. maybe not so much sniffing animal tracks in the forest and knowing which way they went i wouldn't believe you're very good at that as well. >> of the snow i can do it. [laughter] quickset is perfect. also using more technology and modern techniques particular l things and gps tracking. great come happy to be here. and then of course the reason all the three of us are here the reason heard the museumis tonigt is to hear about the new book pests, how humans create animal villains we have a very special guest doctor bethany brookshire. bethany is assigned journalist you can read bethany'sor work in

the "washington post," "new york times," the atlantic and t thenf course places like scientific america, science news, was a former staff writer for science news for s students. i actually scrolled to the archive. just like so many things i need to learn about in the archive there so i'm going to go to the student. and we are verywe excited that e have experts in animal some people consider past here at the museum. and bethany, you could be with us to talk about your new book and share with us on the cool science and stories you investigated. so let's get to it. i'm going to take a seat. thank you for letting me join tonight's conversation as well. okay. let's gets started. i guess the best place to start is bethany, tell usut about the book. what is the sales pitch for

pests? [laughter] i started researching this book while the back in 2016 when the idea first happened. i have become obsessed with pests. because what is a pastor? when you really think hard about a past is an animal that makes you mad. it's an animal that piss is you off. that means a pest has nothing to d' is with what the animal is, where it's going, what it's doing is having to do with you and what you think your environment should be like. who should be in it, who should belong near you with your stuff et cetera. until i became fastened by the sunset of pests. i also realized almost everyone i talked to and you talk about pests, everyone has a pest story. my personal pest story is featured in the book can i coaster? i don't know.

>> you're the boss forgot c-span can i cuss? okay. no second thumbs up. >> the three of us worked for the state of northth carolina. you do not. >> okay good. squirrels i'm talking about is name is i kevin. we called kevin for sure because a 3-year-old lives next door. but kevin is an eastern gray squirrel. kevin lives in my yard. and i hate him. so much. this squirrel we call all squirrels kevin in my house will be walking around saying oh it's kevin. this squirrel is the reason i have not had a tomato for my garden five years. every time i gosu out and plant tomatoes i'm super excited the tomatoes grow they come up they are green, they are hopeful kevin comes into my garden he grabs a nice green tomato and takes a big bite.

and then kevin recalls he's not in fact likeoe tomatoes. he leaves it with its tooth marks in it right where i can see ite on my porch. because he is a jerk. then the next he does it again, and again, and again. this squirrel's taken a bite of every single tomato my garden for the last five years. i have tried many things to get rid of him. including bird netting, metal netting, cayenne pepper. [laughter] stray cats. i did in fact try stray cats. two cats came inside we know have pets. kevin just ate cat food. >> may be new but kevin inside? what's what'sig not. i began to realize i hated this animal. i would bring it up to my friend states that you can't hurt him he is a squirrel. he is perfect. he is sweet. they would take pictures of the

squirrel. people feed squirrels deliberately they set upy obstacle courses a go viral on youtube. for these animals. i realized every animal could be a pest to someone. it just mattered in what ways. and so i wrote this book. >> i have never had a problem with squirrels, they have never been a pest until this morning. when kevin's girlfriend showed up in my attic. never until today. i am getting dressed to come here for thisnt event with bethy there's literally a squirrel had broken into my attic. quadricep had a giant nest has hadleaves and crab all over the place. that literally has never happened in my life until today. >> i'm so proud to. >> you are cursed. >> we did have one that got in my roof and one of the places i

rented. there were holes in the roof there we go. enter big bertha. she was so big this squirrel you think a squirrel would make a thumping noise, no. the guy who caught her sense of says thebiggest growth he ever . he told me he took her to a farm .upstage.ke [laughter] this point i'm hoping you have a good squirrel story. you can at least say like squirrels? lexus is interesting i've been thinking about this a lot. i live a little further outside of raleigh. my wife, my lovely wife has pets goats. she had some sunflower seeds for the goats. they stayed in the trunk and her car for a long weekend. and by the end of the weekend squirrels had shoot up through the underside of the bumper into

the trunk and for all of these sunflower seeds for the goats. thatta bumper was held together with duct tape for a substantial amount of time. i have never actually thought of them as pests per se. but it is interesting you are mentioning a tomato for this is an idea i've had for a while. how much the urban squirrels actually consume garbage? or our soft fleshy fruits and resources? because they mostly acorns and stuff for this not usually a shortage of the oak super live in a city of oaks. it is interesting to hear they are eating other things. >> birdseed there eating a lot ofed birdseed. [laughter] that's true but i think of them is eating hard things and not soft things. >> that's right they did not finish her tomatoes.s.

>> what i found fascinating squirrels always figured out part nuclear option i planted no tomatoes. i have a vision of a squirrel runner-up tears streaming down his cheeks squirrels cannot wait but i can dream. never touch the jalapeno pepper not a single one. in that a single bite out of it. >> sometimes humans into. instead of a tornado poor i figured out i learned things with the spatial memory of squirrels he set up your tomato cage over your tomatoes before the tomatoes emerge.

i'm bought a large gardener's cage is feeling really good about. myself i put this text fr my husband because she please come home? i am likewise sends a video thereto squirrels that got into the gardners cage are no bouncing around like furry ping-pong balls because they cannot get out. twenty minutes later there back in he let them out again but then it turned into anti- squirrel fortress involving chicken wire and the gardners cage and bricks. but this year gardners cage music up early. not chase the thing they do not know it is there. and that will not come and get it. the moral of the story is learned by a squirrel behavior is centered regardingng early. what sounds like part of the criteria for some critter deemed a pest at least. they have to be able to outsmart us regularly.

the whole squirrel thing is like they consistently get around what ever it is we set up to stop them. also they consistently frustrate us. because they can do those twowo things. we get angry, we try to stop them. they are able to get around us at every turn that hold true as a particular squirrels? >> in writing about a lot this roland is cited several times so much of what we call pests is about power. it's about vulnerability. it's about animals that make us feel powerless, then make us feel scared. these animals, once they make us feel powerless and scared our fear turns to anger or anger turned to hate we turn to a dark side. it's all downhill from there.

one of the animals that really exemplifies that is the coyote. which i end up talking to roland about. coyotes are spreading east for somed time. they are causing people issues. i would love to hear take on why coyotes are spreading where they are why they're coming into more suburban environments on the east coast particular per.. >> they were originally a western species that lives in grasslands, open habitat to in e western ice age in mexico it up in canada. to the early 1900s come 1910 , 20 they started moving expanding in all directions. if you think about the environment to the north they moved into the great northern forests of canada and alaska. the south they moved into the rain forest. they were not a force species. we fragment the force there's more farm fields. they can handle a little bit of force they move all the way to

panama they are at the verge of entering south america they have not yet as far as we know but there right at the edge. we've got the caremark trap set up got them. the east coast was a great bit of force they never used to live in. now they are fragmented there are no fields. this year as coyotes move east they colonize the better habitat. eventually into the deep forest on that filled that ovens are moving into cities. a young coyote grows up. he goes into the nice park going to eat at by the other. if you goats into the neighborhood you can scrape out a living there. they're slowly colonizing across the cities more and more. here in raleigh they showed up in the county and like the '90s. at into the or cities.

they are the ultimate in adaptability. they can eat fruit, they key insects, then catch small prey they could be okay or not that good they'll scavenge roadkill per the eat garbage. they will eat certainly cats are even better cap food if you put up cat food coyote will be quite attracted to that. until they have come in, wolves were considered a pest couple hundred years ago. we killed almost all them that open up the e space. coyotes have become a pastor some people in some places. but a lot of places not. it's interesting too see, a lot of places there definitely not completely. james they use the word invasive

species. they are exotic they did not used to be here. they are not introduced sometimes we say introduceod thy were not introduced they got here on their own. we can see theirhe spread. whether they are invasive whether they are a a test whethr they causing harm to human, human society or other native species. there are some places they do that. there's a lot of places that don't. on average they're not that big of a pest where they are a pest they are one of the bigger is scarier toothy or passed out their progress it's really fascinating to me how many of the people i interviewed for the book had had personal interactions with pests you always hear this oh my goodness i had a rat it was the size of a cat. no it wasn't i am sorry it was not. there's beendede no recorded brn

rats over 2 pounds i know a guy bobby corrigan he carries to run a check and his while he showed it to me for $500 for the first person you can hand them a 2-pound rat he has never use that check. you tell me that rat is a size of the cap that's a kitten per. >> is there anything in the research collection? we can make $500 off of? it's probably not. >> different species. [laughter] those are big. they are substantialin progress it's interesting we have an interaction that makes them feel powerless and makes them feel scared. all the sudden animal grows in our mind and 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 lean. people always compare it with their dogs people know how much the dog way.

many people have a 50-pound dog but i have a 50-pound dog is like the size of my dog it was 50 pounds. i understand that i have a 50-pound dog. i would approximate theirmy weit to be about the size of my dog. the truth is coyotes very rarely get the 50 pounds. on average in the east coast they are 35 pounds of the west coast are smaller than 25 pounds. the west coast on average there half the size of my dog there so lean and fluffy. ;-) they are tall. if you hear them howl sounds like a huge pack there must've been 10 or 15 of them. there's a paper on this different numbers of coyotes howling people overestimate. like the part of the evolution of their howl howl they want to

sound like a bigger group. so the way they do it makes it sound like a bigger group and people fall for all the time progress oh my goodness i didn't know that that's amazing how did i not know that? text is very fun it was reported reporting on coyotes. in california. one of my sources was super happy he's like i'm going to show you it was not goldengate we were in hollywood. it's going to be great. were there, waiting the coyotes come out unlike that's it eyquestion he said excuse me? i said they are so small. our coyotes are much bigger than that. i he got all mad at me. but i saw a road killed coyote outside washington d.c. the other day i was so excited they almost pulled over. this is who you become. [laughter] recent eastern coyotes areorey larger is before as they were moving east they were a wealthy got wolf gene mixed in. they have hybrid as a dog.

they havee some dog genes moved in. on average the eastern coyotes still 80 -- 90% coyote. in step five -- 8% of dog genes five -- 8% of wolf genes. it's a great experiment evolution. if the genes help it survive they're going to survive and pass those jeans on. genes on. we have shown some the wolf genes we don't know exactly what they do but from the dog genome their associate with growth and bone growth. those genes are surviving better and hope helping coyotes survive better pass out eastern coyotes have a 30 -- 45 pounds. >> i just love the idea imagining expanding coyotes tender profile. [laughter] poodle, poodle, lab or doodle, german shepherd fine i'll take the poodle.

exits i would think it happened actually. the first cody had gotten into narcotic springtime cameg. along had no one else to breed with. it with her coyotes were there she was the first one. pretty dedicated breeders. they've got to take the next they can get too. >> and waiting for the docks in. they coyote docs and hybrid. >> can wink? >> we? chris would you call that? >> so the wind do coyotes become pets when they become invasive and cause problems what situation when their checking dogs question or surveying had a google news alert. any time coyotes make the news which is pretty much every single day. a lot of times it's because they attack dogs. most always small dogs it's often someone let's her dog out to go to the bathroom at night and does not come back. sometimes there's a video thehe otheri day i felt terrible it s

an old lady in l.a. walking her chihuahua on the leash the coyote comes up in a gang set off the leash. not breedingt. with it we thinkt might be aggressive. we don't know. small dogs and coyotes are not a good mix. >> very quickly been taken to calling chihuahua was walking coyote stickers snickers? [laughter] when they are angry. [inaudible] yes per. >> alligators considered tests? >> certainly floridians do not enjoy them. i personally maintain at the alligator is eating you you are moving too slow. have you considered moving faster? [laughter] alligators routinely kill people and dogs. it is really interesting how wes

are sometimes more tolerant of that when it is happening in places we deem to be wilderness like somewhat like the everglades.il brown bears for example killed one or two people a year. they are big. they are very big. if they do not want you to be that they will find a way to make you leave by whatever means necessary. are kind of okay with it it's a charismatic. they went out there in the wilderness people do not realize there is no such thing as wilderness. there is no such thing as a place that should have no people in it. a place for animals and a place for humans. every place we live we form our own. some of these animals are going to take advantage of that. sook's mention of florida puts me in mind of animals like pythons in florida.

there's a lot in florida we could talk about. a lot of animals are considered pests perhaps. gators may be. there's also a non- native species like pythons on even know what it is. [laughter] argentinian lizard a big lizard per. >> the giant african land snail snapper. >> the monkeys. [laughter] cooks florida has more invasive species f exotic introduced species than anywhere else i think. >> florida is the australia of the united states. >> are all of these then we take the definition you've been giving for pests or the monkeys in florida pests? are they a past or non- native they can survive there? you mentioned are they doing harm or what harm are they doing and what is the threshold?

>> yes. i think some of these species are fairly benign. a knowles, small geckos, things like that. it is unclear if they play any kind of rule other than pray for bigger things. when you are dealing with the burmese pythons, there are breeding populations of boa constrictors, anacondas, there's not really very many, as we see from the work with the burmese pythons, burmese pythons are gigantic snakes but they are cryptic enough that somehow they were mass populating the everglades before anyone noticed for a couple of things. >> we have no choice. >> their impact is unequivocal

bowl there's basically no more mammalsma left. there's no more mammals left to study in parts of the everglades because the pythons have literally consume them all. the beauty of being a python as you have such a slow metabolism yoyou could last 500 days withot eating if you've got the fat reserves. they could sit and wait for new pray to eventually migrate in or repopulate. but they are also shifting their diets. where i work in the florida keys and key largo as an endangered island ecosystem. so now we are saying the impacts on the rodents there. the endemic key largo would rat and cotton mouse. compared to the everglades we are only just now seeing the prevalence of the python thing. effectively at the front end of that invasion curve the

population is growing we are hoping to be able to manage it. and containment and prevent the extinction event of these endangers rodents. we are lucky we observed it earlyenough in this case. but that's an easy system to work in because it is contained. but i think the northern invasion from the python there's notge really anything stopping them, cars they get hit by cars. and the state of florida has python around ups. if you look at the data the round observer removing a couple hundred pythons a year. their contractors looking. the folks out there are throwing everything they possibly can at not just removing pythons at figuring out a way to find the pythons.

the northern invasion front is slowly expanding northward. if you look at the climate models of their suitable niche space in the climate, they can make it all the way up into north carolina. that is without any kind of warming. >> keep your eyes open. [laughter] >> it's a slow steady slithering fronthe there. but we need to be monitoring and manage at that front. part of my work and the keys that we talk about in the book, was trying to mitigate these things at the southern invasion front. hopefully you will learning something. quick site actually want to follow up on that. because interestingly burmese pythons are threatened in their native range there from southeast asia there threatened in their native range.

why aren't we pleased they're doing wellin florida? they came to florida and shouldn't we be happy? not happy but contents? if they made it anywhere is to save a rat in a mouse. [laughter] it's very special retreating a one best otherwise consider some might consider pests a snake is threatened that's elsewhere. >> right.hi this is an interesting moral, ethical question petering on the

edge. it is really unfortunate burmese pythons are threatened and endangered and their native range. in a perfect world we could start collecting them in florida shipping them back and reintroducing them perfectly did ask a scientist why we could not do that. [laughter] they have been breeding in the everglades. and presumably adapting hyper specifically to that environment and shifting to a largely aquatic ecosystem. largely aquatic diet. they have shifted their diet, who knows with their genetic potential is. it is unclear. they were founded by small a sml population of released pets. andse then who knows what kind f diseases they have beenn exposed to.

in their invasive range. and they could potentially bring back basically wipe out the native range or something like that. we have whatever plenty of other species that are more, and their invasive ranges. camels, basically don't exist anymore in the wild. we received at the outback. hippo pickles how about those? the wild mustangs. pigeons? they are succeeding wildly. there's only one known colony of wild pigeons left in the world.

on the west coast of scotland i don't believe it, sorry it will. >> what is the rat connection? the pythons question work what thesome parts of the evergs where there is just no mammals. is there some connection between the work you have been doing the caps. working in south florida has its charms.on we effectively worked in an interconnected work of pests.ar these endangered rodents. which are not pests. there ecosystem engineers. they're doing all kinds of seed

dispersal, they are great. they live in the forest.. they're not coming out into people's homes. they are doing their thing for. >> they build giant cool nests. >> i showed you some pretty. >> they are great. but, then we have non- native black rats the invasive black ripped we have had a long-running history with feral and free-roaming cats domestic cats as an issue consuming these endangered rodents. i now we have the pythons. and we have coyotes two. >> recently invading. they have to come over 18 miles to get the heat for. >> nice walk they've got this. we talked about this but you successfully managed the cap population of key largo. >> i did not do it. but i did document some of it and followedd along.

it has been fun working there. i've been working there for 10 years now. it's time to move on. >> everybody loves florida, come on. >> the fish and wildlife service has been working in the community there to mitigate the impact of pharaoh and free-roaming cats. live trapping them and working in the community to remind people that responsible pet ownership is ultimately the way to mitigate the issues. >> what is the one factor that led to more responsible pet ownership than anything else? >> coyotes and burmese pythons. [laughter] fix all the sudden. [laughter] parts how exactly the doing that? t are they helping the biologists? we get support from theer community because they're

interested in the common enemy the burmese python. pythons are consuming cats. they consume any mammals that they can find or subjugate. but anecdotally it's a little scientific costs appear. we find a lot more fat reserves in the pythons were the urban edges where there are more cats in the environment. i mean presumably the raccoons and possums have higher fat reserves. they could be reserved and multiple pathways to get those for. >> may be donald's or something. [laughter] they love it so much for. >> of your putting out cap food of courseca you're going to be attracting the cats that are going to come there. and then the raccoons and the coyotes. in the possums and the skunk spray. >> and the rats.

but you're basically making this a giant concentration of mammal biomass.l when a cold-blooded animal comes around sticking his tongue out trying to fight where the find e warm-blooded mammals are they are going to go there. >> you can just sit and wait. >> it's one things i found fasting reporting this book is how many people want to feed things. [laughter] they want to feed animals specifically they want to have i called the disney princess moments. the bird landing on your hand. they want to have the deer eat out of your hand. and they want to feed birds. they want to feed cats, whatever. w they only want -- to put out a dish of food they honestly believe that only the one species they want is going to eat it. [laughter] 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. [laughter] >> generally how smaller the critter the less pests like they are part birds, feed the birds the hummingbirds? what could be more pure. then feeding a hummingbird the critters.f the some asserts feeding the raccoons. he should not be feeding the coyotes. all of a sudden it's like why is it okay feed the hummingbirds of the black bears? is there potential to be a pest. to be a serious pest.

i'm sure give itth time. in my reporting in massachusetts i work with a bear biologist who has a huge issue there is a dude who insisted on feeding the bears. he had a big old platform set up in his backyard. >> a youtube channel? >> probably tick tock to be honest.co [laughter] ears will come every day he put up crazy. and he would not stop feeding the bears. he would not stop or even of the bear biologist came to him and said hey, in an effort to get to your food there are bears getting killed on the highway. outside the state. because they're trying to get to where you're feeding them. it's on my business i just want to feed the bears. >> it is a habituation and external resources that are creating this. that is again individual

mismanagement of resources in terms of intentional food supplementation.he there's plenty of other simple things like securing trash and other things like that to prevent animals from getting to the messes they create. putting the stuff there is not what drives it. is the habituation and the acceptance until all of the sudden it's no longer acceptable. >> everyone wants a photo. >> and all of a sudden it's too much. >> that's absolutely true. evelyn seems to want the photos until it is too much. that's one of things i was looking into. humans -- we have this idea and by we i mean western mostly white. [laughter] kind of groups have this idea we dominate the environment toni be

deserved at only the animals who want to be there, right? we refuse to change our own behavior when those animals cause problems. at the animal is getting into our trash it's not we should lock up the trash it is we who should poison the animal. there is a nether solution to this. it's really interesting. i found this is a very western view or eight global. not everyone thanks this way there other groups that will say we need to change our own behavior but we need to recognize these animals are here edand we live with them. we need to live with them cresponsibly. something we could all learn from honestly. other news please lock up your trash. >> is interesting in yourhe book there's in situations for just a few people can create a pest.

there are feeding the pigeons in a couple that are doing it for their own personal reasons. it's the same thing with cats sometimes. a kind of animal order type of situation. >> it was really interesting part one of things i found aboub cats as they can be a problem of social justice. because many of the people who i talked to who studied the social science of pigeon feedings. people study this, god bless academia. [laughter]s his name is karl he's at nyu. wrote a whole book on it, loved it fantastic a+ research. >> should've known to be in newy york.e >> of course but he talked to people who fed pigeons and looked at why they did. they were lonely. many of these people were elderly. they were alone. they had nothing. they had no friends.

what else of the going to do? it is a harmless thing to feed the birds the birds are grateful. the birds are friendly. birds are said to him you could literally reach down to pick them up. i have done it. you do understand why you pretty do also understand this is a social justice issue. we could help people who were elderly and socially isolated be less socially isolated. we can give them a community. people are socially isolated people who live with rats with homes are not impervious to rodents we could fix those problems. animals become pests are becoming pass because it's failed. that's really important thing to keep in mind we, look.

>> absolutely. >> it's quite powerful.bu >> thanks. to put it together, just before cap the social contract part we were talking about some threshold to be eventually get to with an animal. and then it becomes a pest stupid beat go from being okay with it to vilifying it. being okay and vilifying that thing because we cannot look at ourselves. is not our fault, it has to be something else's fault. that extends to our neighbors as well sometimes. that all of the sudden the problem is not our problem anymore we are going to blame some other person, some other type of person. or some other behavior. >> yes absently that happens. omi did was actually in homeless encampments where people are living with of rats that were excessive. it was a lot and they did not

want that. i mean, first of all, they don't want to be homeless. we'll start there, but they also really don't want to live rats. they did not want to live in environment that was dirty. you could actually see we know places where they were like organized and keeping spaces where they were organizing and keeping space is clean. they were doing their best. social contract that failed them as a society that decided that they did not deserve clean housing and to be free off living with animals. that's an important thing to think about. i think it's a great spot to

leave it as a reflection. that's a good moment. >> while you run down there can mike tell the story of the python in his pants. [laughter] >> you're supposed to leave that as a secret and read chapter two. [laughter] >> december, 2007 in a former life before territorial duties at the north carolina museumr f naturals alliances i was a zookeeper at the palm beach zoo in 2007. i went back country camping in the everglades by myself. it was right after hurricane wilma. a lot of the trails hadn't been cleared, and i need a permit to go back country camping or

whatever. i went solo, and there was an 11 or 12-mile hike and i was six or 7 miles in and i found a burmese python, this beautiful snake. and i looked at it and admired it along the trail and stuff. like wow, that's wild because it doesn't belong here. and this is before it's kind of well-known -- >> 2007 was really early on committee before they really knew a lot about them. >> i startednd walking. i kept going. then wait a second, i've got to catch this thing. so i i turned back and i didn't really have a g plan. i grabbed it by the tail and i the era [inaudible] i had no actual plan. i had it by the tail. i took my shirt off and threw mh my shirt over the head because

the simple fact is that if you cover in animals lives, they will be easyy to capture. so i grabbed it by the head and then it's body wrapped all around me. i was hopped up on adrenaline and that point like okay, now what.re and, i don't know, i'm sure the coyotes and everything all elaborate, it's probably 13 feet this snake. i think i said it was smaller in the book. >> you said it was 13 and then you looked up the e-mail at thel evidence and it was eight. [laughter] >> like the strength of a 13-foot python. anyway, i am an eagle scout. i took my jeans off one-handed and tidied the legs of each of them with my teeth and then i slowly unraveled the snake and

stuffed it into my pants and put a bungeee cord and cinched it shut and threw it in my backpack and slept with it in my tent with me that night. [laughter] and then on the way out to the next morning, i saw three additional burmese pythons. so i was like holy smokes this must be a bigger deal than anyone realizes. when i got back to check out from my permit i said you know, there's -- >> i said are people finding burmese pythons in the everglades and she said i have a better question, where are your pants! ii said they are over there and there's a python in them. [laughter] it was before the days of camera

phones and everything. i had fewer documentation of that is within the national park service actually came, collected the snake -- this was early on in the research -- and they put the transmitter in it and released it as a part of their initial study, studying the behavior of the burmese pythons. >> you sent an e-mail to a brand which you describe it the encounter and then you sent it to me, because of fact checking. >> the snake grows every year since 2007. so, anyway. >> and now i'm back in the florida keys studying pythons again. cannot escape. >> i'm glad we got that story. [laughter]r] i'm going to have you tell that a lot. >> lookingk. at the cover of the book, i see i was trying to understand like the pests that are the biggest in my life or

insects and i didn't know -- first mammals including what looks like a squirrel, but now we talk about reptiles and birds. is that -- how did you decide what to cover and not to cover? >> the book is actually only vertebrates. every time you talk about pests, i haveve a list as long as my am even that didn't make it there are so many. singles, crows, wild hogs, land snails -- there's so many. i ended up actually focusing on vertebrates for a reason, because this s was about the subjective nature of pests. the reality is even if it's a pest on an agricultural crop that we -- you can't really get people to make an emotional connection to a roach.

[laughter] itit just doesn't, it's hard. snakes are hard enough. so, i ended up focusing on vertebrates because i really wanted people to feel the tension and to feel the subjectiveness of the definition and to kindd of realize these ae definitions that we impose on the animals and don't have anything to do with of the animals themselves. no animal, invertebrate, insect or otherwise, is deliberately going out to cause us trouble. they are taking advantages of opportunities that we provide. >> i know that if an insect is classified as a pest, that changes the way that it's regulated -- is that true also with vertebrates?

how does a a pest get classified in that regard in terms of how it's going to be dealt with in a public policy or a regulatory kind of way? >> i'm throwing that one to you. >> so, generally with the vertebrates, what you're allowed to do with animal is dependent on the gaming agency. they are regulated where you can hunt, but the seasons are, the ways you can hunt, and they have classified different species according to that. so, that gets most interesting i think ins some of these areas when it comes to feral hogs because sometimes if they classify them as a game species that's different than if they classify them as more of a pest. so, if they are a pest, then they will open up more, anytime open season, no limit, more liberal in terms of what kind of

method you can use. and so, generally speaking with vertebrates, invasive species are usually you can do whatever youu want because they are invasive, open season. but it's not quite the same with agriculture because most don't get classified the same way. you do have often when it gets interesting is when you have something like a deer that's become an agricultural pest, then you have the rules of the hunting or do you get a special pestan rules, so they do have special rules you need to sort of apply and tell the state with the problem is but it's easy to get permission to go shoot deer out of season kind of as much as if they are causing problem. >> that is in line with what i had in mind.

there's no legal classification of pests, as vertebrates as pests as far as i understand. i'm not sure about that. but in terms of feral hogs in the state of north carolina, there is no harvest regulated. it's open season. i think the important thing is that there are rules and regulations about how humane the death has to be because you can't just throw bombs at them or plant mines or anything -- >> or poison. >> also like to hold traps and things are differently regulated. >> for sure depending on the species and everything. what is actually interesting in line with that is that part of my work in the florida keys started as a follow-up to their integrated pest management plan, and the pest management plan

includes removing all invasive species, including things like feral cats. and 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 destructive predators in the ecosystems. but what i find most fascinating about that is as part of the work i've been doing with pythons, we were tracking them in finding pythons because they were consuming some of the prey our research most recently. so i've been yielding a lot of e-mails from people -- >> like me. >> suggesting folks from the general public, they have all kinds of ideas about putting poison pills on the callers of

these raccoons and possums or little detonators that as soon as the python consumes them, they blow up or spikes that just expand out as soon they hit the stomach acid of a python. and it's fascinating because people celebrate the killing of pythons.s. like everyone is excited about these pythons. derbies like kill all the pythons. there are some coyote derbies to in places. and yet a lot ofie other specie, feral and free-roaming cats, that are just as destructive in the environment, or kind of, it's like we look past that because they are cute or we affiliated them with associated pets. and not invasive predators. so i think that there's a lot of

humanization and it probably correlates with that humanization of them broadly with the public, how much we kind w of, what's the word i'm looking for, align with them. >> that's something i've been thinking about a lot. we will do a great deal to protect animals we value to the point we will do awful things to the animals we don't because we value another animal more. i think about this with regards to the island ecosystem. you will have a population of seabirds or whatever and people will drop millions of tons of poison on those islands to get rid of the rats.

and they will. celebrate. at the end of the are like we did it we got r rid of the rats. if you did it to a cat, all of a sudden -- >> or even rabbits. >> have you considered of rehoming it? have you considered taking it somewhere and adopting it? what is the difference. and it also made me ask the question i don't know if there's a good answer to this. i've talked to many and none of them agree as is traditional. i've asked them what is the right decision and why are some of these animals more valuable? the reality is the rats are kill a bull because they are pests and because they are common. but why is it bad to be more common? why do we privilege the rare? why is biodiversity considered an inherent good? that's not to say i don't think that because i do think that.

biodiversity is great, but it's also a judgment that we've made, and it's kindon of one we have o live with the consequences with. >> i don't know if you will have an answer to this one. all this python talk has made me realize there is an elephant on your book and no one in the united states would've are considering an elephant as a pest, but i can clearly imagine situations and other places where they are. but what i have personal experience with is living in austin, texas where a large colony of bats lives in a man-made structure in the heart of the city and goes south to mexico for the winter but always comes back. are they considered -- the population sort of, people would

gather around and watch them come out and sunset [inaudible] >> a tourist attraction, and interesting fact the actor that played eddie munster lived in austin, texas also. >> i actually ended up avoiding bats in part because of covid. it was a little sensitive at the time because some species of bats -- they are really interesting. keep an eyere on this regarding bats. they are also interesting in that most of the time people don't go out to trap and poison bats if they are killed they are often killed in retaliation for things like disease outbreaks. so no, but the elephants are, yes. i got to study elephants in

kenya. i studied and met some up close. they are beautiful. they are so smart and sweet. they killed 200 people year in eastst africa and because millis of dollars in crop damage. >> i was thinking earlier when you gave the squirrel example, that they are sort of the funny pest. it's like lots of people have relationships with the van and a lot of people are them, but it's funny you can call them a funny name, but then there's the elephant. and some of the other species in your book that have much more consequential pests. i feel like we need another gradation of pests. we need like two different words. funny test sand not so funny pests. >> if you look, there's an interesting article on this topic from 2016, where he actually classified animals into

eight cubes of human judgment. which i adore. basically a three dimensional kind of cube situation whereas in your x axis is how common the encounter is, the y-axis is how severe the encounter is, and the middle axis is how positive or negative it is. those could be different, it's to remember. i don't manipulate objects in my head very well. but it's interesting because there are -- we think of animals where consequences are rare, very severe and negative. those are predators. so like brown bears, sharks, things like that. a very rare, very negative. that doesn't turn out well. but then you have encounters that go on a gradation that are less severe but more common. soso most of the time when peope

have negative encounters with elephants it's because they are eating their entire crophe for e season, not because they are killing. if they kill it's by accident usually. there've been a couple cases that were not by accident. and mostly animals we think of as pests, mice, rats, pigeons, geese, the interactions are extremely common. extremely mild and only slightly negative. like people really hate geese and what i find interesting about that is every group of canada geese that you seeee on e golf course or the lawn, we brought them 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 the guests one more round of applause. [applause]

charter is proud to be recognized as one of the best internet providers, and we are just getting started. building 100,000 miles of new infrasucture to reach those who need it most. >> charter communications along with these television companies support c-span2 as a public service. >> we embark on a captivating journey in partnership with the library of congress which first created the book that shaped america list to explore key works of literature from american history.

the books featured have provoked thoughts, won awards, led to significant societal changes and are still talked about today. here from featured renowned experts who share light on these works and virtual journeys across the country tied to these celebrated authors and their unforgettable books. among the books, common sense by thomas paine, huckleberry finn by mark twain, their eyes were watching god by hurston and free to choose by milton and rose friedman. watch the ten part series. booked that shaped america 9 p.m. eastern on c-span, the free mobile app or online on c-span.org. it is a pleasure for me to introduce you to a good friend