May 11, 2017 • 46 mins
Charismatic Megafauna is not just a great band name. It's really just a fancy word for the cutest and most personality plus animals at the zoo. We're talking pandas, elephants and anything else you might see on a poster. Their mission? To help raise awareness and drive donations. But not everyone is on board. Learn all about these cuddly beasts in today's episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should Know from how Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Roland and
stuff you should not. My vocal cords are about to
(00:24):
split wide open. Are they sure you don't sound weird? Oh?
Really nice? I'm very Josh like. What is that is? He?
I think that's how you pronounce it? Um? Wait, you
got a little uh threat thing? No, you know, like
(00:47):
when you just talk too much? Have you been talking
too much? I guess, or you're stressed. I was under
the impression that, aside from these two hours, you just
sort of sit in silence and you and you meet
pantomime right everything we do? Uh, interpretive dance. Yeah, I
gotta say my my vocal courts. Babe. Well, I'm sorry
(01:09):
to hear that you sound normal. Well, I'm glad I
saund normal because I don't feel like I do. But
if I sound normal, who cares about how I feel? Oh?
Come on, everyone cares? No. Uh. This podcast, by the way,
has perhaps the best band name ever right there in
its title. I think it's overdone. Charismatic Megafauna. What do
(01:32):
you mean, like there's so many bands name that, or
you just think the name is too much the ladder
of those two, he's pretty good now, charismatic Mega fauna.
I mean maybe for your second band, your side gig. No, no, no,
like the second before you know, your third, fourth or
fifth one where you finally hit it. I'm still waiting
on that. Are you know the first? But a hobby
(01:59):
that offen the omega and nothing in between? How do
you like my Latin? Is that Greek? Now this is
off to a terrible start. No, this is great. So
I saw a T shirt the other day. Um, I
should give credit worre credits due you me saw a
T shirt the other day and showed it to me.
It's pretty awesome, you know. Um it was a World
(02:20):
Wildlife Fund logo because you were just walking around kicking rocks.
She's not looking up. Look up every up, she panomimes,
look up now, pano back. Um it was the World
Wildlife Fund logo with the panda, but there was another
panda coming up behind it with a folding chair, which
(02:41):
is a play on the w WF. I've seen that before. Great,
great T shirt, um, But the fact that the panda
is the front man for the World Wildlife Foundation, one
of the biggest conservation organizations in the entire world. Is
actually a pretty good um example of the use of
(03:05):
a charismatic megafauna. Yeah um, which is also called a
flagship species, and it's um a term that came around
in the eighties. I tried to find track it back
to the person who thought of it. Couldn't either. I
couldn't do it. Let's go with Jack Hannah, all right, possible, Yeah,
it's possible. But basically it's very simple. This is a
(03:29):
koala or a panda right now, but sort of yes, um,
it's an animal that is like the poster child in
advertising for zoos and conservation groups because they're so stinking
cute and charismatic that people open their wallets to give
(03:49):
money towards conservation efforts. You just make it rain on them. Yeah, Like,
look at that panda. I can't My wallet is out
all of a sudden, and I'm just pulling Benjamin's out
and dropping them along this pandis trail. Yeah, that is
charismatic megafauna. It is. It's it's as simple as that.
And along the way, since it was kind of picked
(04:10):
up and coined and started to take seriously by conservationists.
It's become you know, much bigger and debated and everything.
But it really helps to understand it and bring it
down to size when you realize that it's actually it's
a conservation idea, but it's actually a marketing term. That's
(04:31):
That's what the whole thing is that it has nothing
to do with the importance of the species to its ecosystem,
not necessarily. It doesn't even necessarily have to do with, um,
how endangered the species is. UM. It really has to
do with how cute and relatable humans find the species
(04:51):
so that it will generate the most financial contributions possible
towards conservation. Yeah, it's pretty int thing. And this UM
we did an episode I think a pretty good one
on zoos quite a while back, and the controversy around
zoos and if we should even have zoos, and I
think I think I remember us both sort of agreeing
like some zoos are terrible, and then most zoos are.
(05:16):
I don't know about most, but many zoos these days
do such great work they are now necessary. And um
two conservation efforts or go a long way towards conservation efforts,
but we still like it's a little creepy sometimes when
you see an elephant that should roam for thousands of
miles in a you know, relatively small area, it makes
(05:37):
you think they who knows? Yeah, But then like, man,
it's just that thing with zoos again. Then you also
see like a child get inspired to grow up to
be a zoologists because they fell in love with the
elephant at the zoo, and then they lead conservation efforts.
So there's captive breeding programs that bring animals back from
the verge of extinction. Um, right, all this is stuff
to happen, but how often does it actually happen? Is?
(05:59):
I think the conservation efforts are constantly happening at most
zoos you need specifically bringing an animal back. Yeah, how
many zoologists are actually inspired by going to a zoo
as a child, like I mean, and is there a
better way to do it? I'm sure we got into
this in the in the Zoos episode. Since that, I
don't think I've been to a zoo. I think I've
(06:20):
been to a zoo once and I was like, I
can't go to zoos anymore. Well, I went to the
San Diego Zoo when we did our show there. Um,
and now I'm a member of the Atlanta Zoo because
I have a small child, And it's a great thing
to do with a small kid because it introduces them
the animals, which they love. It's really neat for them
to be able to see these things in person, and
(06:42):
it quite frankly wears her out, which is kind of
the one thing you're trying to do. Disappearance your child exhausted.
How crazy that chimpanzee is from being locked up its
whole life, Like I bet you can't run from one
animal exhibiting zookosis to the next as fast as you can. Um. So, anyway,
I've been to the Atlanta Zoo here a few times
(07:03):
recently because of that, and still have mixed feelings, you know,
but it's hard to not see like your twenty old
delight at seeing. I mean, one of these visits, we
caught a full on ape show. Really yeah, Like you know,
sometimes you go to the zoo and everyone's hiding. You're like, yeah,
well that's neat. There's a tiger behind that rock somewhere.
(07:23):
But um, we had a good day where these this
family of apes was just playing like crazy and like
this huge was it a gorilla? I can never remember
which monkeys which are apes. I think a gorilla is
a great ape. Well, this big daddy gorilla, I mean,
(07:45):
just to see the strength of this dude moving around
and jumping around was amazing. And he would jump off
of a rock and clap his hands, and the little
kids were playing little baby gorillas and everyone was just
like literally in awe of what they were witnessing. It
was like they pumped them full of steroids cocaine they did.
(08:07):
Right then, that guerrilla family was showing off their charisma. Yeah,
they have natural inherent charisma as far as um being
a charismatic species goes, because they're so relatable by humans.
Well yeah, I mean that's one of the things like, hey,
this one kind of looks like you. Don't you like
it more than other animals? Don't you want to give
(08:28):
us some money to protect them in the wild. And
that's the point of the charismatic mega fauna usage. Yeah,
that we're talking guerrillas, pandas, kualas, tigers, dolphins, killer whales.
Thanks free Willy. Uh. They include lions in here, and
I guess so because they're magnificent. But lions don't do
(08:51):
a lot. Most of the big cats just sort of
lay around. Sure, they're not running around like the gorillas.
You gotta throw your beer can at them to get
them going. They had an elephant paint a picture. They
did this little like it's a zoo, huh. They Yeah,
they put a paintbrush in its mouth and would hold
(09:11):
up a canvas and the elephant would like someone else,
it's smacko with the riding crop until it But you
want to know it wasn't like that. But that's actually
you can buy um paintings by elephants, but apparently they're
not very well treated. Yeah, I don't think that's. I
think at the Atlanta Zoo they treat their animals very nicely. Sure, sure,
I'm not saying that, but I mean on the internet
(09:33):
you can buy paintings by elephants, and yeah, if you
actually look into how the elephants are treated, probably wouldn't
want the painting. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be
super activist person, but I don't. I don't mind. It's
a you know, it's a controversy. And you know what,
there was a tiger there that was clearly exhibiting zukosis.
He was pacing back and forth, and all I could
do was think about how much that sucks for that
(09:54):
tiger to be there. Well, it goes to that solitary
confinement thing the episode that we did, it's virtually the
same thing. I think you even brought up suitcases in
that episode too. You know, man, that's quite a long winded,
uh sort of intro. Huh, I guess so should we
take a break already? And yeah, I'm a little worked out.
Get it back on the tracks. Yeah, all right, I
(10:38):
shot Josh with a sedative from an elephant gun. Now
you're drifting off, I'm a little I'm feeling pretty good.
We got a pretty good bush. All right. So we're
talking about well a lot of things, but let's get
back to characteristic, charismatic. What's wrong with me today? So
(10:58):
I read this this article UM on charismatic mega fauna
and then it was a survey of other journal like
scholarly articles UM, and I think they read like seventy
of them because they're basically trying to figure out what
a charismatic mega fauna definition was. UM. Apparently it was
just all over the place. It was. It's it's extremely
(11:20):
non scientific, and I think it is part of the
problem because it's a marketing tool. Man. These people were
trying to like whip it into shape. The best definition
they found, um or, the best explanation of what makes
an animal charismatic was from a paper called Non Human
Charisma by A. Jay Lorimer written in two thousand seven.
(11:41):
Um there were I think four points. One was detectability
and distinctiveness. Anybody can look at a pan and be like,
that's panda. Oh yeah, I love panda's. Look at there's
one right there, there's a panda. Well, and I think
um In the they interviewed a couple of zool just
some one of them and said, you might even know
(12:02):
a few facts about this. It's just a regular non
zoo enthusiast, Like panda's eat bamboo. Well, I was gonna
say that, but then I thought that was a koala,
and I was gonna koalaz eucalyptus. Yeah, yeah, that's right, yeah,
pantasy bamboo by the bushel. But you can point out
(12:24):
a pan and you're not like, I can't tell if
that's a camel rat or a humpback rat. You know,
like where it's it's just the same as everything else.
It has to be its own thing. That is really
that stands out. Another one is socioeconomic biases, So basically
how a society feels about the animal, right, So like
(12:45):
do I want to kill the rat or hug the panda? Exactly?
That's exactly right. Um. Aesthetics is another one, like is
it cute? Is it cuddly? Is it beautiful? Is it majestic?
Does it look like um, you know, uh uh, I
don't know a fat dude, right, you know, does it
like kind of look like it should be wearing a
(13:06):
hard hat and carrying like a lunch pail that kind
of thing. Is it relatable? Yeah, that panda, it looks
like Kevin James was wearing a black lone range of mask.
He doesn't love Kevin James wearing a black clone arrangement man.
And then the last one is the potential to generate satisfaction. Right.
So let's say that you see a panda and you're like,
(13:28):
I want to know what that is. I want to
know all about pandas, and you find out pandas are
really boring. There's not a lot to them. There's not
a lot to be said. Um, they do they don't
do anything it's not going to generate much satisfaction intellectually.
So if if you have an animal that checks all
these boxes, it's relatable, your society feels good about it.
(13:50):
It's cute, it's cuddly, it stands out on its own,
and and um, it has a lot, a lot to
offer intellectually, You've got a charismatic animal. Yeah, wow, I
like that. Well tell Ja Lormer, do you like it?
Jay Loremer? If you're out there, it's wonderful work. Uh.
(14:11):
So we're gonna cover sort of the good points and
bad points about this characterization. But um, when it works
is when the character uh keep saying characteristic, what is
wrong with me? Charismatic Megaphona functions as what's known as
an umbrella species, which is to say, um, because people
are giving money to some sort of conservation effort towards
(14:33):
this animal. Um, it's helping two protect and serve other
animals within that ecosystem the cop Yeah. Yeah, And by
the way that that makes sense, it does it does?
You have to kind of step back and think about
it though, you know, like, how does protecting, say like
a wolf help the rest of the ecosystem. Well, a
(14:56):
wolf feeds on smaller animals, let's say small chill under
the right circumstances. Unfortunately, Um, they typically they'll feed on
smaller animals, which say feed on insects, which say, feed
on plants. Um. So that means that if a wolf
(15:16):
is happy and healthy and it's normal ecosystem, that means
that all these other species that make up the food
web that the wolf is a part of must be
happy and healthy too. So and that's it's an it's
an umbrella species, like you said, where if you take
care of the wolf, you're inadvertently taking care of the
rest of them. So that's fine. Yeah. And in one
(15:38):
of the interviews in here, um, who is this person Braccini?
Was that from the Atlanta Zoo. Yeah. Dr Stephanie Braccini,
she says, and this is to me kind of says
it all. It would be nice if endangered species status
was correlated to a charismatic variable, but that's not necessarily
(16:02):
or often the case. And she brings up the point
of muscles spanglers. Freshwater muscle is critically endangered but has
no charisma, so you know, there's no correlation there. In
case the panda, there is because they were endangered, and
I think now they're just threatened, right, But there's not
always that correlation. She's like, it would be kind of
great if this was you know, this is always the case. Yeah,
(16:24):
I think the point underlying the use of charismatic mega
fauna is just knowing that something is on the verge
of going extinct has been proven not to be enough
to get humans to act to do anything about it
has to be cute too, And so what conservationists are saying,
after God, you're so stupid, they say, Okay, we can
(16:47):
work with this. See this cute little animal, save this animal,
give us your money, and then they take it and
and actually use it for the whole ecosystem rather than
just the animal. Yeah, and that's such a human thing.
Like the same can and has been said about like
kidnapped children or uh or the sex trade, Like it
(17:10):
takes some you know, cute little blonde girl to make
the news, you know, right, And that's kind of always
been the case. Well, and it's not it's not just
social either. It's not just society, although society definitely values attractiveness.
There have been plenty of studies about people with facial differences, right,
which is Um, like the people used to call them
(17:33):
disfigured people. Now it's called facial differences. I think that's
a great improvement, right, But um, they have been studies
with babies and they prefer people who, um, don't have
facial differences, who follow more like a typical facial profile
or feature, right, compared to people who have facial differences.
(17:56):
And that suggests that it's hardwired. So babies pause up
on this. Yeah yeah, yeah, Um. And the idea that
you're basically born to prefer, say, facial symmetry or something
like that, it really kind of falls in line with
this too. It's almost like you you can't help but say, yes,
I care about this cute little baby pand or whatever
(18:17):
because it's cute, whereas this other thing that is way
more endangered and deserves our attention way more because it's
actually a keystone species, which we'll talk about. Um, it's
not cute, so I can't really care about it. I'm
not hardwired to do that. Yeah, it's kind of like
that thing we've talked about before and I think recently,
where you prefer things that look like you because evolutionarily
(18:41):
anything else Back in Took Took's days might have been
a threat exactly. Yeah, right, So it's easy to be
hard on people, but when you kind of look at
the evolutionary aspect of it, like, you know, well they
did to understand as well. Yeah, that whole in group
outgroup thing. If we can get past that, it seems
like we are we've evolved socially faster than we've evolved biologically,
(19:06):
and that it just hasn't kept up. If we could
just get past that whole in group out group thing,
who knows what kind of world we'd be living in.
High school would be so great. Yeah, everybody would be like,
I love high school. So um. You talked about keystone species. Uh,
that is a species that actually performs like a really
(19:28):
vital role in their ecosystem. Yeah, where like if you
took them out, the ecosystem would be so altered, so
drastically altered, it probably wouldn't resemble itself any longer. It
may just go away altogether, like a honeybee or like coral. Yeah,
you know where like if it's gone, you're in trouble.
The thing is is a lot of charismatic megafauna aren't
(19:50):
keystone species. It actually doesn't really matter as far as
the ecosystem is concerned. If the pandas there, so there's
some other species in that ecosystem that will do the
same play the same role that the panda oil. There's
pandas right now listening that said. Did you just hear
that guy? Let's go kid him. Have you ever seen
(20:11):
a panda attack and kill a podcaster? Yes? Once, It's
very distressing. Pandas are supposed to be super vicious, are they? Oh? Yeah,
I thought that was a koala. Koala's as well. They're
all vicious, aren't they. Did you see the giraffe give birth? No?
I heard a lot of people talking about sitting around
and watching it forever and ever, but I didn't check
(20:32):
it out. It was hilariously sponsored. The webcam was sponsored
by Toys r US. You know Jeffrey giraffe, his family.
Well there you go. Interesting. Um, there's no accident, right,
I don't think so. Uh. They're also something called or
there is also something called an indicator species. And this
(20:53):
is like if you want to know how an ecosystem
is going. Uh, like, let's say, how's the the bayou doing.
Let's go look at the crayfish, because that would be
a good indicator of how everything else is doing. If
the crayfish numbers are down, that means something's going on, right,
or if there's if the canaries are dying off in
the coal mine, you've got gas right. Well. But in
(21:16):
the same way though, it's just uh, an umbrella species
can also be an indicator species, and that like if
the wolf can't survive, that means that all the other
parts of the food web are messed up too, and
they can also be an indicator species. Yeah. I don't
think that's that's how indicator species is used every time,
but it's a it's a an argument in favor of
(21:39):
using charismatic megafauna for conservation. Um. So we've been talking
a lot about you know, people want to give the
things that look like them and that are cute. Uh,
that this has been proven out with studies. We're not
just bloviating. Um well, I guess we are. But in
addition to bloviating, we're not making stuff up because the
University of Arizona go wildcats right, Yes, they did a
(22:02):
study and did find that people support preservation efforts. Oh wait,
now that's the sun devils. No, that's airs on state. Okay, Yeah, wildcats. Uh,
people did support efforts for animals that are attractive and
that do look more human. Um. And they even found
that women support uh scary animals even less than men. Right,
(22:27):
Like you know, preservation for a snake population or uh
maybe an insect or something. Yeah, so this is like
a barn as In approach to conservation. Yeah, promoting conservation. Um.
Also if you're if you are using charismatic megafauna for conservation,
(22:47):
um like it. It actually can have beneficial results, right,
It's not just like theoretically this should help. Like elephants,
everybody loves elephants. There's not a personal life who doesn't
like elephants in the West, I should say, right, um,
the and who knows why. They're very cute, they're very sweet,
they grieve over their dead, they do all sorts of
(23:08):
interesting stuff, right, Um. And they've used elephants to uh
basically as poster species for poaching campaigns. A lot more
than just elephants are poached. Everything from whale sharks to
rhinos to uh, well, elephants are poached. But the idea
of giving money to andy poaching campaigns because you you
(23:31):
feel like I want to help that elephant here's a check.
It's actually going and helping all these other species as well.
There's supposedly there's like thirty five thousand species that are
subject to poaching. Yeah, and the other example they've given
this article is the American bald eagle, which in the
sixties and seventies there was a big movement They're like,
this is America's bird. Yeah, dang it. You know Ben
(23:55):
Franklin wanted the turkey. I think I didn't know that
very interesting, not that you're ducking no, that would have
been even better. But yeah, in the sixties and seventies,
people were like, this is America's bird, we have to
save the American bald eagle. Um, and it worked there.
I think it's not even endangered any longer, right, I
(24:16):
don't think so. My in laws just saw one in Florida. Yeah,
pretty neat. Yeah, kind of just think associate them with
like Alaska and yeah, Pacific Northwest. But there was along
the Gulf. Yeah, there's like a whole group in the Gulf,
and there's a whole group up in the Great White Way.
Well above that, that's the Great White Way. I think
(24:38):
it's Broadway, isn't it. I don't know, I've never heard
the Broadway or Canada. I think it's Broadway. But I
thought it was Canada because I heard Scott Thompson from
the Kids in the Hall called Broadway that. So I
was like, I guess he's talking about Canada, and then
I found out he's like, it was Broadway. I think
it's Broadway. That was way more complex than I thought.
(24:59):
Um and the panda, you know, we mentioned um there
come back. They have a wild population increase over the
past ten or so years, largely because you know, people
love pandas. They'll open up the wallet. And again, I
mean not necessarily specifically with pandas, but with some species.
(25:20):
If you can say their their populations coming back in
the wild, then it also indicates that the their ecosystem
is getting better healthy again as well. So that's all
well and good. It's good that it it's made some money,
right sure, but there's also plenty of criticisms to using
(25:41):
charismatic mega fauna. Uh and let's take a break and
we'll talk about it right after this. So Chuck, yes,
(26:12):
what's what's the problem with using a cute panda or
an elephant or something like that to get money for conservation.
How could there be anything wrong with it? Well, that's there.
Another word for this is the Bambi effect, like when
you care only about the cute thing. Um. And they
interviewed for our own article, it's interesting that the Atlanta
(26:34):
Zoo u zoologists was like, this is kind of great
and it's working. And then they interviewed Christina Simmons of
the San Diego Zoo Global UH, and she was a
little more like, you know what, this is an eighties
thing and we have moved past that here in San Diego.
Ignore that panda on the brochure. We've moved past it. Yeah.
(26:57):
I thought that was funny. The article pointed out that
they had plenty of charismatic species on their website even
though they supposedly moved past it, So apparently in their
projects they stopped focusing on charismatic Mega font is what
she was saying, right, Yeah, she said that they m
what they're trying to do is focus on an environment
(27:17):
more than like. It's not like they don't focus on animals,
but they try to look at at it from an uh.
I guess from an ecosystem point of view? Is that right?
I think so? Or they're looking more at animals that
um have a bigger impact on their ecosystem, right than
than charismatic megafaunta Mike right, Yeah, and and um, I
(27:39):
don't think it was or maybe it was her. They
kind of put it in an interesting way that I
hadn't thought of. It sort of creates a class struggle,
a bit um between quote wealthy animal end quote and
a poor animal as far as their richness being determined
by their likability. Yeah, and I mean it's as simple
as that. And it's not just public awareness of you know,
(28:02):
these species being endangered, whereas there's plenty of other species
that aren't charismatic that are way more in trouble and
in danger of being extinct. Um, it's scientific money too,
Like scientists need funding to do their studies. And if
there's plenty of funding around to focus on pandas but
not say, those muscles that went extinct, well there's gonna
(28:26):
be a lot more scientific study directed towards pandas and
saving pandas than saving those muscles, even though those muscles
probably keep their aquatic ecosystem clean, whereas pandas just poop
everywhere and they don't do anything to clean up their ecosystem.
I wonder what the scientific ethics are. Maybe a researcher
can tell us about where funding goes, like if you know,
(28:49):
if they're like, well, let's divert some of that to
um this other species, whereas the individual who donate might
be like, no, just pandas. Well. That was actually brought
up in the in this larger article that survey of
like the seventy other articles about charismatic megafauna, and they
said that that could be an issue. Some donors want
to know that their money is going towards what they
(29:09):
donated it. And if you think you donated it to
save pandas, and these guys are being like, yeah, yeah,
we're helping pandas, but we're also helping these snakes. But
you hate snakes. You might be unhappy that your money's
helping snakes, you though the snakes really need the help. Yeah.
One thing I have noticed with donation sites is a
lot of times they'll have that and then let's say,
(29:30):
would you also like to donate five dollars to the
general fund um stuff, you know, so you can help
the snake. Yeah, And there's not one that says the
general fund and no, but no, snakes right now, there's
not an option you're doing. You're donating the snakes with
the general fund. You know, there's also the issue of
it being a totally unscientific idea. It's completely subjective. Like
(29:54):
even here in the West, people are like, well, lions
are beautiful and majestic, but if you talk to um
school kids in Tanzania, they'll say, actually, lions are quite
fearsome because we live near them, and um, I have
a friend whose uncle was killed by a lion. Right,
so you can't even agree on what what um what
(30:17):
animals have charisma? Even even you know, it seems like
a foregone conclusion to us, the people who are carrying
out these conservation efforts and who are donating the conservation
dollars aren't the ones who have to actually live with
these animals as well. Right, So, if you're an organization
who's getting conservation dollars from these people to save these
(30:39):
animals that the locals actually hate, you're gonna have a
problem here. So what are some of the solutions to
these to to what what can you do as a
conservationist if you're facing this this issue where you need
money but you also need to be realistic at the
feeling you have an answer and wait. Well, one of
(31:03):
the one of the great suggestions that I've run across
is um you can talk about these species that people like,
but just talk about them in in realistic terms and
don't say how cute they are and all that stuff. Yeah,
or don't make it sound like they're the most important
animal on the planet, right, like put it in its
relative context, right. Or this one is even better. Take
(31:28):
an actual keystone species from an ecosystem that's in real
danger of becoming instinct, and then put your marketing people
to work on creating charisma for that animal, because you
know what, they could do that in most cases, unless
it's a komodo dragon. No, it's actually a really great
example of of them doing that. Well. I was about
(31:51):
the reason I mentioned that because I was that was
one of my favorite animals at the Atlanta Zoo. Was.
I could sit around and watch that komodo dragon for days. Yeah,
he was so cool looking, but a lot of people
might not think so. So Like Charon Stone, apparently there
was a huge what Jaron Stone's ex husband was bitten
by a komodo dragon very famously? Was he hurt? Ye
(32:12):
did he die, No, that's not why he's an ex.
Did he lose a toe? Well, I should say he's
an ex because he got bitten by the komodo dragon,
but just because she was embarrassed by it, so she
divorced him. No, okay, she's like, oh my god, I
can't even go out in public now see you later.
You've mortified me. Yeah. I figured you would have known
about that. It was a very not funny for him,
(32:34):
funny for everybody everyone else. No, but apparently there was
a big local push to save komodo dragons. They were
not well liked, but they put some top marketing people
on it and gave the komodo dragon chrisma, like just
pointing to a panda bear and being like pretty cute. Huh.
That doesn't take any marketing skill. It takes real marketing
(32:55):
skill to take a hated and reviled animal that needs
human help and make it charming. You know who could
solve all of this, God Disney. Oh yeah, you know.
All you gotta do is make a movie about a
Komodo dragon is the hero. Sure, and and literally that
(33:16):
would change everything. Somebody needs to throw out Walt Disney. Yeah,
he's still frozen. I don't know if that's true or
an urban legend or not. We should get Holly from
my stuff you miss in history class in here. Well,
we did an episode on criegenics, and I'm sure we
covered it, but that was a long time ago. Holly,
for all I know, might have Walt Disney frozen in
her house. She might you know, being held captive. Uh
(33:40):
So should we talk a little bit about bio diversity.
I think we should and why that's important because that's
kind of what we're talking about here in a roundabout ways.
A healthy ecosystem depends on biodiversity. And that doesn't just
mean what's known as species diversity or species richness, which is,
you know, a lot of different animals. That's what most
(34:00):
people think of when they think of biodiversity. It's a
lot more complex than that. Yeah, So there's, um, there's
species diversity, like you said, there's also a genetic diversity,
which is the combined number of genes that's available to
uh species worldwide. And the more genetic diversity of species
have them, the easier it can withstand um things like disease.
(34:24):
Uh Yeah, some individuals are gonna die, but overall the
species should be able to survive it because there's probably
a gene in there somewhere that can combat this disease
or is immune to this disease, and they'll develop an
immunity to it. The species will go on. So species
diversity is a very important type of biodiversity too. Yeah,
like bald eagle again, genetic diversity. Sorry, yeah, yeah, bald
(34:47):
eagle good example because they are spread out all over, Uh,
well not all over, but in those certain places in
North America give them good genetic diversity. Uh, Thus they
were able to come back. The cheetah um not so much.
Back in the day, there was only one species, I
think around ten thousand years ago. Yeah, I didn't see
what happened to the species or the cheated Did you
(35:08):
what all the other species? Yeah, I don't know. That's
pretty bizarre. Just one survived, Yeah, the uh sen Nick's jubats.
I think that's right. In Africa and um, that was
a problem because when you just have one species, you're
in breeding a lot and your genetic diversity goes way
(35:30):
down and all of a sudden, you uh, one thing
could come along and wipe you out. Exactly when one
disease or something um And then there's also ecosystem diversity,
which is the number of different types of ecosystems around
the world, and the more you have those, the better
off you are. It's kind of like bio diversity is
a really good example of not having all of your
eggs in one basket. Yeah, you want to diversify. It's
(35:53):
the same thing with stocks and bonds, that's right, you know. Uh,
And as humans, bio diversity is a big deal because
of medicine that we use that comes from plants. Let's say, uh,
what else, clothes that we wear from plants, and animal fibers,
what we eat. That's another big one too. Can't forget that. Yeah,
(36:14):
And the point is it's all linked, like you talked
about earlier. The wolf population will have a or the
honeybee population will have an effect on down the line
because it's all one big linked puzzle, and something like
colony collapse disorder can foul it up to the point
where just because the honeybee are the crop production as
a whole in the United States is in trouble right right,
(36:38):
So there's and it seems kind of remedial that to
go over it, but it's important to point out, like,
what's at stake here when you're talking about extinction? Right,
It's not like, oh, we don't have honey anymore, right now,
there's the entire ecosystems can fail, And when entire ecosystems fail,
the world gets a little less bio diverse. And when
that happens, it's a little more fragile, and it just
(36:59):
keeps getting set up more and more and more for
some sort of larger collapse that's more than just say
a honeybee collapse. UM and apparently the big one, the
big daddy as far as UM as reduction of biodiversity goes, Well,
there's two of them. One is invasive species. Yeah, I
(37:19):
didn't know we should do a show on We're gonna
do one on cuts at one point. I don't know
if that's two separate shows or not. I don't know,
but I did and realized that invasive species caused that
much damage. Yeah, there's something like um half of all
of the extinction special extinctions since the sixteen hundreds they
attribute to invasive species, where it's just you know, you've
(37:42):
got a species that's introduced into a new um ecosystem,
doesn't have any predators, so it it preys on other
things and reproduces unchecked and just totally throws off the ecosystem. Right.
Half of extinction comes from invasive species, and then another third,
six percent apparently comes from deforestation, right yeah, I mean
(38:03):
the other two big ones are over hunting, um, like
we were talking about with like the rhino and elephants
and stuff like that, and back in our pigeons episode
literally calls the extinction of the passenger pigeon. Uh. And
then climate changes the fourth which um, sort of just
getting started on that one. So I would that's an
(38:23):
increasingly becoming a problem with animals force from their habitats.
But deforestation is the big daddy. Yeah, and apparently one
of the big issues with deforestation, although there has been
a lot of headway made with slowing deforestation. Um. But
the rainforest is particularly vulnerable because it covers about seven
percent of Earth's land mass, but it houses about half
(38:47):
of Earth's species. That's crazy, right, So there's that problem
with a lot of eggs in one basket. If you
mess with that basket, you're you're in big trouble. I
think that's how the saying goes, right. So um, one
of the problems with deforestation is that if you are
developing economy and you've got a lot of economic activity
(39:10):
that can be gained by cutting down the rainforest, it's
kind of tough de fault that that economy to say,
what are you doing? You know, we as humanity need that.
That's nature's pharmacy, right. Um. There's also apparently a lot
of issue with indigenous peoples in rainforests as well, that
(39:31):
a lot of them are like, well they're indigenous people,
they know what they're doing. Well, they're also like deforesting
the rainforest themselves as well. So there's a lot of
programs that have been put into place to reduce deforestation,
and like I said, they're having an effect. Apparently, within
the last couple of years, deforestation has fallen like year
over year in Brazil, which is where a lot of
(39:54):
it was happening. So the idea of deforestation not happening
in UM Brazil are happening less. That's a big deal. Yeah,
And they have found a direct correlation between um the
local economy being less reliant on the rainforest and having
(40:14):
like a healthy economy doesn't that doesn't depend on the
rainforest and deforestation decreasing, so it's you know, it's not
rocket science, and thanks to Don Henley it's all getting
better and Al Gore and Tom Petty. All Don Henley
does is helped the rainforest and be a jerk and
sue people. Who does he sue dude? Done. Henley sues everybody,
(40:37):
sue everybody, shoes, sue. He sues Sharon Stone's husband. I
think so now he's sort of a notorious jerk as
far as like, oh you you know you used this
Eagle song when you weren't supposed to and taking you
to court and then I'll cut you. Man. He like
one of my favorite bands, and then I'll cut you.
(40:57):
That's not a peaceful, easy feeling at all. Um Okerville
River one of my favorite bands. They kind of reworked
a Don Henley song as a homage and a tribute
and it didn't even like I think they just put
it on the web. They weren't like trying to make
money off of it, and they're like, man, we love
this song. We kind of reworked it and like here
it is. And he was like, shut it down, get
(41:20):
it off the internet. I'm suing you, little indie band. Yeah,
And then will Chef there, uh, their lead singer and songwriter.
He was just sort of like, man, really thanks a lot. Yeah,
I'm gonna have my Eagles tattooed. Grade it off, no more,
no more homages to you, sir. It was the end
(41:40):
of will Chef's innocence about Don Henley. Uh, I'm gonna
see Joe Walsh to More Night and Tom Petty he's
opening up, wow, which I'm pretty excited about. Usually openers
at those big shows or I don't know, they don't
do a good job pairing them sometimes. Yeah. Like I
saw Elton John once and he had these two cello
(42:02):
players yo yo maa yeah, and his and his brother. No.
It was I mean it was kind of neat. That's
the only cello player and they were I can't remember
their names, and I'm sure there are tons of people
that are fans of these guys because they play like
like A C. D C songs on the cello and
it's really sort of yah. I mean it was cool,
but I don't know, like I just wanted to. I
(42:24):
want to see Joe Walsh open up for everybody, so
um you me and I went and saw Cindy lawper
a couple of years ago, and Dr John opened for Yeah,
that's not a good pairing. It well, so it was
an amazing show, both of them were, but um, it
was like the Doctor John show happened, and then everyone left,
everyone came in for Cindy Lauper. It was a very
(42:46):
weird pairing. I think Cindy Lauper's is like a Doctor
John fan and wanted to make sure he got some
money that year or something right. But it was like
two different shows, like an early show in a late
show as far as the audience was concerned. Yeah, I
saw Josh Grobin open up for Iron Maid, and I
thought that was strange too. Well, Bruce Dickinson is a
well known operatic singer. Oh that's true, so I can Yeah,
(43:09):
tattooed millionaire pilot man. Not what a great ending? Or
are we done? Did you have anything else? Nope? All right.
If you want to know more about Iron Maiden bio diversity,
Josh Groban, yo yo, ma, all that jazz, type those
words in the search bar at how stuff works dot
com and press your luck. Since I said press your luck,
(43:29):
it's time for listener mail All that Jazz, and then
of which was jazz. Alright, Um, I wonder where that
term came from. Just I think it's from the Great
White Way, right. I mean there was a show called
All That Jazz, But I invent that, I think, So okay,
(43:50):
that's all it. This is from I'm gonna call this
from our old buddy, Sarah Law. Who's our oldest. Um.
I always say oldest like she's night long the longest lasting,
longest running band. Yeah, long standing listeners from Canada. Hey, guys, Josh,
Chuck and Jerry. Can you still not spell Jerry? Right,
(44:12):
Sarah after all these years, I just spell it Gary
with a G Gary j E r I everybody, Um,
I know you guys love animals, so I thought it'd
be great if you could share this, uh stuff you shnow.
Army story friend needed to give up his cat for
adoption because he's moving out of the United States due
to health issues of the cat. Shelters would not take her.
(44:33):
He was going to have to put her down, which
I can't believe that's the solution, Like I gotta move,
I'll just put you down. That aside. Um, I put
out a ninth hour call. I think it's eleventh hour
in the United States. Apparently in candidates a night hour.
Uh put out a night hour call to this stuffy
snow army and a nice person named Kevin Lyman asked
(44:56):
everyone he knew if they could take her. And I'm
happy to say that Evan's coworker cat. But the k
picked Ava up and Ava as a cat from the
vet appointment to save her life and then took her
to be put down. No, I saw a picture. This
cat was adorable. Uh, never underestimate the power of the stuff.
(45:16):
You should know, Army and I think she shared this
on Facebook and it, you know, it kind of happened that. Yeah,
that's great. I love the show. Thank you for enriching
our lives in so many ways. Your Canadian friend Sarah
O x O thinks a lot. Sarah though was a
great story. Yeah, it was appropriate for this. I told
Sarah that, oh yeah, do you think about that? Cats
are charismatic mini fauna. I told Sarah, we uh, an
(45:39):
all likelihood are going to be coming up to the
Great White Way, and I hope that's what it is
for some shows this year. We're gonna be hit in Canada.
I think so at least one. Yeah, we've been teasing
these shows, but we're kind of nailing it all down.
So listen up, all eight of you who still listen
this deep into the show. We might be coming to
a town near you. Yeah, and let everybody else know. Uh.
(46:02):
If you want to get in touch with this, you
can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff
you Should Know. You can send us email to stuff
Podcast at how stuff works dot com. Has always joined
us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should
Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com
Welcome to Stuff you should Know from how Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Roland and
stuff you should not. My vocal cords are about to
(00:24):
split wide open. Are they sure you don't sound weird? Oh?
Really nice? I'm very Josh like. What is that is? He?
I think that's how you pronounce it? Um? Wait, you
got a little uh threat thing? No, you know, like
(00:47):
when you just talk too much? Have you been talking
too much? I guess, or you're stressed. I was under
the impression that, aside from these two hours, you just
sort of sit in silence and you and you meet
pantomime right everything we do? Uh, interpretive dance. Yeah, I
gotta say my my vocal courts. Babe. Well, I'm sorry
(01:09):
to hear that you sound normal. Well, I'm glad I
saund normal because I don't feel like I do. But
if I sound normal, who cares about how I feel? Oh?
Come on, everyone cares? No. Uh. This podcast, by the way,
has perhaps the best band name ever right there in
its title. I think it's overdone. Charismatic Megafauna. What do
(01:32):
you mean, like there's so many bands name that, or
you just think the name is too much the ladder
of those two, he's pretty good now, charismatic Mega fauna.
I mean maybe for your second band, your side gig. No, no, no,
like the second before you know, your third, fourth or
fifth one where you finally hit it. I'm still waiting
on that. Are you know the first? But a hobby
(01:59):
that offen the omega and nothing in between? How do
you like my Latin? Is that Greek? Now this is
off to a terrible start. No, this is great. So
I saw a T shirt the other day. Um, I
should give credit worre credits due you me saw a
T shirt the other day and showed it to me.
It's pretty awesome, you know. Um it was a World
(02:20):
Wildlife Fund logo because you were just walking around kicking rocks.
She's not looking up. Look up every up, she panomimes,
look up now, pano back. Um it was the World
Wildlife Fund logo with the panda, but there was another
panda coming up behind it with a folding chair, which
(02:41):
is a play on the w WF. I've seen that before. Great,
great T shirt, um, But the fact that the panda
is the front man for the World Wildlife Foundation, one
of the biggest conservation organizations in the entire world. Is
actually a pretty good um example of the use of
(03:05):
a charismatic megafauna. Yeah um, which is also called a
flagship species, and it's um a term that came around
in the eighties. I tried to find track it back
to the person who thought of it. Couldn't either. I
couldn't do it. Let's go with Jack Hannah, all right, possible, Yeah,
it's possible. But basically it's very simple. This is a
(03:29):
koala or a panda right now, but sort of yes, um,
it's an animal that is like the poster child in
advertising for zoos and conservation groups because they're so stinking
cute and charismatic that people open their wallets to give
(03:49):
money towards conservation efforts. You just make it rain on them. Yeah, Like,
look at that panda. I can't My wallet is out
all of a sudden, and I'm just pulling Benjamin's out
and dropping them along this pandis trail. Yeah, that is
charismatic megafauna. It is. It's it's as simple as that.
And along the way, since it was kind of picked
(04:10):
up and coined and started to take seriously by conservationists.
It's become you know, much bigger and debated and everything.
But it really helps to understand it and bring it
down to size when you realize that it's actually it's
a conservation idea, but it's actually a marketing term. That's
(04:31):
That's what the whole thing is that it has nothing
to do with the importance of the species to its ecosystem,
not necessarily. It doesn't even necessarily have to do with, um,
how endangered the species is. UM. It really has to
do with how cute and relatable humans find the species
(04:51):
so that it will generate the most financial contributions possible
towards conservation. Yeah, it's pretty int thing. And this UM
we did an episode I think a pretty good one
on zoos quite a while back, and the controversy around
zoos and if we should even have zoos, and I
think I think I remember us both sort of agreeing
like some zoos are terrible, and then most zoos are.
(05:16):
I don't know about most, but many zoos these days
do such great work they are now necessary. And um
two conservation efforts or go a long way towards conservation efforts,
but we still like it's a little creepy sometimes when
you see an elephant that should roam for thousands of
miles in a you know, relatively small area, it makes
(05:37):
you think they who knows? Yeah, But then like, man,
it's just that thing with zoos again. Then you also
see like a child get inspired to grow up to
be a zoologists because they fell in love with the
elephant at the zoo, and then they lead conservation efforts.
So there's captive breeding programs that bring animals back from
the verge of extinction. Um, right, all this is stuff
to happen, but how often does it actually happen? Is?
(05:59):
I think the conservation efforts are constantly happening at most
zoos you need specifically bringing an animal back. Yeah, how
many zoologists are actually inspired by going to a zoo
as a child, like I mean, and is there a
better way to do it? I'm sure we got into
this in the in the Zoos episode. Since that, I
don't think I've been to a zoo. I think I've
(06:20):
been to a zoo once and I was like, I
can't go to zoos anymore. Well, I went to the
San Diego Zoo when we did our show there. Um,
and now I'm a member of the Atlanta Zoo because
I have a small child, And it's a great thing
to do with a small kid because it introduces them
the animals, which they love. It's really neat for them
to be able to see these things in person, and
(06:42):
it quite frankly wears her out, which is kind of
the one thing you're trying to do. Disappearance your child exhausted.
How crazy that chimpanzee is from being locked up its
whole life, Like I bet you can't run from one
animal exhibiting zookosis to the next as fast as you can. Um. So, anyway,
I've been to the Atlanta Zoo here a few times
(07:03):
recently because of that, and still have mixed feelings, you know,
but it's hard to not see like your twenty old
delight at seeing. I mean, one of these visits, we
caught a full on ape show. Really yeah, Like you know,
sometimes you go to the zoo and everyone's hiding. You're like, yeah,
well that's neat. There's a tiger behind that rock somewhere.
(07:23):
But um, we had a good day where these this
family of apes was just playing like crazy and like
this huge was it a gorilla? I can never remember
which monkeys which are apes. I think a gorilla is
a great ape. Well, this big daddy gorilla, I mean,
(07:45):
just to see the strength of this dude moving around
and jumping around was amazing. And he would jump off
of a rock and clap his hands, and the little
kids were playing little baby gorillas and everyone was just
like literally in awe of what they were witnessing. It
was like they pumped them full of steroids cocaine they did.
(08:07):
Right then, that guerrilla family was showing off their charisma. Yeah,
they have natural inherent charisma as far as um being
a charismatic species goes, because they're so relatable by humans.
Well yeah, I mean that's one of the things like, hey,
this one kind of looks like you. Don't you like
it more than other animals? Don't you want to give
(08:28):
us some money to protect them in the wild. And
that's the point of the charismatic mega fauna usage. Yeah,
that we're talking guerrillas, pandas, kualas, tigers, dolphins, killer whales.
Thanks free Willy. Uh. They include lions in here, and
I guess so because they're magnificent. But lions don't do
(08:51):
a lot. Most of the big cats just sort of
lay around. Sure, they're not running around like the gorillas.
You gotta throw your beer can at them to get
them going. They had an elephant paint a picture. They
did this little like it's a zoo, huh. They Yeah,
they put a paintbrush in its mouth and would hold
(09:11):
up a canvas and the elephant would like someone else,
it's smacko with the riding crop until it But you
want to know it wasn't like that. But that's actually
you can buy um paintings by elephants, but apparently they're
not very well treated. Yeah, I don't think that's. I
think at the Atlanta Zoo they treat their animals very nicely. Sure, sure,
I'm not saying that, but I mean on the internet
(09:33):
you can buy paintings by elephants, and yeah, if you
actually look into how the elephants are treated, probably wouldn't
want the painting. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be
super activist person, but I don't. I don't mind. It's
a you know, it's a controversy. And you know what,
there was a tiger there that was clearly exhibiting zukosis.
He was pacing back and forth, and all I could
do was think about how much that sucks for that
(09:54):
tiger to be there. Well, it goes to that solitary
confinement thing the episode that we did, it's virtually the
same thing. I think you even brought up suitcases in
that episode too. You know, man, that's quite a long winded,
uh sort of intro. Huh, I guess so should we
take a break already? And yeah, I'm a little worked out.
Get it back on the tracks. Yeah, all right, I
(10:38):
shot Josh with a sedative from an elephant gun. Now
you're drifting off, I'm a little I'm feeling pretty good.
We got a pretty good bush. All right. So we're
talking about well a lot of things, but let's get
back to characteristic, charismatic. What's wrong with me today? So
(10:58):
I read this this article UM on charismatic mega fauna
and then it was a survey of other journal like
scholarly articles UM, and I think they read like seventy
of them because they're basically trying to figure out what
a charismatic mega fauna definition was. UM. Apparently it was
just all over the place. It was. It's it's extremely
(11:20):
non scientific, and I think it is part of the
problem because it's a marketing tool. Man. These people were
trying to like whip it into shape. The best definition
they found, um or, the best explanation of what makes
an animal charismatic was from a paper called Non Human
Charisma by A. Jay Lorimer written in two thousand seven.
(11:41):
Um there were I think four points. One was detectability
and distinctiveness. Anybody can look at a pan and be like,
that's panda. Oh yeah, I love panda's. Look at there's
one right there, there's a panda. Well, and I think
um In the they interviewed a couple of zool just
some one of them and said, you might even know
(12:02):
a few facts about this. It's just a regular non
zoo enthusiast, Like panda's eat bamboo. Well, I was gonna
say that, but then I thought that was a koala,
and I was gonna koalaz eucalyptus. Yeah, yeah, that's right, yeah,
pantasy bamboo by the bushel. But you can point out
(12:24):
a pan and you're not like, I can't tell if
that's a camel rat or a humpback rat. You know,
like where it's it's just the same as everything else.
It has to be its own thing. That is really
that stands out. Another one is socioeconomic biases, So basically
how a society feels about the animal, right, So like
(12:45):
do I want to kill the rat or hug the panda? Exactly?
That's exactly right. Um. Aesthetics is another one, like is
it cute? Is it cuddly? Is it beautiful? Is it majestic?
Does it look like um, you know, uh uh, I
don't know a fat dude, right, you know, does it
like kind of look like it should be wearing a
(13:06):
hard hat and carrying like a lunch pail that kind
of thing. Is it relatable? Yeah, that panda, it looks
like Kevin James was wearing a black lone range of mask.
He doesn't love Kevin James wearing a black clone arrangement man.
And then the last one is the potential to generate satisfaction. Right.
So let's say that you see a panda and you're like,
(13:28):
I want to know what that is. I want to
know all about pandas, and you find out pandas are
really boring. There's not a lot to them. There's not
a lot to be said. Um, they do they don't
do anything it's not going to generate much satisfaction intellectually.
So if if you have an animal that checks all
these boxes, it's relatable, your society feels good about it.
(13:50):
It's cute, it's cuddly, it stands out on its own,
and and um, it has a lot, a lot to
offer intellectually, You've got a charismatic animal. Yeah, wow, I
like that. Well tell Ja Lormer, do you like it?
Jay Loremer? If you're out there, it's wonderful work. Uh.
(14:11):
So we're gonna cover sort of the good points and
bad points about this characterization. But um, when it works
is when the character uh keep saying characteristic, what is
wrong with me? Charismatic Megaphona functions as what's known as
an umbrella species, which is to say, um, because people
are giving money to some sort of conservation effort towards
(14:33):
this animal. Um, it's helping two protect and serve other
animals within that ecosystem the cop Yeah. Yeah, And by
the way that that makes sense, it does it does?
You have to kind of step back and think about
it though, you know, like, how does protecting, say like
a wolf help the rest of the ecosystem. Well, a
(14:56):
wolf feeds on smaller animals, let's say small chill under
the right circumstances. Unfortunately, Um, they typically they'll feed on
smaller animals, which say feed on insects, which say, feed
on plants. Um. So that means that if a wolf
(15:16):
is happy and healthy and it's normal ecosystem, that means
that all these other species that make up the food
web that the wolf is a part of must be
happy and healthy too. So and that's it's an it's
an umbrella species, like you said, where if you take
care of the wolf, you're inadvertently taking care of the
rest of them. So that's fine. Yeah. And in one
(15:38):
of the interviews in here, um, who is this person Braccini?
Was that from the Atlanta Zoo. Yeah. Dr Stephanie Braccini,
she says, and this is to me kind of says
it all. It would be nice if endangered species status
was correlated to a charismatic variable, but that's not necessarily
(16:02):
or often the case. And she brings up the point
of muscles spanglers. Freshwater muscle is critically endangered but has
no charisma, so you know, there's no correlation there. In
case the panda, there is because they were endangered, and
I think now they're just threatened, right, But there's not
always that correlation. She's like, it would be kind of
great if this was you know, this is always the case. Yeah,
(16:24):
I think the point underlying the use of charismatic mega
fauna is just knowing that something is on the verge
of going extinct has been proven not to be enough
to get humans to act to do anything about it
has to be cute too, And so what conservationists are saying,
after God, you're so stupid, they say, Okay, we can
(16:47):
work with this. See this cute little animal, save this animal,
give us your money, and then they take it and
and actually use it for the whole ecosystem rather than
just the animal. Yeah, and that's such a human thing.
Like the same can and has been said about like
kidnapped children or uh or the sex trade, Like it
(17:10):
takes some you know, cute little blonde girl to make
the news, you know, right, And that's kind of always
been the case. Well, and it's not it's not just
social either. It's not just society, although society definitely values attractiveness.
There have been plenty of studies about people with facial differences, right,
which is Um, like the people used to call them
(17:33):
disfigured people. Now it's called facial differences. I think that's
a great improvement, right, But um, they have been studies
with babies and they prefer people who, um, don't have
facial differences, who follow more like a typical facial profile
or feature, right, compared to people who have facial differences.
(17:56):
And that suggests that it's hardwired. So babies pause up
on this. Yeah yeah, yeah, Um. And the idea that
you're basically born to prefer, say, facial symmetry or something
like that, it really kind of falls in line with
this too. It's almost like you you can't help but say, yes,
I care about this cute little baby pand or whatever
(18:17):
because it's cute, whereas this other thing that is way
more endangered and deserves our attention way more because it's
actually a keystone species, which we'll talk about. Um, it's
not cute, so I can't really care about it. I'm
not hardwired to do that. Yeah, it's kind of like
that thing we've talked about before and I think recently,
where you prefer things that look like you because evolutionarily
(18:41):
anything else Back in Took Took's days might have been
a threat exactly. Yeah, right, So it's easy to be
hard on people, but when you kind of look at
the evolutionary aspect of it, like, you know, well they
did to understand as well. Yeah, that whole in group
outgroup thing. If we can get past that, it seems
like we are we've evolved socially faster than we've evolved biologically,
(19:06):
and that it just hasn't kept up. If we could
just get past that whole in group out group thing,
who knows what kind of world we'd be living in.
High school would be so great. Yeah, everybody would be like,
I love high school. So um. You talked about keystone species. Uh,
that is a species that actually performs like a really
(19:28):
vital role in their ecosystem. Yeah, where like if you
took them out, the ecosystem would be so altered, so
drastically altered, it probably wouldn't resemble itself any longer. It
may just go away altogether, like a honeybee or like coral. Yeah,
you know where like if it's gone, you're in trouble.
The thing is is a lot of charismatic megafauna aren't
(19:50):
keystone species. It actually doesn't really matter as far as
the ecosystem is concerned. If the pandas there, so there's
some other species in that ecosystem that will do the
same play the same role that the panda oil. There's
pandas right now listening that said. Did you just hear
that guy? Let's go kid him. Have you ever seen
(20:11):
a panda attack and kill a podcaster? Yes? Once, It's
very distressing. Pandas are supposed to be super vicious, are they? Oh? Yeah,
I thought that was a koala. Koala's as well. They're
all vicious, aren't they. Did you see the giraffe give birth? No?
I heard a lot of people talking about sitting around
and watching it forever and ever, but I didn't check
(20:32):
it out. It was hilariously sponsored. The webcam was sponsored
by Toys r US. You know Jeffrey giraffe, his family.
Well there you go. Interesting. Um, there's no accident, right,
I don't think so. Uh. They're also something called or
there is also something called an indicator species. And this
(20:53):
is like if you want to know how an ecosystem
is going. Uh, like, let's say, how's the the bayou doing.
Let's go look at the crayfish, because that would be
a good indicator of how everything else is doing. If
the crayfish numbers are down, that means something's going on, right,
or if there's if the canaries are dying off in
the coal mine, you've got gas right. Well. But in
(21:16):
the same way though, it's just uh, an umbrella species
can also be an indicator species, and that like if
the wolf can't survive, that means that all the other
parts of the food web are messed up too, and
they can also be an indicator species. Yeah. I don't
think that's that's how indicator species is used every time,
but it's a it's a an argument in favor of
(21:39):
using charismatic megafauna for conservation. Um. So we've been talking
a lot about you know, people want to give the
things that look like them and that are cute. Uh,
that this has been proven out with studies. We're not
just bloviating. Um well, I guess we are. But in
addition to bloviating, we're not making stuff up because the
University of Arizona go wildcats right, Yes, they did a
(22:02):
study and did find that people support preservation efforts. Oh wait,
now that's the sun devils. No, that's airs on state. Okay, Yeah, wildcats. Uh,
people did support efforts for animals that are attractive and
that do look more human. Um. And they even found
that women support uh scary animals even less than men. Right,
(22:27):
Like you know, preservation for a snake population or uh
maybe an insect or something. Yeah, so this is like
a barn as In approach to conservation. Yeah, promoting conservation. Um.
Also if you're if you are using charismatic megafauna for conservation,
(22:47):
um like it. It actually can have beneficial results, right,
It's not just like theoretically this should help. Like elephants,
everybody loves elephants. There's not a personal life who doesn't
like elephants in the West, I should say, right, um,
the and who knows why. They're very cute, they're very sweet,
they grieve over their dead, they do all sorts of
(23:08):
interesting stuff, right, Um. And they've used elephants to uh
basically as poster species for poaching campaigns. A lot more
than just elephants are poached. Everything from whale sharks to
rhinos to uh, well, elephants are poached. But the idea
of giving money to andy poaching campaigns because you you
(23:31):
feel like I want to help that elephant here's a check.
It's actually going and helping all these other species as well.
There's supposedly there's like thirty five thousand species that are
subject to poaching. Yeah, and the other example they've given
this article is the American bald eagle, which in the
sixties and seventies there was a big movement They're like,
this is America's bird. Yeah, dang it. You know Ben
(23:55):
Franklin wanted the turkey. I think I didn't know that
very interesting, not that you're ducking no, that would have
been even better. But yeah, in the sixties and seventies,
people were like, this is America's bird, we have to
save the American bald eagle. Um, and it worked there.
I think it's not even endangered any longer, right, I
(24:16):
don't think so. My in laws just saw one in Florida. Yeah,
pretty neat. Yeah, kind of just think associate them with
like Alaska and yeah, Pacific Northwest. But there was along
the Gulf. Yeah, there's like a whole group in the Gulf,
and there's a whole group up in the Great White Way.
Well above that, that's the Great White Way. I think
(24:38):
it's Broadway, isn't it. I don't know, I've never heard
the Broadway or Canada. I think it's Broadway. But I
thought it was Canada because I heard Scott Thompson from
the Kids in the Hall called Broadway that. So I
was like, I guess he's talking about Canada, and then
I found out he's like, it was Broadway. I think
it's Broadway. That was way more complex than I thought.
(24:59):
Um and the panda, you know, we mentioned um there
come back. They have a wild population increase over the
past ten or so years, largely because you know, people
love pandas. They'll open up the wallet. And again, I
mean not necessarily specifically with pandas, but with some species.
(25:20):
If you can say their their populations coming back in
the wild, then it also indicates that the their ecosystem
is getting better healthy again as well. So that's all
well and good. It's good that it it's made some money,
right sure, but there's also plenty of criticisms to using
(25:41):
charismatic mega fauna. Uh and let's take a break and
we'll talk about it right after this. So Chuck, yes,
(26:12):
what's what's the problem with using a cute panda or
an elephant or something like that to get money for conservation.
How could there be anything wrong with it? Well, that's there.
Another word for this is the Bambi effect, like when
you care only about the cute thing. Um. And they
interviewed for our own article, it's interesting that the Atlanta
(26:34):
Zoo u zoologists was like, this is kind of great
and it's working. And then they interviewed Christina Simmons of
the San Diego Zoo Global UH, and she was a
little more like, you know what, this is an eighties
thing and we have moved past that here in San Diego.
Ignore that panda on the brochure. We've moved past it. Yeah.
(26:57):
I thought that was funny. The article pointed out that
they had plenty of charismatic species on their website even
though they supposedly moved past it, So apparently in their
projects they stopped focusing on charismatic Mega font is what
she was saying, right, Yeah, she said that they m
what they're trying to do is focus on an environment
(27:17):
more than like. It's not like they don't focus on animals,
but they try to look at at it from an uh.
I guess from an ecosystem point of view? Is that right?
I think so? Or they're looking more at animals that
um have a bigger impact on their ecosystem, right than
than charismatic megafaunta Mike right, Yeah, and and um, I
(27:39):
don't think it was or maybe it was her. They
kind of put it in an interesting way that I
hadn't thought of. It sort of creates a class struggle,
a bit um between quote wealthy animal end quote and
a poor animal as far as their richness being determined
by their likability. Yeah, and I mean it's as simple
as that. And it's not just public awareness of you know,
(28:02):
these species being endangered, whereas there's plenty of other species
that aren't charismatic that are way more in trouble and
in danger of being extinct. Um, it's scientific money too,
Like scientists need funding to do their studies. And if
there's plenty of funding around to focus on pandas but
not say, those muscles that went extinct, well there's gonna
(28:26):
be a lot more scientific study directed towards pandas and
saving pandas than saving those muscles, even though those muscles
probably keep their aquatic ecosystem clean, whereas pandas just poop
everywhere and they don't do anything to clean up their ecosystem.
I wonder what the scientific ethics are. Maybe a researcher
can tell us about where funding goes, like if you know,
(28:49):
if they're like, well, let's divert some of that to
um this other species, whereas the individual who donate might
be like, no, just pandas. Well. That was actually brought
up in the in this larger article that survey of
like the seventy other articles about charismatic megafauna, and they
said that that could be an issue. Some donors want
to know that their money is going towards what they
(29:09):
donated it. And if you think you donated it to
save pandas, and these guys are being like, yeah, yeah,
we're helping pandas, but we're also helping these snakes. But
you hate snakes. You might be unhappy that your money's
helping snakes, you though the snakes really need the help. Yeah.
One thing I have noticed with donation sites is a
lot of times they'll have that and then let's say,
(29:30):
would you also like to donate five dollars to the
general fund um stuff, you know, so you can help
the snake. Yeah, And there's not one that says the
general fund and no, but no, snakes right now, there's
not an option you're doing. You're donating the snakes with
the general fund. You know, there's also the issue of
it being a totally unscientific idea. It's completely subjective. Like
(29:54):
even here in the West, people are like, well, lions
are beautiful and majestic, but if you talk to um
school kids in Tanzania, they'll say, actually, lions are quite
fearsome because we live near them, and um, I have
a friend whose uncle was killed by a lion. Right,
so you can't even agree on what what um what
(30:17):
animals have charisma? Even even you know, it seems like
a foregone conclusion to us, the people who are carrying
out these conservation efforts and who are donating the conservation
dollars aren't the ones who have to actually live with
these animals as well. Right, So, if you're an organization
who's getting conservation dollars from these people to save these
(30:39):
animals that the locals actually hate, you're gonna have a
problem here. So what are some of the solutions to
these to to what what can you do as a
conservationist if you're facing this this issue where you need
money but you also need to be realistic at the
feeling you have an answer and wait. Well, one of
(31:03):
the one of the great suggestions that I've run across
is um you can talk about these species that people like,
but just talk about them in in realistic terms and
don't say how cute they are and all that stuff. Yeah,
or don't make it sound like they're the most important
animal on the planet, right, like put it in its
relative context, right. Or this one is even better. Take
(31:28):
an actual keystone species from an ecosystem that's in real
danger of becoming instinct, and then put your marketing people
to work on creating charisma for that animal, because you
know what, they could do that in most cases, unless
it's a komodo dragon. No, it's actually a really great
example of of them doing that. Well. I was about
(31:51):
the reason I mentioned that because I was that was
one of my favorite animals at the Atlanta Zoo. Was.
I could sit around and watch that komodo dragon for days. Yeah,
he was so cool looking, but a lot of people
might not think so. So Like Charon Stone, apparently there
was a huge what Jaron Stone's ex husband was bitten
by a komodo dragon very famously? Was he hurt? Ye
(32:12):
did he die, No, that's not why he's an ex.
Did he lose a toe? Well, I should say he's
an ex because he got bitten by the komodo dragon,
but just because she was embarrassed by it, so she
divorced him. No, okay, she's like, oh my god, I
can't even go out in public now see you later.
You've mortified me. Yeah. I figured you would have known
about that. It was a very not funny for him,
(32:34):
funny for everybody everyone else. No, but apparently there was
a big local push to save komodo dragons. They were
not well liked, but they put some top marketing people
on it and gave the komodo dragon chrisma, like just
pointing to a panda bear and being like pretty cute. Huh.
That doesn't take any marketing skill. It takes real marketing
(32:55):
skill to take a hated and reviled animal that needs
human help and make it charming. You know who could
solve all of this, God Disney. Oh yeah, you know.
All you gotta do is make a movie about a
Komodo dragon is the hero. Sure, and and literally that
(33:16):
would change everything. Somebody needs to throw out Walt Disney. Yeah,
he's still frozen. I don't know if that's true or
an urban legend or not. We should get Holly from
my stuff you miss in history class in here. Well,
we did an episode on criegenics, and I'm sure we
covered it, but that was a long time ago. Holly,
for all I know, might have Walt Disney frozen in
her house. She might you know, being held captive. Uh
(33:40):
So should we talk a little bit about bio diversity.
I think we should and why that's important because that's
kind of what we're talking about here in a roundabout ways.
A healthy ecosystem depends on biodiversity. And that doesn't just
mean what's known as species diversity or species richness, which is,
you know, a lot of different animals. That's what most
(34:00):
people think of when they think of biodiversity. It's a
lot more complex than that. Yeah, So there's, um, there's
species diversity, like you said, there's also a genetic diversity,
which is the combined number of genes that's available to
uh species worldwide. And the more genetic diversity of species
have them, the easier it can withstand um things like disease.
(34:24):
Uh Yeah, some individuals are gonna die, but overall the
species should be able to survive it because there's probably
a gene in there somewhere that can combat this disease
or is immune to this disease, and they'll develop an
immunity to it. The species will go on. So species
diversity is a very important type of biodiversity too. Yeah,
like bald eagle again, genetic diversity. Sorry, yeah, yeah, bald
(34:47):
eagle good example because they are spread out all over, Uh,
well not all over, but in those certain places in
North America give them good genetic diversity. Uh, Thus they
were able to come back. The cheetah um not so much.
Back in the day, there was only one species, I
think around ten thousand years ago. Yeah, I didn't see
what happened to the species or the cheated Did you
(35:08):
what all the other species? Yeah, I don't know. That's
pretty bizarre. Just one survived, Yeah, the uh sen Nick's jubats.
I think that's right. In Africa and um, that was
a problem because when you just have one species, you're
in breeding a lot and your genetic diversity goes way
(35:30):
down and all of a sudden, you uh, one thing
could come along and wipe you out. Exactly when one
disease or something um And then there's also ecosystem diversity,
which is the number of different types of ecosystems around
the world, and the more you have those, the better
off you are. It's kind of like bio diversity is
a really good example of not having all of your
eggs in one basket. Yeah, you want to diversify. It's
(35:53):
the same thing with stocks and bonds, that's right, you know. Uh,
And as humans, bio diversity is a big deal because
of medicine that we use that comes from plants. Let's say, uh,
what else, clothes that we wear from plants, and animal fibers,
what we eat. That's another big one too. Can't forget that. Yeah,
(36:14):
And the point is it's all linked, like you talked
about earlier. The wolf population will have a or the
honeybee population will have an effect on down the line
because it's all one big linked puzzle, and something like
colony collapse disorder can foul it up to the point
where just because the honeybee are the crop production as
a whole in the United States is in trouble right right,
(36:38):
So there's and it seems kind of remedial that to
go over it, but it's important to point out, like,
what's at stake here when you're talking about extinction? Right,
It's not like, oh, we don't have honey anymore, right now,
there's the entire ecosystems can fail, And when entire ecosystems fail,
the world gets a little less bio diverse. And when
that happens, it's a little more fragile, and it just
(36:59):
keeps getting set up more and more and more for
some sort of larger collapse that's more than just say
a honeybee collapse. UM and apparently the big one, the
big daddy as far as UM as reduction of biodiversity goes, Well,
there's two of them. One is invasive species. Yeah, I
(37:19):
didn't know we should do a show on We're gonna
do one on cuts at one point. I don't know
if that's two separate shows or not. I don't know,
but I did and realized that invasive species caused that
much damage. Yeah, there's something like um half of all
of the extinction special extinctions since the sixteen hundreds they
attribute to invasive species, where it's just you know, you've
(37:42):
got a species that's introduced into a new um ecosystem,
doesn't have any predators, so it it preys on other
things and reproduces unchecked and just totally throws off the ecosystem. Right.
Half of extinction comes from invasive species, and then another third,
six percent apparently comes from deforestation, right yeah, I mean
(38:03):
the other two big ones are over hunting, um, like
we were talking about with like the rhino and elephants
and stuff like that, and back in our pigeons episode
literally calls the extinction of the passenger pigeon. Uh. And
then climate changes the fourth which um, sort of just
getting started on that one. So I would that's an
(38:23):
increasingly becoming a problem with animals force from their habitats.
But deforestation is the big daddy. Yeah, and apparently one
of the big issues with deforestation, although there has been
a lot of headway made with slowing deforestation. Um. But
the rainforest is particularly vulnerable because it covers about seven
percent of Earth's land mass, but it houses about half
(38:47):
of Earth's species. That's crazy, right, So there's that problem
with a lot of eggs in one basket. If you
mess with that basket, you're you're in big trouble. I
think that's how the saying goes, right. So um, one
of the problems with deforestation is that if you are
developing economy and you've got a lot of economic activity
(39:10):
that can be gained by cutting down the rainforest, it's
kind of tough de fault that that economy to say,
what are you doing? You know, we as humanity need that.
That's nature's pharmacy, right. Um. There's also apparently a lot
of issue with indigenous peoples in rainforests as well, that
(39:31):
a lot of them are like, well they're indigenous people,
they know what they're doing. Well, they're also like deforesting
the rainforest themselves as well. So there's a lot of
programs that have been put into place to reduce deforestation,
and like I said, they're having an effect. Apparently, within
the last couple of years, deforestation has fallen like year
over year in Brazil, which is where a lot of
(39:54):
it was happening. So the idea of deforestation not happening
in UM Brazil are happening less. That's a big deal. Yeah,
And they have found a direct correlation between um the
local economy being less reliant on the rainforest and having
(40:14):
like a healthy economy doesn't that doesn't depend on the
rainforest and deforestation decreasing, so it's you know, it's not
rocket science, and thanks to Don Henley it's all getting
better and Al Gore and Tom Petty. All Don Henley
does is helped the rainforest and be a jerk and
sue people. Who does he sue dude? Done. Henley sues everybody,
(40:37):
sue everybody, shoes, sue. He sues Sharon Stone's husband. I
think so now he's sort of a notorious jerk as
far as like, oh you you know you used this
Eagle song when you weren't supposed to and taking you
to court and then I'll cut you. Man. He like
one of my favorite bands, and then I'll cut you.
(40:57):
That's not a peaceful, easy feeling at all. Um Okerville
River one of my favorite bands. They kind of reworked
a Don Henley song as a homage and a tribute
and it didn't even like I think they just put
it on the web. They weren't like trying to make
money off of it, and they're like, man, we love
this song. We kind of reworked it and like here
it is. And he was like, shut it down, get
(41:20):
it off the internet. I'm suing you, little indie band. Yeah,
And then will Chef there, uh, their lead singer and songwriter.
He was just sort of like, man, really thanks a lot. Yeah,
I'm gonna have my Eagles tattooed. Grade it off, no more,
no more homages to you, sir. It was the end
(41:40):
of will Chef's innocence about Don Henley. Uh, I'm gonna
see Joe Walsh to More Night and Tom Petty he's
opening up, wow, which I'm pretty excited about. Usually openers
at those big shows or I don't know, they don't
do a good job pairing them sometimes. Yeah. Like I
saw Elton John once and he had these two cello
(42:02):
players yo yo maa yeah, and his and his brother. No.
It was I mean it was kind of neat. That's
the only cello player and they were I can't remember
their names, and I'm sure there are tons of people
that are fans of these guys because they play like
like A C. D C songs on the cello and
it's really sort of yah. I mean it was cool,
but I don't know, like I just wanted to. I
(42:24):
want to see Joe Walsh open up for everybody, so
um you me and I went and saw Cindy lawper
a couple of years ago, and Dr John opened for Yeah,
that's not a good pairing. It well, so it was
an amazing show, both of them were, but um, it
was like the Doctor John show happened, and then everyone left,
everyone came in for Cindy Lauper. It was a very
(42:46):
weird pairing. I think Cindy Lauper's is like a Doctor
John fan and wanted to make sure he got some
money that year or something right. But it was like
two different shows, like an early show in a late
show as far as the audience was concerned. Yeah, I
saw Josh Grobin open up for Iron Maid, and I
thought that was strange too. Well, Bruce Dickinson is a
well known operatic singer. Oh that's true, so I can Yeah,
(43:09):
tattooed millionaire pilot man. Not what a great ending? Or
are we done? Did you have anything else? Nope? All right.
If you want to know more about Iron Maiden bio diversity,
Josh Groban, yo yo, ma, all that jazz, type those
words in the search bar at how stuff works dot
com and press your luck. Since I said press your luck,
(43:29):
it's time for listener mail All that Jazz, and then
of which was jazz. Alright, Um, I wonder where that
term came from. Just I think it's from the Great
White Way, right. I mean there was a show called
All That Jazz, But I invent that, I think, So okay,
(43:50):
that's all it. This is from I'm gonna call this
from our old buddy, Sarah Law. Who's our oldest. Um.
I always say oldest like she's night long the longest lasting,
longest running band. Yeah, long standing listeners from Canada. Hey, guys, Josh,
Chuck and Jerry. Can you still not spell Jerry? Right,
(44:12):
Sarah after all these years, I just spell it Gary
with a G Gary j E r I everybody, Um,
I know you guys love animals, so I thought it'd
be great if you could share this, uh stuff you shnow.
Army story friend needed to give up his cat for
adoption because he's moving out of the United States due
to health issues of the cat. Shelters would not take her.
(44:33):
He was going to have to put her down, which
I can't believe that's the solution, Like I gotta move,
I'll just put you down. That aside. Um, I put
out a ninth hour call. I think it's eleventh hour
in the United States. Apparently in candidates a night hour.
Uh put out a night hour call to this stuffy
snow army and a nice person named Kevin Lyman asked
(44:56):
everyone he knew if they could take her. And I'm
happy to say that Evan's coworker cat. But the k
picked Ava up and Ava as a cat from the
vet appointment to save her life and then took her
to be put down. No, I saw a picture. This
cat was adorable. Uh, never underestimate the power of the stuff.
(45:16):
You should know, Army and I think she shared this
on Facebook and it, you know, it kind of happened that. Yeah,
that's great. I love the show. Thank you for enriching
our lives in so many ways. Your Canadian friend Sarah
O x O thinks a lot. Sarah though was a
great story. Yeah, it was appropriate for this. I told
Sarah that, oh yeah, do you think about that? Cats
are charismatic mini fauna. I told Sarah, we uh, an
(45:39):
all likelihood are going to be coming up to the
Great White Way, and I hope that's what it is
for some shows this year. We're gonna be hit in Canada.
I think so at least one. Yeah, we've been teasing
these shows, but we're kind of nailing it all down.
So listen up, all eight of you who still listen
this deep into the show. We might be coming to
a town near you. Yeah, and let everybody else know. Uh.
(46:02):
If you want to get in touch with this, you
can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff
you Should Know. You can send us email to stuff
Podcast at how stuff works dot com. Has always joined
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