Meghana: Okay.
Meghana: Hi.
Meghana: Hello and welcome to the Wild Bits Show.
Meghana: This is our very first podcast.
Meghana: My name is Megna.
Upamanyu: And I'm Upamanyu.
Meghana: And we have a great show planned out for you.
Meghana: We're going to talk about the current news events in wildlife.
Meghana: We're going to have discussions, debates.
Meghana: So be tuned in.
Meghana: Some of the things that we really want to talk about, at least this is,
Meghana: me and this is something that has been really interesting. One thing that has come up recently is that
Meghana: in Kerala, it has been observed, Kerala, India, it has been observed that elephants, the wild jambos,
Meghana: the gentle giants, that we know are herbivores, have recently started eating chicken and eggs
Meghana: as food waste is driving them to the fringes of the forest. And because they're getting the salty
Meghana: food which is really tasty. They are trying to stay there and feast on the food waste. So how is
Meghana: this changing their behavior? How is this good for their appetite? How is this good for the environment
Meghana: or bad for them? We're going to discuss in detail. And the second thing that we're going to do is
Meghana: from this gentle giant to another cutie, we're going to go and talk about Moondang's viral birthday.
Meghana: So for people who know, last year, Moodang went viral for her cute tactics, the small pygney,
Meghana: hippo that is in one of the island's zoo is very popular and recently celebrated her
Meghana: first birthday. So how is Mauding's popularity actually helping pygmy hippos if it is helping,
Meghana: if it is actually a great thing to be celebrating an animal that way or is social media just
Upamanyu: a facade and over to you. So yeah, Mignor talked about two animals there which is largely
Upamanyu: we consider them as megafauna. I'm going to talk about spiders. There's a general hate of spiders
Upamanyu: amongst the popular discourse, but New Zealand was at least free from the poisonous kind. So I think
Upamanyu: most people that fear spiders, there's an element of their creepy-crawliness, but also because some
Upamanyu: of them can be venomous. So one venomous spider has apparently found its way into New Zealand.
Upamanyu: Seems very unlikely and we'll talk about why. I think that's, yeah, it's such a surprise for me.
Upamanyu: And we'll also talk about what it means for us. And also, in contrast to that,
Upamanyu: one of the most poisonous spiders, the Tarantula,
Upamanyu: they have been illegally traded via Facebook.
Upamanyu: So there is a contrast there with what Megna talked about,
Upamanyu: a Pygmy Hippo being celebrated on a social media platform,
Upamanyu: but also these sorts of illegal trades being carried out.
Upamanyu: We are also going to talk about a mining permit
Upamanyu: that has been cancelled in the Coral Triangle in Indonesia.
Upamanyu: Indonesia has done that.
Upamanyu: They have cancelled the mining permit.
Upamanyu: And it might seem like a trivial thing,
Upamanyu: but it is actually these incremental changes
Upamanyu: that sometimes the wildlife and the conservationists
Upamanyu: sort of fight a lot for, you know.
Upamanyu: These are like minute things.
Upamanyu: That might seem like minute things to us, but these are like huge achievements in the world of conservation.
Upamanyu: So yeah, we'll talk about those things right after this short intro.
Upamanyu: All right, let's jump straight into the spider nonsense, spider talk.
Upamanyu: So why did I say that like a spider finding its way into New Zealand is a strange thing to me?
Upamanyu: So if you're not, if you guys are not aware, Megna is going live.
Upamanyu: She's joining us from India and I'm joining from Auckland, New Zealand.
Upamanyu: And if you, if any of you have traveled to New Zealand, you'll know, or Australia,
Upamanyu: you'll know the strict sort of border biosecurity rules that you have to sort of go through.
Meghana: And it is a big shock for a lot of people.
Meghana: Because you have to really, really like, you know, you have to clean your shoes out.
Meghana: You have to show every little thing in your bag.
Meghana: And people don't welcome it.
Meghana: They're like, why are you checking every little thing?
Meghana: You're not even allowed to bring like even a piece of fruit from outside.
Meghana: Everything is checked.
Meghana: Anything that is not a sealed bag is not allowed.
Upamanyu: Yeah.
Upamanyu: And like first time, I think we arrived to New Zealand.
Upamanyu: Our experience was the same.
Upamanyu: And we were very sort of, you know, mildly annoyed by the fact that it took so long to sort of enter the country.
Upamanyu: But like, as you take a moment to think as well, New Zealand is an island country.
Upamanyu: And for an island country and such a sort of secluded island nation, be it New Zealand, be it Australia or.
Upamanyu: any of the Pacific Islands, the ecosystems are especially prone to any sort of minor disturbance,
Upamanyu: and everything can, has a chance of going haywire. So when, you know, first settlers came to
Upamanyu: New Zealand around 900 years ago or 1,000 years ago, they brought with them some foreign species,
Upamanyu: And then later on, in the early sort of late 16th and early 17th centuries,
Upamanyu: when Europeans came to New Zealand, started coming to New Zealand and sort of settling here,
Upamanyu: they brought with them some, you know, foreign species as well.
Meghana: It wasn't really some. They bought a lot of foreign species. They said,
Meghana: oh, New Zealand's landscape is very boring. What do we do here? So let's introduce.
Meghana: There are rumors that they even introduced lions, but they did not survive.
Upamanyu: The environment of...
Upamanyu: Really? I didn't know about that.
Meghana: It's just a rumor. We don't know.
Meghana: It's like the feudal and, you know, the moose that we don't know if they exist or not.
Meghana: But there were rumors of a lot of animals being brought in.
Meghana: And that is why it is irony that now they're so careful with introductions,
Meghana: but they are the ones who actually introduce.
Meghana: I mean, we are the ones who actually introduced.
Meghana: So, yeah.
Upamanyu: Yeah, and I think no, but also, Magna, I think, like,
Upamanyu: Like, because after, because we have made these mistakes, like, you know, examples being
Upamanyu: possums that were imported from Australia.
Upamanyu: Megna actually has made a film on this very topic.
Upamanyu: Megna, do you want to plug that?
Meghana: Yeah, so basically, possums are New Zealand's enemy number one.
Meghana: Coming from India, a place where you have a lot of wildlife.
Meghana: like it's very diverse from the rhinos to the elephants to lions to leopards and smaller animals.
Meghana: It's a big plethora list.
Meghana: But I've never seen hatred for any animal here.
Meghana: I've never seen targeted hatred.
Meghana: So for me, when I came to New Zealand, it was really hard for me to kind of understand why there was so much targeted hate for a few species.
Meghana: But I also understood that people wanted to put the blame of everything that's happening to their
Meghana: wildlife that, you know, the indigenous wildlife onto something and possums are visible in the night.
Meghana: So there was a lot of hatred to its possums, even though they're just opportunistic omnivores and
Meghana: there's not a lot of evidence of them attacking the indigenous birds.
Meghana: So I made a documentary on the possums. So just like the parsons, a lot of animals that were
Meghana: introduced are now the enemies of New Zealand. But the people who brought the animals are kivis,
Meghana: or New Zealand, you know, Keevy at heart.
Meghana: They are not the ones we're blaming,
Meghana: but we're blaming the tiny little animals
Meghana: that have come along with the people.
Meghana: And as much as we want to and as much as we are careful,
Meghana: it can never be 100%.
Meghana: There are boats, there are ships, there are planes,
Meghana: there are different modes of, you know,
Meghana: ways that animals or at least insects can travel by.
Meghana: So if the spider has come,
Meghana: I'm not surprised that the spider made its way through
Meghana: because it's not like a rabbit, it's not huge, it's a tiny thing, it could have been inside
Meghana: someone's jacket and you wouldn't know.
Upamanyu: Yeah, and by the way, if someone is interested in the film, I don't know if it's on YouTube,
Upamanyu: but we'll make sure that we leave a link in one of the pinned comments or something like
Upamanyu: that for you guys to enjoy later.
Upamanyu: But yeah, as I was saying, like as we have realized, and Megna touched on this topic, like,
Upamanyu: we want to go back. This is a global phenomenon. Like after we realize that we have made the
Upamanyu: environment worse, and not only like maybe targeting one species, but there's also like stoats that
Upamanyu: were imported from Europe to kill rabbits, which, you know, overpopulated themselves. So, but they
Upamanyu: ended up going for like slower, you know, native birds and stuff. But anyway, um,
Upamanyu: So once we realize that and once we realize the damage we have caused, we, like, modern 21st century is filled with this fantasy of going back to something, some, you know, some form of the natural world.
Upamanyu: And Emma Maris, an author, if any of you are interested, you could read this book.
Upamanyu: She has written a book called The Rambunctious Garden.
Upamanyu: And like, I'm a big fan of this book.
Upamanyu: I'm just sharing this on my screen.
Upamanyu: I'm a big fan of this book.
Upamanyu: She basically explores this very idea of, you know, us as a species
Upamanyu: having this fantasy of going back.
Upamanyu: But we're not really sure.
Upamanyu: You'll get different answers from different people if you ask them, like,
Upamanyu: where do you want to go back to?
Upamanyu: But anyway, so...
Meghana: I think the general answer is that they want to go back to a place where they did not do these mistakes.
Meghana: But you cannot go back to that place because once you've done something, you cannot undo it.
Meghana: And I think talking about the spider, New Zealand really prides itself at the fact that you can camp anywhere freely.
Meghana: There are no poisonous snakes, no poisonous anything.
Meghana: You know, so you have campgrounds everywhere.
Meghana: and pre-camp rounds and you hike freely.
Meghana: So I think the spider would really bug them
Meghana: because there is nothing that can really, really harm a human.
Meghana: But now the spider coming into the entire, what do you say,
Meghana: the mechanic of things is going to throw them off a little.
Meghana: And it's a spider, so it's harder to try to exterminate it.
Upamanyu: Yes.
Upamanyu: And I think, yeah, that's at the heart of this sort of news.
Upamanyu: report as well. So we've we've tried to so as I was saying like since we have realized those
Upamanyu: things we have tried to introduce these sorts of measures especially in island countries
Upamanyu: where you know everything that you bring in are being checked. So I'm not completely against that
Upamanyu: like at least we're doing the bare minimum that's required to make sure that you know nothing
Upamanyu: else is being introduced but as mignor sort of alluded to as well um you know a spider they
Upamanyu: could have hitched to ride anywhere probably on cargo ships and boats and things like that and um like
Upamanyu: even though i i believe the same security biosecurity protocols are applicable for incoming cargo as
Upamanyu: they are for incoming uh you know peep humans um but detecting this uh spider would have been uh
Upamanyu: Yeah, an impossible task.
Upamanyu: I'll just read like a gist of the news report that was published in the New Zealand Herald.
Upamanyu: So it says the venomous false widow spider conquering New Zealand.
Upamanyu: A new venomous spiders, the noble false widow, has officially made New Zealand homes spreading across the country since its first sighting in Porirua last year.
Upamanyu: Again, I sort of went over why that is surprising for me, but again, maybe not as surprising as we sort of discussed.
Upamanyu: The spider's presence is concerning due to its association with antibiotic resistant bacteria.
Upamanyu: So it's venomous, but it's not like you'll die immediately like, like, you know, a real black widow spider.
Upamanyu: And though some spider bites have been linked to tissue like tissue necrosis, not.
Upamanyu: hypotension,
Upamanyu: impaired mobility, and sort of secondary bacterial infections.
Upamanyu: That's the bit that's concerning,
Upamanyu: that if a bacterial infection happens,
Upamanyu: that infection might be resistant to, you know,
Upamanyu: the standard antibiotics.
Upamanyu: But the point Magna talked about,
Upamanyu: actually, researchers are saying that it thrives only
Upamanyu: in urban environments around, like,
Upamanyu: like gardens, outdoor furniture, often found under like pots and plants or in fence crevices.
Upamanyu: So, trampers and hikers might be safe.
Upamanyu: They can still go into a bush without thinking something might be lurking inside, which is
Upamanyu: the stark opposite in Australia. I call Australia like poison headquarters.
Upamanyu: You know, 10 most poisonous spiders, eight of them are in Australia, something like the 10 most
Upamanyu: poisonous snakes, five of them are in Australia.
Upamanyu: But, yeah, and it says it's venoms.
Upamanyu: Yeah.
Meghana: There is no way.
Meghana: There is no way of knowing.
Meghana: Like, New Zealand's wild, what do you say?
Meghana: Like, you know, when you go camping and hiking, it's all quite remote.
Meghana: So there is no way of knowing.
Meghana: I mean, in the urban environment, we can look at our pots and plants and in our bushes,
Meghana: and we know the spider exists.
Meghana: But if the spider has traveled, and I don't think that there are spiders.
Meghana: ideas that do not adapt to different environments. They do adapt. So they can very easily reach.
Meghana: It's just that for now, probably they think that this is the best place that you can find them,
Meghana: or this is the place that you find them the most. But there is still a risk. There is always a risk
Meghana: still there. It's still new, right? So you don't know if they exist in the bushes or not.
Upamanyu: Yes. Its venom contains similar toxins to black widows, causing symptoms like swelling
Upamanyu: and pain. So that's the end of the report. Let's do a hypothetical thing. Wait, let's do a hypothetical thing.
Upamanyu: Like if we had to exterminate the spider, how would we go about exterminating it? Like, one thing I've
Upamanyu: got to give humans, like we are resourceful and we are pretty intelligent. Like, we find novel ways
Upamanyu: of dealing with problems.
Upamanyu: So let's do this.
Upamanyu: Like, how would you suggest that we get rid of the spider?
Upamanyu: Or is it even possible, in your opinion?
Meghana: I honestly think no.
Meghana: Like, if you're having problems with trying to get rid of possums that are bigger in size,
Meghana: finding a spider and trying to exterminate it is probably going to be really, really tough.
Meghana: And with spiders, as opposed to, let's say, a possum that has,
Meghana: one baby in one year or one time because the gestation period is huge. Spiders can have hundreds of
Meghana: babies at the same time. So if you're going to try to even exterminate them, they probably
Upamanyu: multiply faster than rabbits and rats. Yeah. By the way, if anyone's wondering, this is what the spider
Upamanyu: looks like. I'm just sharing my screen. I have an idea though. Do you remember this report, Megna?
Upamanyu: Maybe you were the one who told me about it or I read it somewhere or you read it somewhere.
Upamanyu: I don't know.
Upamanyu: I don't remember.
Upamanyu: But there was this study.
Upamanyu: I think there is this ongoing study that is being conducted on mosquitoes.
Upamanyu: And they are basically genetically modifying either the females or the males to be born sterile.
Upamanyu: They're identifying like a local population.
Upamanyu: They're genetically modifying few of them.
Upamanyu: And then slowly, slowly, slowly,
Upamanyu: in a few generations time, the entire population dies out,
Upamanyu: like a local population.
Upamanyu: They haven't tested it on a big population yet.
Meghana: I remember this, but was it mosquitoes?
Upamanyu: Are you sure it was mosquitoes?
Upamanyu: I think, I think so.
Meghana: No, it wasn't mosquitoes.
Meghana: It was something else.
Meghana: Mosquitoes, really?
Upamanyu: Yes, I think.
Meghana: Because I remember when I was doing the possum thesis, it was one of the animals where they were testing it on by mosquitoes, really.
Upamanyu: Maybe they were, no, no, I think the researchers you were talking to, they were also like doing, trying that on.
Upamanyu: On possums.
Upamanyu: On possums, yes.
Meghana: On some other animal, which was in Australia.
Meghana: They were trying it in Australia, but some invasive animal in Australia that was similar.
Meghana: and they wanted to replicate it onto persons.
Meghana: This is what I remember,
Meghana: where they were trying to genetically reduce their population
Meghana: by introducing, yes.
Upamanyu: Yes, yeah, that's right.
Upamanyu: And I think, yes, so there are some crisper modifications
Upamanyu: that are being done on mosquitoes as well.
Upamanyu: I'm just sharing my screen.
Upamanyu: Yeah, these things are being done as well.
Upamanyu: But, yeah, so this is.
Upamanyu: what it looks like. So basically you make one of the two pets that requires, that is required
Upamanyu: reproduce, you make one of them, you know, sterile. And then slowly and slowly and slowly,
Upamanyu: it sort of goes away. Mosquito eradication could be possible by CRISPR gene editing. But anyway,
Upamanyu: I think if I was making the decisions, I would take that approach to these spiders.
Upamanyu: as well if it came to a point where we had to get rid of them for some reason or the other.
Meghana: I think until and unless it's not really affecting the wildlife, we can just be a little more careful
Meghana: in the wild and try to eradicate because I think the whole point of conservation, the whole point
Meghana: of we share this planet with other animals has to be inclusive. It cannot be either
Meghana: us or them, you know.
Meghana: I mean, if you're really doing the CRISPR gene editing,
Meghana: I think it's required on us as well,
Meghana: the amount of people that we have.
Meghana: I mean, I think one of Dan Brown's whole book is on that.
Meghana: I'm not sure.
Meghana: Maybe Inception point, no,
Meghana: I'm not sure which Dan Brown's book,
Meghana: but it talks about releasing a virus
Meghana: that made one out of three humans important
Meghana: and a kind of passed on.
Meghana: So it led to rapidly declining human population.
Meghana: But we don't like to talk
Meghana: about anything that affects us as a species we would rather kill everything else than us.
Meghana: But with the spider, I think, I mean, and the spider is cute. I mean, look, it has transparent
Meghana: legs and everything. It's cute. Not everyone will find it cute, agreed. Most people won't find it cute.
Meghana: But we need to give it a chance, you know? Like, I mean, we can't be like, oh, this is come.
Meghana: The first thing we do is kill it. Or the first thing we do is eradicate it. That's what is
Meghana: led to us now talking about endangered species and we don't have enough numbers because we were the
Meghana: ones who hunted them down to extinction almost and now we are like oh no no no i'm sorry we
Meghana: hunted them down to this level now let's get them back all right i think we have spoken enough
Upamanyu: about this spider um i think linked to this is another topic um i will uh introduce and speak
Upamanyu: about and then we can discuss and then
Upamanyu: Megna can speak about a few topics as well and introduce you guys to the world of social media and how
Upamanyu: you know the hippo has been celebrated there but apparently there is an illegal spider trade via
Upamanyu: Facebook in the Philippines wildlife trade watchdog traffic I don't know what it stands for
Upamanyu: but it's just traffic so I think it's an acronym but maybe I don't know
Upamanyu: Reports a thriving online trade in live tarantulas and scorpions in Philippines, with over 16,000
Upamanyu: arachnids sold on Facebook between 2020 and 2022. Non-native species dominate, but native and threatened
Upamanyu: tarantulas are also being poached and sold. The study highlights legal gaps and
Upamanyu: urges stronger regulation of online platforms to curb illicit trade and protect vulnerable
Upamanyu: species. Researchers recommend closer collaboration with authorities and curious services.
Upamanyu: Okay, so this is like a full-fledged, like a normal, like listed on Amazon, listed on Facebook
Upamanyu: type of thing. Like, it's not even, they're not even pretending to be like under the cover or
Upamanyu: something like the dark web or something like that. I mean, they have to be only under the
Meghana: cover if they were actually being checked, which I think they're being checked now.
Meghana: And the stark contrast, and this is now they're saying, oh, our native tarantulas are being poached and sold and they're endangered.
Meghana: So this is the exact opposite of what New Zealand is going for.
Meghana: So they're like, okay, let's kill them.
Meghana: And they're here.
Meghana: They're like, let's protect them.
Meghana: But honestly, I have seen a lot of people having pet tarantulas.
Meghana: And it's a thing, like, across the world where people like having pet tarantulas.
Meghana: That doesn't mean that they actually probably let them walk on them.
Meghana: maybe some of them. Some of them are really comfortable.
Meghana: And they say that their tarantulas are really sweet.
Meghana: And they're very, you know, non-bitey or non-stingy.
Meghana: But, yeah, like pet tarantulas is a big, big thing across the world,
Meghana: just like pet snakes and other exotic species.
Upamanyu: I mean, I think humans, us in general, we have a thing for, like, keeping pets,
Upamanyu: like beat any animal.
Upamanyu: Like, if we find it, if, and I think there are enough people in the world
Upamanyu: that some people would find something cute.
Upamanyu: Like, even if I don't find it cute or I don't like to have it as a pet,
Upamanyu: someone will have this weird thing where they would want to have a certain thing as a pet.
Upamanyu: And I think that's there.
Upamanyu: And I also know that the venom of the tarantulas can be sort of synthesized
Upamanyu: and processed a little bit, doesn't require any sort of,
Upamanyu: industrial processes, but it can be processed like in a backyard a little bit to be turned into
Upamanyu: like a drug almost, like a substance that you can take and get high, basically.
Upamanyu: Get high.
Upamanyu: Yes.
Upamanyu: And I'm just sharing my screen.
Upamanyu: These are sort of the Facebook posts that people are putting out.
Upamanyu: Code 1S for sale, code 2T.
Upamanyu: for swap slash trade and code 3L looking.
Upamanyu: I don't know what these means, but probably it's like, yeah,
Upamanyu: I'm looking for this species, particular species or something like that.
Meghana: But I think the thing that boils down to also having a pet is tarantulas have fur.
Meghana: And I think people like the furry, you know, animals.
Meghana: I think that's what draws you to a tarantula because they're big and they're furry.
Meghana: So they kind of come in pet size.
Meghana: Because if you're going to have a hamster or a guinea pig, which are tinia,
Meghana: then you can as well as have a tarantula as well.
Meghana: You just have to know how to handle a tarantula, I guess.
Upamanyu: From my standard, you'd have to be a little weird to be, like, even though it's hairy and stuff,
Upamanyu: you'd have to be a little weird to be considering tarantulas as pets.
Meghana: But I honestly think, like, where do we draw the line with what can be allowed as a pet?
Meghana: Like something like a tarantula, you know, something like a tarantula or something, I mean, I honestly think except dogs and cats that have literally stayed with us for hundreds of years now or thousands of years.
Meghana: We cannot classify anything else as a pet.
Meghana: They're still wild.
Meghana: They still need.
Upamanyu: Cows.
Meghana: Cows are not.
Meghana: People don't keep cows.
Upamanyu: Like all domesticated animals.
Meghana: Yeah, but cows, people don't really treat cows as pets.
Meghana: They treat them as commodities.
Upamanyu: Yes, but I know people.
Upamanyu: I know people in New Zealand.
Upamanyu: that have cows as pets.
Upamanyu: One friend of mine, she has a pet cow called Chapy.
Upamanyu: She has had that cow for like nine years or something like that.
Meghana: Yeah, so they're domesticated, but still, like, you know how in New Zealand you even have
Meghana: kuni-kuni pigs as pets?
Meghana: But kuni-kini pigs at the end of the day, they always tell you not to have one pig,
Meghana: like because pigs need a socializing element of another pig.
Meghana: It's the same with cows.
Meghana: sheep because we have not shown them enough love for them to be dependent just on us.
Meghana: They need their, you know, their counterparts.
Meghana: So it's the same with, I think, a lot of wild animals.
Meghana: They don't thrive really well just with humans because the interaction is not the same.
Meghana: With dogs and cats, you really interact with them.
Meghana: But with other animals, it's unless you're really interactive with them, they don't fit into
Meghana: your environment or as a pet.
Meghana: And domesticated animals are very different.
Meghana: They know that they're domesticated.
Meghana: They don't, it will take a lot of conditioning to actually get them to, maybe individually it's different, but as a collective group for domesticated animals to be pets, you have to be very, very nice with them, which most of us are not.
Upamanyu: Yeah. And I think also a thing, like, we forget the scorpion, but the scorpions are also being traded. I've seen some, like, I don't directly know people, but I have, I have, like,
Upamanyu: I've known of people, like my family either knows them or some of my friends know them,
Upamanyu: who have scorpions as pets.
Upamanyu: Not exactly pets, but you know, some people have this fascination with having like a terrarium
Upamanyu: in their home or something like that.
Upamanyu: They will have a scorpion in there or something like that.
Meghana: Why would you have a scorpion in a terrarium?
Meghana: You literally don't open your terrarium.
Upamanyu: No, if you want to create like a desert space in your terrarium.
Meghana: I'm put a scorpion.
Meghana: I mean, that sounds just like a trinket or something like an ornamental.
Meghana: It doesn't really sound like you want to have a pet.
Meghana: You just want to show off that you have a scorpion.
Upamanyu: Yeah, probably, probably.
Upamanyu: And I think that that's the same with any poisonous thing.
Upamanyu: If you have something poisonous in your house,
Upamanyu: you won't be like bringing them out and giving it to your guests and stuff.
Upamanyu: You only like show them behind like a glass wall or some of some kind.
Upamanyu: I would hope.
Meghana: I don't know, but it's really weird for me to think about scorpions as pets because, I mean, one, I'm not heard of it of anyone.
Meghana: Like, you've heard of people having them, but I've not heard of anyone.
Meghana: Plus, they don't have power on them.
Meghana: They're not hairy.
Meghana: Like, they probably are literally tortured.
Meghana: They're just an ornament in the house.
Meghana: I've still seen people have, like, you know, feelings for their tarantulas, but I don't think I've heard of people having feelings for their scorpions.
Meghana: Either way, I think any illegal trade of any wildlife has to be curbed.
Meghana: Like, illegal should not be allowed.
Meghana: The whole point is when you're doing these illegal things,
Meghana: you do not know the kind of environment you're sending them to,
Meghana: and then the kind of effects it can have.
Meghana: Like, imagine you send a tarantula or you buy a tarantula on Facebook,
Meghana: something happens, you open it in the garden, it goes away, poof.
Meghana: And then now we have a lot of wild tarantulas in a place
Meghana: but, and Angela should not exist similar to New Zealand.
Meghana: So you have to be very careful.
Meghana: You have to know.
Meghana: And also, there should be some kind of limit.
Meghana: Or no, like, you know, this should not be a pet.
Meghana: Or this cannot exist in that house.
Meghana: Keep them outside your house.
Meghana: But, yeah, humans.
Meghana: Yeah.
Upamanyu: I mean, yes.
Upamanyu: So that's what I'm saying.
Upamanyu: Like, somebody will be there somewhere who would be like, oh, I want this thing as a pet.
Upamanyu: And I think you touched on a great point where you're saying,
Upamanyu: like, you know, being introduced in an environment where the ecosystem around you hasn't really evolved,
Upamanyu: like the other animals hasn't really evolved to control your population or help your population
Upamanyu: or anything, anything that goes on in an ecosystem.
Upamanyu: And I can't remember off the top of my head, but there have been a handful of, although accidental introductions,
Upamanyu: but they have sort of merged into an environment.
Upamanyu: There have been like a handful, very few,
Upamanyu: maybe just a couple examples like that as well.
Upamanyu: I can't think of one off the top of my head.
Upamanyu: But as a rule of thumb, I think what you said,
Upamanyu: introducing something into a foreign environment.
Upamanyu: And we have like numerous examples of those.
Upamanyu: We don't like, yeah, we can't even count on our fingers and toes.
Upamanyu: But yeah, introducing anything into a non-native environment is generally a bad idea.
Upamanyu: But having said that, I don't know.
Upamanyu: These things, if the government has to have a strong hand in these things,
Upamanyu: because, again, like, if you give people the chance, if the people have the opportunity,
Upamanyu: humans will do almost anything for, you know, surviving and, you know.
Meghana: Yes, but I mean, you're talking about native tarantulas that are endangered.
Meghana: So the government has to step into that because if you really want to save your native torrentulas,
Meghana: then you have to be serious about it.
Meghana: I mean, you know, if you really care about your wildlife, then you have to be serious about it.
Upamanyu: Yeah, and I think that's, that's, that's what you're.
Upamanyu: where sort of and and like the Philippines doesn't have to reinvent the wheel they have to just
Upamanyu: follow a bunch of things that other countries have done successfully you know to cup
Upamanyu: poaching Africa India I'm sorry I'm sorry I just have to like one yeah so all all
Upamanyu: the other countries yeah so
Upamanyu: Mignam might have to take a call, which is fine.
Upamanyu: I can keep talking about stuff.
Upamanyu: Yeah, so I think India has done it in the past.
Upamanyu: Africa has done it.
Upamanyu: Like, the government has intervened very strongly against these kinds of poaching activities,
Upamanyu: which I think is one of those things that,
Upamanyu: that will make sure that these kinds of activities can't grow.
Upamanyu: And like 16,000 spiders being traded.
Upamanyu: I don't know what the timeframe of that is.
Upamanyu: Maybe it's a year, maybe it's a month.
Upamanyu: But yeah, that sounds like a big number.
Upamanyu: But we've talked enough about spiders.
Meghana: Wait, before we start on the next topic.
Meghana: I want to ask if our viewers, if anyone's watching or whoever is going to watch later,
Meghana: what is the most exotic pet you have heard of?
Meghana: Or you have, like, is it even more exotic than a tarantula?
Meghana: And why did you want to have that animal or insect as a pet?
Meghana: Yeah.
Upamanyu: That's a good question.
Upamanyu: And we will have some people.
Upamanyu: answering that in the comments.
Upamanyu: Cool. We've talked about spiders.
Upamanyu: Let's talk about a different animal.
Upamanyu: Mignor, do you want to introduce one of the topics you want to talk about?
Meghana: Yes, so because we spoke about spiders in New Zealand where oops is right now.
Meghana: Let's talk about something from where I am right now.
Meghana: So in India, as you know, India has a big population of elephants.
Meghana: Maybe not as big as, you know, Sri Lanka, but there are...
Upamanyu: Or Africa.
Meghana: Or Africa.
Meghana: But the African elephants are different.
Meghana: We're talking about the Asian elephants here.
Meghana: Yes, okay.
Meghana: And the Asian elephants, I think the biggest population is Sri Lanka, as opposed to India,
Meghana: is what I know.
Meghana: I could be wrong, but yeah.
Meghana: So, elephants are known as herbivores.
Meghana: They are huge.
Meghana: They're gentle giants.
Meghana: But you always see them.
Meghana: in the forest breaking a branch eating leaves and you would never ever imagine them eating meat
Meghana: and in india in keral because there are these roadside restaurants which are you say that very
Upamanyu: casually like you would never see them eating meat like nobody would even dream of elephants
Meghana: eating no you know um there was there was some um real i was watching of this uh family does that
Meghana: that does these quizzes and they had their little girl and someone like quizzing.
Meghana: So they asked name an animal that eats meat.
Meghana: And one of them answered tiger, which was fine.
Meghana: But the other one answered elephant.
Meghana: And it was really funny.
Meghana: And the other girl was like, elephant really.
Meghana: But now when I think of it, I'm like, oh, wow, she isn't wrong now.
Meghana: But yeah.
Meghana: So but imagine what.
Meghana: what it can do like i i don't know if you ever heard the story oops but when i was little i was
Meghana: told that you could tame a wild elephant if you took like a ball of rice or a ball of ragi which is
Meghana: one of the flowers that you get here and you add a little bit of salt into it and just feed it every
Meghana: day and when if you feed it every day then over a couple of months it will come looking for you
Meghana: because it wants that salt and then you can actually tame it because it starts
Upamanyu: That's actually a very good point because salt in nature is very rare for some reason.
Upamanyu: I don't know why, but salt is a precious commodity in the natural world, right?
Upamanyu: Like humans at one point, we as a species used to go find these salt lakes or as now many animals do.
Upamanyu: we used to go to salt lakes and get um get salt for us ourselves as well and we don't realize
Upamanyu: the importance of salt in our diet uh because it's such uh you know um yeah we don't think twice
Meghana: about it but yeah it's a precious commodity in the national world you've seen those uh photos
Meghana: i don't know if people have but mountain goats they would be on almost like 90 degree
Meghana: vertical clips and they just go there to lick the salt of those yes because
Meghana: that's all. So like animals go to a big extent. I mean, I mean, like like, like,
Meghana: like open men you mentioned, we do not realize the importance because we get salt in
Meghana: supermarkets. We get it in packets and you know, you just like sprinkle salt or put salt freely.
Meghana: And as Indians, I mean, we use salt even more, I guess. But, uh, but when you don't have
Meghana: salt, you would literally crave for salt. Imagine when you have something really bland and
Meghana: you're like, oh, it's missing some salt. That's the first thing we say. We don't even talk
Meghana: about anything else, but we say, oh, it's missing some salt. And it's the same thing here. So now that
Meghana: the animals are really used, like these elephants have started feasting on the chicken and
Meghana: eggs and parota, which is one of the breads. It's like a non, but it's a bread that's local to
Meghana: Kerala. Now they've started really enjoying it. And who wouldn't? I mean, you know, like as humans,
Meghana: we know that if we get some junk and we get some tasty food, we would not have the healthy food.
Meghana: So I remember once I was speaking to a researcher and he said there is enough in the jungle for the elephants to survive.
Meghana: But when they come to the forest fringes and there are these jackfruit plantations on these banana plantations and you know you can get what do you say all these tasty, juicy jack fruits and bananas,
Meghana: then they don't want to go back into the jungle and just eat normal plain leaves.
Meghana: And this has been one of the, I think, the biggest human animal conflict areas where, you know, you're bordering the forest and you have.
Meghana: have fruit plantations. But with fruits, at least it's not hampering their, maybe their dietary
Meghana: patterns. But with something like chicken, we don't even know what it is actually causing to their
Meghana: system at the moment when they're eating chicken and eggs and you're not, you don't have a stomach
Meghana: to stomach it. You know, you're not even an omnivore. At least as humans, we're omnivores. We can switch.
Meghana: But elephants are not omnivorous. So their stomachs are made in a certain way with certain
Meghana: digestive juices that cannot digest such food but they're going for it because you know they've
Meghana: gotten the taste of it and it doesn't matter if it is good or bad and and honestly i mean as a wild
Meghana: elephant you do not know if it is good or bad for you as long as at least you're getting something
Meghana: that's different from probably your mundane leaves and you're like okay let me feast on this
Meghana: which brings up the question of how should we effectively manage this waste and how would we know what
Meghana: it is actually leading to.
Meghana: We really need to, you know, the government needs to take efforts
Meghana: because elephants are so important, I mean, for the environment.
Meghana: And if you're not going to take care of them, who will?
Meghana: So you really need to make sure that the waste management is happening effectively.
Meghana: If that is not happening, I don't even know.
Meghana: I mean, you know, what is the next thing that elephants are going to do?
Meghana: Like, are they going to charge and start feeding on us straight away?
Meghana: But yeah.
Upamanyu: I think it's a long shot for elephants becoming like man-eaters or something like that.
Upamanyu: But definitely if they are coming back for it, that means they have got like taste for it, definitely.
Upamanyu: Yeah, I think it certainly will affect their biome.
Upamanyu: You know, elephants, obviously, they're bigger animals.
Upamanyu: They have far more complicated stomach.
Upamanyu: So that means, you know.
Upamanyu: And I think like humans, again, we are such a successful species.
Upamanyu: she's because of our high level of adaptability.
Upamanyu: We are very, very adaptable to a range of different conditions,
Upamanyu: which is the reason why we are such an impact on the natural world as well,
Upamanyu: where other animals like struggle to adapt themselves.
Upamanyu: So in saying that, what I'm getting at is this would like a process,
Upamanyu: processed food and are spices and whatever.
Upamanyu: Oil also, these are not very natural in their diet.
Upamanyu: So, Kerala, I think they probably have some spices, I don't know,
Upamanyu: because Kerala is like a place where a lot of spices grow as well.
Upamanyu: But definitely not oil and processed fats.
Upamanyu: So yeah, that, we don't know.
Upamanyu: We don't know.
Upamanyu: Do you know, Megna, if there is any research being done on...
Meghana: I don't know if there's any research.
Meghana: It's really, really new.
Meghana: This news is quite new.
Meghana: So I do not know what the government is going to make of it and if they're going to take strict steps.
Meghana: But I'm sure that they need to curtail it.
Meghana: You know how when you have a pet dog and you feed it too much and then it gets really fat,
Meghana: then you have to put it on like a low fat diet.
Meghana: You kind of have to have to restrict these animals saying, no, you can't.
Meghana: One of the things that I read, which was really interesting, I think a few years back, was that if you grew chia seed plants, then elephants don't like chia seeds or the plants.
Meghana: So if you have them like growing just in their path from where they come into the plantations, then that kind of deters them.
Meghana: So we can even do like friendly deterring options like that where you know, you grow up.
Meghana: cheer seeds maybe around all these roadside eateries and then have like really strict like you know have those
Meghana: dustpins with lock that you lock every time that you dump into it till it is clear can it really
Meghana: stop elephants i don't know uh lock um yeah if it is maybe a steel dustpin like a steel big dumpster
Meghana: with a lock probably but we need we need to take that seriously into account it just can't be like
Meghana: waste lying around that that the elephants can get to i have plugged this
Meghana: the you know the news article for you guys to read and you can check this out it's it's in the
Meghana: indian express and a few other publications have picked up as well and it is quite quite
Meghana: quite interesting and you know what would you say it's very different for us to hear that elephants
Upamanyu: are eating chicken or eggs yeah that is quite like i i wouldn't have
Upamanyu: thought in a thousand years that that would have even been possible like i would have thought like
Upamanyu: i don't know what i i guess there's something that's drawing them to it because i would have thought
Upamanyu: they would have just repelled like like you know how big cats would just repel at the you know
Upamanyu: at eating something you know vegetarian or like fruits or anything like that like if they're truly
Upamanyu: wild if they're conditioned in a zoo in thailand or something like that petting zoo in thailand or in
Upamanyu: America, that's a different story.
Upamanyu: But like a wild tiger
Upamanyu: or a wild big cat
Upamanyu: wouldn't really eat anything
Upamanyu: that's vegetarian.
Upamanyu: So I would have thought
Upamanyu: that the elephants would be just
Upamanyu: plain repelled by
Meghana: I think what I read, I think in this
Meghana: article I'm not sure, but it says, let me see.
Meghana: It says that
Meghana: elephants need up
Meghana: to 80,000 calories
Meghana: in a day, if I'm not wrong.
Meghana: so when they go into a jackfruit plantation or a banana plantation they're able to like you know get
Meghana: your calorie count in for the day within a few hours and something like i think um you know all these
Meghana: greasy oily salty food items also contribute to feeling full faster so it's going to have a negative
Meghana: effect for sure but it is it is taste like you know taste i think taste over everything i mean even when your pet dog
Meghana: or your cats reject something, it's because they don't think it's tasty.
Meghana: And it's the same thing for us.
Meghana: I mean, if we think this is not edible, we do not want to have it.
Meghana: Taste is everything.
Meghana: So I don't think they view it as meat yet because they're just kind of like, you know, just eating it.
Meghana: But when they realize that it's something that's probably not good for their stomach, they may.
Meghana: They may stop it.
Meghana: We do not know.
Meghana: But we need to be the ones to actually make sure they don't have access to it.
Upamanyu: Mm.
Upamanyu: Which, how would you, like, you suggested some things that we could do, you know,
Upamanyu: GSI seed plantations and, like, a stainless steel or, or like a metal dustbin holders or some kind,
Upamanyu: and then locking them up.
Upamanyu: How would I approach this?
Meghana: Yeah.
Meghana: Or maybe, like, you know, have the garbage dumpster come,
Meghana: when the outlets close, so maybe like just before night time or whenever you see the elephants
Upamanyu: actually actually like like if you know changing the schedule based on the elephant's schedule.
Meghana: Yes, because the elephants definitely have a schedule and they come according to that timing.
Meghana: So if you know that okay, this is the timing, then maybe you can get the entire cleanup process also done
Upamanyu: according to that. Yeah. And also I think obviously the locals would have to play a big role in that.
Upamanyu: Also the local government as well, I think. Cool. Do you want to talk any more about this? Or should we
Meghana: move on? I think we can move on because I mean as interesting and surprising and shocking as it is.
Meghana: just need to digest that fact now and probably the elephants also need to but but moving ahead how
Upamanyu: about we talk about the mining permits oh brilliant yes we can talk about that so i'll just read out
Upamanyu: the news gist that's here um so indonesia cancels coral triangle mining permits uh Indonesia
Upamanyu: has revoked mining permits for four companies operating in Raja Ampat, a biodiverse marine ecosystem.
Upamanyu: And like this first sentence is such an important one, like for a country to do this.
Upamanyu: And I don't know if you, if any one of our viewers know, but this decade has been termed the decade of the
Upamanyu: ocean um 20 2021 to 2030 um and we are like yeah halfway almost nearing halfway through it um and that's why
Upamanyu: probably you'll see a lot of um ocean based um content going on ocean based philanthropy you know
Upamanyu: follow the money somebody somebody said to me once follow always follow the money um there's a lot
Upamanyu: of ocean-based philanthropy that's going on at this current time. So basically if you're, if you're, if you're, what
Upamanyu: it's called NGO. If your NGO is focusing on ocean issues and ocean stuff, then you are more likely
Upamanyu: to sort of get, you know, funded and get some philanthropists involved.
Upamanyu: And there are documentaries about the ocean.
Upamanyu: David Addenbro did his recent documentary on the ocean, which I found, yeah, I'm a David
Upamanyu: Addenborough fanboys, so I found it very beautiful.
Upamanyu: But yeah, we don't, what I'm trying to say is we don't realize the importance of the ocean
Upamanyu: because we are primarily land-dwelling animals, we humans.
Upamanyu: we don't realize the impact ocean has on us directly, like not even indirectly.
Meghana: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Meghana: I think people don't realize that more than half of your oxygen actually comes from the ocean, not from land.
Meghana: And I don't know if you've seen these reels recently, but, you know, they're all diving related.
Meghana: And people are like, you know, 70% of land is water.
Meghana: You don't like water.
Meghana: You don't like fun.
Meghana: Are you just having fun on the 29%?
Meghana: like what kind of human are you, you know?
Meghana: Like what kind of person?
Meghana: It's really funny.
Meghana: But also people who do not know about Indonesia or about diving,
Meghana: Raja Ampat is a really diverse place.
Meghana: Like the marine diversity is mind-boggling.
Meghana: I think it's even mentioned in the gist that oops is going to go ahead and finish.
Meghana: But if you're a dive with Raja Ampeth is like here,
Meghana: like, you know, you want to go to Raja Ampat and dive once in your life.
Meghana: It's that amazing.
Meghana: It's that beautiful.
Upamanyu: Yeah, and I think both of us,
Upamanyu: Megna feels very strongly about the ocean.
Upamanyu: She's a diver.
Upamanyu: Both of us are divers,
Upamanyu: so we do feel very strongly about the ocean.
Upamanyu: But Megna more than me in some cases.
Upamanyu: But, yeah, Rajampat is really, yeah, top, yeah, up there
Upamanyu: in places you want to dive at
Upamanyu: and you want to get under your belt.
Upamanyu: So yeah, it's canceled revoked permits for four companies, not one, not two, four companies
Upamanyu: operating in Raja Ampat, which is a beautiful and, you know, biodiverse marine ecosystem.
Upamanyu: The government cited this again, government cited environmental regulation violations.
Upamanyu: This sentence is so counter-refer.
Upamanyu: intuitive to me sounds very counterintuitive to me so that's why i'm very excited that the government
Upamanyu: has done this you know government cited environmental regulation violations yeah governments and science
Upamanyu: really doesn't like politics and science doesn't really go very well together they're always at
Upamanyu: different ends of the spectrum um nine times out of 10 yes but i think we need to take some things
Meghana: into account like something in the u.s right now they're giving like left right center
Meghana: permits to mine in the ocean.
Meghana: But in Indonesia,
Meghana: Southeast Asian countries which are developing,
Meghana: I mean, if they can take the stand against mining,
Meghana: these countries which are still developing,
Meghana: and need that money from mining,
Meghana: if they can say no, it means a big thing.
Meghana: It means that the tourism or the, you know,
Meghana: the tourism or the money coming from the tourism of these places,
Meghana: like Raja Ampat, where everything is pristine
Meghana: and they want more of the world to come and see this pristine area.
Meghana: That is more important than mining is,
Meghana: really nice to hear because you don't hear you know I mean everyone everywhere is so
Meghana: capitalistic that if you hear a little bit of a social angle or a giving angle or a
Meghana: CSR angle I mean it'll be probably called GSR but yeah but but yeah I mean it's just so
Upamanyu: nice to hear that they have revoked mining permits yes and it exactly goes on to say
Upamanyu: that conservationists praise the move to protect coral reefs and marine life.
Upamanyu: Raja Amput is home to 75% of hard coral species. That, yeah, you can, like, even if you don't know
Upamanyu: about marine ecosystems and what those things are, like, 75% is a big number. And having
Upamanyu: some, like, 75% of something in concentrated in one place, yeah, must be a big thing.
Upamanyu: Anybody can tell that.
Upamanyu: 75% of known hardcore species and large shark and mantaray populations.
Upamanyu: Again, as villainized, not only sharks, like all top predators are in some ways, you know, villainized in popular culture, in some way or the other, you know.
Upamanyu: And I think we don't realize how much role, how much of role top predators play in an ecosystem.
Upamanyu: So yeah, so it is really biodiverse, basically trying to say that.
Upamanyu: The area is considered the epicenter of global marine biodiversity and a critical habitat for growing reef mantas.
Upamanyu: Yeah, it is a really great thing.
Upamanyu: And I think I would like to give an example of something like protecting the like ocean that has helped actually helped in, you know, the stuff that we take from ocean like fishing.
Upamanyu: Like protecting a large, a huge area off the coast of Hawaii.
Upamanyu: has actually, because that's a safe sanctuary for marine animals, fish where they come to breed,
Upamanyu: they are basically laying their eggs there because they know this place is a sanctuary.
Upamanyu: But obviously, not all the fish can stay there.
Upamanyu: So there's this concept of spill.
Upamanyu: And that spill is when it goes outside of that protected zone.
Upamanyu: So even protected a very small area, I think, in Scotland someplace, they protected like a few, not even 100, like maybe 30 or 40 square kilometers of an area.
Upamanyu: And that had a huge impact on the crayfish stock around that area.
Upamanyu: So it's always.
Meghana: We saw another documentary as well.
Meghana: like i don't know if it was in the philippines or indonesia but they had a protected area
Meghana: and they had completely like stopped fishing in the area it was protected you couldn't take anything
Meghana: and because of that certain populations had recovered and they were spilling on so we do not realize
Meghana: how much conservation helps until you actually take a hard look at it and you stop it because i think
Meghana: the locals were concerned about some fish species uh the population you know dead yeah yeah i remember the
Upamanyu: documentary uh i don't i can't recall the name it'll come it'll come but it was a beautifully shot
Upamanyu: there was this old man who was starting off the documentary he was narrating how his life and he
Upamanyu: how used to like spearfish and free dive and things like that um yeah that was beautiful no
Meghana: were they the same documentary i thought the spear fishing one was about the um the tribe that can
Upamanyu: hold their breath underwater no um it was i think the both of them were
Upamanyu: the same same thing like that was the hook of the documentary basically oh yeah the starting was
Upamanyu: beautiful yeah beautiful yes yes but the all these huts the the typical huts yeah just on the
Upamanyu: ocean just on the sea um yeah i i really love that documentary actually um and i mean i
Meghana: honestly think with the ocean the main problem is like you pointed out earlier most people don't want to
Meghana: into the ocean. Even now when I, you know, when you have active discussions or I have active discussions
Meghana: with people about diving, I think four or five out of ten people tell me that they're not comfortable
Meghana: swimming or they're not comfortable in water or, you know, water scares them. Which we can't really
Upamanyu: blame them for like, we are terrestrial animals. So of course, water scares us. You can't, you can't. You can't
Meghana: flame but but I think you know until and unless you go dive you cannot feel for the ocean because
Meghana: you're only seeing the surface you're just seeing like waves of water and that's not something that
Meghana: you probably relate with you know people don't understand how important the underwater world is
Meghana: they look how important the oceans are for our survival and sometimes I feel like if people
Meghana: actually connected with the ocean there would be like bigger conservation efforts which slowly
Meghana: the tide is changing but for any change to happen it's it's really slow but I think I once read it
Meghana: and I tell people even now that it's the same planet but a different world underwater so it's
Meghana: just not the same world it's it's it's just a different you know I mean you cannot even talk about
Meghana: the kind of colors the kind of species the kind of fish the kind of calls the kind of movements
Meghana: like it's it's therapeutic it's meditative you have to be underwater wants to understand why this is such a big thing why you
Meghana: need to revoke mining permits in the ocean and why you need to let the ocean thrive and raja ampeth is such a
Meghana: sensitive area that i cannot be happier that the indonesian government has taken such a big step it's it's a
Meghana: positive news like you know i've made everything that's um that's mostly negative that we see on our screen
Meghana: and you know in the papers and everywhere it's nice to hear something positive that
Upamanyu: too for the environment and I think it's a good move as well like I think not like we
Upamanyu: are taking these steps to protect and and as Mignan was saying like by Raja
Upamanyu: Ampat is one of those most like highly biodiverse areas of our planet and and I
Upamanyu: think those areas need to be protected fast. Again, I very much recommend you guys go check out
Upamanyu: like David Attenborough's Ocean, the documentary there. He talks about a lot of these things
Upamanyu: that I've just mentioned that we have been speaking about as well. But yeah, the ocean is a
Upamanyu: beautiful place. Even if you don't, if you're not comfortable in the water, if you don't, if you're
Upamanyu: don't want to be near water, or if you don't want to see what's underneath, you can at least
Upamanyu: see it from the comfort of your home. So, you know, go check out, check those things out, go
Upamanyu: read up about the ocean and why it's important. And I think we talk about this between the
Upamanyu: two of us a lot of time as well, but, you know, public discourse has the power to shape policy.
Upamanyu: and shape government opinion.
Upamanyu: So enough people.
Meghana: Yes, talking about public opinion,
Meghana: I think when we talk about this permit,
Meghana: then we're going to talk about how public discourse
Meghana: and opinion is going to help the baby,
Meghana: the pygmy hippos in Thailand.
Meghana: But before we do that, do you want to show maybe
Meghana: a couple of photos from Rajampath, like the Marine
Meghana: biodiversity so people can get a little idea about how biodiversity is.
Meghana: Also, like, if you've never seen a manta, I mean, you know, when you see birds in the
Meghana: sky and you see the huge vultures to the eagles and you're like, wow, that's majestic.
Meghana: So imagine you're underwater and this manta goes above you.
Meghana: It's like a huge bird flying above you, like, you know, flapping its wings.
Meghana: It's like a huge underwater bird.
Meghana: it's three meters wide i mean you know when you when you're once in the ocean you will know why
Meghana: you need to protect these things even sharks i mean you know you just they're just villainized
Meghana: and if you've been with sharks you will find that find them amazingly cute and curious and um
Meghana: you wouldn't villainize them once you're in the photo with them um yeah and uh yeah these are just
Upamanyu: just google search images that that came up uh but i
Upamanyu: when I searched marine biodiversity, Rajampat, but it is a beautiful place.
Upamanyu: You go there, you will have, you, you can stay in like beautiful, cheap, you know, hotels,
Meghana: yeah, yeah.
Upamanyu: Harts and all those things.
Upamanyu: You can enjoy, enjoy the, you know, the biodiversity round.
Meghana: The photo of the orange fish.
Meghana: I mean, look at those colors.
Meghana: I mean, that's what I'm talking about.
Meghana: You cannot find those kind of colors.
Meghana: anywhere else except underwater.
Meghana: It is phenomenal.
Meghana: Oh my God, look at that photo.
Meghana: You can see a black tip reef shark.
Meghana: And you can see how close it is to the accommodation or the building that is being shown.
Meghana: Oh, that is just heaven.
Upamanyu: And it is even if you don't like, if you don't appreciate being in the water, which we can fully understand.
Upamanyu: Not everybody does.
Upamanyu: you know, these sort of Pacific Islands, if you visit near the ocean, they will have huts
Upamanyu: which have like, you know, glass bottoms underneath.
Upamanyu: And you can enjoy some species at least from the comfort of your deck or veranda or like
Upamanyu: balcony or whatever you call them.
Upamanyu: But yeah, you can literally enjoy that biodiversity from there.
Upamanyu: And also it gives a boost to the tourism there, which some part of it, I would like to think, goes back into the conservation of these species.
Meghana: I'm not sure if Raja Ampa does glassboards, though.
Meghana: No?
Meghana: I mean, it's, I don't know.
Meghana: I'm not heard of it, though, but a lot of places do.
Meghana: Like, a lot of places do.
Meghana: But I'm not sure if Raja Ampa does.
Meghana: I do know that there are certain places across the world where you can take a glass boat and see.
Meghana: the species. It probably would be a good idea, but I'm not sure. I've never, I mean, I think maybe
Meghana: because primarily I always read diving posts, so I've never seen a glass boat posts. Probably
Meghana: should be there, but I'm just, I just don't know. But yeah, people, people really, really need to
Meghana: start either getting into the ocean or, you know, on top of the ocean in a glass boat and start
Meghana: seeing. So you can really appreciate what you're missing out on. It's not the same when you go
Meghana: into an aquarium because it's it's basically just a big jail for the underwater life and you don't
Upamanyu: really see the natural corals and the natural fish species i mean i if if it turns somebody like me for me
Upamanyu: going my parents taking to zoo taking me to zoos is what like was the first one of my first
Upamanyu: interactions with wild animals.
Upamanyu: So if they're not really wild.
Upamanyu: Yes, yes, in the sense of they're not really in their environment.
Upamanyu: But I would take that as a wind.
Upamanyu: Like if somebody goes to the aquarium and with their children and the children
Upamanyu: are moved enough to be, you know, to be a, it's a.
Upamanyu: to come in that field as an adult and, you know, advocate for those species, I would take that as a win.
Meghana: I would say for the little small chance of, you know, of children getting interested in something by putting animals into a big cage or a big pool.
Upamanyu: No, I mean, no, I'm saying since they exist, like, we are not like, we can't fight all the best.
Upamanyu: like we're not fighting to get rid of aquariums or zoos that's a different fight but i'm saying since
Upamanyu: they exist since they are in our discourse since they have huge money behind them most of the times
Upamanyu: like if anyone has traveled through the dubai airport even um you know you'll see this huge
Upamanyu: aquariums even the dubai malls aquarium it's like huge and uh or something like the gardens by the bay in
Upamanyu: Singapore, which is for plants.
Upamanyu: If people get inspired and moved, because they're there.
Upamanyu: Like, we're not getting rid of them anytime soon.
Upamanyu: I don't think so.
Upamanyu: Yeah.
Upamanyu: So, sadly.
Upamanyu: Sadly.
Upamanyu: Yeah.
Upamanyu: No, that I agree.
Meghana: But I think I went with the advent of AI and everything.
Meghana: I think, you know, having holographic or imitation aquariums or imitation zoos.
Meghana: would be so much better for the animals than actually having.
Meghana: I mean, imagine, I mean, in COVID, when we were trapped inside our houses,
Meghana: people didn't like it.
Meghana: And that's how probably the animals feel.
Meghana: They're trapped, right?
Meghana: Like, they can't go out.
Meghana: They don't have freedom.
Meghana: We need to think about it in the way that we felt they feel it too.
Meghana: I do understand for education purposes, yes.
Meghana: But for education purposes, I think we need to get people moving and go into the wild
Meghana: more than show them a tame counterpart.
Meghana: you know try to get them excited because nothing beats the wild experience i mean they're not really
Upamanyu: tame they're not really tamed i would i would argue that but they're not really wild so they're
Meghana: somewhere in between um that's probably worse that's probably really worse i mean i mean when we
Meghana: say that you know like half is worse than for lor none it's it's yeah probably probably um but okay
Meghana: Talking about zoos, unless you want to, like, add something on this topic.
Upamanyu: No, I have exhausted my things.
Upamanyu: Yeah.
Meghana: I mean, a last line I would just tell people is go and explore and give the ocean a chance.
Meghana: You will fall in love with it.
Meghana: I mean, what you see in the ocean, you cannot see anywhere else.
Meghana: And once you're underwater, and, you know, you have that experience of your first shark or a first mantel.
Meghana: or even the first trigger fish.
Meghana: It's...
Upamanyu: Yeah, don't throw them at the deep end of first sharks.
Upamanyu: Maybe first corals or first kelp or something like that.
Meghana: Maybe, but yes.
Meghana: But I mean, I would honestly and strongly tell the viewers or, you know, the subscribers
Meghana: that please give the ocean a chance.
Meghana: Now, talking about zoos, we go to the crowd favorite topic,
Meghana: Moodang. So Moodang is a one-year-old pygmy hippo at Thailand's Kao-Kyo open zoo. Now, I don't know, I might not be pronouncing it properly. So it's an open zoo. And Moodang, as people know, let me get this up first.
Meghana: One second.
Upamanyu: I can probably get it up if you keep talking.
Meghana: Yeah.
Meghana: So, yes.
Meghana: So then Mooting became popular when she was just two months old.
Meghana: And this is because the...
Meghana: Oh.
Meghana: I can get it up.
Upamanyu: I can get it up.
Upamanyu: Don't worry about it.
Meghana: Okay.
Meghana: Yeah.
Meghana: I think the guardian is telling me, which I understand.
Upamanyu: time but yeah no you can keep talking about it i i have i've gotten it up okay you've gotten it up so
Meghana: budin got popular when she was just two months old and her kateika started putting videos of her just
Meghana: trying to like bite their shoes or just leave or eating and uh it just won people's hearts you know
Meghana: because i mean i think i think the thing with people is um they like anything that's cute and that's
Meghana: tiny and that looks like you know it's it's just do you want to do you want to tell people
Upamanyu: what the research is that you research for your film, what defines as cute for us humans?
Meghana: Oh, yeah. So anything that resembles a human baby is considered cute for humans.
Meghana: So, like, human babies are pudgy. They're around. They're fat, usually. And, you know, they have big eyes.
Meghana: And their heads are, like, you know, bigger than their bodies, usually.
Meghana: Anything that defines cuteness with, especially the eyes, I think, like, you know, it kind of
Meghana: is an automatic response on humans.
Meghana: So which is why people are really drawn to, like, puppies or kittens, because they're
Meghana: tiny, the guys, they look, you know, and they're helpless.
Meghana: So I think that's the one, one of the major factors that humans feel like, oh, I need to
Meghana: protect this thing.
Meghana: So that's like an involuntary response that people or humans feel with babies.
Meghana: And it's the same thing.
Meghana: And with Moodeng, that's what happened.
Meghana: I mean, she was tiny, she was fierce, but she was still like a light little, helpless little cutie.
Meghana: So, and because of her videos going viral, the zoo got like phenomenal amount of people thronging to the zoo.
Meghana: And now when she had her first birthday, it was a four-day celebration.
Meghana: Wow.
Meghana: And I had a big baby, you know, I think it had a big pygmy hippo cake as well.
Meghana: But there is a video in this link.
Meghana: I don't know if we can play the video, but it is...
Upamanyu: Yes, I have played it once.
Upamanyu: I am playing it again.
Upamanyu: Yeah.
Meghana: Yeah, so we're playing the video where she comes near her basket of veggies and leaves,
Meghana: which is a part of her birthday celebration and she is seen eating it.
Meghana: There were people from as far as the US who came just to celebrate her first birthday in the zoo.
Meghana: Now, while this is great for Mootank, and...
Meghana: you know, for the zoo. But what does it relate to? Like, how does it relate for other pygney hippos? And if you know
Meghana: about pygmy hippos, they're only found in, I think, Liberia and one more country. They're very
Meghana: localized. There are only around, I think, less than 3,000 wild pygney hippos left. But Moodyng's
Meghana: popularity and the social media, even though they are transfixed on just mooting, apparently, like, and let me, let me like,
Meghana: like bring up this other article.
Meghana: What do you think about the...
Upamanyu: I think, yes.
Upamanyu: And we can probably...
Upamanyu: So few than 2,500 pygmy hippos remaining in the wild.
Upamanyu: Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Cote Delavoy.
Upamanyu: I don't know.
Upamanyu: Yeah, these are the four or five places that pygmy hippos are found in.
Upamanyu: But what I think is we can draw parallels to this situation to, you know, different parts of the world where, you know, there's this one animal like we know of muchly from, from the Indian forests who was this huge and became this huge icon for tiger conservation.
Upamanyu: We know of Syracco the Kakapo from New Zealand, like a parrot, who became like the conservation minister.
Upamanyu: He held an official office at the government.
Upamanyu: So there are parallels to this around the world.
Upamanyu: And for me, what it highlights is is a real unique opportunity to bring.
Upamanyu: out the conservation message through something that is like viral worthy, you know? So that is
Meghana: a win in my book. Yeah, it is a great point and that is what I wanted to highlight. So I don't
Meghana: know if the new article is up on the screen. Yes, it is. It is up. Yeah. So the new article that I've
Meghana: shared, it's basically a Mongo Bay article.
Meghana: And for people who do not know Mongo Bay, they do a lot of research on wildlife, and they
Meghana: have these hard hitting, you know, on the ground articles.
Meghana: So this one is interesting because it talks about how Moody's popularity hasn't really
Meghana: translated into effective research to help wild pygmy hippos.
Meghana: So the researchers have said that they are not getting as much funding.
Meghana: Like in these areas, the Liberia and the other countries, you get, you.
Meghana: you get funding for other animals and they kind of pawn off that funding to help and,
Meghana: um, you know,
Upamanyu: which is the correct thing to do.
Meghana: Yes, but pygmy hippos like, I mean, Moody's popularity should help the wild, her wild
Meghana: counterparts, which it isn't. But now they're talking about the zoo kind of tying up with that
Meghana: project with the wild pygmy project and because the zoo is getting a lot of,
Meghana: you know, what do you say, income or revenue from Moody, they want to be.
Meghana: to donate a part of it to the research.
Meghana: And then the research will probably provide
Meghana: like these GPS collars so they can track the
Meghana: pygmy hippos.
Meghana: But we really need to talk about,
Meghana: I mean, when there are less than 3,000
Meghana: in the wild and we are celebrating one
Meghana: pigmy hippo like crazy, we need to have that same affection
Meghana: for all of them that are in the wild
Meghana: and want more moodings to exist.
Meghana: And that is kind of, I think where we come from.
Meghana: Like, you know, humans like to have a real,
Meghana: like to see the cute faces but they don't want to actually do the effort it takes you know they
Meghana: don't want to go ahead and conserve that species or they don't want to go ahead and do something
Meghana: that um that would actually help more moodings um and that's where we need to have this conversation
Meghana: that is it okay for just one moudang to be popular or do does this popularity really need to
Meghana: have its effect on the wild.
Upamanyu: Yeah, I would have thought, no, it was really surprising for me to learn that
Upamanyu: that popularity and the income that Moodyng is generating is not being,
Upamanyu: it's not helping her wild counterparts, her wild cousins. I would have thought that would have been the
Upamanyu: case which which is the case for most of these other sort of animal symbols of conservation
Upamanyu: that i talked about um but i would have i would have liked like that that is a good outcome i
Upamanyu: think that is a good outcome for me if because she's wild maybe she she she she's not wild
Upamanyu: sorry she's she's she's she's in a zoo set up
Upamanyu: There might be possibly, might be reasons why she can't be rewilded.
Upamanyu: There are many animals like that that can't be rewildered for one reason or the other.
Upamanyu: But yeah, I think even she's in the zoo set up.
Upamanyu: But if that popularity is helping out, if it's just filling the coffers of the zoo,
Upamanyu: then again, the zoo has a right to fill it.
Upamanyu: its coffers. I'll give them that. But again, some portion of it should be, you know,
Upamanyu: donated to the cause, to the cause as well. Yeah, that's what I think. Yeah. And I think, I mean,
Meghana: when you have a zoo and I'm not read in detail of, uh, if, like sometimes I think I'm okay with
Meghana: zoos when they're conserving a species when they're like, you know, when there was the lost
Meghana: African white rhino left, then you know, you, you need to conserve them. You need to conserve them. You
Meghana: need to keep them in a secluded space. I understand. But in this, it's an open zoo and I think
Meghana: she, she lives a comfortable life. I'm not opposed to it as long as it helps her wild counterparts.
Meghana: I think we need to still read about why Modeng is there or her mom is there. But Mootin's popularity
Meghana: needs to help. And I think the other examples that you mentioned, oops, is I think when you've
Meghana: mentioned Siroko. The Kakapo's were already protected. They were on that island by that time.
Meghana: I do not think that Syroko led to the Kakapos being protected or being moved to that island.
Upamanyu: It just led to our awareness.
Upamanyu: No, no, it led to Kakapu being the bird of the year, which is a big thing in New Zealand.
Upamanyu: It's a yearly phenomena that happens.
Upamanyu: So one bird is announced because New Zealand is primarily birds.
Upamanyu: There's literally nothing else here.
Upamanyu: So, bird of the year is a big deal where that, but in that year, gets most funding from the government.
Upamanyu: So it led to like Cacapos being bird of the year, I think two years or three years consecutively.
Upamanyu: Might be wrong.
Upamanyu: I might be wrong on that.
Upamanyu: But, yeah, that's what happened.
Meghana: And for people who do not know what a Cacapo is, I don't know if you guys have seen that documentary, the Cacaport shagging,
Meghana: that cameraman. Do you remember that? Oops. Oh, yes, Stephen Frye. Oh, yes. And that's the first
Upamanyu: video that will come up if you, if you search for Kakapo. I'll just share my screen.
Meghana: You have to see that video. It is, I mean, it would, it, and basically he thought that the
Meghana: cameraman was his mate, you know, he was trying to shag the camera. I'm just, I'm just, I'm just,
Upamanyu: playing the video now.
Upamanyu: Yeah.
Upamanyu: Yes, Stephen Frye is the commenter.
Upamanyu: This is Sirocco.
Upamanyu: Yeah, and Sirocco just climbs onto the camera person's cameraman's head.
Upamanyu: And yeah, because Kakapo's, they have an unusually long breeding cycle.
Upamanyu: Everything in New Zealand is very slow and relaxed.
Upamanyu: relaxed because the New Zealand evolved in isolation.
Upamanyu: Like Australia has had humans for over 20,000 years when we first migrated from Africa.
Upamanyu: That still blows my mind how we managed to migrate from Africa to Australia, which is like an island.
Upamanyu: But anyway, there was humans a lot longer before New Zealand.
Upamanyu: longer before new zealand new zealand is very recent like thousand years since humans are here so
Upamanyu: everything in new zealand has developed in yeah in fursat we call in uh hindi that's the word in
Upamanyu: hindi but yeah it's very in a relaxed manner so yeah um okay coming back to sorry we got
Meghana: carried away yes coming back to mooting um so how many of you know mooting or have
Meghana: have seen Mooding. I mean, I think Mooding, even people who are not interested in wildlife,
Meghana: I know of almost 80% of my friends who have heard of Mooding, which was big, because, you know,
Meghana: I mean, if you're not into wildlife, you're not into animals, but you know about one pygmy hippo,
Meghana: that is big. And that is why it kind of, you know, it kind of makes me feel sad that
Meghana: when Mooden got that popular, they couldn't cash in on her popularity to get enough funding for research.
Meghana: for protecting other pygni hippos because i think when you have less than 3 000 left in the
Meghana: wild it is a wake-up call it's like how we had this entire wake-up call about tigers in india it is a
Meghana: wake-up call and i mean if not anything else i hope today's discussion about this can help people know
Meghana: that we need more mood angs to be protected and for people who didn't know what would moodeng
Meghana: translate into, I think it's called bouncing pork in Thailand.
Meghana: And there were, I think it was a whole, um,
Meghana: whole like to call, like, like what which, what should we name her?
Meghana: So, and then I think Moodang won.
Meghana: And after Moodang, I think there were pygmy hippers across the world in different zoos
Meghana: where they tried to also like kind of gain on her popularity.
Meghana: But I think Mooden kind of just rode on her popularity.
Meghana: And the other, yeah, it's kind of like that thing.
Meghana: I think, you know, you remember how they said, let's make this photo of the egg popular?
Meghana: And then people just made that one egg popular.
Meghana: And a lot of people try to do the same thing, like create one page and make one egg popular.
Meghana: But it just didn't happen.
Meghana: So I think it's, it's.
Upamanyu: Yeah, people which will watch anything.
Upamanyu: That's on the internet.
Upamanyu: And all these platforms like Instagram that capitalize on our attention is, you know, is perfect examples.
Upamanyu: Doom scrolling.
Meghana: TikTok.
Upamanyu: Sorry.
Upamanyu: How can I forget TikTok?
Upamanyu: Instagram, TikTok and all these other places.
Upamanyu: Everybody is.
Meghana: I mean, we can forget TikTok.
Meghana: It doesn't exist.
Meghana: In India, it's banned.
Upamanyu: Right, right.
Upamanyu: Yeah.
Upamanyu: No, I sometimes forget that.
Upamanyu: But, yeah.
Upamanyu: Yeah, TikTok is this, yeah, huge thing, other places.
Upamanyu: And I think it was one of the good moves on the government's part banning TikTok.
Meghana: No, that's just because of India and China and the friction.
Meghana: It's not.
Upamanyu: Right, right.
Meghana: It's not because, you know, I mean, TikTok leading.
Upamanyu: Like, led to a good outcome, led to a decent outcome, I would say.
Upamanyu: It's a win in my book.
Meghana: I think the doom strolling still exists.
Meghana: with or without TikTok. Maybe we just banned some really, you know, whatever
Meghana: coin thing would have come from India. But that's about it, I guess. But back to
Upamanyu: moody again. Back to Moody. Back to Moody. We're back to Moody.
Meghana: So yes, have you seen Mooting? Do you know about Mooting? And if you haven't, I think after
Meghana: today, if you've seen the video that we've shared, I think you would want to go back and
Meghana: look at her photos when we was little when she was little and especially those photos of her
Meghana: just like you know trying to chop on her caretaker shoes it really melts your heart
Meghana: and i mean we can we can do a little more than just go to a zoo and look in an animal we should
Meghana: want to save their wild counterparts after all we share this planet it's not just us it's it's all
Meghana: these animals on this planet so we really need to take that into account and and mooting's popularity
Meghana: needs to really help her, not like literally, but like figurative cousins in the wild.
Upamanyu: Yeah.
Meghana: Yeah.
Upamanyu: So we still have, you know, 20 minutes left in our schedule time.
Upamanyu: So we can probably talk about some other things that we have on the roster as well.
Meghana: What about the spider?
Upamanyu: monkeys in columbia that that's that sounds nice i also do want to touch on the hornbill
Upamanyu: calls part but we can we can talk about the tiger monkeys um a little bit um so forest corridors
Upamanyu: this is again a very very interesting space um and topic to talk about um again
Upamanyu: Again, this is true in this case for the spider monkey, but Columbia spider monkey forest corridors is what is the interesting part of this news report.
Upamanyu: Brown spider monkeys are threatened due to deforestation in Colombia, duh.
Upamanyu: I mean, yes, obviously, with 85% of their habitat lost.
Upamanyu: So these numbers, like,
Upamanyu: I don't know about the people watching with us today,
Upamanyu: but, you know, these numbers, like,
Upamanyu: when I hear numbers such as this,
Upamanyu: it gives, it has a huge impact on me.
Upamanyu: Like, I think what has led to this?
Upamanyu: But on the other hand, I also think, like,
Upamanyu: like, once we industrialized the whole world and, you know,
Upamanyu: started growing, the population started sky,
Upamanyu: rocketing we also had to sort of provide for all like feed, load and shelter all these like
Upamanyu: eight billion humans as as it stands right now. And I think innately we always look for the
Upamanyu: easiest solution to one of our problems that sometimes we create. And I think, you know, cutting down
Upamanyu: forests to build our settlements has been that one of those quick and easy solutions for us.
Upamanyu: So, deforestation, 85% of the habitat lost. To address low genetic variation, again, this is not
Upamanyu: something everyone realizes, but if you have a small gene pool, any animal like humans or any other
Upamanyu: animal on the face of this planet, they're like the risk, the risk,
Upamanyu: of getting sick and the entire population getting wiped off or just general diversity, you know, takes a huge hit if the gene pool shrinks down.
Meghana: Yeah, it's basically essentially saying that, okay, you have one family, just like one family. And if you have the same genetic mutation and there's a virus that hits, then that entire gene pool is wiped out.
Meghana: So think about it this way that it's just Adam and Eve and their kids alive or maybe just a few
Meghana: other cousins alive, then what could happen? So it's the same here.
Upamanyu: Yes. And so to address low genetic variation conservation, it's created 15 ecological
Upamanyu: corridors connecting forest fragments. And I think this is a really good example of
Upamanyu: making lemonade out of lemons um you know this is the reality that columbia is existing in
Upamanyu: like fragmented forests um not only columbia like even uh you know if if you if you follow wildlife
Upamanyu: news in any shape or form you'll have heard of um you know pass passes wildlife passes like
Upamanyu: bridges or underpasses for wildlife to pass, uh, that there are such things in Indian jungles
Upamanyu: where it like pathways are connected between forests to make sure big and small animals can move
Upamanyu: freely between forests because for us there are borders. Animals don't really have any borders.
Upamanyu: They might be endemic to certain places. They might not want to go out of their comfort
Upamanyu: zone but yeah not really borders so um and i've read about like a moose highway in canada of some
Upamanyu: kind uh either it was being built or was being inaugurated or something um so this is a really
Upamanyu: lemonade out of lemon situation and i i sort of get that like these fragmented forests are the
Upamanyu: reality so how do we make sure that you know even in this even when the situation seems dire we can
Upamanyu: do something to help these species yeah and and i think what we don't understand is like you know how
Meghana: humans need roads to connect and to travel and to go to other places that animals have a way of
Meghana: traveling across they have a path that they usually follow and they have these
Meghana: So they need their own kind of road to be able to interact with their own species or other species.
Meghana: So when you have a jungle, whatever kind of roads or whatever kind of connections they have that exist.
Meghana: But when you're going to like build a road across the jungle or you're going to like just, you know, like break the jungle into pieces, then there has to be some way that the animals can interact.
Meghana: So that way it's great that they are, you know, they're building these corridors.
Meghana: And I think they have more in the line, right?
Meghana: I think that's what I read that the project aims to add more.
Meghana: Yes.
Upamanyu: Yes.
Upamanyu: So the project aims to add six more linking 2,000 hectares of forest and leveraging benefits
Upamanyu: for agriculture and ecosystem systems.
Upamanyu: Researchers work with landowners to create private conservation areas.
Upamanyu: This again, I am liking this approach to things as well.
Upamanyu: Again, I love lemonade out of lemon situation.
Upamanyu: When life gives you lemons, just make lemonade.
Upamanyu: You know, working with, because of course private landowners,
Upamanyu: because when forests were cut down, it was cut down to make, you know,
Upamanyu: make space for human settlement.
Upamanyu: So of course there are private landowners.
Upamanyu: And of course, they, like animals don't understand those boundaries.
Upamanyu: So working with landowners to create private conservation areas, this is a really good approach as well.
Upamanyu: So this approach helps the entire biological community in a diverse region using the brown spider monkey as an umbrella species.
Upamanyu: And I think that's great.
Upamanyu: And I think that that's what we were talking about when we were speaking about Moondang as well.
Upamanyu: like using her as an umbrella species to redirect funds towards her cousins, but also like those ecosystems in general.
Upamanyu: So I think this is a really, really, really good strategy.
Upamanyu: And I think the discussion question for us here is also replicating these kinds of corridor projects globally.
Upamanyu: a viable strategy for species under fragmentation pressure.
Upamanyu: It definitely is.
Meghana: And I mean, I really don't know how they're, you know,
Meghana: how they're working with the landowners to create private conservation areas,
Meghana: what kind of subsidy or benefit they're providing.
Meghana: But until and unless you do not actually give the people some kind of benefit,
Meghana: the people who are in the, you know, in the forest fringe areas,
Meghana: they are not going to be as even though, even the people in the forest,
Meghana: fringe areas have a greater, what would you say, tolerance or they are more, you know,
Meghana: they coexist more peacefully with the wild animals.
Meghana: But even if you want to make them make more efforts, there has to be some kind of government
Meghana: initiative, which I think Columbia is doing at the moment with its private landowners.
Meghana: And talking about, I think, these brown spider monkeys, you can, I think, I think,
Meghana: Oops, you're showing the photos of brown spider monkeys.
Meghana: Yes, yes, I am.
Meghana: Yes, so you can see these brown spider monkeys.
Meghana: I mean, look at them.
Meghana: They're so cute.
Meghana: They're more black than brown but still.
Meghana: So cute.
Meghana: But I think, I mean, that is a separate topic of how we name our animals.
Meghana: But look at them.
Upamanyu: Yeah.
Upamanyu: Who would not want to save them?
Meghana: Yeah.
Upamanyu: Yeah.
Upamanyu: And I think this, this is a really good template as,
Upamanyu: as pointed out in the article as well.
Upamanyu: This is a really good template for other such,
Upamanyu: you know, other spaces where, and I can imagine like,
Upamanyu: I can't imagine any country in the world
Upamanyu: which is not facing these kinds of pressures.
Upamanyu: You know, fragmentation and deforestation and so on.
Upamanyu: and so forth. So I think this is a really good template to follow, you know, across the board, yes.
Meghana: Because I think as humans, we do not realize that we need the environment and we need these
Meghana: animals to survive. They have their own space and they are the reasons that forests are functioning.
Meghana: Like, I think I once read, you know, only when the last tree has.
Meghana: been cut and the last drop of the ocean disappears is when we realize its importance.
Meghana: But we shouldn't go to that level to understand that, okay, this is what we need to do.
Meghana: Now, if there are wild animals and most wild animals, like, you know, they are specialized
Meghana: in the sense that they have these specific areas that they thrive in.
Meghana: So if we are only going to give them those specific kind of environments, they can thrive.
Meghana: So these kind of corridors are really, really essential.
Meghana: that they can thrive and if they thrive, we thrive.
Meghana: So we need them to thrive first for us to thrive.
Upamanyu: Oh, couldn't agree more there.
Upamanyu: Also, like, we'll continue talking about this,
Upamanyu: but I also just wanted to mention for the people watching.
Upamanyu: You know, if you have any questions for us,
Upamanyu: feel free to leave them in the comments.
Upamanyu: Again, as Mignan said, we have just started out.
Upamanyu: This is our first episode.
Upamanyu: But yeah, feel free to leave any comments if you have any questions for us.
Upamanyu: But yeah, I think Spider Monkeys in Colombia, again, Colombia is the space where, like,
Upamanyu: South America in general, it's a place very close to my heart.
Upamanyu: I have traveled in a few countries across South America, photographing birds.
Upamanyu: It's an extremely biodiverse place.
Upamanyu: You know, Amazon, who does that?
Upamanyu: know about the Amazon, you know, being called the lungs of the earth and whatnot.
Upamanyu: But who doesn't know about that? And I think being one of the most biodiverse areas in the
Upamanyu: world with like almost, well, 8% or 10% of world's bird species being there,
Upamanyu: it is also becomes very important that we sort of pay special attention. Like we
Upamanyu: we would speaking about when we were speaking about Raja Ampat, you know, you can really draw parallels to that, you know, something like Amazon because, you know, these are like the very densely focused and very unique ecosystems that we that we ought to give more attention to for better or for worse. We ought to give more attention to these spaces and, you know, projects like this.
Upamanyu: making the best out of the situation being realistic being pragmatic um i i i really really
Upamanyu: liked like this approach um yeah great things and i think that needs to be done more like um
Meghana: i think what you talked about is in india also they're trying to make like these wildlife
Meghana: corridors i think in the india in in the u.s and some other places where if you have the
Meghana: the road, then you have like a kind of a flyover or a path for the animals to move in safely.
Meghana: But other than that, also like if we are really fragmenting forests, we need to keep looking at
Meghana: new ways of how we can kind of make these paths and these bridges and different kind of corridors
Meghana: because animals need that movement and they're not going to move through human spaces
Meghana: because of obvious reasons that humans also do not like the animals moving through their spaces.
Meghana: So we need to create those spaces back because, I mean, if you've ever seen those pictures of how the earth was like 200 years ago, it had just jungles and jungles and jungles and with industrialization like Oops mentioned, I mean, you can see the changes where it's just like going down, down, down.
Meghana: And now we have, I think there was this really fun picture once I saw where when you were a caveman or a hunter or just after that when you started settling.
Meghana: you had a fence around your house and now we have a fence around the forest like you know so like we
Meghana: had a fence just okay like you know we're protecting ourselves now we have to protect the forest because
Meghana: they are rare and you know now we have multiplied so we need to take that into account and we need
Meghana: to think like really think about what our actions you know what impact they have and how we can
Meghana: we can get the government to do more of these things we really need to
Upamanyu: talk about wildlife. Yeah, and I think, like, as we said multiple times in today's discussion as well,
Upamanyu: I think, like, we need to realize how much of an impact these things have on us. Like, it is very easy.
Upamanyu: and like it's it it happens to like megna and me as well we're not immune to that but it's very easy to sort of forget um what's what's going on and and not be in touch with what's what's going on in the in the natural world to stay in our urban environments in our homes um you know buying meat from the supermarket
Upamanyu: buying vegetables from the supermarket and not realizing, you know, what went behind it.
Upamanyu: I'm not saying that we should now go and, you know, stop consuming those things,
Upamanyu: but being generally aware of things and, I guess, making that effort to contribute in whatever way possible.
Upamanyu: Whatever way you see fit, if you can make one tiny change, what would that be?
Upamanyu: That's sort of an approach.
Upamanyu: You know, again, I love the approach of making the best out of the situation.
Upamanyu: You know, this is the reality being pragmatic.
Upamanyu: This is the reality of stuff.
Upamanyu: How do we move on from here?
Upamanyu: And I think the book I mentioned at the beginning of this episode,
Upamanyu: Rambunctious Garden by Emmer.
Upamanyu: Maris, she also dwells on this idea of, you know, making the best out of the situations,
Upamanyu: accepting the novel, novel ecosystems and not having that dream always. It's good to dwell on
Upamanyu: that dream of like, we want to go back to this pristine environment. And as we said, like,
Upamanyu: the answers will be different depending on who are, who you are asking, where they want to go back to,
Upamanyu: or where they want the environment to go back to.
Upamanyu: But I think there is also another approach to things,
Upamanyu: which some of the topics that we discussed today clearly highlights.
Upamanyu: There's another approach of having and protecting what we have,
Upamanyu: but at the same time also respecting the wild spaces
Upamanyu: and how we have evolved, like how we can best co-exist with it.
Upamanyu: it. Yeah, what's your thought on that, Megma?
Meghana: No, no, sure. I mean, I think we need to have that kind of awareness, those conversations.
Meghana: We need to be more a part of the environment. And I think it's getting getting harder and harder because our detachment from nature is getting wider and wider.
Meghana: Like I feel like when I was growing up in Gurkow, where I'm from, it was a jungle.
Meghana: There was nothing.
Meghana: Like, there was not even a supermarket around.
Meghana: It was wild.
Meghana: It was free.
Upamanyu: And now it's like this futuristic city.
Meghana: Yeah.
Meghana: Yeah, it's known for these liquor shops every 500 meters away.
Meghana: So it's known as a drinking hole and it's known as a millennium city.
Meghana: But that's where I think we need to see.
Meghana: what we really want. And even now, like, people escape cities for vacations and go to these
Meghana: quiet spots. So when we like those quiet spots, shouldn't we be like spending more
Meghana: money on trying to have more of those quiet, peaceful spots where you can hear the, you know,
Meghana: the birds chirp or other animals? Like, that's what we need. And we need more of these forests.
Meghana: We need less of the high rises and more of the forests. It's easier said than done. Yes, I mean,
Upamanyu: I mean, we're part of it. We're part of it. I mean, no, 100% like we are, we are part of the problem as well. Like, as much as we hate to admit it, but, you know, we live in an urban environment. We do stuff. We drive cars. We, you know, do stuff in in day-to-day life that, that, you know, is, is harming the environment. So I think it's also, you know, important to recognize that as we're, you know, is harming the environment. So I think it's also, you know, important to recognize that as,
Upamanyu: well. Like that's what that's what that's why I keep saying like you know we are in this situation.
Upamanyu: We are doing these things. But I think, you know, incremental but positive changes like some of the
Upamanyu: ones that we talked about. Like, you know, Indonesia, you know, canceling the permits or how, you know,
Upamanyu: Mignan mentioned, you know, Moodeng having an impact on the conservation status of pygmy hippos.
Upamanyu: I think those are the kinds of stuff that we need to focus more on.
Upamanyu: And we need to, you know, focus our attention to.
Upamanyu: We can do them scroll, you know, if that's the release we want.
Upamanyu: we can do it through for a while but also focus on these kinds of these kinds of issues um i think
Upamanyu: that's enough people have had us talking for almost yeah two two two hours now um
Upamanyu: we are used to rambling like that oh 100 like four hours not a big deal yeah um
Meghana: been out in debating all the time.
Meghana: But I think, yes, I mean, we're really happy if you at least made it even half
Meghana: four till the end or even just a little bit of the beginning.
Meghana: We're really happy with that.
Meghana: But we, like, like Oppamann you mentioned before, any questions, any feedback, any comments,
Meghana: please let us know.
Meghana: And the questions that we asked you in between the show, please tell us the answer.
Meghana: the answers for those questions.
Meghana: And we had fun hosting this for you.
Upamanyu: I had so much fun hosting this.
Upamanyu: I also want to shout out King Shook, my brother, who has been helping us produce this show in the background.
Upamanyu: He has been keeping an eye on times and keeping an eye on all the different platforms that we are live on if everything's all right there.
Upamanyu: So thank you for that as well.
Upamanyu: And yeah, as Mignan said, thank you to all.
Upamanyu: all our viewers who have watched at the beginning, middle or end.
Upamanyu: We are on all the major social media platforms.
Upamanyu: We are on Twitch, X, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, of course.
Upamanyu: All the links are in the comment box below if you're watching on YouTube or whatever
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Upamanyu: this on or on all the platforms, that would be great. If you can share this with your friends
Upamanyu: and family, that would mean a lot to us as well. We'll also be publishing the recorded version on
Upamanyu: Spotify, Apple Music and the likes wherever we get your podcasts. So if you're listening to a recorded
Upamanyu: version of this show, thank you for that as well. Do share it with your friends and family.
Upamanyu: but other than that that's it for today we will see you next week we yeah we hope to see you next
Upamanyu: sunday yes same time same channel yes have a good one guys yes
yes
I'm going to be the other.