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Welcome. To search engine Mpg about. Every.

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1:21

The elon musk is a

1:23

paradox. She's like simultaneously Rush

1:25

Limbaugh and I don't know,

1:27

like Warren Buffett. He's

1:30

built some of the biggest businesses in the

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world. Spacex, the dominant launch provider, Tesla,

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is like the best selling easy maker

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in the world. But then. To

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go to a concentration camp

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and say that you are

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aspiration lead Jewish. I mean

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I can't believe it habit.

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And our new weekly showed the learning.

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We talk about everything Ila. do we

1:52

trust the fucking us to put a

1:54

computer in our brain, What his earnings?

1:56

Bingo and how do I play along

1:58

with he was my child. or

2:00

if he was somebody I knew, I would

2:03

be concerned. Listen to Elon Inc. from Bloomberg

2:05

Businessweek, wherever you get your podcasts. It's

2:07

all one big universe. You just work for Elon Inc.

2:12

Why is Rogan asking about Cybertruck in the

2:15

middle of the ancient aliens bed? I

2:44

recently learned that the Polish Academy of

2:46

Sciences has declared that cats are an

2:48

invasive alien species. Invasive

2:50

species are foreign species who are introduced

2:52

to an ecosystem and, rather than benignly

2:54

adapting to it, cause damage and disruption.

2:58

The Burmese Pythons who terrorized the

3:00

Florida Everglades. The feral hawks who

3:02

wreak havoc through Texas. But

3:05

there was something strange about hearing that cats had

3:07

been added to the ranks. It

3:09

wasn't just Polish scientists making that determination, though.

3:12

Globally, there appears to be some sort of

3:14

cat backlash brewing. It's

3:18

10 p.m. Do you know where your cat is?

3:21

In Iceland, cats have been put under

3:23

curfew. One city has imposed an outright

3:25

ban on outdoor cats. A controversy has

3:27

erupted in Canterbury over a children's

3:29

hunting competition. In New Zealand,

3:31

a contest was announced where children would

3:33

compete for a cash prize for killing

3:35

feral cats. Hunters under 14 are

3:37

being offered $250 for whoever can

3:40

kill the most feral cats. Although,

3:42

a contest was shut down in the face

3:44

of not terribly surprising criticism. Once

3:47

you start paying attention, though, this conversation

3:50

about cats, it seems to be

3:52

happening everywhere. There is a cat

3:54

problem in Southeast Memphis. There are cats that

3:56

are overrunning one neighborhood and gaining each of

3:58

the Cat

4:00

fight in Cherokee County where neighbors are seeing

4:02

not one, not two... People living in a

4:05

central Bakersfield neighborhood are calling it a

4:07

straight cat crisis. Across

4:11

the country, there's a growing recognition that

4:13

cats are a problem for the ecosystems

4:15

in which they find themselves. But

4:17

nobody seems sure what to do about it. So

4:19

this week on Search Engine, we're asking a question

4:22

that has begun to bother us. What

4:24

are we going to do about all these cats? And

4:27

we're going to start with a person who's been wrestling with this

4:29

question for years. Dr. Peter

4:31

Mara, Dean of the Earth Commons,

4:33

Georgetown University's Institute for Environment and

4:36

Sustainability, and the co-author of

4:38

the book Cat Wars, The Devastating

4:40

Consequences of a Cuddly Killer, which

4:43

is a very good subtitle. Should

4:47

I call you Pete, Peter, Dr. Mara?

4:49

What's your preferred... Dr. Dean. I'm a new

4:51

dean, so you got to call me Dean.

4:53

I'm just kidding. I'm a new dean, but

4:55

I like Pete. I hate... When the students

4:57

call me professor here, I said, my name's

4:59

Pete, my name's not professor, and I don't

5:01

want to be called doctor or dean. It's

5:04

like, call me Pete. I much prefer that. And

5:06

what is your relationship as a human being? What

5:08

is your relationship to cats? I've

5:11

owned a cat. I've owned an indoor cat. Its

5:13

name was Tookus. I had

5:15

Tookus when I was in college. We

5:17

adopted it from a shelter. I've never

5:19

owned a cat since then, and I've

5:21

got nothing against cats. I'm an ecologist,

5:24

and I love animals. I'm an animal advocate. You

5:27

say this like a person who perhaps has been accused of not

5:29

being an animal advocate. Oh, yeah. 100%. 100%. Perhaps

5:37

you can detect a façade of tension here.

5:40

Pete has, in fact, been accused of

5:42

not being an animal advocate. Accusations

5:45

like this are surfacing because there's an underlying

5:47

war going on here. One of

5:49

those small but hot wars that exist on the

5:52

fringes of American life. A

5:54

highly polarized debate that has its origins

5:56

in a relationship that began 100 centuries

5:58

ago. So,

6:10

does it even go before the origin

6:13

of the problem? Like can you

6:15

just tell me like how did the wild

6:17

cats become house cats? Like how did

6:19

that happen? So as

6:22

the story goes, and it really is just

6:24

a hypothesis, cats were

6:26

domesticated around 10,000 years ago, and

6:29

they were domesticated, it's thought, somewhere in

6:31

a place called the Fertile Crescent, which

6:34

is sort of like around Egypt and

6:36

that area. And 10,000

6:38

years ago was about the same time when

6:40

we were building houses,

6:43

starting to live in structures, starting to

6:45

store grains and water. And

6:47

when you start to create new ecosystems,

6:50

in this case, human ecosystems, you

6:52

start to attract other organisms like mice

6:55

and birds that are attracted to that

6:57

stored food and to that stored water.

7:01

There are wild cats in those

7:03

same areas that started to come into

7:05

those areas because of food. It's not

7:07

clear if they were captured and then

7:09

bred or if they were

7:11

just sort of slowly domesticated

7:13

over time, but over many,

7:15

many generations, cats eventually

7:18

became domesticated in the pets. What

7:23

is the difference, do you know, between sort

7:25

of cats and dogs to me feel like

7:27

they're at different levels of domestication? Like,

7:30

is that true or is that even

7:32

an answerable question? Oh, it

7:34

is. So dogs have been domesticated, it's estimated 40,000

7:37

years ago, and

7:39

cats were domesticated around 10,000 years ago. And

7:41

in fact, when you look at the

7:43

number of breeds of dogs versus the

7:45

number of breeds of cats, there are

7:48

a lot more dog breeds than there

7:50

are cat breeds just because of the

7:52

amount of time that people have had

7:54

to domesticate and breed different types of

7:56

dogs. I Should probably tell

7:58

you something about myself, which is just... I've always

8:00

had dogs and or have a cat. I

8:03

was severe cat allergy. I did once try

8:05

to get my hands on an experimental cat

8:07

allergy vaccine story for another time, but it

8:09

didn't work out and I've never had a

8:12

cat as a pet. I appreciate cats. I'd

8:14

like how they seem not completely tamer, both

8:16

sometimes even auto majestic I say. Asked Pete

8:19

about this. The vibe

8:21

get even around domesticated house cats

8:23

is just like they seem to

8:25

have a. They. Just seem half.

8:27

while they seem to have like Alaska subservience

8:29

relationship to the humans that they live with

8:31

than the major gold little that I spend

8:33

my life was like he does seem said.

8:36

The connection between him and a wolf

8:38

to skills much further to me be

8:40

absolutely And that independence for that cat

8:42

brings to people's lives is in some

8:44

ways what attracts people to them because

8:47

they are actually seeing a certain type

8:49

of behavior in an animal that they

8:51

almost would see in the wild. When.

8:53

I was growing up in the sixties and

8:55

seventies or dogs running around all over the

8:58

place. and it was because of rabies that

9:00

I think people started to realize that we

9:02

needed to. Get. Dogs on

9:04

leashes. And and get collared

9:07

and get licenses for dogs. And

9:09

we realize that we did take

9:11

dog ownership. Much. More seriously,

9:13

people are being bit by dogs.

9:15

Dogs were carrying rabies. Dogs were

9:18

the number one domesticated species to

9:20

transmit rabies. Now guess who is

9:22

that? Number one domestic and species

9:24

to Trevor Rabies. I'm I

9:27

guess as to as soon as right

9:29

because we we've gotten dog ownership under

9:31

control and it's a prior to the

9:33

fifties and sixties it would have been

9:35

normal in late. And. American suburb that

9:37

you to see light. Of. Wandering

9:39

Dog or a half of wondering

9:41

dogs. Yeah. I grew up in

9:43

the Coast a Connecticut Norwalk, Connecticut and we

9:45

adopted several dogs that we just found on

9:48

the streets. know owners and then in. I

9:50

think what's happened over time is after we

9:52

got the dog thing under control where you

9:54

had to have your dog licence and you

9:56

need to demonstrate that it had a rabies

9:59

vaccine. It's already. The now neither one of

10:01

my things is is like we did it

10:03

with dogs. Why we during with cats were

10:05

cast allowed to roam free. To

10:08

say it, most of America own

10:10

cats are required have rabies I

10:12

scenes, and wild cats may carry

10:14

more rabies than any other domesticated

10:16

animal. In absolute terms, the number

10:18

of rabies exposure cases by cats

10:20

is actually quite low. Key.

10:23

Will also point to the fact the

10:25

cats are a better for toxoplasma Assess

10:27

assess as a parasite can be dangerous

10:29

to feed us if you're pregnant, but

10:32

it exists and society functions. I.

10:34

Didn't pizza driving concern here isn't so

10:36

much the risks that too many for

10:38

your engine cat posts to humans, it's

10:40

the risk these cat post had different

10:42

animal. Birds. To

10:49

a what is the point where some

10:51

people in America started to think like

10:54

hey, there's a problem with our relationship

10:56

with cats like I became aware of

10:58

this very recently. I'm assuming this idea

11:00

has more of an intellectual history than

11:03

me noticing it like when does it

11:05

start Still has. Interesting because it was

11:07

actually the late eighteen hundreds, early nineteen

11:09

Hundreds when a guy blame of for

11:11

Bush started to write about an estimate

11:14

the mortality the cats cause on wild

11:16

birds for bus for Bush. F O

11:18

R B. U S H from Massachusetts. so

11:20

it the first versus and the alarm with

11:23

of with a bird expert yeah, a presumably

11:25

a birth mother. yeah he was an ecologist

11:27

and as and up in order salvages was

11:29

probably what he did mostly and he tried

11:31

to sound the alarm and multiple types. Edward

11:36

for a bus ride about cats

11:38

with the same vivid blood spattered

11:40

language that True Crime podcasts are

11:43

sees when they rewrite the Wikipedia

11:45

pages of serial killers. His book,

11:47

the Domestic Cat Bird Killer Mauser

11:49

and Destroyer of Wildlife means of

11:51

utilizing and controlling it published in

11:53

Nineteen sixteen first describes a cast

11:55

threat to wildlife nicely quote no

11:58

animal that. Analysis. They've

12:00

from it's ravenous clutches and

12:02

occur. Again,

12:06

nineteen sixteen forebears. As they did, the

12:08

cats were killing seven hundred thousand birds

12:10

per year in a single state Massachusetts

12:13

and he consider that the a conservative

12:15

estimate. Since then,

12:17

many ecologists had tried to estimate the

12:19

number of birds killed by cats both

12:21

by outdoor house cats and by prearranging

12:24

are known to cats. Over the decades,

12:26

they've come up with different numbers measured

12:28

in different places. For more than that,

12:31

they've gotten increasingly different response as the

12:33

question itself has become more polarizing. P.

12:41

Tommy A about what happened to

12:43

an academic he knew who published

12:45

one of these surveys in the

12:47

nineteen nineties. His name is Doctor

12:49

Stanley Temple is now retired from

12:51

Universe Wisconsin to do the first

12:53

estimate own and that the number

12:55

of animals, birds and small mammals

12:57

that he estimated were being killed

12:59

by cats a year in Wisconsin

13:01

you know, shook everybody at their

13:03

core. When.

13:09

Dr. Tebow conducted a study. He

13:12

estimated that there were conservatively around

13:14

one point four million free ranging

13:16

cats in Wisconsin. And it's each

13:18

of those cats was killing on

13:21

average an estimated five point six

13:23

birds per year. This.

13:25

Would mean that something on the

13:28

order of seven point eight million

13:30

birds are killed by free ranging

13:32

cats in Wisconsin per year, a

13:34

number which are listed A very

13:36

strong reaction from cat advocates. He.

13:39

Received death threats. he was showers

13:41

and it was a really she was

13:43

really simple. Math really wasn't anything complicated

13:46

with her. He received death threats. oh

13:48

yeah. Yeah. Yeah, as have I.

13:50

many. From. Cat owners,

13:52

Cat advocates, And what it

13:54

is, Why do they wanted kill you. Because.

13:58

Is a C. p that

14:00

are making a claim that

14:02

cats are having a negative impact

14:04

on the environment as something

14:06

that's threatening cats. They see this

14:08

as something that will actually

14:11

get people to kill cats. They

14:13

see it as an argument for removing cats

14:15

from the landscape and they recognize that there's

14:17

not many solutions out there

14:20

that are good for cats. When

14:25

my book came out there was definitely a

14:27

campaign on Amazon to get

14:30

as many people to attack my

14:32

book as possible. I

14:34

got written letters, lots of written letters

14:36

from all over the world. I

14:38

had phone messages. People

14:41

threatening me. One cat

14:43

advocacy organization showed up at

14:45

my previous employers main building

14:48

with a box of sign petitions trying to

14:50

convince them to get me fired. This

14:53

is, you know, in many ways it's all out

14:55

war and it has been

14:57

for a long long time. We're

15:03

gonna return to the story of the Wisconsin

15:05

cats and the death threats but

15:07

first I want to tell you about the other

15:10

side, the cat advocates. That's after

15:12

the break. Search

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17:01

back to the show. The

17:11

national cat advocacy movement is actually pretty recent.

17:13

It really took off in the 90s. One

17:17

of the movement's early battles was against animal

17:19

shelters that euthanize cats they can't find homes

17:21

for. Their shelters are much rarer

17:23

today. Cat

17:26

advocates are part of the reason for that. If

17:28

the phrase no kill shelter exists in

17:30

your head, that's partly because of that

17:32

movement. The biggest,

17:34

most organized of the cat advocacy

17:36

groups is Alley Cat Allies, founded

17:38

in 1990 in Bethesda, Maryland, by

17:40

a woman named Becky Robinson, the

17:42

longtime face of the organization. Good

17:44

morning. My name is Becky Robinson.

17:47

I'm the president and co-founder of

17:49

Alley Cat Allies. We

17:53

reached out to Alley Cat Allies for an interview

17:55

with Becky Robinson, but after a brief

17:57

exchange, the PR person stopped replying. However,

18:00

for all you had allies is very active on

18:02

social media and YouTube. There's tons of posted talks

18:04

so you can get a sense of where they're

18:06

coming from. Everybody knows that cats

18:08

have been living around us for 10,000 years.

18:10

They are the only domesticated

18:13

species, domestic animal that

18:16

is self domesticated. Becky

18:18

Robinson is speaking here at the

18:20

2015 No Kill Conference in Austin,

18:22

Texas. She's a middle aged

18:24

woman with short auburn hair. In photos, she's

18:26

almost always smiling, usually petting a cat. You

18:28

can see that this is just a timeline that I'm showing on

18:30

the screen here that they've lived

18:33

around us even long before we knew

18:35

that they were domestic cats in

18:38

Egypt. They were actually thousands of years

18:40

prior to we have now have researched

18:42

to show that they lived around people

18:44

and their domains. It's fascinating.

18:46

In this talk, she's essentially telling a

18:48

similar multi-century history of the human cat

18:50

relationship that Pete Mara told me, although

18:53

her version of the story ends with

18:55

a different moral. Cats have always lived

18:57

around us and they're always going to live around us

18:59

outside. That's the fact of life. It doesn't have to

19:01

be a sad fact. It's just a fact. She

19:03

says that cats living around us outside, whether

19:05

they're pet cats or not, outdoor

19:08

cats are just an inalienable law of

19:10

the universe, something that has never changed,

19:12

something that can never change. Here

19:14

they are. There's millions of unowned cats. This

19:16

is what we have to keep in

19:18

mind that what we're doing every

19:21

day at Out of Catalyze and what all of you doing

19:23

are out in the field is

19:25

that we're correcting a horrible myth

19:27

and this myth is that the

19:29

only way a cat can live

19:31

is indoors and that's just not

19:33

correct. That's

19:35

the idea. Cats have a right

19:37

to live freely outside. If you're sold

19:39

on this vision, Alley Cat Allies

19:41

has videos explaining how to make your

19:44

neighborhood a nice place for unowned outdoor

19:46

cats to live. This

19:50

is from my personal favorite video which explains how

19:52

to have the talk with your neighbors, neighbors

19:55

who might come to you because they're upset about the

19:57

new cat colony that's been pooping and peeing in their

19:59

yard. It's pretty typical for

20:01

people to have a concern that cats are

20:04

going in their garden or using their yard

20:06

as a litter box. If

20:08

you are the person who's caring for the cats, there

20:11

is going to be a time when someone

20:13

might approach you in your neighborhood. And

20:15

you should look upon that as a very good

20:17

thing if they're expressing some concerns. The

20:20

video is fairly elaborate. There's

20:22

an actor demonstrating how to properly nod

20:24

and listen as your neighbor expresses their

20:26

concerns. Becky Robinson offers

20:28

her playbook for best practices for caring

20:30

for the cats. It starts normally

20:32

enough. She suggests you get them on

20:35

a regular feeding schedule. So if

20:37

you feed them in the morning or at the night,

20:39

you want to do that at the same time every

20:41

day. She says you should practice trap,

20:43

neuter, or return, meaning trap the cats and pay

20:45

to have them neuter. You are

20:47

getting those cats to a community cat

20:49

veterinarian where they're going to be sterilized

20:52

and vaccinated and ear-tipped. You then

20:54

return them to the neighborhood where they now permanently live.

20:57

Once they're there, the video suggests you might

20:59

go into your neighbor's garden and place deterrence

21:01

there to keep the community cats from digging things

21:03

up. You might have coffee grounds to

21:05

put in the soil that distracts cats.

21:08

As the train of friendly suggestions

21:10

continues, it does gradually dawn

21:12

on you, the viewer, that this all

21:14

assumes you are willing to substantially reorient

21:17

your life in your new role as

21:19

self-appointed ambassador for a cat colony. You

21:21

know, you may have to purchase a few things. I've

21:24

been known to actually buy bags of river

21:26

rocks and putting them in gardens, and that

21:28

keeps cats out of the gardens from digging.

21:30

Or this scat map. Perhaps your neighbor owns a

21:32

fancy sports car, and you suspect that cats might be

21:34

tempted to go on it. Well,

21:36

Becky Robinson has a solution for that too. What's

21:38

going on in cars? And if it's a brand new

21:40

car and someone's very proud of it, you might need to

21:43

buy a car cover. So you might

21:45

want to bring the products over and help your

21:47

neighbor set them up or offer to set them

21:49

up. It's easy to make

21:51

fun of all this, and I guess I am. There's

21:54

just something about imagining someone opening the door

21:56

to their neighbor, handing them a car cover

21:58

for their yellow car. Mercedes and explaining

22:01

cats lived outdoors for 10,000 years. It's

22:03

never going to stop. But I went to the store and

22:06

I bought you some river rocks and this car cover. You

22:08

can use it every time you park. It's

22:10

just a lot. I also

22:12

recognize that this is compassionate, arguably

22:15

communitarian behavior from the Alley Cat

22:17

allies. And that's being

22:19

neighborly. Maybe asking

22:21

calling Alley Cat allies to find that inner

22:23

peace and those ways to communicate because you

22:26

really are the voice for the cats. They

22:28

don't have anybody else. What

22:30

you will not find on the Alley

22:32

Cat allies website is a video with

22:34

suggestions about how to protect your neighborhood

22:36

birds from your new neighborhood cats. And

22:39

that's because the organization doesn't believe that cats

22:41

are a serious threat to birds presented

22:44

with numbers from ecologists like Pete Mara.

22:47

Alley Cat allies says those numbers are

22:49

quote false data. This

22:51

entire story of cats versus birds. It's really

22:53

a fight about humans and data about

22:56

people refusing to believe each other's charts and

22:58

that fight took center stage in the story

23:00

of Stanley Temple. That former colleague Pete Mara

23:02

told us about the one who got death

23:05

threats. Remember Stanley Temple

23:07

had published estimates about the amount of bird

23:09

deaths in Wisconsin in the late 1990s. Here's

23:12

Temple. We began our work,

23:17

which was aimed not at justifying

23:19

persecuting cats, but certainly simply to

23:21

understand what the ecological impacts of

23:23

the large number of free ranging

23:25

cats in rural Wisconsin might be.

23:28

This is from a 2008 documentary called

23:30

Hear Kitty Kitty, about a fight

23:32

in Wisconsin over a proposed measure that would

23:34

allow for uncollored, unknown cats to be killed

23:37

in the wild. Stanley Temple

23:39

himself didn't personally endorse that measure, but

23:41

he does appear in the documentary. Temple

23:44

is a mild mannered, bespectacled academic with

23:46

a vest and a beard. You're

23:48

going to hear some of the death threats against

23:51

him in a moment. But for now, what I

23:53

marvel at is how unlikely to inspire death threats

23:55

this person seems. Grassland

23:57

birds in Wisconsin were declining.

24:00

very significantly. They

24:02

were becoming probably one of the most

24:04

significant groups of declining

24:08

birds for conservationists to worry about in

24:10

the state. And all of

24:13

the dimensions, all of the reasons for

24:15

those declines in grassland birds were not

24:17

fully understood. So the

24:20

role of cats was perhaps

24:22

a logical question.

24:25

What role did... Alley Cat Allies is not

24:27

in this documentary, though they have released a

24:29

statement attacking temples research. In

24:31

the film, the activist side is

24:33

represented by a local pet store

24:35

owner running a website called Don'tShootTheCat.com.

24:38

He also has a lot to say about Stanley

24:40

Temple's research. Wow, I would certainly like to work

24:43

on making sure that we correct some of the

24:45

misimpressions that have been left out there, especially when

24:47

it comes to those numbers. First

24:49

of all, the feral cat is not a wild cat,

24:51

it's just an unsocialized domestic cat. And our animal cruelty

24:54

laws currently in Wisconsin protect those cats. And so what

24:56

we want to do is really make sure that we

24:58

had good science before we went into this. The advocate

25:00

makes it clear that he does not caress

25:02

Dr. Temple's research. He raises insinuations about the

25:05

source of Temple's funding, about the pedigree of

25:07

the journals who would publish this kind of

25:09

work. Those numbers, and those numbers you referred

25:11

to are the Dr. Stanley Temple study, are

25:13

highly questionable. And as you said, those are

25:15

estimates and they're not at all scientific data.

25:18

This is not published scientific data we're talking

25:20

about. This is a study, not

25:22

a study at all, but a report that

25:24

was published over 10 years ago. This is

25:27

not new information. It's completely based on estimates

25:29

that are wildly exaggerated. It's really based on

25:31

the relationship between Dr. Stanley Temple and the

25:33

American Bird Conservancy, which is probably the most

25:35

rabidly anti-cat special interest

25:37

lobby group in the United States. So

25:39

I don't know that we can take

25:41

Dr. Stanley Temple's science seriously. I want

25:43

to pause to appreciate the American poetry

25:45

of the phrase, probably the most rabidly

25:48

anti-cat special interest lobby group. Also,

25:50

one wonders if calling someone rabidly anything

25:52

in this context is more loaded than

25:55

in others. Anyway, the

25:57

primary reason cat advocates had was

26:00

that it was serving as supporting evidence for

26:03

this measure, the one that would

26:05

have designated feral cats as unprotected, therefore

26:07

allowing people to hunt, trap, or kill

26:09

them in the badger state. An

26:12

unpleasant idea, which to some cat

26:14

advocates sounded deeply repugnant. So

26:17

much so that some of these advocates

26:19

started calling Dr. Temple and leaving threatening

26:21

voicemails. Monday, 11-0-6 PM, line 1. You

26:28

cat murdering bastard. What goes

26:30

around, comes around. I declare

26:33

Stanley Temple season open.

26:40

Just to be clear, there's no reason

26:42

to believe these voicemails came from any

26:44

official activist group. Every cause

26:46

has its extremists. Ultimately,

26:50

in the face of public backlash, the measure

26:52

failed. After initial public

26:54

hearings, the state declined to pursue the

26:56

issue. Further, the governor expressed the idea

26:58

that the whole Wisconsin Shoots cat thing

27:00

was bad for the state's brand. The

27:03

documentary was filmed in 2005.

27:06

Nearly two decades later, the state estimates

27:08

that a third of Wisconsin's native bird

27:10

species are now in decline. The

27:13

fight, though, over why that number

27:15

keeps dropping, continues. Here's

27:17

something I struggle with. I'm

27:19

honestly not really a cat or a bird

27:21

partisan. I'm the undecided voter both sides would

27:23

like to reach. I am

27:26

absolutely ready to trust the data, saying a lot of birds

27:28

have died since the early 2000s. But

27:31

I'm also aware that human beings must be a giant part

27:33

of this. Global warming, wind

27:35

turbines, the addition my mom put on her kitchen where

27:37

the birds are always flying in the windows. Cars,

27:39

power lines, my cousin Kip in Texas, who

27:42

likes to hunt quail. Are

27:44

we just reading cats as a scapegoat here? Pete

27:47

Mara says absolutely not. In

27:49

2013, he published a data analysis

27:51

with an academic named Scott Loss comparing a

27:54

lot of different ways that birds die. This

27:57

Analysis represented a pretty huge salvo in the

27:59

cat adage.. Advocates First Bird and College a

28:01

state of War. We.

28:03

Looked at relative to other causes

28:05

of anthropogenic mortality. That is mortality

28:08

cause directly by human. So think

28:10

wind turbines or birds that fly

28:12

into buildings or windows or say

28:15

birds are killed by cats. We

28:17

collected all of the relevant data

28:19

out there. Were people

28:22

estimated because have been a bunch of

28:24

studies globally where they looked at the

28:26

number of birds are mammals, reptiles that

28:28

cats kill on a daily or weekly

28:30

basis throughout the year and when you

28:32

look at the total number and then

28:34

you look at the estimates for the

28:36

total number of caps and you can

28:38

separate cats by cast that are owned.

28:40

That. Are let outside or unknown cats

28:42

that are outside or what we call

28:45

truly feral cats that have no connection

28:47

to him as whatsoever, which we have

28:49

a very poor understanding of. In terms

28:51

of the numbers, you can estimate the

28:54

population size. multiply that times the number

28:56

of. Individual animals that that

28:58

kept my kill and you can come up

29:00

with an estimate for how many birds are

29:02

mammals, reptiles it's are likely killed by cast

29:04

in a given year. And you can do

29:07

the same thing for wind turbines. You can

29:09

do the same thing for cars. we did

29:11

this. And. And

29:13

this this was the shot heard

29:15

round the world. in a paper

29:17

was published in Nature Communications. We estimated

29:19

the Catskills somewhere between one point

29:21

three. Billion. And four

29:23

billion birds a year And United States.

29:26

That birds. Alone billion billion with

29:28

a big old be one point three

29:31

to four billion in the range is

29:33

so high because the studies are all

29:35

over the map other that they just

29:37

starts think the median was two point

29:39

seven billion per year. but even if

29:42

it's a low number at one point

29:44

three billion birds per year that was

29:46

higher. Than. Most other estimates

29:48

out there but it's still

29:50

the A. Low estimate is

29:52

still very very high. Some.

29:55

Do any more research. Well, I don't know

29:57

if we really need from a scientific perspective.

30:00

Try to refine the estimate. Maybe we need

30:02

more resources to try to get a a

30:04

finer point on that number. But in terms

30:06

of the conservation solution, Know we

30:09

don't More research to know that

30:11

cast out are just a problem

30:13

for all kinds of reasons. There's.

30:17

Some problems that are genuinely quite

30:19

confusing. There are other problems.

30:21

We. Convince ourselves or from using a suspect

30:23

because even though we could to understand them,

30:25

we don't want to. Be

30:28

very inconvenient truths that rather than addressing

30:30

had on we profess mean about. We.

30:32

Asked the scientists go draws another chart

30:35

to run the numbers one more time

30:37

advisors time for it to do something

30:39

that's my be very tedious or and

30:41

I get some of these cats very

30:44

unpleasant. The Federal government has

30:46

declared war on feral cats, housing

30:48

decide thousands of native species from

30:51

the brink of extinction. Countries like

30:53

New Zealand or Australia are dealing

30:55

with this near on the front

30:57

lines of it. Really, because they've

31:00

got such a feral cat problem,

31:02

outdoor cat problem and Australia introduced

31:04

a cat call. these. Sees the

31:07

seal excess of feral cat travel.

31:11

With losing feral cats using

31:13

recorded nice and cool or

31:15

the sounds of distress. Play

31:17

the Fool. Because

31:20

you are so many cats roaming free

31:23

and in wilde areas. and so they've

31:25

put up bounties. For. Folks to

31:27

go out and shoot cats. P. Maurice

31:29

saying if we don't control top populations

31:31

now, we could end up like Australia

31:34

where people are just shooting lots of

31:36

hops. Ironically, Ali Cat allies the people

31:38

who fight for the rights of cats

31:40

to live outside. The also

31:43

point australia. Inside this video

31:45

they made of a specific very

31:47

brutal cat call air is Elissa

31:49

Me similar must second Political messaging.

31:57

Has had walked out onto the wall analyst.

32:00

these piles of food and

32:02

blood, something had happened, she thought

32:04

perhaps they'd been poisoned. Injured cats,

32:07

cats missing, curls

32:09

of blood, more blood. At

32:11

one point in the video, text appears on the screen saying that

32:14

in 2020, a contractor

32:16

for the Port of Newcastle came to

32:18

the cat colony at night, quote, shooting

32:21

at any cat he saw. We

32:23

had been shot a few times in

32:25

the head. He had

32:28

bullets through his skull.

32:32

We were all in tears, you know. We

32:34

loved these cats and just seeing that someone

32:37

had deliberately hurt them. Becky

32:39

Robinson of Alley Cat Allies appears in the

32:42

video and explains there's never a reason to

32:44

kill those poor cats. She

32:46

says the situation was already humanely

32:48

under control. There was non-lethal control

32:50

in place. It had been carried out

32:53

by people who had sterilized the cats.

32:55

In Australia, it's racial 2Sd6. The

32:59

cats had been microchipped, they'd been vaccinated,

33:01

and they were not breathing. The

33:04

local advocates say that before the call,

33:06

they were using the same practice Becky

33:08

Robinson was promoting in her community cat

33:10

video. TNR. We focus

33:12

on TNR, which is cat mutiny-laced.

33:14

When we started here at the

33:16

break wall just under two years

33:18

ago, there were over 100 cats.

33:21

In that time we've been here,

33:24

we've reduced the numbers to 40, and

33:27

that's when the call happened. Cat

33:30

advocates like Alley Cat Allies believe

33:32

TNR, neutering outdoor cats, is

33:35

the right way to control these populations. If

33:37

they can't reproduce, they'll gradually die out. It

33:40

sounds like the kind of elegant humane solution

33:42

that everyone could get on board with. The

33:45

problem is ecologists in general say

33:47

TNR doesn't really work. Part

33:49

of the problem is just cats reproduce very

33:52

quickly. According to PETA, under the right set

33:54

of conditions, in seven years, one female cat

33:56

and her offspring can produce up to 370.

34:01

Which means for TNR to work, you need to catch

34:04

neuter and release something like 75% of a feral

34:07

cat colony every single year. How

34:10

do you know you have 75%? I

34:12

don't know. How do you stop new

34:14

cats from migrating into the colony from outside? Who

34:17

could say? I emailed

34:20

Pete Mara about the TNR program in

34:22

Newcastle. He hadn't heard about it,

34:24

but found the numbers suspicious. This

34:26

wasn't a scientific study. He wanted

34:28

to know why would neutering a colony have caused

34:30

60 of these hundred cats to

34:32

just suddenly disappear in two years? He

34:35

wrote, quote, I absolutely do not

34:37

trust the data. Pete

34:39

Mara believes the end result of these ineffective

34:42

TNR programs is our status quo. Many

34:45

cats living wild lives in human cities.

34:48

And he says these cats, they're not okay.

34:51

These cats that are outdoors are

34:53

not doing well. These

34:56

cats have injuries. These cats

34:58

have diseases. These cats have leukemia. These

35:00

cats have feline aids. These cats are

35:03

hit by cars. Feline aids?

35:05

Yeah. There's all sorts

35:08

of diseases that these cats contract. Pathogens,

35:10

worms. The way they're most

35:12

commonly killed is by getting hit by

35:14

a car. And that's

35:16

not a good way for an animal to die. I mean,

35:18

it's just any way you slice it. It's just not a

35:21

good way for an animal to die. Pete

35:27

Mara is not the only person who believes

35:29

that unknown cats are living lives so bad

35:31

that euthanizing them would be a superior option.

35:34

His worldview is shared by

35:37

PETA. From PETA,

35:39

quote, allowing feral cats

35:41

to continue their daily struggle for

35:43

survival in a hostile environment is

35:45

rarely a humane option. End

35:47

quote. PETA says

35:49

kill the cats. I mean, PETA

35:52

would say euthanize, but still. It's

35:55

tricky though, because the word euthanize is very

35:57

bland and a bloody

35:59

video. that one from Australia is

36:01

very powerful. In the

36:03

proxy war between cats and birds and the people

36:05

who defend them, you could imagine

36:07

a counter video shot from

36:10

the perspective of an innocent, fluffy,

36:12

adorable, piping plover chick looking

36:14

up from its nest at the ferocious

36:16

jaws and teeth of a bored, stray

36:18

killer cat. I'm

36:21

not sure the video would work. We

36:23

just don't relate as much to birds.

36:25

We certainly don't relate to the declining

36:27

aggregate numbers of bird populations. We

36:30

relate to cats. To Garfield, to

36:32

Felix, to Vertute, to all the ones we've seen

36:34

on the internet, all the ones we've had in

36:36

our homes and in the homes of our friends.

36:39

We love cats, but we

36:43

also need to protect the birds. Wars

36:45

persist because neither side can see the other

36:48

as reasonable. Wars end

36:50

when people make space for competing

36:52

truths. After

36:57

a short break, we find someone who

37:00

actually sits in the middle of this intractable war, who

37:03

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39:41

podcast. Remember

39:45

how explosive I mean he looks every week

39:47

but especially against us. Yep. Welcome

39:53

back to the show. I

39:55

wanted to talk to someone who could hold this

39:57

entire argument in their mind. Someone

39:59

who- who could see this from both perspectives, one

40:03

voice came to mind. This person who owned

40:05

multiple pet cats, but I also knew to

40:07

be the greatest bird lover I've ever met.

40:10

When we spoke, and we spoke often, it was

40:13

usually about the lives of birds. So

40:16

I invited him to the studio. So

40:18

normally, when we interview

40:20

experts on the podcast,

40:23

there are people who are public

40:26

intellectuals, like writers or professors. You know,

40:28

there are people who have a lot

40:31

of expertise in their field. So

40:33

I just want to establish your bona fides. Can you

40:35

tell me the highest

40:38

level of education you've completed? I

40:40

graduated fifth grade, now I'm in sixth

40:42

grade. Pretty good grades though, right?

40:44

Yeah. Okay. And what do you

40:46

think is the subject that you know more about

40:48

than anything else? Birds. How do

40:51

you know so much about birds, Kaiden? When

40:54

I was young, I just clicked on

40:57

random videos on YouTube, and then I

40:59

just saw these bird videos. And

41:01

then I just started watching that. Also, it

41:03

would also like influence me a lot because

41:06

when I had chickens for

41:08

like five years, that also influenced

41:10

me a lot about birds. Kaiden,

41:13

easily one of the most charming people I've ever met. Half

41:16

Swiss, half Tibetan, raised in the ways

41:18

of two peace loving neutrality seeking cultures.

41:21

We spent a lot of time on long drives

41:23

where he would just talk about birds and offer

41:25

bird facts. Some kids

41:28

get into trains for a while or fire trucks

41:30

or dinosaurs, but for called in, it

41:32

was birds. It had been birds for as long as I'd

41:34

known him. I really had

41:36

begun to appreciate birds more through our

41:38

conversations, a species that unlike cats and

41:41

dogs have mostly resisted the cheap bribery

41:43

of human domestication, who keep

41:45

to the skies, who feel alien and strange and

41:47

have never pretended to belong to us. I

41:50

just want to for someone because one of

41:52

the reasons I enjoy spending time with you so much

41:54

is I like asking about birds because you know everything

41:56

about birds. But I just want

41:58

to establish that for other people. So do you mind

42:01

if I ask you some bird trivia questions? Yeah. What

42:05

species of birds lays blue eggs? American

42:08

Robin. What's the word for

42:10

the study of birds? Ornithology. What's the

42:12

fastest bird in the world? Pergant falcon.

42:15

What's the biggest bird in the world?

42:17

Nastrich. What about

42:19

the biggest bird in the world who's extinct? The...

42:22

I think the size of the mower is the... Elephant

42:25

bird is the heaviest. I know the mower is

42:27

probably the tallest. I have elephant bird

42:29

but I have no doubt that you are more correct than this website

42:31

that I've found. What species of

42:33

bird can only eat when its head is upside down?

42:36

Flamingos. Yep. What species of

42:38

bird can fly backwards? Flamingos. You're

42:41

seven for seven so far. What

42:43

species of bird can fly underwater?

42:47

penguins or puffins technically either of those

42:49

they don't technically fly in the water

42:51

but they look like they fly underwater.

42:53

Again you're doing better than my website. What

42:57

was the website's answer? They just

42:59

said the puffin but I think you're right because I was

43:01

like flying underwater. Well I guess puffin because

43:03

puffins fly above water and underwater so I

43:06

guess that's what they mean. But I

43:08

think you're being a bit more precise than they are. I think you're more correct

43:10

than they are. How many different bird

43:12

species are there in the world? Over

43:14

10,000 I'm pretty sure. There's

43:17

some debate but the most widely accepted number seems to be around

43:19

10,000. Okay that's perfect.

43:22

When I first wanted to talk to Cauldon I just

43:24

assumed he'd be a voice speaking for the birds

43:27

but then I saw this school project he did and

43:29

I realized he actually had feelings in both directions.

43:33

Who? I want to ask

43:35

you about an experiment you did involving chickens. Oh

43:37

you mean when I hatched those eggs. Tell

43:39

me about it. We did it for

43:42

a science fair experiment. None hatched. I don't know

43:44

why. We're going to try next

43:46

year with duck eggs. Well so I became

43:48

aware of your science experiment because I had

43:50

stopped by your school during the science fair

43:52

and I saw the experiments and I was

43:54

very impressed with yours. Not to disparage your

43:56

classmates but I found yours impressive. Um and

44:00

In your display for the experiment it included

44:02

a little biography of you. Yeah, and there's

44:04

a part of it that Surprised

44:07

me that I wanted to ask you about if that's okay.

44:09

Yeah, okay. Can I read it to you? Yeah Hi,

44:13

my name is called in I'm 11 years old I'm

44:17

in fifth grade and I have two cats. Yeah,

44:19

I love the fishing skiing animals. Yeah ever since

44:21

I was three I was fascinated by birds. Yeah,

44:23

I've owned four chickens here in New York sadly.

44:25

I'll die Now I want to hatch

44:29

You're agreeing with yourself Now

44:32

I want to hatch new ones. Yeah chickens are

44:34

way smarter and social than people think yeah my

44:36

chickens For example, we're always trying to escape. Yeah

44:39

with cats They do what they want and you

44:41

can't change what they do But

44:43

with chickens you have to stop

44:45

the issue and the rush of stopping them

44:47

is so nice What

44:49

did you mean when you said the rush of stopping them? I

44:52

don't know having to change the way of them

44:54

escaping all the time was fun because they

44:56

always found it a new way to escape

44:59

So then you have to try and

45:01

solve the issue like when they were young You

45:03

have to bring them outside and that's fun to

45:06

always move them. So cats They just do what

45:08

they want and you can't stop them because they

45:11

can one around they know the

45:13

neighborhood Chickens you can interfere because if

45:15

you don't interfere, they're not used to the city

45:17

They're smart, but you know that's what did the

45:20

like in one of my car if they escaped the whole

45:22

time It sounds like for you

45:24

raising chickens was kind of like having a young

45:26

child Whereas having cats was like you were raising

45:28

a teenager Kind of we talk

45:31

about cats. Okay. Do you have

45:33

cats? You have one in shadow? No,

45:35

I had Now

45:38

I have to get one was dragon food

45:40

That's the one in June those

45:42

two are living inside and the one that's outside is

45:44

his momma cat mama cat because she

45:46

just gave birth to dragon food, so Have

45:50

your cats ever killed a bird that

45:52

you know many times many times many

45:54

sparrows Once this weird

45:56

like swallow looking bird you

46:00

Lambert's to the bother you. I'm

46:02

in a much say about of more. It's so different

46:04

when they've been in a mouse. Is not

46:07

different. Answers and in the corner of

46:09

the skull that a house to the

46:11

luggage dead Blue jays, corpses of the

46:13

bodies and the head was detached. And

46:16

than those in a wing detached thousand

46:18

plus That else of sad is Blue

46:20

does have a big bird. How

46:23

long? So sad for. Money. And

46:25

not that I didn't try to stick. Upset

46:28

you. Like oh come on, like

46:30

that feeling. Called.

46:32

And said he couldn't imagine forcing his

46:34

cat to of entirely inside. The.

46:36

Be boring the be unfair. The.

46:39

Also believes birds have right city

46:41

balancing. I suggested cats may

46:43

be killing more birds the realizes but of

46:46

course he says familiar with literature. Called.

46:49

Enjoying the to solve this problem, he doesn't

46:51

need to think outside the box. What's.

46:53

Your vision for the future of how cats

46:55

and birds in American can get along because

46:57

people have house cats everywhere. Wanted to be

46:59

able to run prey but there are places

47:01

where it's real problem. Places.

47:04

It's a playable on the easiest things.

47:06

It was discovered. Cats a bell unlike

47:09

the call when the cats and move

47:11

angelically but than the blood makes a

47:13

sound to the blades. Came here it's

47:15

than then isn't just fly Will will

47:18

still you were. Given a their ideas I think

47:20

that's a good one. Earnest

47:24

it may be. says.

47:27

His kids' lives outside, not

47:30

outside, it all over. To.

47:35

That. Cel mai at his. Anger.

47:38

Certain ideas. I

47:42

had not expected find myself taking

47:45

an eleven year olds ideas back

47:47

to an academically P. Mara I

47:49

phone comes perspective refreshing. I know

47:52

human culture team to slowly stubbornly.

47:54

They also know technology can accelerate

47:56

those changes actually.easier to imagine popularizing

47:58

Bells on Cats. than

48:01

it did convincing people with outdoor cats

48:03

to start keeping them inside. Pete

48:07

Mara is a bit skeptical about bells,

48:09

but he is a believer in this

48:11

idea that technology can help birds and

48:13

cats and people coexist on our planet.

48:16

And he sees some of those technologies taking off. Since

48:21

I've started to work on this issue, I've

48:24

seen no question an increase in the number

48:26

of folks that are walking their cats

48:28

on leashes. I see more

48:30

people that are aware of this issue

48:32

at all and they just say, yeah, we're

48:34

cat owners but we're indoor cat owners, which

48:37

is totally, totally fine. That's

48:39

great. And we also see a growth

48:41

in something called catios, which

48:43

are catios, which are screened

48:46

in cat enclosures. So

48:48

your cat can go outside, enjoy outdoors,

48:50

can watch and get stimulated

48:53

by nature just like we

48:55

get stimulated by nature because

48:57

it's in their best interest to be stimulated by

48:59

nature just so they're happy, but

49:02

not cause any damage to birds,

49:05

but they can watch a bird fly

49:07

by without actually killing the bird. So

49:09

you see people changing the architecture of their

49:11

homes because they're trying

49:13

to find a balance between their love

49:16

for their pet and their desire to

49:18

conserve nature? Absolutely. Yep, it's happening

49:20

in lots of places. I had no idea that

49:22

was happening. Yeah, just Google

49:24

catio and you'll see more and more

49:26

folks putting up catios in their houses

49:29

to accommodate your cat. Oh

49:31

yeah, I'm looking at some gorgeous catios. I

49:34

think I was just picturing a covered patio

49:36

but it's real small for some reason and

49:38

this is more like, it's

49:40

sort of like a cage but it doesn't look

49:42

particularly, it's somewhere between a cage and a jungle

49:44

gym. Yeah, and there's all kinds of versions out

49:46

there. The point is

49:48

that it allows your cat to have controlled

49:51

access to the outdoors where

49:54

there aren't native wildlife that will

49:56

be injured by the cat. So,

50:01

what are we going to do about all these cats? If

50:04

you believe the ecologists, our house cats are

50:07

looking at a future of bells, cat leashes,

50:09

and catios. And, this is

50:11

the harder part. Some unowned

50:13

cats need to be humanely killed, particularly

50:16

in places like the islands of Hawaii

50:18

and Australia, where they're wiping out endangered

50:20

species. Cats, Pete

50:22

Marrow says, have already contributed to

50:24

the execution of 63 species

50:26

on this planet. He

50:29

thinks we should try to prevent the 64th. I

50:32

look at these natural areas. When I see a bird, that

50:34

to me is like going into a museum and seeing a

50:36

Monet or a Picasso. This

50:39

is our natural history that we're losing. It's like

50:42

losing a Monet on the wall when you lose

50:44

a species. And we

50:46

know that species loss is a

50:48

massive problem. And we

50:50

almost lost species like the bald eagle.

50:53

Could you imagine if we didn't have the bald eagle in

50:55

the United States, our national bird? And

50:58

now, thankfully, we got rid of DDT and

51:00

the bald eagle came back. And

51:03

future generations can now appreciate species like the

51:05

bald eagle and the brown pelican and the

51:07

osprey because we protected them. And

51:10

we have a responsibility to maintain the integrity

51:12

of the Earth. I mean, I don't

51:14

know if that's convincing to you or not, but it's

51:16

convincing to me. I feel like

51:18

a general sense of like we should conserve species.

51:20

I just feel like, I feel

51:22

like who cares about the birds is probably,

51:24

it's a taboo

51:27

thing to say, you know, nobody's going to advocate

51:29

for the extinction of a species. But if you,

51:32

while nobody would say that, if you look

51:34

at people's behavior, clearly, people believe

51:37

that, you know? Yeah, I

51:39

think there are some people that are thinking that. But I,

51:41

you know, at the end of the day, I also

51:44

think that a lot of folks on the

51:46

other side of the aisle that are cat

51:48

advocates are also animal advocates. And

51:51

they're in a quandary, honestly, because

51:53

they love wildlife, they love nature, they

51:55

love cats, and they want

51:57

to believe that cats are not having the impact.

52:00

impact that they're having because the

52:02

solution here is just not great.

52:05

It's a difficult situation anyway you slice it

52:08

and I think that many of them really appreciate

52:11

birds and like birds but they

52:13

don't know what to do within the short time frame

52:15

that they're present on this planet and don't think that

52:17

their single cat or their five cats really

52:20

matters. Yeah. But they do.

52:22

But they do. They have

52:25

a hard time scaling it

52:27

up and I see it

52:30

because I think about things

52:32

at much larger scales. Today

52:35

more than a hundred million American cats

52:37

live mostly outdoor lives. If

52:39

Dr. Pete Mara and people like him are able to

52:41

convince people to see the world how they see it

52:44

that'll change. They'll have

52:46

to do something that seems impossible. Convince people

52:48

that their individual choices add up something larger

52:51

but that impossible thing has been done before. We don't

52:54

smoke inside. We don't litter. Our

52:56

dogs in America rarely roam free. Pete

53:00

Mara says it's important that we change all

53:02

this because there's a generation after us that'll

53:04

inherit the earth we leave behind. Colton

53:08

are you 11 right now or 12? 11.

53:11

I interview a lot of people who know more than me but they're

53:14

usually not 11. Just

53:17

saying. What do you want to do when you grow up? Being

53:19

on the college. Well go to college and

53:22

then I want to go to

53:24

the what the what college is

53:27

it called? The Bird College. There's

53:29

a bird college. Not bird college but it's like

53:31

you can study on a college either. It's

53:36

Cornell. Cornell University.

53:39

I've heard of it. I've heard of Cornell University

53:41

and they have a good foreign

53:43

ethology program. I think so. I'm pretty sure.

53:45

And so after Cornell would you want to

53:47

be a professional ornithologist? Yes. Do you think

53:49

you'll ever be less interested in birds than

53:51

you are right now? Probably.

53:57

Maybe when I'm in the teenage

53:59

years. Yeah. Because then I'm not going to care

54:01

about it that much, then I'm just going to care about like Fortnite

54:04

with friends or something like that, like

54:07

Cards or something. So boring.

54:09

Should I play? Thank you. You're

54:12

welcome. So

54:57

this is a presentation of Odyssey and Jigsaw Productions.

54:59

It was created by PJ Vogt and Shruti Pinnamonani

55:02

and is produced by Garrett Graham and Noah John.

55:04

That's checking by Diane Kelly. Theme,

55:07

original composition, and mixing by Armin Bazarian.

55:10

Special thanks this week to Kim

55:12

Nadervane-Petersa and to May Abdullahoglu. Our

55:15

executive producers are Jenna Weiss-Berman and Leah

55:17

Reese-Dennis. Thanks to the team at Jigsaw,

55:19

Alex Gibney, Rich Pirello, and John Schmidt.

55:22

And to the team at Odyssey, JD

55:24

Crowley, Rob Mirandi, Craig Cox, Eric Donnelly,

55:26

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55:28

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55:31

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that's it for us this week. Thank you for listening.

55:49

We'll see you in two weeks.