Tara Stoinski

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert.

[1] I'm Dan Shepard.

[2] I'm joined by Maximus Mouse, six -time Emmy Award -nominated producer and the Duchess of Duluth.

[3] Six -time?

[4] No one will check.

[5] One day.

[6] One day.

[7] You know who would check?

[8] Me. Oh, you're right.

[9] So since it's just you, we're clear.

[10] Wait, we have to tell people where we are.

[11] Oh, okay.

[12] Because this is a big deal for me. Oh, oh, yes.

[13] I thought you just meant the thing, but not the thing.

[14] No. Please, please.

[15] We are on the Warner Brothers lot because you and Kristen are shooting a game show.

[16] Family game, but I could care less about that.

[17] That's right.

[18] Because we are in Jen Ann's dressing room.

[19] From friends.

[20] Yes, we're sitting where God knows what has happened with Jen and perhaps even Brad Pitt.

[21] I've done lots of fantasizing over what's happened under this very butt of mine.

[22] When you were an even smaller mouse, did you ever think you would grow up in work in Jen Anast?

[23] I hoped.

[24] Well, you did.

[25] Way to think about it.

[26] Way to execute.

[27] When I was having that dream, I bet my dad, who was hooked up is like, oh, that's going to be so hard to make happen for her.

[28] Oh, or just so pricey.

[29] Right.

[30] Like he had a really pony.

[31] He's had to pay so many add -ons for me. So many add -ons.

[32] So many, what do they call it at a restaurant when you're serving?

[33] Upsells?

[34] Upsells.

[35] A lot of upsells.

[36] Let's talk about our guests today.

[37] Kind of crazy, it took this long.

[38] We did have Jane Goodall on, but we didn't really talk about anthropology all that much.

[39] We just talked about it what queen she was, which is totally appropriate.

[40] But today we have Tara Stozyngeon, who is a primatologist and is the president, CEO, and chief scientific officer for the Diane Fossee Gorilla Fund, the world's largest and longest running organization dedicated entirely to guerrilla conservation and research.

[41] This was such a fun, geek out conversation.

[42] And I was a little nervous going in because I was like, I'm not going to care about this because I'm not a primatologist.

[43] But I found it so fascinating.

[44] Yeah, really is.

[45] Gorillas are cool.

[46] They're so cool.

[47] Yeah, you can't help but anthropomorphize them.

[48] And that's what's kind of interesting and fun about it.

[49] There's some cute stuff about the daddies.

[50] Also, knock, knock, you know what we're a few days away from.

[51] Spotify.

[52] Exclusivity on Spotify.

[53] So we really hope that all the armcheries have downloaded the app and are ready to seamlessly transition into a major, major party.

[54] And in case you missed it on Kimmel, our first episode is...

[55] President Barack Obama.

[56] That's right.

[57] Please enjoy Tara Stoinsky.

[58] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now.

[59] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[60] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[61] Hello.

[62] Thank you for being flexible.

[63] Oh, my pleasure.

[64] And allowing us to change it.

[65] Are you interested in why?

[66] Yeah, I am.

[67] I researched the wrong person all morning.

[68] I looked at my calendar just to double check.

[69] I was spelling this person's name right.

[70] And then I was like, wait, Tara, that's not who I've been researching.

[71] So I had a little mini panic attack, but now I'm here.

[72] That's hilarious.

[73] Was it someone super interesting?

[74] Like, who was it going to be instead of me?

[75] Chris Bosch, a very successful NBA basketball player?

[76] A lot of overlap.

[77] Yeah, exactly.

[78] Tons of overlap.

[79] How did you come to be a primatologist?

[80] I always wanted to work with animals from the time I was a little kid and was going to be a vet because that's kind of what I knew that you could do.

[81] Went overseas to do my master's and got the opportunity to go to Africa and just really fell in love with studying animal behaviors.

[82] I studied jackals in Zimbabwe.

[83] So they were totally nocturnal.

[84] I was very naive.

[85] I had no idea how cold sub -Saharan Africa can be in their winter.

[86] And we would go out at 6 o 'clock at night.

[87] We never saw the jackals.

[88] They had radio collars on.

[89] So we just like followed these beeps through the field.

[90] But I loved it.

[91] And so I came back and decided instead of doing veterinary work that I would get a PhD in animal behavior.

[92] And I didn't know that I would end up in primatology or with gorillas.

[93] I just really wanted to go back to Africa.

[94] And I really wanted to work with social mammals and something that I could see during the daytime.

[95] Like, that was a definite plus.

[96] That was a prerequisite.

[97] Yes, right, exactly.

[98] Just go around you on to see your subjects.

[99] Exactly.

[100] So, and then I ended up getting like the best job in the entire world.

[101] Well, second to ours, but yes.

[102] So incredibly good job.

[103] Can I ask, did you have like romantic fantasies of what doing field work in Africa was going to be like?

[104] Because I certainly would have conjured up some expectations in that situation.

[105] Oh, totally.

[106] All the National Geographic and programs are wonderful because they give you so much incredible information about animal behavior.

[107] But what you don't realize is that was like two years of filming to get 20 minutes on video.

[108] And there's a lot of time just sitting watching animals sleep, watching animals eat.

[109] I have a colleague who studied lions, and he describes it as like one of the most boring jobs in the world because they sleep 22 hours a day.

[110] Yeah, unless they're mating and then they're up nonstop.

[111] All the time.

[112] Isn't that crazy?

[113] That's nuts.

[114] But then when it's time to mate, the male, he mates, I don't know, something insane, some insane amount of times in a 24 -hour period.

[115] Wait, in two hours.

[116] No, no, he stays awake.

[117] That's the exception.

[118] Well, like, they mate, and then he promptly, like, falls over and falls asleep, and then they get up 20 minutes later and do it again.

[119] Yeah, yeah.

[120] And it's just a round robin.

[121] Yeah, it sounds pretty good.

[122] And for the male, he doesn't even have to hunt.

[123] kind of sleeps, and then all of a sudden foods around.

[124] Oh, my God.

[125] It's a pretty dream gig.

[126] You know, as I was preparing to talk to you, it occurred to me that there's a lot of elements that the gorilla population shares with the lion population, or at least my understanding of it, one of them being generally a pride is like a dominant male, maybe some siblings, right, male siblings, he allows to be there.

[127] And then he has control over all these females to mate.

[128] he'll also come in and kill cubs so that the lions will go into asteris, I think.

[129] And I think gorillas have been documented doing that as well, haven't they?

[130] Yep, definitely.

[131] I always say it's like the only dark side of guerrilla society is this infanticide, which is a super common male reproductive strategy.

[132] But it's really hard to see and hard to understand sometimes.

[133] I love when you call it a male reproductive strategy.

[134] It sounds like, yeah, I mean, look, it's reproductive strategy.

[135] It's non -monstrous if it's like.

[136] Exactly.

[137] Well, it has this very specific practical outcome.

[138] And I'll let you explain it.

[139] I have a bad tendency.

[140] I'm going to try to impress you because you have the job that I kind of aspired to or are I not an actor.

[141] So because of that type of mate selection where there's one dominant male who has access to all the females, generally those are what drives the evolution for the male, right, is just size.

[142] Totally.

[143] So male lions, I don't know if a lot of people know this, like male lions just continue to get bigger and bigger and bigger.

[144] and if they live to be a billion years, they will just continue to get bigger and bigger and bigger, right?

[145] I think at some point their growth styles.

[146] They've got that huge maim, which is actually, like you just said, it's a detriment to them in terms of hunting.

[147] It makes them less efficient hunters.

[148] But all that size is to basically defend females and attract females.

[149] And it's the same thing with guerrillas.

[150] Males are twice the size as females.

[151] They're vegetarians.

[152] They don't need that ginormous head that you see behind me. They eat the same thing as females.

[153] But all of that size and shape is just to, protect their family to attract females.

[154] And we now know from the studies we've done that in males, bigger is better in certain arenas.

[155] The bigger your shoulders are, the bigger your head are, the more likely you are to be dominant, the more likely you are to attract females and the more success you're going to have reproductively.

[156] And now we even, we just published a super cool study to show that this behavior you see behind me, which is the iconic chess beat.

[157] Yeah.

[158] And you did it correctly with hands open.

[159] You know, a lot of times people close the hands.

[160] Yeah, they've been wrongly informed by King Kong, I think.

[161] Exactly.

[162] I one time they asked me to rate all the King Kongs across all the movies.

[163] Of course they did.

[164] The weird stuff you get asked to do as a primatologist.

[165] And I had to give the King Kong with Andy Circus the number one rating.

[166] First of all, because he came and studied with us when he was preparing.

[167] But also it was one of the only Kongs that actually did the chest beat correctly with the open hand.

[168] Wonderful.

[169] Now, as someone again, who was very interested in the field, I thought that the movie that did an incredible job was the planet of the apes.

[170] Definitely.

[171] Did that one interest to you?

[172] Because they really latched on to some actual real things.

[173] Exactly.

[174] Except the guerrillas have such a small role in that one.

[175] And I have to admit, I'm a little biased towards gorillas.

[176] But yes, they did do a great job.

[177] They did do a great job.

[178] Can I try to guess your hierarchy?

[179] Yes, definitely.

[180] Okay.

[181] So guerrillas number one.

[182] Of course.

[183] I'm going to rang number two.

[184] Exactly.

[185] And then I'm going pay on troglodytitis number three.

[186] Yeah, maybe bonobos and chip, probably chimps number three and bonobos number four, but they're close.

[187] But it's kind of like this.

[188] It's like guerrillas, orangs, and then like off the screen, kind of.

[189] Right, so huge, like six standard deviations below orangutan is.

[190] The chimp and gorilla people, we have a lovely love -hate relationship.

[191] We tease each other all the time because the gorilla people are jealous because chimps are so smart and they use tools and they have this really well -documented.

[192] documented culture and then the chimp people are jealous because gorillas are just so beautiful and big and everyone wants to go see them and so we have a lot of fun with each other it's a friendly fight I guess now ironically though and I could be wrong about this far more dangerous to study chimps than gorillas yeah yeah like Frodo do you remember Frodo from yeah jane goodall's true he looked like a silverback but like a 150 pound version of a silverback yeah well guerrillas what I love about them is like they have this quiet majesty about them.

[193] And the biggest males are the biggest primate on the planet.

[194] They go from four pounds when they're born to 400 pounds as adults.

[195] But they like keep it together and they only use that force when they need to.

[196] Whereas chimps, like when you're with a chimp group, I'm always like, what is wrong?

[197] Why is everyone so upset all of the time?

[198] Because they're just very boisterous and loud and energetic.

[199] It's like a kindergarten classroom, but everyone's four times as strong as Schwarzenegger.

[200] Exactly.

[201] Exactly.

[202] But that story would so amazing when that story when Jane Goodall documented, when that troop, that community split.

[203] And then they like systematically came back and killed their former family members.

[204] Oh, I don't know that chapter.

[205] Yeah.

[206] Yeah.

[207] So when they actually split and then there was this sort of systematically coming back and killing the previous community members after they split.

[208] And we just published a paper on the guerrillas showing that actually it's kind of the opposite.

[209] When they split, gorillas don't like anyone in like their house, in the core part of their territory.

[210] But they are much, much more likely to, in the periphery, like out in the yard, to tolerate a family that they had lived with before.

[211] And they'll actually sit and the little ones will interact.

[212] So they have these kind of longer friendships.

[213] And they might have split 10 years ago.

[214] Like the group composition could be very different.

[215] But they're much more tolerant in that respect.

[216] So it's really interesting because we think a lot about chimps in terms of human evolution.

[217] But I think they're a really good model for some of the more aggressive side of human nature.

[218] But I think gorillas have a lot on the kind of peaceful side that we can learn from as well.

[219] Yeah, I want to say that, don't they say about chimps, they're the only other primate that kills recreationally, each other?

[220] Certainly within the great apes, I would say that.

[221] Yeah, we don't hear that with the other great apes.

[222] Okay, so we call, um, guerrilla troops?

[223] No. Yeah, we call them troops, families, group.

[224] We usually say groups.

[225] That's kind of what we say most of the time.

[226] Okay, so when Kristen and I did our trek in Rwanda, I think we were with the Sousa.

[227] Is that one?

[228] Oh, Sousa.

[229] Sousa.

[230] Yeah.

[231] And I feel like I remember them explaining something that was unique about that one is that the silverback had allowed his brother maybe to rejoin or something.

[232] Like there was another silverback, but it was a submissive one.

[233] And that was maybe rare.

[234] Do you know what I'm talking about?

[235] Oh, totally.

[236] So, I mean, just a little like Gorilla 101.

[237] And sorry, when I start to geek out too much on gorillas, you can just tell you.

[238] tell me to stop.

[239] No, this is your expertise.

[240] You and I, like, we could go as esoteric and geeky as possible and it's Monica's job to try to.

[241] I'll bring you back.

[242] Yeah, real assent.

[243] And that's part of the reason why I love the show so much is I love all the anthropology elements that you bring in decks.

[244] It's super fun for me to listen to you from that perspective.

[245] I know I'm going to get it in some part of the show.

[246] Well, really quick, if you had to assign a percentage, because again, I haven't read like a collegiate article, anything academic on anthropology in 21 years.

[247] And I found out the hard way, like a ton of its change since I graduated.

[248] So I'm just wondering, like, would you say I'm above 50 % accurate when I'm talking about Anthro?

[249] Because I have a fear that I'm only like 30 % accurate.

[250] I think certainly when you're speaking about primates, you have incredible knowledge.

[251] I will say, though, I'm not an anthropologist by training.

[252] I'm a biologist.

[253] And then my PhD is actually in psychology.

[254] So I studied behavior.

[255] So there's a lot of anthropology, especially on the human cultural side, that I'm, I'm not well -versed on.

[256] But I definitely think your primate knowledge, to me, is incredible that you remember that back from your time in college.

[257] Oh, wait till I hate you with the parietal crest and the occipital ridge, whatever the hell it's called on the back of the gorilla skull.

[258] The sagittal crest, yeah.

[259] Sadgital crest, yes, yes, where the parietals join.

[260] Sorry, I fucked that.

[261] So I didn't realize that you guys saw gorillas in Rwanda.

[262] For some reason, I thought you were in Uganda when you went.

[263] No, we were in Rwanda, and I want to get into that at some point.

[264] like the many different things that contribute to the success and the failure of different attempts at conservation there.

[265] But, okay, back to the Sousa group.

[266] Yeah, yes, back to Sousa group.

[267] So anyway, there's four types of guerrillas in total.

[268] And Mountain gorillas, to me, are, I mean, I love them all, but mountain gorillas are super cool because they are the only of the four that can live in these multi -male groups.

[269] So we've had groups with up to eight silverbacks in them.

[270] Really?

[271] Yeah.

[272] And you kind of want to look at them and be like, hey, guys, do you know your evolutionary history?

[273] like you are not supposed to live in multi -male groups because all of your competition comes at the front end with your size chimps they live in these multi -male societies and all of their competition is within the group with sperm competition so they have these very large testicles they produce a ton of sperm and they just everyone breathes with everyone and you just try and get a lot of matings in gorilla testicles are like you can't even find them so they're not supposed to be competing within the group for access to mates but they do but usually you're right there's a dominant male he sires the very vast majority of the offspring.

[274] But these subordinate males, you can't join a group so you really have to make a decision to either stay in the group you were born in and inherent dominance or maybe get some sneaky copulations on the side or you go off on your own and then you try and recruit females to join you and that's how you find a group.

[275] But yeah, the very first group I studied, it had eight females and eight fully adult males.

[276] So basically a one -to -one sex ratio, which is totally not what you would expect for gorillas.

[277] Yeah, that's kind of wild.

[278] And then And also just for fun to get in nitty -gritty about the chimps.

[279] So, yeah, the reason that the sexual dimorphism of chimps is not so dramatic like it is with gorillas is cleverness can get your genes passed on.

[280] So they are known to call out the call for a leopard.

[281] And of course, the dominant male runs over with his dudes, like, let's get.

[282] And then the clever one just starts having sex with maybe even a high -ranking female because all the males have gone over to be dudes.

[283] So cleverness can be part.

[284] Comedians.

[285] Yeah, yeah, these are the comedians of the group.

[286] Exactly.

[287] If and when, have you guys observed guerrillas kind of outsmarting the silver bag?

[288] Did they use any tactics like that?

[289] I would say guerrillas, this is a funny piece.

[290] So the males have a vocalization they make when they're copulating.

[291] And they seem to not be able to suppress it.

[292] Oh, wow.

[293] Because, you know, you've been in that habitat.

[294] You know, it's super dense forest.

[295] So you can easily, like, go around a bush, and no one will know you're there.

[296] And then you hear them start making the copulation noise.

[297] And you want to be like, dude.

[298] stop.

[299] Like, no one will know this is going on.

[300] And that's when you see the adult males will go over and break it up.

[301] But if they could just, like, zip it, they would be golden.

[302] Wow.

[303] So interesting.

[304] And does the Silverback go running generally?

[305] Like, he will.

[306] A lot of times they'll go and split it up, yeah.

[307] Okay, something really interesting that.

[308] Wait, we didn't hear the rest of the kinds.

[309] Oh, so sorry, you're right.

[310] Yeah, so there's Mountain Gorillas and just also a little bit.

[311] There's only a thousand of them left on the planet.

[312] Oh, no. There's Grower's Gorillas, which live just over the border in Democratic Republic of the Congo.

[313] That's the only country they're found.

[314] And we estimate there's about 3 ,500 of them left, which the number seems a little bit nicer.

[315] It's bigger.

[316] But we've lost 80 % of them in the last 25 years.

[317] So they are crashing the way mountain gorillas were crashing back when Diane Fossey was there.

[318] And then you have to go kind of across to West Africa, and then you've got the Western lowland gorillas.

[319] Their numbers are still pretty robust.

[320] There's about 400 ,000 of them left.

[321] Oh, wow.

[322] But they're declining as well.

[323] A lot of it from poaching.

[324] And then there's another type called the Cross River guerrilla, which not many people have heard of, that are just found on the border of Cameroon and Nigeria.

[325] So, and only one of those four live in zoos.

[326] So the other three are only found in the wild.

[327] So protecting those wild populations is really critically important.

[328] Are mountain gorillas only found in zoos because they offer the silverback and they're just visually more on brand for a gorilla?

[329] So Western Lowlands are the only one found in zoos.

[330] So all, yeah, all types of gorillas.

[331] have a silverback.

[332] Oh.

[333] That's just a process of maturation.

[334] So just the same way, human males get hair on their face and broader shoulders.

[335] Gorilla males, when they reach 12, 13, start to develop that silver mantle on their back.

[336] And so then they become a silverback.

[337] Oh, so they're in all four populated?

[338] All four types, yeah.

[339] But what's unique about the mountain gorillas is that you can get multiple silverbacks living in a family together, whereas in the other three, it's just one male who controls the group.

[340] And those males, when they get to a certain age, they have to go out on their own.

[341] They don't stay in the family the way that mountain gorilla males can.

[342] Okay, I read this great book on killing.

[343] It said we used to think of things as like fight or flight, right?

[344] Those are the two options for animals.

[345] And then, of course, they realize no, posturing and submitting is much more common in the animal kingdom.

[346] And probably like 80 some percent of all interactions are posturing and then one submits.

[347] Am I right that gorillas are like the apex of that?

[348] Yeah.

[349] So there's so much displaying that goes on to sort of just suburb.

[350] size each other up, you know, they do all the typical, like make themselves really big, stand to the side to show off how big they are.

[351] And one of the things I had started to say earlier is this chest beating behavior, what we've just found out, we just published a paper earlier this year showing that it's actually an honest communication signal.

[352] So bigger males have lower chest beats.

[353] So in theory, rivals could be using that to kind of figure out, oh, is this guy bigger or smaller than me?

[354] And females can be using it to figure out, like, oh, I like this guy's got a really low chest beat.

[355] He might be a good protector.

[356] So it's an honest signal of male quality, which is super cool.

[357] So wait, low in like a low frequency, like a basey?

[358] Yeah.

[359] Not low number of taps.

[360] Nope.

[361] The taps and everything stays the same.

[362] It's the actual frequency.

[363] Oh, wow.

[364] Isn't that cool?

[365] That's very fascinating.

[366] Yeah.

[367] The one thing that I think is super neat.

[368] So, you know, so much of the way we collect data is just like when Diane Fossey or Jane Goddall is there.

[369] We're like out with our little notebooks writing.

[370] But then technology has really helped as well.

[371] So for that study, there's two things that have to happen.

[372] First, we take pictures of the guerrillas with these specialized cameras that project two parallel laser beams onto their arm.

[373] And those laser beams are a known distance apart.

[374] So you take the picture of the gorilla with the laser beam on it.

[375] And then when you go back to your computer, you know that those beams are three semometers are apart.

[376] So you can use that as a reference tool to now actually measure how big the gorilla is.

[377] So, like, you can create like a whole growth chart the same way when you have kids and you go to the doctor and they're like, here's your kid on the growth chart.

[378] We have been creating guerrilla growth charts.

[379] Without having to dart them and pull out a tape measure.

[380] Exactly, exactly.

[381] So we take that and then we use recording devices to record the actual chest beat and then we line those two up.

[382] So it's super fun.

[383] What about weight?

[384] How do you get a weight off of them?

[385] You don't?

[386] We don't.

[387] We don't know.

[388] And the thing is, so when a gorilla dies naturally, we will recover the body and it's buried and then it's excavated out so we can continue to study their skeleton.

[389] but oftentimes by the time they die, if they've been sick, they've lost weight, they might have lost muscle mass, or they're old, so you're not really getting an accurate image of what that animal was in its prime, or even a few weeks before, if their health's declined quickly.

[390] So this is a way to sort of get a real measure of them in real time.

[391] I imagine this changes depending on what country they're occupying, but what is the average lifespan of a gorilla?

[392] It is hard to say because we want to know them from like the moment they're born, see them when they're born to when they die.

[393] And there aren't that many gorillas where that's been done.

[394] I mean, that's one of the unique things about the work that Diane started is all of these animals going back 53 years now have basically been observed every day of their life.

[395] So the oldest male that we have observed was 38, and that was Canstby.

[396] So he was 38 years old.

[397] So the males can live into their late 30s.

[398] Females can live into their early 40s.

[399] I think our oldest female was 42.

[400] So yeah.

[401] But in the captive setting, they can live longer.

[402] Like there are individuals that have lived to be in their early 60s.

[403] So life in the wild is tough.

[404] And what do they generally die of?

[405] Like I imagine when you exhumed the bodies at some point, you can take a guess at that?

[406] Yeah, a lot of times it's just typical old age.

[407] Luckily, they're not dying, at least for mountain gorillas.

[408] They're not dying from poaching anymore, which was what was happening so much when Diane was there.

[409] So they are getting to live these long, full lives.

[410] But they might get an infection and die from that or old age.

[411] they also die from respiratory disease, so that can be a big problem for them.

[412] Yeah.

[413] Okay, I got to bring this up just because it's unavoidable.

[414] So I grew up and I saw gorillas in the mess.

[415] I'm like, this woman is an absolute hero.

[416] I got into anthropology and heard a little bit different story about her.

[417] Yeah.

[418] And I don't know how comfortable you are talking about that.

[419] But I guess I heard that the criticism of her was, A, she probably wasn't as detached of an observer as she maybe should have been, maybe she, Diane Fosse.

[420] Okay, not Jane.

[421] Did I say Jane?

[422] No, I just wanted to make that clear.

[423] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[424] Grills in the Miss was Sigourney Weaver, wonderful actress, playing Diane Fawsey, a very popular movie in my youth.

[425] But I guess the, yeah, the criticism was she was too interactive with them, which they believe led to some desensitizing of their fear of humans, which led to poachers having easier access to them.

[426] Also, I think she got into some wars with poachers.

[427] She burnt down one of their camps and they retaliated by killing like 12 guerrilla, something horrendous.

[428] So just I would feel unethical to not mention that it's a little bit of a rocky past.

[429] Yeah, I think for sure.

[430] I mean, Diane originally went there just like Jane and Barute, so the three, the Leaky ladies, as they call them sometimes.

[431] She was picked by Lewis Leakey to go and study guerrillas.

[432] She had no formal scientific background.

[433] She was 34 years old when she went.

[434] I think about this woman who just picked up her life.

[435] and moved to Africa to live, she first started in Congo, and after six months was kicked out because of civil unrest.

[436] She actually was arrested by the military, and she didn't give up.

[437] So she went over to the Rwanda side.

[438] She's like, if you've seen in the movie, she's like, gorillas don't know country boundaries.

[439] So I'm just going to move over to Rwanda and start the research center there.

[440] And, I mean, I think one of Diane's greatest legacies is that she did lose her impartiality, which I would say Jane and Brute did as well.

[441] And they were kind of the first to do that, to see these animals, not as like numbers, but as individuals.

[442] And as she got to know them as individuals and tell their story, it changed the way people thought about gorillas.

[443] So it used to be King Kong, ferocious beast, and now their nickname is gentle giant.

[444] And so she completely changed public perception.

[445] And I think her time with them and her life story, which was made famous by gorillas in the mist, ultimately made people want to come and see them and do the incredible experience, I'm sure, that you had.

[446] And that been such a key part of their conservation is the fact that people really fell in love with them and wanted to come and do ecotourism, which really helps support conservation in the region.

[447] But definitely, she went there as a scientist, and soon after she got there, she saw what was happening to these animals.

[448] They were being poached.

[449] People wanted their hands as ashtrays.

[450] They would take their heads.

[451] And these, to her, were family members.

[452] I mean, Diane made no bones about the fact that she liked animals more than she liked people.

[453] And so you can imagine she's off in the forest and when her favorite gorilla digit was killed they removed his hands they removed his head and the body was brought to her and she said i lived inside of myself from that moment on and her methods did get more radical a lot of people were telling her diane you can't do this you're endangering yourself or you're endangering the guerrillas but i think what's important is the movement that she started that carries on till this day i mean she thought mountain gorillas would be extinct in the while by the year 2000, and instead they're the only great ape on the planet that is increasing in size.

[454] It's an incredible conservation story.

[455] And she started, certainly it's been carried on by many others since then, and the governments where these countries live have invested a ton in conserving them.

[456] But I think without that work that she started, we may not have mountain gorillas.

[457] You're totally right.

[458] And it parallels so many of the historical figures who have come under a little more scrutiny as time has wore on and yeah it's like you got to take in the whole picture yeah maybe she got 12 killed and then also maybe there's none without her so yeah as life tends to be very complicated it must be a complicated feeling about the fact that tourism is what's saving them like is anyone who loves the animal as much as you do even as much as I love them I wish they could just live in the forest and not have to see humans for an hour a day like I guess that'd be my fantasy, but then I'm a realist and a pragmatist, so I recognize, well, if that's going to save them, then, so what are your personal feelings on that?

[459] Exactly.

[460] I mean, I would love it if wildlife could just be left to its own.

[461] They don't need us.

[462] They just need us to get out of their way.

[463] But unfortunately, for so much of wildlife, that's not the case.

[464] A million species are at risk of extinction.

[465] And tourism to see the guerrillas has been incredible, not just for their conservation, but I can speak best to Rwanda where we work.

[466] it helps protect all four of the national parks in Rwanda.

[467] So all these other species are benefiting from the gorillas as well.

[468] And then the government shares 10 % of that revenue from seeing the gorillas with the local communities.

[469] So the human population is benefiting as well.

[470] So it is that we have to be careful, though, because what we don't want to do, and I think the pandemic showed it so clearly, is you cannot have all of your eggs in one conservation basket.

[471] Just like you would have a diversified economic portfolio, we need a diversified portfolio.

[472] for conservation.

[473] Because if the only way that conservation is being supported is through tourism, and then tourism completely stopped because there's a global pandemic, we're seeing it all over Africa where poaching rates are going up.

[474] Local populations are suffering because they've lost that economic incentive.

[475] So we really have to think if we want gorillas and orangutans and rhinos and elephants on the planet, what other mechanisms are we going to use to conserve them?

[476] Tourism is an incredible tool, but it can't be our only tool.

[477] Yeah, and it feels like maybe it would be great to build a trust that could mine those gaps.

[478] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

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[494] I would love to hear, like, what did you think when you saw them as a tourist?

[495] Like having learned about them and then going out and seeing them, what was your experience like?

[496] Well, first and foremost, I'll say I got really lucky in that we had been in Tanzania for probably 10 days before we went there.

[497] And as much as I love animals, I am terrified of them.

[498] So the week in Tanzania, lions were regularly coming up right to the Jeep we were in that had no doors, had no windows.

[499] And I'm fucking, I'm 18 inches away from a 500 -pound male lion.

[500] And Kristen loved it.

[501] She's taking pictures.

[502] And I'm like, we're so vulnerable.

[503] And, you know, the guide's like, oh, they don't recognize us as pray because we're in a car.

[504] And I'm like, yeah, until the day they do.

[505] It's someone's going to be clever enough to realize there's a delicious meal sitting completely defenseless.

[506] I got to tell you one other really funny part of it.

[507] I have to imagine, I wonder what your feeling is.

[508] I think the people that go, it's not a comfortable, you don't fly directly to some place.

[509] Generally, there's a six -hour car ride involved.

[510] You stay in a very bare -bones place the night before.

[511] You get muddy and messy.

[512] So I think a lot of the shiths get weeded out, like someone who just wants a pitcher with a gorilla.

[513] And I could be wrong about that.

[514] but it did appear to me that most of the people that were there had a ton of actual respect for those animals because there was a big commitment to get there.

[515] We happened to be with a Green Beret, who I just met on that trip.

[516] Oh, wow.

[517] And the whole hour and a half hike up that mountain, we argued about who would get pulled out by the silverback.

[518] Who was most alpha in this group?

[519] And I kept saying, look, man, he doesn't know your training.

[520] He's just going to go visually.

[521] I'm so much more alpha than you visually.

[522] my pheromones he's like telling me all the reasons so we were in this joking war i'm also terrified to get pulled out so just for people who don't know often they told us 50 % of the time i don't know what the real number is 50 % of the time the silverback will kind of identify who he thinks is maybe the most potential threat and they just come over and they pick you up by your backpack and they drag you out of the circle or at least that's what we were told could happen so i didn't want that to happen, but it was worth having it happen to have won that argument with the Green Beret.

[523] No one got pulled out that day.

[524] But I am curious, how often does it happen?

[525] Is that an accurate number, 50 % of the time?

[526] Yeah, I would say we want it to be much, much less because the guerrillas are susceptible to a lot of the same respiratory viruses we are.

[527] So really trying to keep a distance from them, because we don't want to pass anything from us to them.

[528] So the guides are really good, I think, about sort of they can read those guerrillas behavior and they'll see like oh this guy over here he's about to get up and they'll sort of push you aside i'll never forget though my husband he was big guy six foot four and so he came to see the guerrillas he was an attorney and didn't have anything to do with primates and so we're in the forest and we're watching the group and we didn't realize that the subordinate silverback was kind of off behind and so he decided to join the group and we're standing there and we were next to a bunch of bamboo and you just couldn't move like there was nowhere to go.

[529] So we just, I'm like, oh, just flatten yourself up against the bamboo.

[530] And he literally, this like dinner table size back just walks right in front of us.

[531] And I'm like, oh, this is so great.

[532] And I look over and like, I thought my husband might faint.

[533] You know, this huge man, he was like, oh my gosh.

[534] But it's one of those things, I think, to your point, Dex, one of the things I love is when you're in the forest, you realize how, like, we're so smart, but we're so helpless.

[535] Oh, my God, yeah.

[536] When it comes to being out there in the wild.

[537] Like, everyone always ask, how smart is a gorilla or how smart is a chimp?

[538] And when you have them do a human cognitive test, maybe they come up as like a six or a seven year old.

[539] And I always say, what six or seven year old could you put in that forest and expect them to survive?

[540] We're always biasing it to get towards our intelligence when we give them our intelligence test.

[541] But I always feel so helpless out there.

[542] I'm going to amaze that they can navigate that forest.

[543] They don't get lost.

[544] They find food.

[545] They defend their family.

[546] And the same with all wildlife.

[547] That's part of the fun, I think, of going on safari and watching animals yeah it's incredible we did have one moment where we had look half the time where there there were two or three babies which was so exciting and again my wife was like obsessed with those babies and all i was doing was watching the silver rack like where is this guy where is he going to be oh he's over here i couldn't get off of him out of my own i think self -preservation and there was one moment where it seemed like he was completely unaware he's just breaking those bamboo food stocks and eating, eating, eating.

[548] All of a sudden, he just gets up and he starts walking on his hands directly at us.

[549] And I'm like, don't smile.

[550] Don't do any of the things.

[551] Just be still.

[552] And he just went by and like shoulder checked me. He just like bumped me with his shoulder.

[553] Yeah.

[554] And my heart rate when he passed, yeah, had to be in the 180s.

[555] I mean, it is, you talk about feeling completely helplessly.

[556] Yep.

[557] That's there sort of like, hey, you know, you're here because I'm letting you be here.

[558] I'm allowing you to be here.

[559] Yeah.

[560] Yeah.

[561] And that's also what I love about seeing the guerrillas.

[562] It is such a different experience than like being on a traditional Safari because, A, you're doing that incredible hike through the forest, which is very humbling a lot of the time.

[563] We got super lucky at reaching them in an hour and a half.

[564] Some people ride on a hike for three or four hours.

[565] particularly Sousa Group.

[566] I think one of my hardest hikes ever was to see Sousa Group.

[567] They tend to range at a high elevation.

[568] And you're there because they are, you know, there's nothing protecting you from them.

[569] You're just in and amongst the family.

[570] And it's because this male has chosen to allow you to be around them.

[571] And I think it makes that experience extra special, knowing that you're there because they're allowing you to be there.

[572] And you brought up the guides.

[573] Like you cannot give too much credit to these people.

[574] Like they're primatologists.

[575] Like they might not have a degree, but they speak guerrilla.

[576] Like, they start communicating.

[577] Like, they're monitoring all that stuff.

[578] They're really hip to their behavior, what's about to change, and they'll throw out some noises, they'll stand in certain places.

[579] Like, they really are pretty kung fu about it.

[580] That's impressive.

[581] Yeah.

[582] They do the whole belch vocalization, which is the kind of like, hey, I'm over here.

[583] Okay, well, I'm over here.

[584] And it's a dense forest.

[585] So you don't want to surprise them because that's when they might get a little bit defensive.

[586] So if you let them know you're coming, they're pretty good about it.

[587] And it's a cool rule.

[588] I was nervous about it, but I think it would be helpful for people to know.

[589] The rule, and I've forgotten the exact distance, but really what the law states is that you're allowed to go up to a certain level to observe them.

[590] And you got to keep like 100 feet distance or whatever it is.

[591] And then you kind of plant.

[592] And then if you get lucky, they come around you, which is what happened to us.

[593] Like we didn't advance into their area.

[594] We just kind of, we were visually around them.

[595] We stayed planted and then they all started coming around us, which was very thrilling.

[596] What year were you there, roughly?

[597] I'm going to say 2012.

[598] Okay.

[599] You need to come back to Rwanda because the experience you described, I mean, Rwanda has really invested in the tourism experience, and you can stay in anywhere from what you described to the most luxurious, beautiful hotels because it's a really important source of money for the country.

[600] Yeah, it's not cheap.

[601] It costs a lot to go do the track.

[602] Yeah, right now the permits are $1 ,500 for an hour with the grill as a person.

[603] And again, that supports conservation in the park, it supports local communities.

[604] But what Rwanda did, I think that is great, is they realized we're not going to be like Tanzania where we can have two million visitors come through the Serengeti.

[605] They only can have a certain number because they limit it to eight people a day for one hour and each family has only visited one time.

[606] So they've really said, we're going to go for the higher end market of tourism so that people can come in and just have a very intimate experience with the guerrillas.

[607] So the country, I've been going there for 20 years.

[608] particularly in the last 10 years has just changed.

[609] It's just amazing.

[610] It's such a beautiful place.

[611] So you need to come back.

[612] You need to bring Monica and Kristen.

[613] I can't wait to see her.

[614] Do you think they'll think I'm the alpha and pick me up by my backpack?

[615] If they're smart, they'll know you're the alpha, but they might judge it on size.

[616] I feel like I would just cry.

[617] No. Even you.

[618] Oh.

[619] Oh.

[620] Just sheer, I don't know.

[621] I just like novelty, never having seen anything like.

[622] that it is impossible to describe like you can't escape how awake you are because of everything that tera just said which is like they're huge you're not you're ill -equipped you barely got up this hill and now you're just kind of availing yourself to their kindness and so you're on such a heightened level and then the majesty of them in person is absolutely beyond comprehension and then to watch babies play and how they co -parent and now it's with this aunt and that aunt and like everyone's just helping and they're swinging and playing a friend of mine who had done it as well he's the one who pointed it out but he said you know i was watching the mail and they're all following the mail basically or at least when i saw it when my friends saw it the male is in search of i guess the perfect piece of bamboo but all the bamboo is the same but it's this endless dopamine pursuit of there's some better thing it just propels this whole group of of animals for no reason they just stay put and eat that.

[623] And so my friend's like, oh, I just looked at that.

[624] And I was like, well, we certainly share that in common.

[625] This is this endless anxiety that something's better 10 feet away.

[626] Right.

[627] Grass is always greener.

[628] But let's sidebar about Rwanda, because I got to say half of the thrill of that trip was discovering Rwanda, which I would have never thought to go to.

[629] But I think people know about the famous Rwanda genocide.

[630] But what they did in the wake of that, their response to that horrific, thing should just be modeled around the world so they decided like wow we fucking lost the map like who are we what are we doing let's be thoughtful about how we're going to rebuild this country it's the i think the only country in africa there's no plastic is allowed there like they determined there was plastic was just littering the whole continent they have no plastic one saturday a month no one can drive no one can do anything but come into their community and do a community project it's the law like we happen to land on that Saturday and so the driver had to get a permit just to take us to the hotel and there's nobody and they're all doing community project anyways the place is beautiful the thing you're describing i think was starting to happen because we did stay at this like tea plantation when we went to trek to the the chimps and that was a really beautiful hotel like in this tea plantation so i oh you did the chimps in rwanda yeah so you went down in Yungway.

[631] Yes.

[632] So that was probably just being built right around there.

[633] I think we had been open maybe for a few months when we were there.

[634] But yeah, Rwanda, and how much of your year do you spend in Rwanda?

[635] So I'm based in Atlanta, Georgia.

[636] Oh, I don't know.

[637] I know.

[638] I know.

[639] In Duluth?

[640] No, not in Duluth.

[641] I'm near Grant Park, Monica.

[642] I live down near Grant Park.

[643] Yeah.

[644] Next time I'm home.

[645] We'll have to get lunch.

[646] Yeah, please.

[647] So I'm a Philly native, but it's been, this is my 30th year, actually, being in Atlanta.

[648] So I love it down here.

[649] My girls are Southerners.

[650] So one of the best parts about being based out of Atlanta is it's so easy to get everywhere.

[651] So the airport is definitely a plus.

[652] So I am usually in Africa about once a quarter.

[653] Okay.

[654] So go a couple times a year.

[655] And then in the summer, my daughters go over with me when they're out of school.

[656] So that's always fun to take them over as well.

[657] So we're about to head out in a little bit.

[658] We'll be over there.

[659] How old are they?

[660] I have a 12 -year -old and a 14 -year -old.

[661] So they got to be at the age where they're like, mom, I love gorillas, but like, I want to be at the parties that are happening this summer.

[662] I want to be at a pool.

[663] So the 14 -year -old is kind of getting a little bit like that.

[664] She's actually going to go to camp the summer instead of go to Rwanda.

[665] But my 12 -year -old, we didn't go last summer because of the pandemic.

[666] And she is really missing it and so excited to go.

[667] Oh, that's good.

[668] Yeah, they love it.

[669] They really do.

[670] They've been going since they were, I don't know, five and six.

[671] I think.

[672] So it's been, it's been, yeah.

[673] Yeah, they are.

[674] They are lucky.

[675] And they know the staff there.

[676] We have 130 staff in Rwanda, so they know the staff really well.

[677] It's an international research center.

[678] So we have people that come from all over the world to do research with us.

[679] So I remember we went out for their birthday one time and like someone, they had happy birthday sung to them in 15 different languages.

[680] Oh, wow.

[681] I just love and they love as well.

[682] So yeah, I'm there about once a quarter.

[683] I mean, it's great.

[684] And the best part is going there and the, you miss the hot Atlanta summer and the temperature there is like phenomenal.

[685] Oh, yeah.

[686] It's a perfect time of year to go.

[687] It's pretty dreamy there.

[688] And for people that don't know the geography, it's pretty complicated.

[689] This mountain that they all live on, it is actually, the mountain falls within three different countries, right?

[690] Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC.

[691] Yep.

[692] And Rwanda's probably, you wouldn't want to say this, I'll say it's probably the high watermark of how they're handling the conservation and how they're handling the tourism.

[693] And then Uganda's also good.

[694] And then the DRC is just in a state of complete chaos.

[695] There's Well, at least when we were there, there were militias everywhere, guerrillas were getting killed.

[696] So you have one area of the mountain that, for geopolitical reasons, isn't safe.

[697] Is that still the case?

[698] Yeah, I mean, definitely the Congolese side is less safe and there are more issues there.

[699] I mean, the great news is we do a census every five years or so, meaning the governments and a consortium of NGOs.

[700] And the population on the Congolese side is increasing.

[701] But it is a very challenging environment in which to work.

[702] And it's called Varunga National Park.

[703] And I think over 200 rangers have lost their lives in that park over the last 20 years.

[704] From poachers, right?

[705] Yeah, well, militia groups, really.

[706] Yeah, so these people really are putting their lives on the line to protect these animals, which is just amazing to me. We owe them collectively a world of gratitude for the work that they've done over the last five decades to make sure that gorillas and all the other wildlife that share the forest are still around.

[707] Is genetic diversity an issue with a lot of?

[708] a population that's small.

[709] What did you say there's a thousand now?

[710] There's a thousand.

[711] And they're actually separated.

[712] So there's, in the area that you just described, X, it's called the Varunga region.

[713] There's 600 of them.

[714] And they're split between those three countries.

[715] And then there's another population about 20, 30 miles away in Uganda called the Bwindi population.

[716] But they can't interbreed.

[717] So even though there's a thousand, they're really split into two even smaller populations.

[718] So we do see evidence of inbreeding in them.

[719] But luckily, it hasn't seemed to have a negative effect at this point.

[720] But we always worry about that because, for example, with COVID, guerrillas have a genetically identical receptor system to COVID -19 than we do.

[721] So if you have one epidemic that gets into the population and the population isn't that genetically diverse, it really could be disastrous, particularly when you have so few of them left.

[722] Yeah.

[723] And that's where we get into the deal with the devil part of tourism, right?

[724] Is like when we look at humans, we weren't so sick opened up Pandora's box to all these different pathogens that some of them are transferable to different species.

[725] And of course, yeah, we're so closely related.

[726] Having them interact with us is virtually like feeding us bats.

[727] Like it might go wrong.

[728] Yeah, exactly.

[729] And that's like the point that you made.

[730] So we really try and stay seven meters away, which is kind of like the distance of an uncovered, should you ever sneeze and have it be uncovered.

[731] Well, you know, we're always like this if we have to sneeze or cough, tuck our face in our arms.

[732] But yeah, that is the challenge that we have to constantly be aware of.

[733] It's just making sure that there are good guidelines and that they're being enforced when it comes to the tourism side of it.

[734] Now, just for fun, before you tell me about the Ellen DeGeneres camp, Ellen DeGeneres compound, what is it called?

[735] Campus.

[736] Campus.

[737] I had some of it.

[738] When you're watching the guerrillas, what do you feel like, and again, I know anthropomorphizing them is not.

[739] It's always helpful, but fuck it.

[740] interest in that.

[741] What part do you feel is so similar to us?

[742] And then what's the most divergent behavior they have?

[743] That's a great question.

[744] So I love them for their majesty.

[745] I love them for this like quiet dignity that they have where like a male with a glance of his eyes, like can put everyone in their place.

[746] But I think probably my favorite parts is just the sense of community and family that they have.

[747] So a funny story about me, I have my kids pretty late.

[748] I was busy off traveling to Africa, I'm working, and when I finally have my girls, I was like, oh, gosh, am I going to be a good mom?

[749] I'm nervous about it.

[750] If I can be like half the mom that a gorilla mom is, I'll be a great mom.

[751] And so they tell you when you go in the hospital, like, oh, bring things in to make you feel comfortable.

[752] So I brought all these pictures of gorilla moms with their babies and had them like in my hospital room.

[753] The nurses come in, they're like, who is this crazy lady that has like pictures of a gorilla?

[754] Right.

[755] But I mean, the moms are amazing.

[756] They're so patient.

[757] They're so tolerant.

[758] They have babies every four years.

[759] They're totally responsible.

[760] They care for them.

[761] They carry them.

[762] They nurse them.

[763] They invest so much in them.

[764] Do they generally have all their babies at the same time as well?

[765] No. They're not seasonal breeders.

[766] They breed all throughout the year.

[767] They have an eight and a half month gestation.

[768] It's a very similar kind of reproductive system to us, except they just have that longer interval between kids because they don't have quite the support system that we have in terms of raising babies.

[769] But then the males are just incredible, too, and they're amazing dads.

[770] So what you see is, you know, you've got these, like, little teeny baby gorillas with their, like, poofy clown hair.

[771] And at around one years of age, the moms will want to go off and forage, and the dad's babysit.

[772] So it's super common to have this big, huge silver bag, and he's laying there, and the kids are, like, using his back as a jungle gem.

[773] They're jumping on them.

[774] They're rolling off of them.

[775] And so you just sit there, and you just see so much of our humanity and our behavior reflected in that social structure.

[776] And one of my favorite stories is about this male Canstby.

[777] So he was named by Diane Bossy.

[778] He got his name because she had misidentified his mom as a male.

[779] I already talked about kind of like the male genitalia and how it's super not impressive.

[780] So she thought that this individual was a male and it turned out to be a female.

[781] So when she had a baby one day, Diane was like, well, this can't be.

[782] And so he got the name Canstby.

[783] And he's probably the most successful gorilla we've ever studied.

[784] He presided over a group of 65 animals.

[785] The average gorilla group's about 10.

[786] So his group got to 65.

[787] He's sired the most offspring.

[788] He's gangus con. Exactly.

[789] Longest dominance tenure.

[790] But one of my favorite stories is one day, one of the research assistants was watching him, and he was babysitting at all these kids around.

[791] And every time a kid walked up to him, he would pig runt, which is this kind of like mildly annoyed vocalization.

[792] It's uh -uh -uh.

[793] And that kind of the kids would all, like, give him a really wide birth and sort of avoid him.

[794] And so the research assistant went up to get a little bit closer and he did the same thing to her.

[795] So she's like, this is so atypical.

[796] I guess maybe he's not feeling well or whatever.

[797] So she just backed off and gave him space.

[798] So this went on for a while.

[799] The kids kind of moved around him.

[800] And then the group left and moved on.

[801] And when she went to follow them, she saw that he was sitting next to a snare.

[802] And so effectively, by doing this vocalization, he kept all of those kids away from that snare.

[803] And she, again, you can't help but be.

[804] anthropomorphic, but she really felt like, I mean, these guerrillas see us every single day, that he also was keeping her away from the snare.

[805] Yeah.

[806] That's nice.

[807] You know, I like them.

[808] I like Can't be.

[809] Oh, my God.

[810] Yeah, my other favorite story about males is that it's rare, but we do have individuals that are orphaned.

[811] So they lose their mom after their wean.

[812] So they're nutritionally dependent, but just like in humans, just when you can eat by yourself doesn't mean you don't need your mom anymore.

[813] And what we find, if you look at like chimpanzees and elephants and killer whales, if you lose your mom, even when you're like in a chimpanzee, for example, 13, 14, 15 years old, your life is seriously affected.

[814] You generally have a higher mortality.

[815] You have a shorter lifespan.

[816] You may be less reproductively successful.

[817] So losing your mom is a big deal.

[818] Well, really quick, is that some of it's because they're coasting on their parent status.

[819] Yeah, exactly.

[820] I think your mom, she can help you get in with the group.

[821] You're still probably learning a lot from your mom.

[822] Chimps have pretty complicated diets, so you're learning where to find foods or process them.

[823] But we did this study recently with gorillas and we found there's really no negative effect.

[824] And we were like, why is this?

[825] They live just as long.

[826] They have the same survival rate.

[827] They reproduce just as well.

[828] And it's the whole group kind of comes around and their social network just shrinks up and everyone supports them.

[829] And in particular, the dominant male becomes kind of their best bud.

[830] He adopts them, takes care of them.

[831] And even if he's not their dad, so we have the genetics.

[832] It's not just that, okay, well, these are my kids.

[833] They don't even have to be his kids.

[834] But they sort of get status because they get to be near him.

[835] They'll nest with him at night.

[836] And so this protection that he provides basically seems to really enable them to survive, even when they've had this pretty big trauma of losing their mom.

[837] So, I mean, that's all to say that guerrillas just rock.

[838] I want to be cared for by one of the men.

[839] Doesn't it sound heavenly to sleep like in his nook?

[840] Like on their backs, just lay on that back.

[841] Okay, I have a very hard question to ask you that I would have maybe not, but just hearing that part.

[842] So you lost your husband?

[843] Yes.

[844] He died of cancer a little over eight years ago.

[845] So your girls were like six and four or something?

[846] Mm -hmm.

[847] Yeah.

[848] Okay, so however well you think you must have processed that, I can imagine myself witnessing this fatherly behavior and just fucking losing it in the world.

[849] I mean, did that ever happen?

[850] Totally.

[851] Just like, oh, no, this is what they don't have.

[852] I would lose a lot in the grocery store.

[853] And I would see my daughters tracking these little girls with their dads and, like, watching that.

[854] Yeah, it is really hard.

[855] And you realize what they're missing when they don't have that father figure.

[856] I'm very lucky.

[857] We always say with gorillas, it takes a village.

[858] And I have a very wonderful village.

[859] My husband and I met in college.

[860] So a lot of our college friends, a particular his college friends, there's this great book called The Circle of Dads.

[861] It's about a gentleman who was diagnosed with cancer and he brought friends together from various points in his life to be there for his daughters should he pass away.

[862] And he ended up surviving.

[863] But I was so inspired by this book.

[864] And I read it even before my husband had passed away.

[865] It's really a book about friendship.

[866] And so we have this circle of dads, which provide amazing support.

[867] But it's hard.

[868] I mean, it's hard.

[869] I have really amazing, smart, bright, strong, independent girls and not having any testosterone in the house to kind of balance that.

[870] I'm sure you're familiar with this.

[871] Men just bring a different dynamic.

[872] And I can remember when they were really little, my husband saying like, okay, girls, take it easy on your mom.

[873] Something I thought would start when they were like 15.

[874] But they're phenomenal.

[875] They're going to change the world.

[876] But parenting is tough.

[877] I think it's uniquely challenging for you because most people don't go to work.

[878] and then observe this thing they're missing.

[879] I just think you're uniquely painful situation for that.

[880] And I applaud the fact that you're pushing through and being productive and wonderful and raising daughters.

[881] It's super impressive.

[882] I think anyone who's married and has kids, that's like the second biggest fear is that you'd lose your partner in raising them.

[883] Like when you step back and you watch our behavior and you watch it sort of objectively the way that we would watch animal behavior, It's super fascinating to look at humans as a species.

[884] We have such range.

[885] We are the most incredibly compassionate and caring on one end.

[886] And then we've got the complete other side of us.

[887] And so sometimes I like to just do that, like go and sit and people watch and just think about them the way that I would think about watching gorillas.

[888] And it's just fun to do.

[889] I have the same proclivity.

[890] And I wondered, my main thing that I feel like I keep laying over humans that I learned in Anthro is, all these social primates live and die on status.

[891] Like, it is the most paramount thing to navigating their world.

[892] And so when I look at us humans, I feel bad for us because we have as much or more.

[893] We live in more multi -member groups.

[894] So our preoccupation with where do we fit in this hierarchy I think is hugely underestimated.

[895] And I don't think we have any tools we're passing on to kids.

[896] I don't think anyone's going like, hey, you're this animal, which means you can't.

[897] You can't eat this.

[898] You can do this.

[899] You can't do this.

[900] By the way, you're going to be fucking obsessed with where you're at in every group you're ever in.

[901] And it's not your fault.

[902] You're designed that way.

[903] Right.

[904] Well, and now we have social media where you can constantly see that you're lower in the hierarchy maybe than you thought you were because you weren't invited to this party or all your friends are here and you're not there.

[905] I think for young kids, it just adds a whole other level of stress to this already kind of stressful period of the teenage years and whatnot.

[906] Yeah.

[907] I wanted to just go back to one thing, though, you were saying, I feel super lucky in having this job.

[908] So when my husband passed away, I was a scientist with the organization.

[909] So obviously, that's my background.

[910] And about six months after he passed away was when my board asked me if I was interested in moving into the CEO role.

[911] And I was like, A, what do I know about leading a company?

[912] Like, I'm a scientist.

[913] I sit down and I do my science stuff.

[914] And B, I'm trying to make sure that my daughters are okay.

[915] And this is the Diane Fawkes.

[916] see Gorilla Fund position?

[917] Yeah, so I already worked for the organization, but I was a scientist.

[918] I was not in sort of fundraising or management or any of that.

[919] But my board asked me if I wanted to move into the position.

[920] And I love this organization so much.

[921] And I'm so amazed at what it's accomplished that I said, I just don't know if this opportunity will come up again.

[922] And so I moved into the position.

[923] And of course, I had incredible support from our leadership.

[924] But it's one of those things that when you have an experience like this, having this bigger purpose that's beyond you, it helped me so much to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

[925] And then I also say that my team in Africa, they have been through so much living through the genocide and watching them and seeing how they continue to rebuild their country, to be passionate about conservation, to not let that moment in time to find them was so inspiring for me. And I really took a lot of inspiration for that.

[926] People say, oh, you give a lot to this job.

[927] I'm like, this job is given so much to me. And I tell my girls that all the time.

[928] I'm like, whatever you do, I just want you to find something that you're passionate about and that you love, because then it's not, you're not really working.

[929] You're enjoying what you do.

[930] And what would be seen as great effort by other people will not feel like great effort to you.

[931] Exactly.

[932] Exactly.

[933] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[934] So as the CEO of Diane Fawcy Gorilla Fund, it's not easy asking for money, right?

[935] No. It's not my favorite thing to do.

[936] Yeah.

[937] And I think environmental charities get like less than 3 % of philanthropic dollars worldwide.

[938] We're very low on the totem pole in general.

[939] And in the U .S., most of that money stays in country.

[940] So international charities get a very small part of that.

[941] So yeah, you're just kind of always feeling like you're on this hamster wheel of trying to get money to do the important work that's happening.

[942] And people often ask me like, okay, Tara, there's so many important issues out there, whether it be education or health care.

[943] Why guerrillas?

[944] Like, why should I care about what's happening to gorillas halfway around the world.

[945] And we try and tell people that ultimately the survival of guerrillas is tied to our own survival.

[946] So guerrillas inhabit the Congo Basin.

[947] It's the second largest standing tropical rainforests on the planet.

[948] It's one of our best natural defenses against climate change.

[949] And the guerrillas and all the other wildlife that live there, they're kind of like the environmental engineers.

[950] They're the gardeners.

[951] So when they eat, they disperse seeds.

[952] They change plant communities around.

[953] And so ultimately, if we don't conserve guerrillas for selfless reasons.

[954] Let's think of it from a selfish perspective that we need these forests to help with climate change and other things.

[955] So trying to get that bigger picture that it's much more than gorillas.

[956] And by helping gorillas, you're also helping the people that live near them.

[957] So I think that helps people understand why what seems like a very niche market is really actually a really important worldwide phenomenon, an important thing for us to be involved in.

[958] I got to say, though, I have my own issue with that argument.

[959] I've heard that before.

[960] I've heard like, as Kristen's been involved with a million different charities and people be like, why are you helping those people instead of these people?

[961] Why are, right?

[962] Like, there should be a hierarchy of what you care about and then it should be prioritized, but we don't approach any other thing like that.

[963] Like, so no one in the world is saying, why does any doctor major in nail fungus?

[964] Cancer is clearly what kills us the most and then followed by heart disease.

[965] So everyone in medical school should be working on heart disease and cancer.

[966] No, we still need someone to see about toe fungus.

[967] just because something is not the number one, you know, on the mortality chart has no relevance.

[968] So you can care about gorillas without feeling guilty that you're not caring about some other thing.

[969] Anything you care about is good.

[970] Anything you want to support is good.

[971] And don't listen to any asshole trying to prioritize what you should be caring about.

[972] My hunch is that person doesn't give to anything in my experience.

[973] The cynic about it is generally not involved in any capacity.

[974] because I've been that cynic.

[975] Okay, so tell me about how Ellen came to be a part of this.

[976] She went on maybe a trek and fell in love with the guerrillas.

[977] Is that what happened?

[978] Well, I think it goes back to when she was young, and Diane Fosse was one of her heroes.

[979] So she would get National Geographic.

[980] She saw what Diane Fossey was doing.

[981] And I think Ellen, from what I know of talking to Ellen, she's always loved animals and always had affinity for them and saw what Diane did and was just so incredibly inspired by it.

[982] So fast forward, much later, when Portia and Ellen first met, Porsche tells the story that she asked Ellen, who is the one person that you didn't get to interview that you would have liked to?

[983] And Ellen said, Diane Bossie.

[984] So Portia had that in her memory bank, and she decided she wanted to give Ellen an incredible 60th birthday present.

[985] So they called us, and it wasn't Portia.

[986] It was the director of the Ellen Fund at the time, called us and said, we're interested in what you're doing with guerrillas, and we told them that we had this project that we have been dreaming of for about 20 years.

[987] So when Diane was there, she was based up in the forest.

[988] She lived in the forest.

[989] But since the genocide, we've always been based in town and we travel back and forth.

[990] So we really wanted to build our first purpose -built home.

[991] And we had tried to go down this road in 2008 and the recession hit.

[992] And so the fundraising wasn't there.

[993] So we had just resurrected this idea.

[994] We had just found architects.

[995] And we told them, well, we want to build a permanent home.

[996] We want to build a campus where we're not analyzing poop samples in the converted kitchen and we have more than one classroom and we don't have to meet in the hallway when we want to have meetings.

[997] And it just aligned really with what Portia wanted to do.

[998] And so that's how they got involved.

[999] So they gave the lead gift for this campus that we're building.

[1000] And Ellen then came to Rwanda probably about four or five months later and I was lucky enough to hike with her.

[1001] And I have to say it was like one of the worst hikes ever.

[1002] You're like, no, this has been this woman's dream since she was, I don't know, 10, and it was just wet and muddy and cold, and we were drenched.

[1003] And, like, every footstep, you're, like, pulling your feet out of the mud.

[1004] You're walking up a very steep mountain, too.

[1005] Yes.

[1006] Yeah, and everyone's slipping and sliding.

[1007] So we got to the guerrillas.

[1008] It was wonderful.

[1009] And then I was worried she wasn't going to go on and come back the next day.

[1010] So we had a hike the second day, and I'm like, she's going to think, no, I don't.

[1011] I don't want to do this.

[1012] But we did.

[1013] And then the guerrillas completely, they must have known.

[1014] Someone told them, gave them the memo.

[1015] And they were easy to get to.

[1016] They were in these open areas where we can see them really clearly.

[1017] And it was just wonderful to see her emotion around something that she had dreamed of since the time she was a child.

[1018] So we're super excited.

[1019] It's an amazing 12 -acre campus.

[1020] We have an education center with a computer lab and science library and classrooms.

[1021] We have actual real lab space to do science.

[1022] We have a public exhibit so people can come.

[1023] You know, a lot of the tourists and local community members want to learn more about gorillas.

[1024] So an exhibit where you can come and learn about Diane, about the gorillas themselves.

[1025] It's former agricultural space.

[1026] So we're replanting a quarter of a million native species to create biodiversity so we can bring local school kids on board and teach them about the biodiversity in their backyard.

[1027] So we're thrilled.

[1028] We can't wait.

[1029] And it's going to be phenomenal.

[1030] And all the labor is local.

[1031] so it's all hiring people from the local communities, which has been great during the pandemic because there has been such an effect on livelihoods.

[1032] Yeah.

[1033] 30 % of the construction workforce is female, 30 % of the leadership on the campus is female.

[1034] So we didn't want it to just have an impact once it was done and we were doing our programs.

[1035] We wanted the actual building to have an impact as well.

[1036] When will it be done?

[1037] Hopefully in the fall.

[1038] So that probably means, let's see, if it's supposed to be done in the fall.

[1039] Probably summer, the following summer.

[1040] No, no, no, no. No, please.

[1041] We're on schedule for the fall.

[1042] You must have hired different contractors than we did.

[1043] Yeah, that's right.

[1044] I keep hearing about the work that's happening at your place.

[1045] Yeah, I would say if you would have told me when I was in grad school that I'd be building a campus halfway around the world during a global pandemic, I would have been like, what?

[1046] I want to study animals.

[1047] Yeah.

[1048] I'm so excited about what this will bring to the region in terms of being able to train the next generation of African conservationists.

[1049] and it's going to be amazing.

[1050] I'm so grateful, truly, that there are people like you that care about these things and that are just quietly around the world protecting things that we should all be worried about and dedicate some time and energy to.

[1051] If people want to donate to the Diane Fossey Gorilla Fund, where shall they go?

[1052] They should go to guerrillafund .org.

[1053] That's our website.

[1054] And, yeah, you can donate, you can adopt a gorilla.

[1055] These are gorillas that we watch every day out in the forest.

[1056] And so by adopting them, you're supporting them and the protection of their family.

[1057] We have more than 80 staff that are in the forest in Rwanda alone, 365 days a year protecting guerrillas.

[1058] We also have a whole program in Congo to protect those grower's gorillas that I was telling you about, most of which have no formal protection.

[1059] They live outside of national parks.

[1060] So working with local communities to make sure that these forests stay intact and that the guerrillas are protected.

[1061] And I'll just add, you already mentioned it earlier in the conversation, but for people who need a little bit of optimism, like, this has been successful.

[1062] This has been an endeavor that has raised the overall population of these animals.

[1063] So it's not throwing good money after bad, as they would say.

[1064] This is like a very effective strategy.

[1065] And again, so grateful to you and everyone that you work with that you're doing this.

[1066] And fingers crossed, I'll get to take my daughters there at some point.

[1067] Definitely.

[1068] We would love to host them.

[1069] I agree.

[1070] I think there's so much.

[1071] much doom and gloom around the environment in general.

[1072] And people ask me that all the time.

[1073] Like, is it overwhelming?

[1074] Do you get depressed?

[1075] And I think having the Mountain Gorilla story is so inspirational.

[1076] And the reason that it's been successful is it's such a collaborative effort.

[1077] A, conservation doesn't happen overnight.

[1078] You have to stay the course.

[1079] This has been going on for 53 years.

[1080] It's one of the longest studies of any animal in the world.

[1081] And it's NGOs and governments and individuals from around the world that support the work that has made this happen.

[1082] So it's just a great, reminder that if we work together, we can have these positive impacts.

[1083] And we can't do it alone.

[1084] The problems are really too big that we're facing right now in terms of wildlife and conservation.

[1085] Yeah.

[1086] But it gives me a lot of inspiration that we can do it.

[1087] And when you think about what this part of the world has been through, to come out on the positive side for conservation in an area of the world where there's been civil conflict, where there's been genocide, to know that conservation can work in that backdrop, we can hopefully make it work in lots of others as well.

[1088] Well, Tara, I appreciate so much your time.

[1089] People should go to Gorillafund .org.

[1090] Thank you so much for your time.

[1091] I look forward to talking you again, and I hope I get to see you in Rwanda someday.

[1092] Definitely.

[1093] And Monica, please, call me and let's do lunch when you come down to Atlanta.

[1094] She can give you some tips to downplay your alphanus when you do your truck.

[1095] I need that.

[1096] All right.

[1097] Bye.

[1098] Thanks so much.

[1099] Awesome.

[1100] Thank you.

[1101] Take care.

[1102] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Badman Welcome Welcome, welcome Okay, yes, thank you guys so much Thank you, thank you Oh wow, look at this is such a nice Oh wow, they're really They really want to keep giving it to us Oh my God Okay, thank you so much everybody That's okay, that's enough, okay So this is exciting We have sound effects now I think just me probably Yeah Which is yeah Rob got us a new Zoom recorder and it has four preset sound effects.

[1103] Oh, the fun we can have.

[1104] But I don't want this to replace fully.

[1105] It shan't replace fully.

[1106] Okay, I just seem a little, you know, sometimes when the higher tech you get, you'll lose some of the, like, early hunger.

[1107] Well, it's like handholding's not the same once you've had sex.

[1108] Yeah, exactly.

[1109] But I would argue handholding is the same.

[1110] So some people feel that way, but I feel like handholding is still the same.

[1111] And likewise, the Foley...

[1112] Okay.

[1113] Walking right through that car.

[1114] Yeah, that's still with us.

[1115] Although, I'm not at fully length for the beard.

[1116] Right, but it still had a nice sound.

[1117] Well, look, well, let's just talk about what we're fresh off of.

[1118] We're less than...

[1119] 24 hours.

[1120] Yeah, we're less than 16 out from our first shared experience on James Kimmel.

[1121] That's right.

[1122] Jimmy James Kimmel.

[1123] Jimmy Jammer.

[1124] Great job.

[1125] Oh, my gosh.

[1126] How exciting.

[1127] It was so exciting.

[1128] It was so scary.

[1129] And I was so glad you were there.

[1130] And I was so grateful I got to do it.

[1131] Well, you haven't watched it, but I watched it.

[1132] Yeah, I have not.

[1133] And I probably won't.

[1134] No, I'm going to make you because you did a really great job.

[1135] But I am behind you smiling like a buffoon.

[1136] Like, I'm watching you ride a bicycle for the first time.

[1137] I'm just so delighted.

[1138] I was hopefully better on Kimmel than I was riding a bicycle.

[1139] Mm -hmm.

[1140] Way better.

[1141] Okay, good.

[1142] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1143] In fact, I'm sorry, you brought up bicycles in a day of celebrating you.

[1144] But you looked incredible.

[1145] The verdict is in.

[1146] Everyone that's seen the pictures thinks you just look tremendous.

[1147] I think what most people thought was like, huh, how did that happen?

[1148] Like, we see pictures of her every week.

[1149] In sweats.

[1150] And not just in sweats, but just looking horrible.

[1151] Well, come on now.

[1152] No. that's the truth and that's okay but that is the truth and then they're like I just want to be on record saying I totally disagree with you but please proceed thank you so I think it was a pop out oh yeah sure and we all know pop outs they're scary they're scary and we've come to love now and you were sassy and confident and calm yeah yeah you were great so great it was really fun to do be honest with people about your nerves prior to oh I was so nervous I keep saying I mean I've seen said that a lot.

[1153] I think it'd be encouraging and inspirational to people who saw it to know how nervous you were.

[1154] I was very nervous.

[1155] It was like competition day.

[1156] You know, I'm like nervous all day for it.

[1157] Oh, like state championship.

[1158] Yeah.

[1159] Oh, what did you have more nerves for?

[1160] State championship?

[1161] Yeah.

[1162] Yeah.

[1163] God, then it must have been insufferable.

[1164] I will never have nerves like that ever again.

[1165] State champ nerves.

[1166] They are very hard to be.

[1167] Because you're accountable to so many people and things can go wrong so easily not like there won't be anything i do in life again where i just have six minutes to win or lose two two minutes sorry i've forgotten how many minutes i guess kimmel's very similar you have like six and a half minutes to win or lose yeah but like the worst thing that's going to happen on kimmel is i'm just going to be boring yeah oh i guess you could get hurt you're saying is the worst thing in the state championship no like yeah i could fall, but not get hurt.

[1168] I could just ruin it for everyone.

[1169] That's way, way, way worse than being a little boring on a talk show once.

[1170] Yeah, personal responsibility -wise.

[1171] Yeah.

[1172] You feel like you let a lot of people down.

[1173] You just let yourself down if you're ruined.

[1174] Yeah, good point, good point.

[1175] I'm glad I had that experience because now everything doesn't seem as extreme as that.

[1176] Yep.

[1177] Even when for Shattered Glass, we interviewed Oprah.

[1178] Okay, yeah.

[1179] We're saying some stuff about who we interviewed, so that's fine.

[1180] We interviewed Oprah, and before that you and Kristen did a book talk with her.

[1181] So I was, like, waiting outside, like, to come in, and when I was waiting, I was getting so nervous.

[1182] And I hadn't felt like that in so long.

[1183] I hadn't felt like it's since cheerleading.

[1184] States.

[1185] So state.

[1186] But it was exactly.

[1187] exact same feeling of like just getting really ramped up to like walk in and do a thing.

[1188] Yeah.

[1189] And then that's how I felt yesterday too.

[1190] Oh, man. And then there was a part of me during the day when I was nervous.

[1191] And I was like, I hate being nervous.

[1192] Like, why have I put my, I keep putting myself in this situation over and over and over again.

[1193] I must subconsciously like the feeling of after being nervous.

[1194] For sure.

[1195] I think it's like the, I don't like to.

[1196] right, but I love having written.

[1197] Yeah, exactly.

[1198] The, like, relief feeling is really strong.

[1199] The narrative self is like I rose to that challenge.

[1200] I was scared, but I was brave.

[1201] Yeah.

[1202] Yeah.

[1203] There's a lot to be proud of for facing heightened.

[1204] Yeah.

[1205] Yeah.

[1206] And it all is so dependent on early experiences for people.

[1207] I think, like I had with cheerleading, that went well.

[1208] So my brain knows you can be really nervous and put yourself in these positions, but then there can be a big reward.

[1209] But for some people, just their first one or two exceeds.

[1210] Everyone else in the state championship didn't get that feeling.

[1211] True.

[1212] Yeah.

[1213] Oh, the Sim.

[1214] Oh, yeah.

[1215] Oh, man. A lot of good comments about your dad, your dad ponying up for the Kimmel experience, the Kimmel package.

[1216] Oh, my God.

[1217] The one thing we have to say.

[1218] Yeah.

[1219] Our friend Tony Hale was there.

[1220] Oh, what, it was like a little safety blanket, right?

[1221] It really was, and his room was right next to ours, and we chatted with him, and he's just like such a calming presence, the sweetest person ever.

[1222] He kind of reminds you of what's important right before.

[1223] You're like, oh, no, being a guy like that's important.

[1224] And he was so, like, of course, he's like the funniest person on earth.

[1225] He's a comedic genius.

[1226] Yeah.

[1227] And I was like, I'm nervous.

[1228] And he was like, of course you are.

[1229] I get so nervous before all of these things.

[1230] And I think I'm going to see something stupid.

[1231] Like, he just was relating so much.

[1232] And I was like, God, yeah, it's like Tony Hale is nervous.

[1233] And then.

[1234] Yeah, I'm probably a bad person to go to in that respect.

[1235] Because I don't really get nervous anymore just because of doing it upwards of a hundred times probably at this point.

[1236] That also was good.

[1237] That's true.

[1238] We weren't both spinning each other up.

[1239] That would have been bad.

[1240] And then, so you went out, you did the first segment.

[1241] And when I was, like, watching in the dressing room before I went, he popped back in and was just like, you got this?

[1242] And he was so sweet.

[1243] And he was like, remember, they can always edit.

[1244] And I was like, yeah, that's true.

[1245] I didn't even really think about that.

[1246] And so it was really fun.

[1247] And I was so happy we got to do that together.

[1248] But there was like 1 % of you that wish that some people would have booed so that you could have beat them up.

[1249] up.

[1250] No, I told you this.

[1251] That kind of harm, I don't, you want you to ever experience.

[1252] But I would have loved if someone when we were walking out the alley back to the car had shoved you.

[1253] I would love that.

[1254] Not if you fell down and hit your head.

[1255] We just shoved you, you had to take a step back and like gather yourself, stabilize yourself.

[1256] And then I would have, you know, would swing in like a whirl of dervish and stuff, yelling obscenities.

[1257] I think now would be a good time, too, to give credit to the wonderful women that helped you look so amazing.

[1258] Nicole Chavez.

[1259] All the lady.

[1260] Yes, Nicole Style.

[1261] Simone, who did your hair?

[1262] Jenny, Joe, did my hair.

[1263] I mean, it is crazy.

[1264] Most people probably who are doing something like this for the first time wouldn't have those people.

[1265] Like, Jenny is one of the best biggest hairstylists in Los Angeles.

[1266] She does Scarletch.

[1267] She does Charlize, she does Kristen, like, she does Amelia Clark.

[1268] She's truly the top tier.

[1269] She's a bad motherfucker.

[1270] Yes, she's unbelievable.

[1271] And Simone, too.

[1272] I mean, she is the best.

[1273] Like, all these people are the best.

[1274] Yes, and Nicole's the best stylist.

[1275] Yeah, I got to have those people because I know them because of Kristen and you.

[1276] And it's just so lucky.

[1277] You just don't get that.

[1278] It's a nice way to start.

[1279] Yeah, safest way.

[1280] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1281] What else about it?

[1282] Anything else about it?

[1283] I give my Obama impersonation a three.

[1284] It wasn't very good when I did it on stage.

[1285] I do it better.

[1286] You know what's really hard to do?

[1287] Were you nervous?

[1288] No, I feel the need to project when I'm on the show, and it's kind of a quiet.

[1289] You know, it's like I need a mic right here.

[1290] Like, nope, this one's from her, thanks.

[1291] There's Michelle and Sasha, Malia.

[1292] That's good.

[1293] Love the good place.

[1294] I got a little weird.

[1295] That got a little off, but the first part was...

[1296] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1297] But I need to be on a mic to do it.

[1298] I can't project yet.

[1299] That makes sense.

[1300] Well, yeah, we dropped that bomb.

[1301] Uh -huh.

[1302] Obama.

[1303] The Obama.

[1304] He will be our first episode on Spotify, July 1st.

[1305] And it's a good one.

[1306] It's a goodie.

[1307] It's a real good one.

[1308] It is a goodie.

[1309] Okay, some fackies.

[1310] So Tara was super fun.

[1311] Yes, she was.

[1312] And you guys could connect in such a special way.

[1313] That's kind of a long time coming.

[1314] I know.

[1315] Because, like, we had a Jane on, of course, but she didn't seem like she wanted to geek out on anthropology with me. Yeah.

[1316] And Tara did.

[1317] Yeah, and it's so interesting.

[1318] So many things I didn't know.

[1319] I mean, I really wish the pod could go be around.

[1320] The gorillas.

[1321] Is it the gorillas who picked the alpha?

[1322] Yeah.

[1323] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1324] To be around the gorillas and see who they pet.

[1325] Uh -huh.

[1326] Because I wonder if they're stereotyping us and like doing by size.

[1327] Right, because in their world it's size.

[1328] Right.

[1329] Okay, so they're not actually reading our personalities.

[1330] Which is exactly my point to the guy I was arguing with on the walk up because he was a green beret.

[1331] He'd kill me in one second.

[1332] Right.

[1333] But the gorilla has no idea about his training.

[1334] The gorilla doesn't know what a green beret is.

[1335] I was bigger than the guy.

[1336] Yeah.

[1337] And my pheromones were stronger, I think.

[1338] My pheromones were really strong.

[1339] I just smelled them.

[1340] Oh, really?

[1341] Is it that type of fabric you're wearing?

[1342] Sometimes a certain type of fabric will fuck your arms that's up I've found.

[1343] Like, I'll have certain shirts when I'm like, I never have B .O. But when I wear this shirt, I have B .O. I'm like, oh, something is in this fabric.

[1344] Can I ask you a question?

[1345] Please.

[1346] One, did somebody else wear the shirt?

[1347] That's the only time for me that I smell B .O. is if I'm borrowing a shirt.

[1348] Right.

[1349] Or if I lent a shirt and then I put it on, I can smell it.

[1350] Sure.

[1351] You have a smelling.

[1352] I have a smell sense.

[1353] And it's the mixing.

[1354] Yeah, the cross -pollination of...

[1355] Yeah, which is so fascinating.

[1356] The cross -ferimonation.

[1357] So maybe that happens to you.

[1358] That has happened, for sure.

[1359] But also, like, there was a certain kind of shirt I liked, I was like, I can't wear that shirt.

[1360] For some reason, I stink when I wear that shirt.

[1361] Yeah, I don't know.

[1362] Was it cashmere or wool?

[1363] Sometimes those have stinks.

[1364] No, no. It's a certain kind of T -shirt.

[1365] Oh, wow.

[1366] It's proprietary to that company.

[1367] It produces B .O. and some of the customers.

[1368] Oh, my God.

[1369] How cute.

[1370] Yeah.

[1371] That's very novel.

[1372] It's very novel and very memorable.

[1373] Yeah.

[1374] All I remember about the entire Tara interview is that I was wrong that.

[1375] I thought Silverbacks only existed in Highland Gorillas.

[1376] I remember that.

[1377] That was so devastating for me. I'm so sorry.

[1378] I don't know why I thought that.

[1379] Maybe you learned it wrong.

[1380] Still, choose my ass.

[1381] Oh, wow.

[1382] Or you could put a new picture frame on it.

[1383] You could say, like, now you stopped yourself.

[1384] Okay, that's not working.

[1385] I can read it on your face.

[1386] You didn't like that.

[1387] There's no way she was wrong.

[1388] No. How many times a day do lions mate when it's mating season?

[1389] A male lion can mate up to 100 times a day.

[1390] There you go.

[1391] In a process that lasts.

[1392] only about 17 seconds.

[1393] Yeah, he's in and out.

[1394] This can keep...

[1395] And then he falls over like he's been pumping for hours, by the way.

[1396] That is so typical.

[1397] Yeah.

[1398] Yeah, he's like, fuck.

[1399] Oh, my God.

[1400] I just gave you those quality pumps.

[1401] Oh, my God.

[1402] Take a nap now.

[1403] Yeah, he just, he comes, he naps, he comes, he naps.

[1404] He comes, he naps.

[1405] He comes in it all day long, 100 times.

[1406] Oh, my God.

[1407] 17 seconds.

[1408] Wow.

[1409] Enjoy, ladies.

[1410] He's not worried about it.

[1411] about pleasing.

[1412] Lionesses, you're going to want to get yourself right on the verge before it starts, if you have any hope.

[1413] This is upsetting.

[1414] I wonder if the female's orgasm in that same amount of time.

[1415] Let me ask.

[1416] Do female lions?

[1417] Do, okay.

[1418] I think all animals are gathers.

[1419] They do?

[1420] So that they're encouraged to have sex, because they don't know they're having a baby.

[1421] Why?

[1422] Why don't they know?

[1423] Just like humans didn't know forever.

[1424] Like they just, humans have an urge to fuck.

[1425] They didn't know that's how you have a baby.

[1426] Okay.

[1427] Like you're incentivized to fuck so you'll reproduce.

[1428] But you're not sitting around going like, mm, shit, I got to reproduce today.

[1429] You need to urge like a hunger pain.

[1430] Well, the males have that.

[1431] Well, they're horny because they.

[1432] Because they want to reproduce.

[1433] No, because they want to come.

[1434] They don't know.

[1435] They don't know they want to reproduce.

[1436] Okay.

[1437] They just want to reach climax in 17 seconds if Poplar.

[1438] possible.

[1439] Okay, this is a BBC article.

[1440] One thing we've been curious about is whether we are the only species that experience a sexual pleasure.

[1441] The question of whether non -human animals enjoy it, too, is a perennial and scientifically legitimate question to ask.

[1442] In the last 10 to 15 years, scientific evidence has begun to accumulate that animals do experience a general sensation of pleasure, as anybody who has stroked a cat will know.

[1443] Oh, Jesus.

[1444] In 2001, psychologist Jeffrey Bergdorf and Jack Panskep discovered that laboratory rats enjoyed being tickled, emitting a sort of chirpy laugh outside the range of human hearing.

[1445] Wow.

[1446] And not only that, they would actively seek out the feeling.

[1447] But does that include carnal pleasure, too?

[1448] One way, are you, do you want to say something?

[1449] Oh, my God, you bust in me so bad.

[1450] breaths like you want to say something.

[1451] You busted me so bad.

[1452] I'm sorry.

[1453] I just have the clearest sentence that came up for me. Sorry.

[1454] Go ahead.

[1455] All mammals have the physiological capacity for orgasm because they all have a penis or clitoris.

[1456] And evidence suggests they all experience it.

[1457] Okay.

[1458] I'm going to keep reading this.

[1459] Yeah, yeah.

[1460] It's really fun.

[1461] One way to find out is to study instances of sex that can't possibly result in procreation.

[1462] For instance, among two or more males or females where one or more individual is sexual.

[1463] immature or sex that occurs outside the breeding season.

[1464] Okay, bonobos, for example.

[1465] Oh, all day.

[1466] The so -called hippie apes are known for same -sex interactions.

[1467] Hippie apes.

[1468] And for interactions between mature individuals and sub -adults or juveniles.

[1469] Yeah, they're pedophiles.

[1470] Ooh.

[1471] I guess they're monkey files.

[1472] Okay.

[1473] Well, they're not monkeys because they don't have tails.

[1474] Go ahead.

[1475] You don't need to be a bonobo to enjoy non -conceptive sex.

[1476] Oh, I got scared.

[1477] It sounded like you're going to say non -consensual.

[1478] You don't have to be a bonobo to enjoy non -conceptive.

[1479] non -consensual sex.

[1480] White -faced capuchin monkeys do it too.

[1481] Some primatologists found that female's solicitation of males was decoupled from their fertility.

[1482] In other words, they had plenty of sex even when pregnancy was impossible, such as when they were already pregnant or while lactating just following birth.

[1483] Okay.

[1484] If animals indulge in more sex than is strictly necessary for conception, that too might hint on a pleasure -driven motivation to do the deed.

[1485] A female line may make it a hundred times per day over a period of about a week and with multiple partners each time she ovulates.

[1486] It only takes one eager sperm to begin the road from conception to birth, but the lioness doesn't seem to mind.

[1487] Could it be that she enjoys it?

[1488] Huh.

[1489] She doesn't have time to even consider whether she's figuring out whether she's enjoying that or not liking it, the things on its back going, like he just fucking lifted a car up or something.

[1490] Oh, I'm so embarrassed for him.

[1491] Okay, also oral sex is well known among short -nosed fruit Oh, wow.

[1492] Well, that was an interesting tangent.

[1493] Yeah, it was.

[1494] Nice detour.

[1495] Can you imagine having 100 orgasms in a day?

[1496] There's no way she has an orgasm every time.

[1497] Well, the male at least does.

[1498] Right.

[1499] That is wild.

[1500] I bet he's in pain.

[1501] I mean, when he rolls over on his back, he's not, like, proud of himself and exhausted.

[1502] It's like, it hurts.

[1503] Don't offend him.

[1504] Come on, man. We've got to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

[1505] No. You don't know what it's like to fucking.

[1506] Here's a male lion's life.

[1507] You're 500 pounds.

[1508] You've got to eat every five seconds to keep on that weight.

[1509] Your whole life, other groups of males are trying to kill you so that they can take over your pride.

[1510] You're trying to kill people.

[1511] Well, you have to kill them to get your sperm passed along.

[1512] And then you just live in fear.

[1513] And then you've got to defend it a bunch of times until finally, you know what happens to all male lions, do you?

[1514] They die.

[1515] Why do they die?

[1516] They all get kicked out of their pride.

[1517] They walk off, defeated.

[1518] They just got their ass kicked.

[1519] They say goodbye to their entire family, and then they can't hunt, and they go out and starve to death.

[1520] That's the life of a male line.

[1521] That's a bad setup.

[1522] It's not a good ride for them either.

[1523] All right.

[1524] You always want...

[1525] I always try to find everyone's point of view.

[1526] That's true.

[1527] Okay.

[1528] Oh, that's it.

[1529] Oh, okay.

[1530] When they were next to the vehicle.

[1531] Like, you can know intellectually they're 500 pounds.

[1532] Oh.

[1533] But until you see a fucking 500, pound killing machine next to you?

[1534] I can't.

[1535] I don't think I'd enjoy that, safari.

[1536] I'm going to tell you something.

[1537] I have this distinct thought.

[1538] Like, every other thing I have a fantasy that I would try to fight back in a way that could potentially save my life, I literally looked at that thing and I was like, the quicker the better.

[1539] Like, there's no, there's nothing to be done.

[1540] Like, just make it as quick as possible.

[1541] I'm going to, like, present my neck.

[1542] No, stop.

[1543] This is making this squarming.

[1544] Okay, I'm sorry.

[1545] Wrong kind of pop -outs.

[1546] Did you look it in the eye?

[1547] Yes.

[1548] Are you supposed, you're not supposed to, right?

[1549] I know, but it was looking at me in the eye.

[1550] And then I was like, is it looking at me in the eye?

[1551] So then I had to look at its eye to see if it was looking at me in the eye.

[1552] And it fucking went like this.

[1553] I have a picture of it.

[1554] I have a picture of it on my computer.

[1555] It walked by and it went like this.

[1556] Wait, and you then took your phone out?

[1557] I know I had my Canon 60D.

[1558] Maybe that helped.

[1559] Maybe it like covered.

[1560] your face a little.

[1561] Well, the point is, it locked eyes with me and panned right as it passed the vehicle.

[1562] Like, it held a gaze.

[1563] Because, you know, their whole defenses, they don't recognize you as prey because you're in this vehicle.

[1564] Yeah, I know, that's dumb.

[1565] But I'm like, well, it recognizes my eyes as a creature that it eats everything with eyes.

[1566] Ew.

[1567] It loves eyes.

[1568] You know, the apex of it.

[1569] So it was like a slow build.

[1570] I guess it turned out exactly how it should.

[1571] But, you know, first was like we watched a lion ass walk across the long field.

[1572] And it was getting closer and closer.

[1573] I was getting more and more scared.

[1574] I think those things are still 300 pounds.

[1575] And it got close and I was really panicked.

[1576] But then more interactions over the week.

[1577] And then culminating in us, like something came over the radio.

[1578] Oh, they got a zebra.

[1579] And then the guy took us over.

[1580] We parked in the dead middle of about 13 lions.

[1581] They were all around us.

[1582] So it's not like we were on a periphery looking at.

[1583] We were in the prize.

[1584] I kept turning my head, like there's some behind me, there's some on the left, they're laying on the ground, and the guy's going, don't worry, they just ate a zebra.

[1585] They are not hungry.

[1586] And I'm like, yeah, but do we know every one of them got full?

[1587] Exactly.

[1588] He doesn't know them.

[1589] It was wild.

[1590] Like, if that had been the first thing we did on the thing, I don't think I could have handled it.

[1591] I don't think it's something I want to do.

[1592] Really?

[1593] I mean, I know it's...

[1594] It's the most.

[1595] Well, listen, you could go and tell them you don't want to see lions.

[1596] no other things are scary too well you know it's scary also two other things that are scary because i've seen the fucking videos elephants somehow don't mind flipping those cars over chasing them or fucking with them or slamming into them and again we parked and a whole family of elephants was coming across the woods and they surrounded the whole vehicle and their bodies were rubbing up against it and they were so beautiful majestic and peaceful but i was like you know Well, where's the bull that's maybe rutting that wants to show off?

[1597] It's going to kill us.

[1598] I think I would feel a little more comfortable on the elephants because they sense that I'm one of their people.

[1599] Okay.

[1600] And then...

[1601] Because there's ones in India?

[1602] Yeah.

[1603] Okay.

[1604] But those are different elephants.

[1605] They're not as aggressive.

[1606] They're still friends.

[1607] Yeah.

[1608] Everyone else I'm scared of because they're going to think I'm a mouse to eat.

[1609] I'm giving out mouse vibes.

[1610] Definitely a lion.

[1611] What if I wore the dress I wore for camera?

[1612] Kimmel on the safari?

[1613] Do you think that would be helpful or bad?

[1614] Do you think they'd think I was one of them?

[1615] They would think you were one of them, but then that would open up, you know, the buffaloes try to kill the lions anytime they can.

[1616] And you were also in a tiger print, so a lot of people would be like, what is this bitch doing here from India?

[1617] Because tigers are in India, not Africa.

[1618] The lines will be confused.

[1619] Yeah, they'll be like, why is there a tiger in our neighborhood?

[1620] They're supposed to be in India.

[1621] Tigers are?

[1622] Yeah.

[1623] Tigers are in India, Siberia.

[1624] Asia, they're not in Africa.

[1625] Wow.

[1626] All right.

[1627] All right.

[1628] Well, I won't wear it.

[1629] Okay.

[1630] And I won't go.

[1631] I'm scared.

[1632] Too scared.

[1633] Where a zebra outfit.

[1634] Ooh.

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