Ologies with Alie Ward - Condorology (CONDORS & VULTURES) with Jonathan C. Hall

Episode Date: October 7, 2020

To kick off SpooOoktober, we’re looking at huge birds that DEVOUR DEATH: the giant, majestic and critically endangered California condor. Condorologist Dr. Jonathan C. Hall’s work helps monitor populations, tracks flight data, and keeps tabs on how well this small population is rebounding after going extinct in the wild in 1987. We chat carcasses, wingspans, beaks, bald heads, and more. By the end, you’ll want to gaze at the skies hoping for a sighting. Also: condor romance gossip! And accomplices vs. allyship. Dr. Hall is just amazing. Dr. Jonathan C. Hall’s website https://bit.ly/DrJCH Follow him at Twitter.com/outtherejch and Instagram.com/outtherejch A donation went to: www.blackinappalachia.org Sponsors of the show: www.alieward.com/ologies-sponsors More links at alieward.com/ologies/condorology Condor Cam on Ventana Wildlife Society site: https://www.ventanaws.org/condor_cam.html Transcripts & bleeped episodes at: alieward.com/ologies-extras Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month: www.Patreon.com/ologies OlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, pins, totes and now… MASKS. Hi. Yes. Follow twitter.com/ologies or instagram.com/ologies Follow twitter.com/AlieWard or instagram.com/AlieWard Sound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray Morris Theme song by Nick ThorburnSupport the show: http://Patreon.com/ologies

Oh hey, it's that tiny dog that the passenger next to you brought on the plane and you follow them on Instagram, but you don't know how to bring it up casually. Alibord, back with another episode of oligies, but not just any episode. We are creaking the door open and we're stepping a foot into the chill of spooktober. That's right kiddos, last year we had wall-to-wall creepy Halloweeny episodes in October like osteology, about bones, and spidronology, all about spiderwebs, and cucurbitology, all about pumpkins. And it was so creepy then, and then cut to us, standing wide-eyed, holding 2020's beer.

So think of spooktober this year as a respite from the Inferno of Chaos that is an election year pandemic. Let's chill out by talking about flesh-eating birds. But first, we thank you to every single patron at patreon.com slash oligies, I love you, you make the show possible. Thank you to everyone for buying oligies shirts, or a winter hat, or a fall blanket, or face masks, which we now have at oligiesmerch.com. Thanks to everyone who's rating the podcast and making sure you're subscribed and telling

friends and family, enemies, and of course for those writing a review, I have been known to read every single one. I read them sometimes in a deep Southampton Inn, just to keep me going on tough nights, such as this one this week by JLU98 who says, beware, do you want to become an avid bird watcher, a taxidermist, an astronaut? If you said no to any of those things, you're wrong. And if you said yes, beware, you will want to pursue a college degree in everything after listening to this podcast, JLU98, thank you so much.

It's true. Okay, chondrology. It is word, and Google confirmed it for me. It's asked that 2004 paper titled Migratory Connectivity in Bicknell's Thrush, Locating Missing Populations with Hydrogen Isotopes. So the word condor, by the way, just looked it up. It means bird of prey, and it comes from an Incan word, cunter. So now you know that, but there's no relation to the other word.

So this chondrologist, I'm a fan of his on Twitter, he got his bachelor's in biology and his PhD in ecology, and is now an assistant professor in the Department of Geology and Geography at West Virginia University, and has been a researcher on projects involving the decline of vultures in India, and how the landscape affects the recovery of the famed, almost once extinct, California condors. So let's dip our smooth, skin covered skulls into the festering slop of carion talk. As we learn about vultures, and gut eating, and ecology, and wingspans, and live cams, and a comeback from the brink of peril, and we summon up all kinds of respect for one of the

gothest birds in the game, with chondrologist Dr. Jonathan C. Hall. I never even thought I'd ever get to talk to one. I'm so excited. People are stoked. And so you study geography, but also how geography impacts different species? Right, so I'm actually not a geographer by training, so my PhD is in ecology. So I got a degree in evolution ecology and organismal biology. But my work is very spatial, and oftentimes I think it's difficult for people to wrap their brains around what geography is, you know, you say geography and people think, oh, maps and capitals, but geography is so much more. And I recently heard a brilliant and famous geographer,

Dr. Ruth Wilson Gilmore, explain geography as why things happen where they do. Oh, once again, geographer study, why things happen where they do. That's beautiful. I've never heard that before. This is great because geography, not being an ology, is a hard one to sneak in. So you're helping me sneak in some geography, covering two bases. And you know, tell me a little bit about like, where you grew up, what kind of kid were you? Yes, I was the nerdy black kid forever and always since day one. So I grew up in Columbia, Maryland, which I think at one point was voted the number one small city in the country. So I grew up very privileged economically. My folks both worked

in DC and in Prince George's County, my dad's in public health, and my mother is a high school guidance counselor. And before that, she was a high school biology teacher. And I grew up as an only child. So I'm very well adjusted. My only child. It was a very good environment because the neighborhood I was in, I had everything that I needed, right? Wasn't worried about where food was going to come from or whether or not there was issues in the home or anything like that. And so I had a lot of time to just kind of like sit and think and wonder about things. And my mother, being a high school biology

teacher for most of her career would always kind of her work would kind of spill over into the home. And so, you know, she'd bring home like, you know, extra specimens that she was, you know, working on for dissections. And my dad grew up fishing. And so he would take me fishing all the time. And so from a very early age, I was just really curious about the natural world, curious about the creatures that were there. And so one of my earliest memories growing up was sitting down every Sunday night and turning on PBS and watching Nature and just being fascinated by all of the interesting animals that were out there. And so growing up, I wanted to always be associated with cool, cool critters. This next question is in regards to

regurgitated fur and rodent bones. So starting off strong here. Charm School with Dad Ward, Al Barf. Did your mom ever bring home any extra owl pellets? Yes. Jackpot. Yes. They're so amazing. Yeah, my mother was running a, what was it, like a summer, like a summer science camp or helping out with the summer science camp. And I got to go. And it was really boring because for a while, because she was lecturing and I was like, I don't know, eight. And then when the owl pellets came out, I was like, Oh, my goodness. It was, it was awesome. I swear, it's like a Kinder Surprise egg. It's just like something that's like, who knows what it's going to be until you put it together. And were you ever a bird

nerd? No, and it's funny because I don't, I don't yet consider myself a bird nerd. And there's a graduate student in my lab, Darren Gross, who actually works for the Ventana Wildlife Society. I actually have two graduate students who've worked in my lab who work for the Ventana Wildlife Society. And Darren is a bird nerd. And I tease him all the time about being a bird nerd, identifying things. And I've always liked the predatory animals. Raptors have always been something that's really interesting to me. Well, I think when it comes to condors too, not hard to identify. Nope. They are giant and numbered. That would be a condor. And this is so exciting. So, you know, especially being in California, I don't know if I've ever seen a condor in the wild,

but I have friends who have and they say it's like, like time stops. And this huge wingspan, whoosh. Okay, quick aside, how giant are these wingspans? We're going to find out in a minute, but it's about 1.75 alley warts, 20 pounds of inky mystery bird, pummeling the air above you to take flight. But yeah, so I've never seen one in the wild. But what was the first time you ever saw a California condor? And are they even called that? Yes, they are. Most people just call them condors in here in South America. Then there's a different condor there. It's bigger than the one we have here in North America. That's a good question. What was the first time I saw a condor? I'm trying to think it was at Bitter Creek,

one of the wildlife refuges of Bittaways, North of LA. We were driving up to the flight pen that the US Fish and Wildlife Service runs as part of their condor management program. And I think the first condor I saw was one of the older birds that had been that was sitting on top of the flight pen. What you described as time-stopping, I was just like, whoa. And as we pulled up, as we pulled up, I think it took off. And then that was another just like what moment when it spread its wings and kind of took off. And so I think it took me a little bit of time to get adjusted because I had been reading about them. And obviously, when I was younger, reading about them, I had that natural geographic kids and had an article on what the captive breeding program was all about

and a little puppet feeding the baby condors. And so it was like my childhood catching up with me in real life, which was really amazing. What exactly is a condor? What kind of separates them from maybe turkey vultures that we see? How can I put this? Why are they so cool? Biologically speaking. Yeah, condors are sort of this class of like very large obligate scavengers, birds that primarily are only feed on carrion, dead things. And there actually used to be more species of condors or birds that would be classified as condors in this part of the world. When you're talking about a condor, you're talking about a bird that only feeds on dead animals and essentially like a big ass bird, much, much larger than

turkey vultures or other raptors. The California condors wingspan can be up to nine, nine and a half feet wide. That's crazy. Nine and a half feet. What? Yeah. Yeah. That's just kind of the maximum. I mean, like seven, eight, seven, eight, nine is about, you know, where they're at. But yeah, there's some big ones in the Indian condors, 10 feet wingspan. Yeah, which is just bonkers. But, you know, there were some species of condors that are now extinct that were even larger than that, right? Oh my God. Yeah. Okay, quick establishing scene here. So, condors are super social birdies and they're considered new world vultures whose bodies are mostly black with large white triangles on the undersides of their wings. And they have this

ruddy orange-ish bald head that's ensconced in a spiky black feather boa that shits creeks Moira Rose might envy. No, I'm flattered beyond all reason. Anyway, condors, they're huge, kind of like a baby dragon or if molysophant low-key eight rotting flesh and they are bigger than turkey vultures. Turkey vultures only have about six foot wingspans, but condors are smaller than the giant wandering albatross who can have up to 12 foot wingspans. Now, what about giant birds of the past? Well, about a decade ago, scientists discovered fossil remains of an extinct sea bird with a 17 foot wingspan, which is about as long as the average minifan. Now, that will become more important later on, but for now. Why do you think they're so big? Is there something also geographically

about the hills of California and the updrafts and the coast? Like, why are they so huge? Yeah, so, you know, I mean, the condors evolved in spaces where there were very, very large mammals to feed on, right? And so, in thinking about post-Plaistocene North America in this part of the world, there were just, you know, just a lot of big mammals, you know, sloth bears and marsupial lions and all these giant mammals that are no longer around. And so, you know, you have these giant mammals that are living and dying on the landscape. And so, the niche of cleaning up those carcasses gets filled by birds that, you know, can eat a lot, can grow really big, and the landscape allows them to kind of cover a lot of distance. And so,

if you're a larger bird, you can cover a longer distance. Also, if you're a larger bird on the ground, you can kind of fight off smaller scavenging birds. So, there's like a pecking water of those sorts of things. Please leave. The environment that these birds evolved in was really conducive to them being really big. It gave them an advantage over turkey vultures and other scavenging birds. Are there big enough animals still to support them? Yes. And a lot of that support comes from what sort of the settler ecologies have kind of introduced into this landscape through cattle farming, right? And so, cows or cattle are really big animals. And so, condors feed a lot on cattle. But there's still, you know, animals like elk and mule deer in that

part of the country. And then the birds that are on the coast, you know, feed on marine mammals, right? And so, yeah. Oh, God, I never even thought about a condor eating a whale carcass. Yes. Yes. What? Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I can't. Oh, the smells. I mean, okay. Wait. Hold on one second. Oh, my God. Thank God we edit because I just had to have a conversation about whether or not my tiny poodle pooped. I think we should keep that in. I mean, I think that's where I went to the course. Oh, my God. I mean, parenting during COVID. Am I right, JK? I have it so easy. I do not know how parents are doing it. I don't even have to teach her to read.

She keeps pushing the door open with her snoot. Nice. Okay. So, condors feeding on marine mammals, like, oh, and seals, I guess too? Yeah. Yeah. Seals are a big part of the diet of coastal condors that occupy the coastal area. Yeah. Oh, my God. Okay. I have seen videos. Okay. I had watched a video put out by West Virginia University documenting Dr. Hall's traveled California for his field research in Maricopa, California at the Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge and it's set among these golden hills with oak trees and populated by giant freaking birds. I had questions. I've seen videos with you. I have seen videos of the refuge that you do some research at their beaks. What are we even talking about with these beaks?

A whole lot of pain. Yeah. Have they ever nipped you? I have not been nipped in a way that was ornery. I've been nipped in a playful way by a captive condor named Dolly who lives at the Los Angeles Zoo. And I think as a chick, she fell out of the nest and like really messed up her wing, was broken beyond the repair that she would be able to fly. She's a kind of an instructional condor and very tame, has a good relationship with one of the keepers at the Los Angeles Zoo, Mike Wallace. I just wanted to make sure that recognizing the folks who work with condors on a daily basis and a weekly basis because I've learned so much from them. And like they are such bad asses. I mean, these are the folks who are repelling down sheer cliff

faces into a condor nest to like check on the chick and having the parents land on their head and like bite their chest and all this stuff. So a big shout out to Mike Wallace, Joseph Brandt, Molly, Steve Kirkland, Joseph Burnett, Darren Gross, Evan McReefe. Oh my goodness. I know I'm leaving people out. Dr. Hall has so much gratitude for his colleagues and so feel free during this episode to take a large glug of whatever is a nearby beverage or do a tiny imperceptible butt dance each time. He's so kind and that should be celebrated. I love it. It's like an Oscar speech. Like all the people out there making the work possible. Exactly. Like they're all really interesting, awesome, caring, loving, wonderful, brilliant people. And they are what makes

my work possible. They are what makes these birds so interesting. Like there's one setting up condor cams, all this stuff. So got to make sure that I thank them because they're just awesome humans. Can you look at condor cams? Is that just for researchers? Is that just for condorologists or can the general populace? The general populace can look up condor cams. Yeah, I will definitely send you a link. That you can and that I did. And when I opened the window on the Ventana Wildlife Society's page at ventanaws.org to see a pair of giant bald-headed hunched birds bearing these red numbered wing tags tending to one fuzzy tiny little gray chick I made like a squawk of joy. I freaked out and then I just started texting the link to people.

Every year, you know, condors are making babies in the wild and these nests have, some of these nests have cameras set up in them so you can watch a condor kind of develop over time. It's really cute. And how many now are in existence? Condors. Condors are on the verge of extinction. And how threatened did they get? They're still critically endangered. They're about 510, 520 condors in existence, which is a big improvement from the, you know, less than 30 that were around in the mid 80s. Yeah, so it's a big conservation success story. And so just over half of those just over 500 birds are living outside of human captivity, right? So they're out there in the world and there's a couple of different population centers

for the birds. And so there's there's two populations in Central California, the Big Sur population, which is on the coast. And then a little bit more inland is the Pinnacles National Forest population. And then there's the Southern California population, which is the one that I've been working with. There are about 100 birds. And then there's another 100 or so, I think, out in the Grand Canyon sort of Arizona, Utah area. And then there is a population of about 40 in Baja, Mexico. Oh, yeah. I didn't even realize that we had them in Southern California. Oh, yeah. I think one of the awesome things about being a scientist, being a researcher is getting to travel and meeting new people and more importantly, eating all the foods of the of the area. So every

time I come out to LA, I'm just like, okay, where are we going? On the topic of research, let's back up a little bit and get some of Jonathan's history, which I derailed earlier by asking about the owl vomit. Let's see. I started out from PBS at home to wanting to be a veterinarian. I went to Morehouse College. Some say it's the best historically black college in the world. I tend to agree, but you might have others who might disagree. They're wrong. That's cool. Shout out to Morehouse. And so I went to Morehouse as a biology major. And by that time, I was not satisfied with wanting to be a veterinarian. I wanted to work with animals that were less conventional than dogs and cats. And then also not realizing that veterinarians

work with all sorts of unconventional pets and things like that. And so I had a lot of learning to do about what animals a veterinarian worked with. But at the time, I was like, oh, yeah, I don't want to work with just dogs and cats. And so I wanted to become a snake venom biologist. And so I had heard about this snake venom curator who over the course of several decades injected himself with a diluted cocktail of snake venom. Oh my god. To build up an immunity. I think he's talking about Bill Haast, a Florida venom milker who headed up Miami's Serpentarium laboratories. Miami's Serpentarium founded in 1948. And nearly died 20 times from venomous bites. Yet he lived to the ripe age of 100, probably without much of a health insurance or life

insurance policy. And I was like, oh, that's the coolest thing. And so this man, you know, after a period of time of taking a cocktail of snake venom was immune to snake venom. And so he'd been bitten by all of the venomous snakes that he kept and not gone to the hospital and just kind of like rode it out. And I was like, oh, I want to do that because that's a superpower. So, you know, I thought that, okay, I'll get an MD PhD, right? And run a snake venom research lab and have all of these venomous snakes and be a superhero, but also be a source of anti-venom for particularly for communities of black and brown people who are disproportionately subject to death by venomous snakes. Oftentimes, you know, people in rural communities in the global south,

they're alongside, you know, things like Russell's Vipers and Bushmasters and Cobra's and all sorts of, you know, Mamba's and things that will kill you dead. And they just don't have access if they if they are bitten by one of these animals to the to anti-venom because it's really expensive to make and produce. And so, you know, I wanted to do that. But I kept being drawn to the idea of being out in the field. And I spent some time working in a lab during a summer research program. And that really wasn't my cup of tea. And so I wanted to be out in the field. So Jonathan had spent some time working with parasitoid ants and performed termite necrophesies and worked in fisheries and began to really enjoy research on ecology. Settler ecology,

he says, is much different than indigenous ecologies, which are not destructive to plants and wildlife populations like settler ecology is. And he went on also to study grasshopper agriculture in Oaxaca and then had an opportunity through an advisor to look at vultures in India, who are actually an example of convergent evolution. So they're not closely related to vultures that we might see in the Americas, but they evolved to have similar traits for eating corpses. And Jonathan has gotten to spend time in India studying the effects of La Nina weather on Indian vultures, as well as the positive effects that local Bishnoy people have had on forest conservation. And in the 1730s, he told me 363 Bishnoy people sacrificed their lives in a massacre

to save a species of tree. So the next time you're like, should I bring a canvas tote to the grocery store? Should I recycle this box? Just yes, do it for the trees. Anyway, he ended up in the thick of chondrology. Shout out to Neil Changani, who is another mentor colleague who worked with me on my dissertation. A dear, dear, dear friend. Missed him tremendously. Last time I was in India was in 2013 and just want to shout him out because, again, without him, I wouldn't be where I am today. And did you find that your career in ecology has been a relay race between these different mentors and different labs you've gotten to work with? Have they each influenced your path? Definitely, definitely. The work that scientists do is is never really just about one species.

It's how it impacts the environment as a whole, for sure, especially with condors who are so known to be so critically endangered and to be this kind of humback story of this champion. I imagine that there must be so many people who are excited to meet someone who's on team Condor like, oh, thanks for helping the condors. So not only is it thrilling to meet a chondrologist, but it's also a joy to kind of meet the birds themselves. So should you ever spot one, take note, if you can, of the color and the number on their wing tags, and you can go to condorspotter.com and you click on the color of the tag and then the number and you get a link to a bio about that specific bird. And this gossip is juicy. Okay, for example,

one bird named Redwood Queen used to be called Slope Slug because she was such a homebody and she just didn't stray far from the place she was released. Slope Slug, though? It's rude. And scientists misgendered her for years thinking she was a boy until she did a mating dance and they were like, oops, sorry, also rude. Now, I'm going to read the rest of her official bio verbatim because it's just too good. So quote, as far as condor status goes, Redwood Queen was at the bottom of the dominance hierarchy when she was first released. She was mercilessly harassed by the rest of the flock and forced to wait until everyone else had fed before approaching a carcass. Many years later, though, she paired with number 167, the most dominant male in the

Big Sur flock at the time. Since then, she has reveled in her increased status as Redwood Queen. She laid her first egg with number 167 in the cavity of a redwood tree, the first ever documented case for a California condor. Dang, this is more enthralling than anything in Game of Thrones or Us Weekly. You know, okay, I have a stupid question about condors as well. You know the tags that they have on their wings? This is so stupid, but how exactly are those fastened? They're fastened with a piercing in the wing and it's sort of the equivalent of getting your ear pierced. Oh, okay. Yeah, so what folks like Joseph and Molly and Joseph and folks have to be careful of when they're sort of feeling around for the wing of a condor is to not,

you know, puncture like a vessel or a nerve that's running through the wing and they're, you know, they get really good at kind of feeling around and then they kind of punch a hole through and yeah, that's how they attach the wing tag and there's like a little screw on one end of it. And one of the things that happens when the birds are captured and kind of were monitoring their condition is to sometimes, depending on how long a tag has been in there, they check the size of the hole because it widens over time. Oh. And so maybe they'll change it because if it gets too big then the, you know, the tag flops around in the wind and that causes more damage in one hole even more. So yeah. I always wondered about that. Okay, so obviously

with carrion feeders, they have kind of that bald head so that they just don't get gloo, gloo, we'll just use something auto-monopoetic on their face, right? So what other adaptations do they have for eating dead flesh? Yeah, so there's some really interesting work that had been done relatively recently and kind of looking at like carrion eaters microbiome. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And it's like some of the like most intense microbiome environment. And so one thing is like, you know, their stomach acid is, you know, a next level acidic because, you know, they're eating all sorts of noxious stuff, but animals, microbiomes kind of extend, you know, from their gut to their skin. And so their skin is really resistant to a lot of

kind of nasty microbes. They're just kind of like biologically armored against a lot of the noxious stuff that they're encountering. That makes a lot of sense that they would need some sort of like first line of defense against just the nastiest amount of worms and maggots and funguses and what about their feet? What are their feet like? So their feet, you know, I get this, I get a question a lot, you know, especially when people see pictures of condors. And they're like, oh, my goodness, those feet are intense. And they are, I mean, they mean they look intimidating. They, I mean, they look like a dinosaur's foot, right? Long bones, long, long digits. And they end in claws, but their feet are not really designed the same way that like a predatory

raptor's feet are, which are essentially like killing fingers, right? Like those things and the crushing power that, and gripping power that let's say a golden eagle has is very, very scary. But, you know, a condor foot is very mild in comparison. And really what they need them for is balance, right? And standing and things like that. They don't really need to like grip their prey because their prey is dead, it's not moving. And so they just need to be able to stand. And so the claws and their feet are not all that sharp because they don't need to be. And their feet don't really kind of grip the same way that like an eagle's foot would, which I'm very thankful for because I've been scratched by, you know, condor feet, they kind of kick around a little bit. And

it's, you know, it's not anything serious, doesn't break the skin. But it is intimidating the first time you get scratched by a condor foot. Oh, yeah, because the just think of how gross that wound would be. Like, is there enough neosporin to kill whatever is in like a vulture's toenail? It's not what you want. I actually had a, I actually have a colleague, shout out to Todd Katzner and the Katzner Lab, who is the person who actually got me connected with condor. So he and I had done research at different times in the same part of India in Rajasthan, India, on vultures and their ecology in that part of the world. So Todd Katzner and his partner Aaron sort of banned birds and do all sorts of research and work with raptors. They were

rehabilitating a turkey vulture. And Todd took a bite from a turkey vulture. And it was one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen in my life. What did it look like? What did it look like? It's like, uh, how? It's like curry mayonnaise. It's just kind of oozing out of it. So you, you, you, you definitely want to make sure that whenever, when, whenever you take a bite from, if you ever take a bite from a carrion eating organism, you wash that immediately. I think, I think Todd had to like get antibiotics because it's just. Oh, I'm sure. Oh, like a hand transplant. Like what just, you know, like sew my head on a different body. You know, just cut it off. Just cut it out. I'm done. Oh God. What other kind of bites or scratches have you heard about? I did hear

and I, you know, this is just hearsay. Maybe this is something that like, you know, people told me when I first got there, like a condor myth of somebody who had been partially degloved by a condor. And so we don't normally wear gloves when we're holding condors. I mean, people often see films and like, are you insane? Yeah. Same question. Yes. But the thing is, is that, you know, a glove that, that would be thick enough to protect you from a condor bite doesn't give you the, the sort of dexterity and the ability to kind of feel the condor and control the condor as, as well as you could with your bare hand. Because when you're muzzling the bird, you kind of have to make a circle with your thumb and either ring finger or

middle finger to kind of keep the beak closed. But depending on the size of your hand, you could be kind of pressing in on the condor's eye. Right. And so you need to kind of like hold the bird delicately, but firmly and not press on their eyes or not press on their nears or their nostrils. And so all of that like sensitive equipment on the bird is, is very close to its main ripping instrument. And so putting a glove on would really kind of like hinder your ability to keep the bird safe, even though you'd be much safer. So partially degloved without gloves means that your skin comes partially off. So I have not verified this story. And I kind of don't want to, because it's really good when you tell graduate students and undergraduate students who come out

with you to like really be careful. De-gloved. Like that's all you need to know. Oh gosh. What kind of eyes actually do they have? Do they need good eyesight to see a big dead whale? They do. It's really awesome to like to look at the different life strategies that birds have and specializations that like carrion eating birds have. And so when you look at a picture of a turkey vulture, they have these huge nears, these huge, huge nasal openings. And when you compare that to a condor or a black vulture, whose nears and nasal openings are much smaller, it turns out that, that turkey vultures primarily use olfaction to locate carrion. And they, I mean, they have good eyesight, but their kind of specialty is sniffing out the dead thing. Whereas black vultures

and turkey vultures, they do have very good senses of smells, but their eyesight is usually what they're using to primarily locate things, right? And so different specializations. And so their eyes are kind of scary because they're red. And they're piercing. They look at you with intent, they look at you with intelligence, and they're very, very smart birds. They're intimidating, but they're, they're really beautiful, beautiful eyes. How are the condors doing? Let's check in. Are they okay? Are they staying hydrated? Are they doom scrolling? Am I projecting? Where things that are with condors now, I mean, you know, the, the recovery and the captive beating program has been an incredible success. Yes. And, you know, it's kind of like the next

stage of condor conservation. Can these magnificent birds exist in an anthropogenic landscape? A landscape whose ecology is, you know, as I mentioned before, have been completely transformed, right? The modes of being and the ways that condors have evolved to be on the landscape are not as congruous to highways and plastic and chemicals and, you know, far, far fewer species than they're used to seeing and cities and all of these things. And so sort of the next stage and what my work is focused on now is trying to understand the ways in which condors are moving across the landscape. And particularly for, for the work that we're doing in my lab is, is what condors are doing, where they're doing it on the ground, you know, where they're feeding,

because, you know, the primary threat to California condors persistence on the landscape is lead poisoning. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. Yeah. So this is where things might get a little interesting in terms of folks who might have an opinion about this and they're picking up lead from spent ammunition. So we're talking about guns in America, which is always a really, you know, welcoming conversation. Absolutely. And I say this as somebody who is learning to hunt and everything, but I use non lead ammunition. California recently enacted legislation where now you cannot purchase lead ammunition for hunting in the state. Part of the reason why is because of the research that was done on condors and found that these birds, when they're feeding on

a gut pile of an animal that's been shot by a hunter, you know, condors eat very fast on the ground. They're big birds. It's difficult for them to take off and they're awkward on the ground, much more awkward on the ground than they are in the air. So they have to gobble down their food really quickly before some other predator might come around and make a meal out of them or just kill them, you know, to get them off the conchus. So they eat really quickly. And so they're, you know, just gulping down hunks of meat. And in the meat that's left are lead fragments. And so, you know, these birds, they have a pretty high blood lead concentration in terms of their load sort of on the landscape, right? And so a lot of mortality of condors has

been from lead poisoning. Oh, I didn't know that. So Jonathan says that one of the reasons lead is used as ammunition is because it's cheap, it's heavy, and it fragments on impact. And it leaves a bit of a snowstorm, he says, of lead in flesh, especially in the guts of an animal, which are usually discarded in the field by hunters. And I did a little more reading on this, and it takes only a few fragments the size of a couple grains of sand to potentially kill a condor, which as a person who has absentmindedly eaten the stickers on more fruits than I care to admit, is pretty easy to do. Will they come and start to gobble down an animal that's just been hunted before the hunter can get to it? No. Well, it depends on how long it takes the

hunter to get to it and where the animal is. If you're out hunting and you shoot a mule deer, something like that, the condors usually won't get there. Like, you know, if you had to walk like two hours to get to your quarry, you wouldn't be getting there when the condors are already starting to feed. One of the interesting things about a condor is that they're very cautious. So oftentimes, they'll find a carcass and they'll just, if they can, sort of roost nearby and just watch, sometimes for hours, maybe even days, just to make sure that like nothing else is coming by, because they don't want to become a snack. If you're a hunter, you're not in danger of losing any meat to a condor. Will a hunter shoot something and then kind of lose the animal

if it runs? Definitely. Yeah. Definitely. You can tell I have not been hunting, but do they run away and die? No idea. Definitely. Yeah. I mean, shooting and making contact with an animal is definitely no guarantee that you're actually going to have meat in your freezer. You'll lose them or sometimes you might shoot one and it falls and it gets into a spot that you just can't get to. Oh, I never even thought about that. I mean, imagine just like going to get a burrito and then the burrito takes off or you know what I mean? You just can't get to it. You're like, I just paid for this burrito, but it's running away. Yeah. Condor's going to eat it. So there's a movement in ecologically conscious hunters and wildlife conservationists to use copper bullets

instead. And they don't fragment like lead does and they're more expensive. So as you can imagine, there is some resistance, shall we say, to this. But Jonathan himself, who's new to hunting, says he doesn't shoot with lead for ecological reasons. And apart from that issue, there are other environmental factors affecting our favorite dead flesh feeders. These birds that are feeding on marine mammals that hang around kind of these runoff areas of cities and all of this chemical downloads that's happening. And then you get kind of the amplification, biological amplification of chemicals sort of as you move through the food web, you know, you've got kind of a large population of smaller organisms and they get more and more concentrated as you move through the food web

into these top predators, right? So, you know, you could have a low contaminant load for like an anchovy, but by the time, you know, a sea lion is eating another fish that's fed on the anchovy, that those toxins become concentrated. Right. And so condors are picking up all sorts of nasty stuff from the marine animals that they eat that are living in these environments where human beings are kind of dumping chemicals into the watershed. So, these are a few reasons why the condor population was so low, it was nearly extinct, but it's steadily rebuilding. So, we're going to hear more about that in a second, but first, a quick break for sponsors of the show who make it possible for us to toss some

cash at a cause of Jonathan's choosing, which this week is blackinappalachia.org, which in their words, works to highlight the history of African Americans in the development of our region and its culture. Through research, local narratives, public engagement, and exhibition, the project aims to raise the visibility and contributions of black communities of the mountain south. So, you can visit blackinappalachia.org to donate or to find out more, and you can also listen to their podcast, which appropriately is titled Black in Appalachia. And that donation was made possible this week by the following sponsors who you may now hear about. Okay, your condor queries. Can I ask you lightning round?

Yeah. Patreon questions. Oh, people are excited. Okay, I thought this was a great question, Ethan Batone. I think it's Italian, I'm not sure. First time question asker says, I've heard that vultures will projectile vomit as a form of defense. Do condors do this as well? No. I mean, they will, but there are other birds like turkey vultures who are big fans of that defense strategy. Yeah, it's awful. But the worst, the worst birds, people who know me, especially my family, know that I have like a vendetta against cormorants. Oh, no. So specific.

So when I was a graduate student, I worked at an outdoor classroom. Shout out to Michael Hogarth, the muscle man. He works with freshwater muscles. Maybe I've lived in Southern California too long, but when he said the muscle man, I definitely pictured a guy in a tank top drinking a whey protein shake. Anyway, bye, Valve guy. One of his first field trips in the field zoology course is out on Ohio State's outdoor classroom stone lab on Lake Erie. It's to go to Green Island, which is an island in sort of western part of Lake Erie, close to the Bass Islands that's uninhabited by humans and has

been so for a couple of years. And it is a heron and cormorant rookery. Oh, okay. So your hell world. Yes. The night circle of hell is being stranded on that island. Because the birds are nesting in the trees, we go to that island like the second field trip that's there. The first field trip is to a pond where they're leeches. The second field trip are Barf Island. And so there's like biting flies and you have to row to the island. And as the TA, I had to like shuttle people back and forth. So I was on the island getting torn up by black flies. And then you get onto this island and they're just like their nests above you.

And these birds are just vomiting fish on you for like three hours. And I've never been hit, but a couple of a couple of students have been hit by like just like rotting half-digested fish. And I hate it. I hate it. I understand now. I understand. Yeah, condors are pretty, I mean, as long as you keep their head controlled and you do that by pinning their head against their body, right? Because most of their power is in ripping, right? And so if you've already got their head kind of cocked back on their body, then they can't really do much more damage if you were to, you know, get your finger in that area. And so once you have them controlled and you're kind of hugging them,

they really kind of chill out. I did have a student who for her first condor was a juvenile who had just fledged and it peed on her the entire time she was holding it for like 40 minutes. It's just drinking a Mountain Dew as it's peeing. It's just rehydrating. It was like a steady trickle, you know? Oh my God. Yeah. So condors are pretty chill when it comes to like, you know, vultures and everything. Oh my God. Another great question. Jeffrey Bradshaw wants to know, who eats condors when they die? That's a good question. I don't know of, like, macro fauna that regularly feast on condors, aside from canids or maybe bears that might like be able to snag one. But since, you know, the birds have been kind of

really closely monitored, they don't really run into trouble. They don't really run into predation that much. Like, who would scavenge a condor? Yeah. I don't know of any examples of, like, other condors. Like, oh, Jerry died. Let's go eat them. Yeah. Like the same thing is just like crying into ice cream as you're eating it. You know, I'm just like, oh man, he was a great guy. I can't stop. He was a great guy, man. He was so good. Oh, Jerry. Oh, we love you. So, yeah, I think the only thing that would want to eat a condor, given the fact that it's, you know, it's microbiome is like holding at bay a lot of nasty stuff. And once it dies, that microbiome is kind of like out of commission. I think that other scavengers that would be able

to handle digesting a dead condor are probably, it's probably not worth the effort to, like, try to pick through all the feathers and everything like that. So I think the microbes are the ones that end up doing most of the, the microbes in the macroenvironments end up doing most of the work. Ah, so it's little, little ones that just break free. Oh, Grace Lauren, two great questions. Grace says, Hi, Dr. Hall, I understand that California condors used to have a much wider range prior to their population dwindling down. Do we think they'll ever reach a point where they can return to their past range? And also, what's with the tiny patch of fuzz fuzz on their noggin? Yeah, so, so the tiny patch of fuzz fuzz on their noggin. I'll answer that question first.

I imagine Grace is talking about the little fuzz that kind of shows up in their, their nostrils, their nares. And oftentimes you'll see that with like younger birds as they're kind of down is, is, they're shedding their down and getting their adult, adult feathers and they just kind of gets caught in that, in that area. P.S. These big ass birds can live maybe up to 60, 70 years, maybe more. But another reason for the condor's vulnerability is that they raise really small clutches of one to two eggs. And those babies can take six to seven years to reach sexual maturity. And during that prolonged awkward pubescence, their heads change from a mottled dark gray color to a sherbert orange or reddish color, depending on if they're horny.

And that's all you need to know about their heads. There's no more information. Sometimes I've been asked, so I'm sorry, I'm going to ask my own question. But what does a condor head feel like? It feels like a ball sack, feels like a string. That's exactly what it feels like. And, you know, for, for listeners who have felt a scrotum, you know exactly what that feels like. And you can immediately call that up. For those of you who have not felt a scrotum, then, you know, maybe. Pedicondor. Yeah, I mean, you know, you could, you could feel a kind, if you, if you touch a condor head, that's what a scrotum feels like. If you touch a scrotum, that's what a condor head

feels like. Oh my God, now we know. Yep. An answer I never knew to ask the question. So what is what the tiny patch of us was? Maybe that's, you know, the condor scaping. Yeah, that's the, oh my God. Wrinkly, gross. It's important for the listeners to know. Yes, it is. So, you know, like very delicate, very stretchy, very warm, and kind of smelly. So yeah, a lot of parallels. Checks all the boxes. Yeah. Oh my God. What about the range? What are we thinking? So I think this is, this is a really good question. And it kind of gets to the crux of my work and trying to understand, is it even possible for condors to, you know, extend their range into Northern California, up the West Coast, into Alaska, down into Mexico, and even, you know,

populations in Texas, even in the Eastern part of the United States, right? I think the short answer is, I think that we're a long ways off from that. And that has to do, it has everything to do with the way that settler ecologies have to be reworked or dismantled for those birds to return, because, you know, it's just human beings living in this particular way have such a humongous footprint. Yeah. And they take up a lot of space and they do a lot of damage. And that has to change, I think, in order for condors to return to their normal range. And I think that goes for a lot of, you know, charismatic macrophana that used to be ubiquitous in the landscape. Human beings, particularly ones that are practicing this particular type of ecology, need to change.

Sure. Okay. And side note, because Dr. Hall is amazing, he went back to Patreon and answered so many questions, including describing the really strong acid in the condors gastric system as, quote, like pissed off Wonder Woman fighting Nazis strong, their bacteria gang is just stronger, quote, at this microbiome of the condors can break down even small amounts of lead so well that researchers estimate that up to 60% of the condor fatalities in the wild can be attributed to lead poisoning. But things that contributed to their extinction in the wild around 1987, this was before the captive breeding programs, were things like the use of DDT, which has been known to cause really fragile shells that break in the nesting process. And these effects of DDT

were still happening decades after it was banned in 1972, because it was stored in the blubber of sea mammals that the condors eight years later. And another risk not to bum you out is unlike a turkey vulture, a condor sense of smell isn't so great. And sometimes they mistake trash for rotting flesh, which would not be trash to them. So helping out with a beach cleanup could be saving these fuzzy little flesh rippers. Oh, and speaking of diet, in Kate Kuldrin's words, as California condors have a taste for carry on, do they have a preference for how long their nourishment has been dead? And if it's been dead too long, will they turn their beak up at it? Oh, that is a good question that I do not know the answer to. It would be really interesting to

lay out like a relatively fresh carcass and then one that's a couple of weeks old. But I would imagine that like animals, you know, carrying gets maybe even a little too funky for a condor. I wonder, yeah, I wonder if it just becomes like jerky, you know, if they're like, oh, it's kind of dried up. No, thank you. Dr. Kaley Swift, who is a Corvid Thanatologist who yeah, she's amazing. She works with crow funerals. Oh, that episode was amazing. Yeah. So this is her. She says, I have so many questions. I'm going to post all of them and let you pick. She says, do you consider gut piles left by hunters essential to the sustainment of condors? Or would there be enough prey without them? Do you think?

That is another really good question that I don't think we have a clear answer to. I think the supply of food that comes from human activity has to be sustained to a certain level. What humans make available through hunting versus what other, you know, predators and sort of like dying of natural causes is made available to condors? That's a good question about like where they are feeding and what exactly they are feeding on. Yeah. I would be worried if hunting activity didn't make some of the larger ungulates available on the landscape. And that's because they're not a lot of predators, particularly in California, that are going to feed on like an elk or a big corn sheep or, you know, a mule deer. So I think humans are an important part of

like condor ecology. But how much food they're getting from like ranchers, that's a good question. Yeah. She has another question. She said, are you familiar with or do you support Pleistocene rewilding? And do you think that would significantly advance the conservation of condors? And she also says, thanks for all you do to conserve these epic dinos. Well, thanks to you, Dot. Boy, so how much time do you have because this issue of rewilding of a lot of thoughts about this and Pleistocene rewilding and all this stuff? Just a heads up. If Pleistocene rewilding sounds like a new beauty routine you don't know about or a synth folk band you've never heard of, I gotcha. So the Pleistocene era started over

two million years ago. It ended about 11,000 years ago. And rewilding means introducing species that flourished before essentially colonization. So for more on this, you can also see the Bisonology episode about buffaloes. Anyway, Jonathan has thoughts. Great ones. European settlers are almost entirely responsible for the sort of conservation crises that we are witnessing in what's now called North America and in large part of the world, right? With European expansion and colonization, you get this massive transformation of human life that exists amongst indigenous people. But you also get this massive transformation of these ecologies. And we never, we meaning researchers who are kind of involved in this conversation, almost never acknowledge

or talk about the restoration of Keystone cultures. Keystone human cultures, right? And so there's a PhD student in my lab who is researching buffalo restoration. Shout out to Meg Davenport. She's studying like, you know, you talk about buffalo restoration, but you know, there are dozens of people, peoples who are intimately tied ecologically and spiritually and, you know, all of these ways in which humans interact to a particular species. We talk about bringing the buffalo back, but it gets contentious because then you have to start talking about why you're bringing the buffalo back and the buffalo back for home. So when you talk about buffalo restoration, you have to talk about restoration of indigenous lands, restoration of indigenous people, and you

have to talk about, you know, the really uncomfortable stuff that settler ecologies are really good at avoiding talking about. And so, you know, I think rewilding has to contend with those two issues, right? Who's responsible? And are we talking about bringing back human cultures? And who's the we and how is that being done? Otherwise, you know, it's just another way of settlers controlling the landscape and championing on indigenous sovereignty and not really taking an ecological approach to the situation, right? Because then you're talking about having to control more land, having to keep certain people out of the land to bring these species back. You're talking about needing authorities to kind of maintain boundaries. And that's really not

something that's really congruent with, you know, trying to restore these ecologies in which, you know, human created boundaries. Oh, that's such a good point. And it's interesting that a lot of times we don't think about how broad and how wide the story of a condor is. It's not about just the birds. It's about the, you know, our entire system of the way that we take land, use land, you know. Exactly. Yeah. And some colleagues of mine are working on publishing a paper and looking at the daily travel distance of condors. And other folks have done this research too, but we've got some really awesome technology, which essentially amounts to strapping a GPS, strapping a cell phone onto a bird, onto a condor and being able to get their

location, their speed, their altitude in like real time, you know, like every second, like data points, like every 10 seconds or every hour, every half hour, every 15 minutes. And so looking at the daily travel distances of condors and these birds cover an incredible distance, we had, we, we tracked one bird that essentially traveled the equivalent length of the state of California north to south in three days. What? It's faster than I can do it in a car. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, it just stupendously fast. And so when you, when you talk about, you know, restoring these birds to the landscape, you're talking about a bird that has the capability of flying across the state border, right? Or, you know, it gets really interesting and really

complex and really uncomfortable when we, when, you know, we start talking about condor restoration on indigenous land. And so the UROC and the Kurok people have a reservation that are currently based in northern California, working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Kandua biologists to kind of help manage a northern California population. And the Nez Perce tribe in what's now Idaho and that region are, are kind of beginning that process of bringing condors back because these birds are really important culturally for them, but it gets really to a contentious point. And it was interesting that one of the condor meetings, I asked a question sort of like in the coffee hour to one of the folks who was organizing it.

And I was just, you know, this question, who owns condors? And it was, it was a tough question. And I meant it to be sort of a tough question. I don't know the answer, right? What happens when condors that are managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or who are managed by the Peregrine Fund or condors from Mexico start crossing the border, right? As they are being, you know, as we hope they, you know, expand their range, well, then we have to have all these difficult conversations about who has jurisdiction, who's responsible, who's going to, you know, look after these birds if they get into trouble, you know, what kind of conditions you cross the border, you know, anywhere outside of California and you don't have lead ammunition legislation.

Right. And so, you know, condor that flies from Los Angeles into, you know, Utah or Arizona or Nevada or wherever gets into trouble in just some lead and then comes back and is sick. Like who you know, who pays for that? Yeah. With a bird that needs treatment. So it's a, it's a lot. Yeah. It's an issue even bigger than their wingspans. If you can imagine that. So Dr. Swift, great questions. And if you would like to hear more about inky birds with great brains and Halloween vibes, definitely check out the Corvid Thanatology episode with Dr. Kaley Swift, which is about crow funerals. Crows have funerals. And it aired around Halloween 2018. So definitely go back and listen if you haven't heard it. Oh, oh, on the

topic of their giant wings. I know a number of folks who have condor wing tattoos. Oh, oh my god. And they are really awesome. Is it a full back tattoo? I mean, you need some real estate for that. Yeah, you do. And, and it's, yeah, it's not, it's not to scale. You have to have like one wing from the bottom of your neck to like the back of your calf. But yeah, shout out to Nick Heinen, Geographer at University of Georgia. And then shout out to Joseph Brandt, whose work with condors in Southern California for most of his career. They both have condor wing tattoos. And so they're kind of smaller on their arms. And they're just like, really awesome. I want to see a picture of it. Of course, I will be finding these Instagrams and reposting the pictures if I

find them. I mean, come on. What is something about condors or your work that sucks? What sucks? Oh, yeah, I've been thinking about this before listening to your show. And I was, what sucks? Well, I will, I will tell you this, the, the scariest I've ever been researching condors, which had nothing directly to do with condors. But a couple of years ago, and that was the day when it was really cold and rainy and we were, we were not prepared for the weather. But what had happened a couple of days before was a giant mountain lion had wandered into the trap. Oh, no. And so, you know, you bait the birds and you have a cow carcass that's there, usually like a stillborn calf. Dr. Hall had taken a few students with him, Evan and Vince. And it

was Vince's first time doing fieldwork. And it was cold and rainy. And a day or two before, the condor bait had lured a mountain lion to the trap. Dr. Hall saw a photo and it was like the, like the most muscly mountain lion I'd ever seen in my life. Like, ugh, it was really bad. So this is before the flight pen had had this big, what I call their Jurassic Park fence around to keep the predators out. So we show up a couple of days later and this mountain lion is like, we don't know. I mean, it's, it's no longer sort of directly in the vicinity, but mountain lion could be just like just over the next hill. There are, there's plenty to eat in that area. And so we're in the barn and the field house is about 300 yards away.

And so Vincent didn't have all he brought with short sleeves and short pants. It's 58 degrees, 56 degrees and raining sideways. And so even in the barn, Vincent is like really cold and he's like, Dr. Hall, I'm really cold. Can I go back to the field house and get like a jacket? And I was like, yes. But nobody could go with him because we were all kind of like busy. And I, you know, I started to hesitate and I'm like, he's, he's like shivering. And so I was like, oh, no, Vince, like he's going to get hypothermia. But I don't want anybody walking around here by the giant mountain lion. Oh my God. That was the longest 30 minutes of my life. Waiting for Vince to come back. And like, like he, he was, he was tired. And so like,

I think he like went to the bathroom and maybe just sort of like hung out because this was his first time in the field. And maybe he was like, I don't want to do this. He's like googling other jobs. But like Vincent is, Vincent took half an hour to come back. And I am, I'm like, oh my God, you know, I bring out this, you know, undergraduate software at the time, bring up this undergraduate student and he gets eaten by mountain lion and Vincent's black. Okay. And so, you know, like we're the only two black people out there. And of course, I'm like, okay, this is like a horror movie. And of course, one of us is going to get eaten first. No. You know, how would it look like, you know, but he eventually makes his way back in one of the one of the field jackets. And I was

just like really glad to see Vince. Shout out to Vincent. If you're out there, hopefully you haven't been eaten by a mountain lion. Seriously. Oh my God. He's got a jacket. The lightning breaker is necessary. What about your favorite thing about your work? I would say my favorite thing about my work is working with students. Yeah. Is working with with young folks and trying to do the same thing that the mentors that I mentioned, you know, the Tom Waits, the Dwayne Jackson's, the Neil Changani's, the Todd Katzner's have done for me. And just giving us an opportunity to explore the world, explore our interests, build skills, and really kind of gain confidence. It's the best part of my job. And particularly when I get to work

with students of color, which is not often and something that I'm really need to do a lot of better job of connecting with other particularly black folks sort of in this realm, which is why, which is why, you know, I'm just so impressed and so thankful. And so in awe of people like, you know, Karina Newsom and Dr. Esther, who's somebody you should, you should definitely talk to. She does incredible work in creating space and so many other people, right? And one of the things I was thinking as I was listening to the Black and Stem episode was I was thinking, and I wanted to say to everybody who was on that, like, if you are looking for postdocs, I'll let you boy. You know, but also just, you know, I look forward to connecting with folks

because it's obviously there's a lot of work to do in the realm of racial diversity within these fields. And working with students and backgrounds that are not represented is just so enriching because we have a lot to contribute. And there's a there's a lot about our experience as Black people and as other people of color that we bring to bear. And, you know, these fields are incredibly white. And, you know, there's nothing sort of inherently wrong with, you know, white people doing this work, but looking at the lack of racial diversity, you know, there's a lack of perspectives and ways of approaching problems and questions that we definitely need to have in order to kind of make things like rewilding not problematic and not replicate, you know, the same

sorts of marginalized environments that that exists. So shout out to all of the people of color, Black folks, especially in these fields and doing what you do. You're an inspiration. And the big reason or the reason why I continue to do what I do. Do you have any words to people who are Black and STEM, who are just coming up that you wish you knew any advice to them? Oh, goodness. That's a whole that's a whole other episode. I think one of the things that has that I've that I've struggled with throughout my career is wondering whether or not I was crazy or wondering whether or not I was insane. Right. For the interest that I had, for the ways that I approach questions,

for the the approaches that I was taking, the things I was interested in, and sort of like once I got into the fields, right, as I've progressed in my career, I've had to kind of create a space, sort of an epistemology or approach to questions that is not really there. I think that I would say to folks, particularly Black folks, in this field is like the way that you are passionate about approaching problems and the way that you are thinking about ways to solve problems. Don't let anybody take that perspective away from you or try to dampen that perspective. And it can happen actively, but it could also just happen by the fact that there's a tremendous pressure within these fields to value knowledge in a particular way.

And it's problematic because of its lack of diversity, diversity of perspectives. And so I would also say to white folks in this field and just sort of white folks in general that it's really important that you know those who are seeking to be accomplices and I like accomplices that term better than allies because allies can be kind of like cheerleading from the sidelines, but they're not actually in the thick of it, right? So you can advocate from the sidelines, but not actually risk anything. And there's a certain safety in that, but I think what folks need is accomplices, people who are willing to put themselves at risk in an equal measure as they can being in their

privileged identities that people who are marginalized do. And I would say that like being an accomplice or being an ally, really there's a tremendous learning that has to happen. Don't ignore and don't push aside the fact that there's just so much about the way in which race functions in our everyday lives that we have to learn before we can be good actors in dismantling it. Being a good advocate, being a good accomplice really starts with that learning and it's intense, but it's necessary. So yeah. That's all such great advice. I think that so many people who maybe don't have mentors like you, that's a really amazing statement too. You're almost acting as a mentor to a lot of people

that you'll never meet, which is really great. Eyes are starting to sweat, Allie. It's true. It's just some more voices. And the more voices that people hear, the more you can see yourself doing something. And yeah, we're definitely not going to dismantle a system that was built by white colonizers by just having people who are descended from white colonizers. That's really eye-opening and really wonderful. Yeah. No, no. And thank you for creating this space. I mean, this is really important. I think that what you have done and what you are doing is just an incredible hub for people to kind of understand these sorts of things. Jonathan also said that one thing he wished he would have learned

earlier that would have saved a lot of energy would have been to not debate and engage with people who think racial injustice or privilege doesn't exist. It would be a lot easier to deal with if I got paid for the labor of racial justice that I'm doing. And that's one thing for administrators who are firm in this idea of legitimacy. It's time to get creative to compensate people of color for doing this work. And we're talking like, we're talking like straight cash homie, like for real. That would go a long way. And so deans and presidents and department chairs and all these folks, we're talking like real meaningful compensation in direct correlation to the ways in which a lot of people say like, oh, we value your input and all this is so amazing

and those are so helpful. And oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. There's an epic freestyle by Black Thought from the Roots. I don't know if you've seen it. No, no. It is seriously one of the most amazing literary feats I've ever seen a human being do. He freestyles for 10 minutes. It's bonkers. He's by far one of my favorite hip hop artists. So Black Thought, if you're listening, like it'd be awesome to connect. But if not, just know I'm a huge fan. But in that, you know, I mean, he's he's he's a brilliant human being in it. One of the lines is, you know, I'm going to say 300K and even in the ballpark, I charge more just for an awkward small talk. And I'm not saying 300K for awkward small talk. But, you know, people in positions of power

who value our work as Black people, who recognize what we're doing and how we are making change in ways that other people who are there cannot do. I just pay us one. Pay us one worth, you know? And just a side note, I love that he raised this point because I've seen a lot of folks online mention that this work is understandably exhausting, especially on top of all the grief and the fear and the anger in the midst of a pandemic and trying to handle workloads on top of being asked to explain how to dismantle systemic racism, of which they are the victim. And just a heads up for the last six months or so, oligies has been paying honorariums to

guests who take on this work and educate us. And I want to thank Patreon for helping make that possible. And if you're out there, no matter who you are, and you're asked to do free labor to educate others based on your lived experience of systemic oppression, ask for honorariums. Certainly say I'd love to consider it depending on my availability. What's the honorarium for this? And then decide after you think about it, just saying, well, Dad Ward and Dr. Jonathan Hall, know you're worth it. Thank you so much for letting me ask you so many stupid questions of all kinds. Yeah, this has been amazing. This has been really awesome. So ask the smart people the goofy and sometimes not so goofy questions and thank them for learning

you something new. I hope you are enjoying the crisp autumn mornings and the leaves rustling and the smell of a distant fireplace and the knowledge that a condor would absolutely find you delicious. Cut banks, texture crush, we're all going to die. You can follow Dr. Jonathan Hall, who I am sure you are already a very big fan of on Twitter and Instagram. His handles are out there, JCH on both. And there will be links to that in the show note alongside a link to his website and more. And we are at oligies on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at Allie Ward with 1L on both. So do say hello there. More links for this entire episode will be up at alleyward.com slash oligies slash condorology. If you would like t-shirts or mugs or warm hats or blankets or

any of these things, you can go to oligiesmerch.com. Tons of stuff is up there. Thank you, Shannon Feltas and Bonnie Dutch. They host the podcast, You Are That, which is hilarious. So do find that. Thank you, Erin Talbert. She admins the oligies podcast Facebook group. Thank you to Emily White and her team of transcribers who are awesome and are getting transcripts up available to our deaf and hard of hearing oligites. And anyone who would just like a free transcript, those are up at alleyward.com slash oligies dash extras. Thank you all the folks at patreon.com slash oligies for making all these perks possible. Thank you to Grimmy, who is walking through the room and who will not be edited out. Nothing's perfect. She's digging around the bed. Thank you to Caleb Patton,

who bleeps those episodes, making them kid-friendly. Those are up at alleyward.com slash oligies dash extras. Thank you to Noel Dilworth, who schedules the oligies and helps me stay on top of my own schedule. Thank you to editors Jared Sleeper and of course, Stephen Ray Morris, who are some of the biggest badass birds in the biz. I usually have notes and a list of who I think at the end of this, and I don't today, and I'm just loosey-goosey. Nick Thorburn wrote the music and performed it, and if you listen to the very, very end of the episode, you know I tell you a secret. And this week's secret is I did one of those footpeels where like you put your foot in an acid bath and then like four days later, your skin's supposed to fall off. And it's been day four

and so far nothing's happening. And I'm worried that like my feet are so calloused and nasty that it's just no match for it. I might have to use some condor stomach juices next. Anyway, remember to vote because honestly November 3rd is the scariest thing about October. But either way, we'll be back next week with another Spooktober episode. Oh, it's so good. Okay, bye-bye. Condos.