The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Beastly: The 40,000-Year Story of Animals and Us by Keggie Carew

Episode Date: July 31, 2023

Beastly: The 40,000-Year Story of Animals and Us by Keggie Carew https://amzn.to/3Yc7sec From an award-winning nature writer, true stories of our shared planet, all its inhabitants, and the fascinating ways they connect in the net of life Animals have shaped our minds, our lives, our land, and our civilization. Humanity would not have gotten very far without them—making use of their labor for transportation, agriculture, and pollination; their protection from predators; and their bodies for food and to make clothing, music, and art. And over the last two centuries, humans have made unprecedented advances in science, technology, behavior, and beliefs. Yet how is it that we continue to destroy the animal world and lump its magnificence under the sterile concept of biodiversity? In Beastly, author Keggie Carew seeks to re-enchant readers with the wild world, reframing our understanding of what it is like to be an animal and what our role is as humans. She throws readers headlong into the mind-blowing, heart-thumping, glittering pageant of life, and goes in search of our most revealing encounters with the animal world throughout the centuries. How did we domesticate animals and why did we choose sheep, goats, cows, pigs, horses, and chickens? What does it mean when a gorilla tells a joke or a fish thinks? Why does a wren sing? Beastly is a gorgeously written, deeply researched, and intensely felt journey into the splendor and genius of animals and the long, complicated story of our interactions with them as humans. About the Author Keggie is the author of DADLAND which won the 2016 COSTA biography award. Before writing, her career was in contemporary art. Keggie was born in Gibraltar and has lived in West Cork, Barcelona, Texas, Auckland, and London. She now lives in Wiltshire with her husband where they have a small nature reserve. QUICKSAND TALES was published by Canongate in 2019, "a tonic for the tortured and cursed" Joshua Ferris

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends. We certainly appreciate you guys coming by.

What would we do without you folks? We'd just be sitting here talking to a mic and talking to ourselves, which is pretty much any time on a Sunday night where I'm just sitting there drilling out the side of my mouth, talking to myself, and then the order of the leagues come by and give me my medicines. So welcome to the show. As always, we refer the show to your family, friends, and relatives. Go to goodreads.com for Chess Chris Voss. YouTube.com for Chess Chris V good good reach.com for chest chris foss youtube.com for chest chris foss linkedin.com for chest chris foss all those crazy places on the internet there's a there's a me that my particular version of chris

foss um today we have an amazing author on the show and gosh darn it do we always have the smartest authors on the show the most brilliant people uh We've had smart discussions all week. I've learned so much. And I've learned so much that there's a glow to me. And it could be from watching Oppenheimer, the nuclear movie, or it could be just from learning so much. Anyway, she is the author of the newest book that just came out, July 18th, 2023, Beastly. Is it a story about me?

No, it sounds like something my ex-girlfriends have called me no i'm just kidding let's restart that beastly this i'm sorry her book is called beastly the 40 000 year story of animals and us came out july 18th 2023 kegi crew joins us on the crew today and she's gonna be talking to us about her latest book she is the author of dad land uh which won the 2016 costa biography award before writing her career was in contemporary art she was born in gibraltar and lived in west cork barcel, Texas, Auckland, and London. How'd she get Texas in there? That's weird. She now lives in Wiltshire with her husband, and they have a small nature reserve. Quicksand Tales was published by Canagate in 2018.

The tonic for the tortured and cursed, Joshua Ferris, according to him. Welcome to the show, Keggy. How are you? I'm very well. Thanks for having me. There you go. And is that a quote from Joshua Ferris or were you referring to him? No, no.

It was a quote. When he read Quicksand Tales, that's what he wrote about. Oh, okay. All right. I wasn't sure if you were accusing him of something. No. Welcome to the show. Congratulations. Give us a.com.

Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs, please? I'm Keggy Carew, K-E-G-G-I-E-C-A-R-E-W.co.uk. That's my website. And I'm on Twitter as Keggy C, at Keggy C. And I'm on Instagram. And I'm not very good on Instagram. I've only just started that but i am on twitter so there you go easy i'm easy to find with the net with my name i'm very easy to

find there you go and i'm sure people are asking where the name keggy came from i was referred to as keggy in college but that was because i was the guy who knew how to open up the kegs for the pump uh so where does that originate from well it comes from my my brother i blame my brother i was born in gibraltar uh we had a spanish uh nanny my dad was in the army um and um yeah they just seemed to between them call me kegi and i had never been able to get rid of it so this is the first time i ever heard of a brother naming a thing where your parents are just lazy? Yeah, very lazy. Yeah, really lazy.

Very, very. Yeah, we had a terrible child. Like at the birth, they're like, doctors, what do you want to name the baby? I don't know. Let that kid choose. Yeah, the one. Yeah. Well, it could have been worse, I suppose, then.

Really? I mean, it's not bad. I don't mean to imply that that but you could have been named like a four-letter expletive and then you wouldn't you walked around it rhymes with leggy there you go there you go well it's hard to forget then uh so you've written your latest book here beastly and evidently it's not about me uh from what my ex-girlfriends call me but uh tell us about what this story is, the 40,000 year story of animals and us. Yeah, so Beastly is like the 40,000 year story of our changing kinship with the animal world. And so that's from with the, you know, the smallest, the smallest microbe to the largest animal that ever lived and that's from you know literally the cave painting

cave painters at the birth of human culture to now and um so i it travels through it you know i explore the relationship through history uh science culture and the most incredibly inspiring examples of humans that have stepped closely into animal worlds and so we go you know we literally go from cave painters and hunter gatherers to farming to domestication from uh we go from god to science. We go through all sorts of misunderstandings, how language shapes the way we think about animals, all sorts of mistakes that we've made along the way, all sorts of extraordinary discoveries. Like, you know, for instance, we go, I mean, we might start,

the moment we moved into cities, for instance, we go, I mean, we might start, the moment we moved into cities, for instance, we start breaking the cycle of fertility. And that story goes from sort of Karl Marx on the banks of the Thames, horrified at all the pollution, to herring off to the Ginger Islands and sort of taking all the guano to commandeering johnston atoll and turning the wildlife atoll into a nuclear testing ground so that it's full of fascinating stories also revealing stories which tell about our relationship with the animal world. And I mean, basically, it teaches us also about the ecological roles of animals, which is so important, and which, you know, shockingly,

so many of us don't understand. And how they are really the key to the planet's health. And how, basically, if we understood all this, they might save us if we would save them first. So that's in a nutshell. Now, does the book start out with that snake and those two naked people and the apple and stuff? Is that where it all starts? I'm an atheist, so I'm telling a joke. Yeah, yeah.

No, the book actually doesn't start there. The book starts before then. And in fact, it's really interesting that Aristotle, 350 years before BC, right, what I found absolutely incredible was that Aristotle observed, he's almost the first zoologist, and he observed the octopus's sperm-presenting arm, right? The octopus has an arm that actually literally hands over a packet of sperm to the female. Wow.

Yeah. So Aristotle, in 350 BC, just observed that. What was he doing to observe that, is my question. He was wading around the Greek lakes looking at sea creatures. Is this an OnlyFans channel or something? I don't know. Yeah, and asking fishermen to bring in specimens and really, really looking at the natural world, like really, really looking at it. a 2000 year absolute status of you know when religion basically stepped in and used creatures as sort of moral ciphers for good and evil and you know so 2000 years later after that observation

Eric Topsall wrote this book called Four-Footed Beasts and he divided creatures this is in 1607, divided creatures into three categories, tame and wild, edible and inedible, and useful and useless. So, you know, I mean. Those are all categories that my ex-girlfriends that also called me beastly refer to me and put me in. Right, well, she should read the history of forfeited beasts. Maybe that would help that just throw it at me um so this is really interesting uh my biggest question is you know the book purports to be uh the four thousand forty thousand year story but it's only 384 pages like how'd you get all that in there yeah well yeah i mean you know's story. I didn't say it's all the stories.

Oh, okay. But it's a hell of a lot of them. There you go. An awful lot. At least 384. Huh? 384. So how did you decide what were the stories to tell that were most important?

Okay, so the stories that were the most revealing about paradox of our relationship, the stories that were the most fascinating, the of our relationship the stories that were the most fascinating the most you know mind-blowing i mean animal animal world is a pretty mind-blowing place to be um so like for instance okay a couple of stories to show how how we underestimate animals and how intelligent they are so from the the smallest, you know, smallest little creature to the big intelligent creature, I'll give you two stories. So Dichrocoles mites, so they're parasites that live in a Noctuides moth's ear, right?

So they're parasites and they, to live in the ear, they break the tympanic membrane. But the brilliant extraordinary thing about these parasites are that they will occupy only one ear of the moth because if they break both ears, the moth can't hear and so it can't hear echolocation of the bats. So bats would eat the moth and that wouldn't be very good for the parasitic mites, right?

Wow. So the parasitic mites right wow so the parasitic mites send scouts they send scouts to the other ear to bring back any wayfarers so if any little parasites wander off to the other ear the the the paras the um the dichrocolies mites bring them back to the other ear and they never, ever infect both ears. That's, that's parasite intelligence. Right? You just get like a megaphone.

Hey, don't go over the other ear. Hey. Absolutely. I mean, it's just an incredible thing. So that went in the book because I thought that that was a very, very interesting thing.

Megaphone might be more incredible. Maybe humans could learn a thing or two from these, these parasites. Yeah. Cause I think they have small arms too. So it would be hard to hold it, but it would be neat. Yes. Hi, folks.

Chris Voss here with a little station break. Hope you're enjoying the show so far. We'll resume here in a second. I'd like to invite you to come to my coaching, speaking, and training courses website. You can also see our new podcast over there at chrisvossleadershipinstitute.com. Over there, you can find all the different stuff that we do for speaking engagements, if you'd like to hire me, training courses that we offer, and coaching for leadership, management, entrepreneurism, podcasting, corporate stuff. With over 35 years of experience in business and running companies as CEO.

And be sure to check out chrisfossleadershipinstitute.com. Now back to the show. And do you talk about how this developed or why this developed, so many things developed in that way? What do you mean? Well, I do. Yeah. I mean, you know, well, that's evolution.

I mean, they're not going to survive. I mean, the incredible thing is that, you is that you know you me that fly buzzing around the studio the spider in the corner of this this old room yeah so we are that we are a 3.8 billion year line of unbroken chain of success so that's why we exist so that's still time so that incredibly long chain has been refining and refining and refining and um yeah those parasites wouldn't be around if the moth you know was flying around um without being able to hear the um bats like an echo location so it just wouldn't last so yeah so I do I do go into all those things I do I do explain how nature functions and I do use some fantastic stories to explain that

because it it completely blew my mind that there are so many brilliantly educated people out there that really haven't a clue about the animal world and um I've seen a few of them. Yeah, but it's worrying, Chris. I mean, it's very worrying because, for me, animals are really the key to the planet's health. And in all the talk of climate change and all the disasters, you know, that are constantly coming at us in in the news every day animals just like a wild world is like an adjunct by it's the adjunct biodiversity right so by biodiversity is usually just tacked on and just even the word is a problem it's like um i've i

call it like a soap powder biodiversity it you can't imagine what that is and what it is is all of life and all of life you know the animals are the maintenance crew to all our eco all our living systems you know they they literally garden the blue and the green planet and we're wiping them out, you know, and we're wiping out our future by doing that. And so it seemed to me that I, you know, I took it upon myself to inform humanity about the incredible, you know, incredible importance of animals to up for our survival and also just the extraordinary that mysterious that's them they're mysterious selves you know so hopefully uh we need to start caring about them

we do because some of those animals taste really good so i know they do and that's half the problem we have to do the jokes and and the lettuce is good too i'm a big fan of of lettuce and broccoli and and all that stuff too but you know evidently that's a living organism as well um but uh so you bring us back to reminding us that uh you know everything's kind of important we hang in the balance as a planet um you know as a subsystem or a system of, you know, everybody, you know, I eat the cow, you know, I have a dog, it chases the cat, the cat chases the mouse, that sort of thing, basically. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I mean, everything is connected, you know, like we are all connected. That's what I was trying to say. Yeah, but more than the fact more than the fact that your cat chases the dog or the other way around but we are all reliant all species are reliant on other species and um i mean you know take take the whale let's let's have a look at the greatest animal that ever lived. That had an enormous impact on climate, you know, before whaling began because their numbers were so huge. And each great whale would defecate 50 tonnes of iron-rich, you know,

iron-rich iron, sorry, iron on the surface, you know, to fertilise the phytoplankton a phytoplankton um you know that uh sequesters that takes in at least half the carbon dioxide and gives half our oxygen and the whales uh the phytoplankton feeds all the whole of the marine system so whales are known as the whale pump. So they're just a massively ecologically important creature. So I'm basically breathing whale shit? Well, we're all breathing everything.

I mean, you know, like this is massive. Everything's just changing into everything else. That's true. And yeah, so I'm not sure about whether you're breathing well shit, but. Well, I mean, through,

through the whole system because they poop in the thing and then there's a reef and then it turns to oxygen and the carbonation and it goes in there. Yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and the. I read the book. Did you?

Yeah, it's all, it's all, it's all big, what you said earlier, you know, without, without well if we start eliminating certain parts of this place although i don't know people always say to me they go chris we need world peace and i'm like you know how you achieve world peace don't you and they go what i'm gonna kill all the humans everybody get along fine after that um we seem to be the the continual problem on that in fact i've seen open hyra i'm not

sure that you know this might be the last issue of the book i'm not sure there'll be a beastly part two i mean you know i'm that i'm the generation that was terrified of nuclear um yeah bombs you know like we were both under desks okay cowering from the Russians. Yeah. I went to bed as a 15-year-old, really scared, wondering whether somebody's going to put their finger on the button. Every night for a long time, I remember. And that's still there. That threat is still there. But the threat that we have today is, well, look at the fires,

look at the crazy temperatures going on everywhere. I mean, you know, suddenly, as Antonio Guterres said yesterday, it's climate boiling, not climate change. It's climate boiling. So, you know, we need to step up, like, really, really fast. We're way too slow. We're dawdling. We're going to miss the train, and there's only one one train and it seems like we're kind of behind the train you know we've heard for

you know a lot of years about it's gonna get bad and then all of a sudden this year what is it like the hottest it's ever been in 122 000 or 22 000 years something like that yeah yeah and we are behind the train so we really really got to speed up and but you know there are things there are fantastic i mean this is one of the reasons i get i get really frustrated you know about when you listen to the news and we do have um you know when we're talking about technology you know we are going to need lots of technology but um the technology there's no technology out there that works at scale you know there's but um the technology there's no technology out there that works at scale you know there's there's proto technology there's all sorts of technology with

you know that is a bit unreliable um and with its own possible consequences but we do have you know we do have habitats that we could restore and um reboot ecological habitats it could just do an enormous amount and at huge scale and it is frustrating that people forget the absolute importance of um you know the wild world what it can do it cleans the water i mean if you look at all the aerial shots lately of north america that has been burnt right it's completely black they're these green ribbons that run through it beavers that's beavers beavers hydrology of the land recreating it as a sponge and trapping the water so you know there are some fantastic uh fixes out there uh we just have to give you know, there are some fantastic fixes out there. We just have to give, you know, animals need what we need, space, food,

shelter, mates, and we need to give it to them. There you go. So what's going to happen when chat GPT and AI replaces humans and animals? What's it going to be like then? Well, you know, maybe better. I don't know. I mean, you know. we'd have clean air it'd be like when it's like during covid how you know the environment cleaned up a little bit in cities and stuff because no one's driving around yeah yeah i mean you know it's a bit

sort of franken you know a beautiful frankenstein story maybe it's just about around the corner who knows i'm surprised it's not here yet, but there's still time. So there we go. So what do you hope people come away with on your book? What do you hope that they walk away with going, holy crap? I want people, I really, really want people to understand not only the importance of animals' ecological roles, but their incredible abilities and intelligence and

just to be aware you know like this happens in small you know small in small ways and in big ways you know we need some big things to happen but you know even small even small ways you know you chop you cut down your the bush outside well a whole load of sparrows okay i know sparrows don't live over there but they live over here and we nearly lost them you know there's a really really very few of them here now but you chop that bush down and that's actually not just a view it's a whole load of creatures homes and if we could if we understood animals better we would think about them better we would think about them in a in a much more intelligent way and understand them and we wouldn't do so much damage as we do so you know

i would like us to be a lot more aware of you know the their importance uh understand how nature functions um and just come away with some fabulously interesting stories and just, you know, be amazed. There you go. Well, I'm going to go like more animals on Facebook and like their posts. Support them in that. I don't know if that's the proper way to do it. But no, this has been really insightful.

And no, it's important that we understand our nature and our balance, right? And, you know, even though we think we're top dog in the universe, who knows, the aliens could be top dog. I don't know, the spiders are making inroads. Yeah, I mean, we're definitely not top dog. I mean, we're unlikely to be the ones that survive at the end of this. You know, cockroaches, rats, maybe. We should be careful.

Cockroaches and U.S. House members, from what I understand, in the Congress will survive a nuclear war. So there you go. Well, it's been wonderful to be on the show, Keggy, and exciting to see your book get launched and hopefully everyone will read it and understand how important this is.

Because, you know, we all need to live together on this planet with the fellow animals. Because if we don't, like they might eat us. They don't want that. Well, it's, you know, it's the planet's other inhabitants. You know, like we're not the only ones. There are a whole load of other inhabitants. Wait, there's other people? They are so, so important.

You know, if you don't have a few insects flying around, you're not going to be eating anything. There's going to be no pollinators, you know, nothing to recycle anything. I mean, we're going to be stuffed. So we should take note. Yeah, there you go. Well, thank you for coming on. Give us your.com so we can find you on the interwebs, please.

It's keggykuru, K-E-G-G-I-e-c-a-r-e-w dot co dot uk although if you put in dot com I'm sure that will get you there eventually or at keggyc there you go well thank you very much for coming to the show we really appreciate it thanks to Manas for tuning in go to goodreads.com, fortuneschrissfoss

linkedin.com, fortuneschrissfoss and youtube.com, fortuneschrissfoss and all those crazy places on the internet. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time. Thank you.