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So, folks, you know the drill.

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This is Conservation and Science podcast, where we take a deep dive
into topics of ecology, conservation, and human wildlife interactions.

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And I'm Tommy Serafinski and I always try to bring you diverse
perspectives and diverse opinions on the topics that I cover.

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And that means that sometimes you might disagree
with, views and opinions you hear on this podcast.

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But that's okay, because we need more dialog
and understanding and less division and fighting.

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And today we continuing with a topic
that sparks particularly a lot of emotions

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and may be divisive, divisive,
and that is the coexistence with large carnivores.

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And last week in the last episode, which is two weeks ago,
we talked about living with Lynx.

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And today we are going to talk specifically about wolves.

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And our guest is the author of the book living with Wolves.

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Here's a chapter is,

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cover ecological anthropologist and field philosopher Thorsten Gieser.

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Thorsten, welcome back to the show.

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Yeah, thanks for having me once again.

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I'm happy to be here and talk about the new topic.

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That's a that's absolute pleasure.

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And, folks, you might not know Thorsten was our guest in episode 195,

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where we talked about environmental stewardship in and hunting

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or whether hunting can or cannot, 
foster that environmental stewardship.

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And at the time, we I think it was after we finished recording,
we start talking about wolves and they said like,

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hey, I have a book about wolves
living with wolves, affects feelings and sentiments

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in human wolf coexistence and Fox as usual, the link to the book
is in the description of the show, and you can get it there.

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And if you get it there, through those links,
you will support my work, because I will get it.

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See commission from every sale.

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So, Thorsten.

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Wolves. And this is where it all started last time.

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The wolves are very special.

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So not maybe, in my opinion, ecologically, because, Well,

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lynx bear, these are large carnivores that we deal with in the,
in the European specifically context also North America.

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And but wolves have a special place not only ecologically

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but mythologically psychologically, emotionally in humans.

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And I guess this is one of the things that you're dealing with.

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Your book,
you took the, approach and you're talking about affective dimensions.

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Could you please lay it out to us like,
what is this angle that you took in your book?

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Because you spend a lot of time
explaining your methodology in a book and so on.

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Yeah.

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So I call it the affective dimension of the human wolf relationship.

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I could have perhaps opted for the more,
the easier version of kind of understanding emotions in coexistence.

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But the problem with emotions is when we think about emotions,
we already have this psychological conception of emotion in our heads.

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So we're seeing something, about emotions
as something that is kind of deeply inside of us as individuals.

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And this is kind of it's, of course,
kind of how we understand emotions usually.

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But it's also, for me, coming from the humanities, it's only one side
of, of what emotions are about.

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And there's actually so much more going on about emotions.

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So it's not just about, something that goes on deep inside of us
and as individuals, but, it's also something that is in between us.

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Yeah, in between us as human beings.

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So there's a social dimension to, to emotions and it's, 
something that happens in all our relationships,

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even our relationship to landscape, to our own land, relationship
with different kinds of animals.

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So, so basically, it's it's

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something that that kind of defines and emerges
out of relationships, basically.

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And it's also not just individual
and not just between kind of two beings, but it's also something

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that can take on another dimension when when there's something
forming, like, what we would call a mood or an atmosphere.

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Yeah.

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So something that goes beyond us as individuals,

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something that kind of is seeping through the landscape
and and so on, and giving everything a kind of emotional tone.

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Yeah. It's just like when we go to a party
and we say, oh, that's a really good mood in here. Yeah.

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So there's something happening,
just not just inside people, but also amongst them.

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Yeah. And and this is for me what, what it means kind of to coexist.

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It's also sharing an emotional landscape
in some way and of different kinds of emotion.

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Interacting with each other, mixing with each other,
sometimes contradicting each other, challenging each other.

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So there's there's a whole lot of emotional dynamics
going on all around us.

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Yeah. And this is what we need to consider actually,
when we talk about coexistence.

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Yeah.

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It's not just this pragmatic questions of, how to protect herds.

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Or how to maintain, certain population size of the practice,

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or even about kind of all this cultural baggage that we have
that you mentioned in the beginning.

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Yeah.

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So there's so much more going on, which is a real dynamic.

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And, by choosing this word affect,

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it's it's a kind of a term that includes all these different dimensions.

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And also, more importantly, when we talk about ethics, kind of in,

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in the humanities and social sciences,
we usually means something that affects us.

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So it's a kind of a force. Something going on? Yeah.

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So like you, you see a wolf and something in you response.

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Yeah. So this is what it means to be fact. Yeah.

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So you have a response so that this could be just kind of
a tingling of your hair getting goosebumps.

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Yeah. It could, it could be kind of a feeling in your stomach.

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Or it could be kind of that what we understand
then as a fully formed emotion, which is kind of we're fascinated

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or we are perhaps a bit scared. Yeah.
So this is what it means to be affected.

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And this is the starting point where emotions begin to form and,
and to develop, and to do something.

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So that we have to respond to.

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Yeah, there's many things because like what you're said
is people often say, talk about links, right?

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It's always great to have links and knowing it's there,
even though I will never see the links,

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surely, because they're so secretive and so on.

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So I guess this is what you're talking about, this emotional thing.

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Just no, they are there and this is coming up, quite often.

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Or like you said, ethical aspects.

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You know, some people in Ireland argue
that bringing back wolves to Ireland would be

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an act of decolonization, because that was British
who killed all the wolves and so on and so forth.

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But I feel like

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in case of wolves, that

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is just to the detriment of the animal and of the relation,
because I think that these effects, these emotion or landscapes

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are making that coexistence
so much more difficult in terms of, of wolves.

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Would you agree with that?

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And why is that, that wolves are so special for us?

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Well, I would say they're kind of two sides to that question.

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The one side is, kind of the the effects
that come from the wolves directly and from us interacting with wolves.

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And the other side is what's going on between us humans within society,
between different groups, between different stakeholders,

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and what is so typical about wolves and less so about other animals
like lynx, is that, it's really mixed up these two levels.

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Yeah.

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And the problem that I addressed in my book that I identified is that in
in the literature, we really separated out these two dimensions.

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There.

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And so we have kind of ecologists, we have natural scientists
working on the real animal and everything to do with that.

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And we have to social scientists, on the other hand,
working with the so-called human.

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Yeah.

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And the, the, the presumption behind
that is basically that kind of the real wolves.

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They don't matter for what's going on in our society.

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Yeah. It's basically only what the wolf represents.

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Yeah.

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As in terms of symbolism of the stories or narratives that, that we
what that we tell kind of the,

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the cultural, context, 
and that all that can be separated from what wolves actually do.

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But of course, everyone who knows wolves
and when I was coexistence knows that, you can't separate it out.

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It's, it's a web of relationships. Yeah.

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So in coexistence, we are all in there together.

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Yeah, it's it's not like what you also mentioned in
in your last conversation with John, your handsome.

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It's not this old view that we have of that wild animals.

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Somewhere else in wilderness that is separate from where humans dwell.

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But actually coexistence means we are all in it together somehow. Yeah.

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Where we're living, you call it living together
or living alongside or living next to each other.

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But basically, it's about relationships.

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So we have to take both of these sides into account. Yeah.

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And then of course, the there are some problems why wolves are special
and that the one is kind of from our historical baggage.

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So with that,

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that we just we have this centuries of continued.

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I would even call it warfare with wolves.

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So this X extinction, campaign that we had in many parts of Europe,

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you just mentioned what happened in Ireland, but it's also happened
in other parts of Europe as part of a of a nation building

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and the, the part of, civilization building, in part
also as a longer,

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Christianization process,
where the, the wolf had a very negative image.

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So we have all that negative image, of the wolves,
in many European countries, and only in the 20th century,

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probably in the second half only we have this new understanding
of a positive wilderness and of positive wild animals.

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I mean, kind of the, the new ideas of how we relate to nature,

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which you find underlying
conservation, rewilding movements and so on and so on.

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So, so this is the reason and of course, this is still active.
It's still there. We we have both now.

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We have both kind of this positive understanding in most European
countries of, a wilderness and wild animals such as wolves.

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But we also have this older notions which kind of this typical
view of that humans are kind of in power and, and they are

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the ones, were supposed to bring order to, to natural processes,
especially when it comes to regional and local levels.

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Yeah.

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So it's, it's humans that, that actually are
the ones who were supposed to be, in power over wild animals.

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So these are still that, but the other thing is
that the wolves themselves, they also play a role in, in these images.

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So they this images of the wolf and also the,
the negative images of wolves, they don't come from nowhere.

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They they don't come out of the blue.

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They, they have a basis in wolf behavior too.

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Yeah. Of course not. Not in every dimension.

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But there is a, a core about what wolves do
and how they live, and especially how they hunt and kill,

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which makes them really special and stand out. Yeah.

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So if you know how wolves kill and also kind of other kind, it's
basically, it's sometimes not really nice.

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Yeah. That the way they hunt and kill can appear cruel to us. Yeah.

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And especially when it comes to to surplus killing, so when, when
wolves kill more than they could actually eat in that particular moment.

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So when they kill 20,000 sheep in one night, for example.

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So, so there is a basis for seeing them as, as cruel animals
who seem to kill more than they actually need,

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which could seem unnatural, even and kind of these two levels,
they seem to mix all the time,

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not so much in places like Ireland and or the UK, where,
where the wolves are extinct now for for quite a long time.

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You just basically you have two stories from somewhere else, but,
and it was the same in Germany until the year 2000.

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We just have two stories about wolves from far away.

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But now people living in the countryside where the wolves are,
they know this.

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They have this experience of how it is like,

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what it is like when wolves go hunting sheep
and when they kill them, when they encounter them and so on.

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And these new experiences with wolves, they become mixed up
with these more traditional stories that you know about wolves,

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but also become a mixed up what you know from science
and from sight, from documentaries and so on.

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So it's in Germany.

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We're living at a time now, in the past
25 years, where all these things become mixed up.

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Now people gain experiential knowledge of wolves for the
very first time, but it's still at the very beginning of coexistence.

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And this is kind of what is so difficult,
why there's such a dynamic and, and this is also why it is so emotional.

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Yeah. Because everything is new.
Everything is in movement, everything is changing.

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And that, of course, causes a lot of uncertainty.

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And this is the time where emotions, boil over.

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Yeah.

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And people usually don't like change, especially
if the change is perceived as a, as a negative, as a negative one.

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You have in your book a lot of very hands
on, let's say, stories and experiences and I one that

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I remember, very, very vividly is when you were on the kill side
with, with the wolf kill expert

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and I, I took from, from the, the descriptions that the,

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the, the atmosphere, which is something that you're talking about,
your book, the atmosphere here was very tense.

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Could you, could you tell us, like how how this, you know,
like, I'm, I'm curious to hear that first, first hand, you know,

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what was in the air when you guys showed up there?

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Yeah.

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I mean, the the context in which I bring this story is, 
it's basically kind of a discussion of this claim that you often hear

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that people in the countryside, when wolves have returned that day,
you have to live in fear.

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It's something that that you hear all over the place,
not just in Germany, but, up to the United States everywhere.

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And I wanted to understand a little bit more what what

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that might mean, actually, to to live in fear
when when you live in wolves territory and kind of

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maybe the events that most emblematic Lee, stand for this fear
is actually the kill sites, of domestic animals, mostly off of sheep.

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So I accompanied, one of the,
the wolf management's, official experts to to decide, she,

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she got a phone call early in the morning
that there was a, wolf attack on sheep and that the thing was,

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it was the third attack,
within three months on that same flock, of that same shepherd.

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And in the first one,
he had already lost more than 30 sheep in one night.

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So we were called to M and, he was in, in one of these villages

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where, where the there were there were a lot of attacks for, for what?

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And five years now, it was the home of the so-called horse and top pack.

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And, with quite a famous wolf.

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They, they, they were quite a notorious pack, for killing sheep.

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And they were it was kind of the center
also of some kind of resistance growing, for wolves.

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So we we knew that it was,

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really hot area.

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And in terms of the politics that went on and of feeling,
kind of arising on, on,

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and on the previous, on the, on previous occasion that the same expert,
she was there and, and she was,

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she was kind of verbally attacked by, by people standing there
because kind of she represented wolf management

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and people were really angry, because nothing happened
and the wolves could continue attacking sheep and so on.

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And this was kind of the context.
And this is why it was a little bit tense from the very beginning.

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So it was this atmosphere of stay.

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They are situated within a whole process space.

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There's much that that comes from past events and encounters.

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And this already gave a certain emotional tone to what was happening
right there on this day.

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So we we arrived there and we were greeted by the,
the wife of the, of the shepherd.

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And, she took us to, to the meadow.

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And before we went there,
there was already kind of a, a cage standing there with a wounded sheep

206
00:19:08,600 --> 00:19:14,600
that had some of his flesh torn away from, 
one of his hind legs just standing there

207
00:19:14,600 --> 00:19:20,200
empathically, just not doing anything, just standing there,
but kind of all of this wound.

208
00:19:20,200 --> 00:19:25,800
And and then we were going into the meadow and,
there was kind of the surviving sheep.

209
00:19:25,800 --> 00:19:29,320
They were all kind of huddled together, standing kind of at the end.

210
00:19:29,320 --> 00:19:35,040
And there was one of the sheep dogs kind of running around
and then kind of chasing away a few ravens

211
00:19:35,040 --> 00:19:40,600
that were kind of feasting on, one of the corpses.
How long after the attack you guys arrived there?

212
00:19:40,600 --> 00:19:45,800
I was just kind of four hours or so after the attack. Okay? Okay. Yeah.

213
00:19:45,800 --> 00:19:50,920
So we just walked around the meadow. I'm trying to get a sense
what actually the situation is.

214
00:19:50,920 --> 00:19:53,840
And and seeing how many sheep there are.

215
00:19:53,840 --> 00:19:58,840
So we we found a few parsley eating sheep lying around.

216
00:19:58,840 --> 00:20:06,720
We we saw kind of the bloody entrails
kind of crisscrossing over the meadow, bits of wool lining everywhere.

217
00:20:06,720 --> 00:20:14,120
There was it already began to, to stink a little bit to carcasses
and kind of the flies, circling around it.

218
00:20:14,480 --> 00:20:18,560
There was a dead sheep lying in a stream right next to it.

219
00:20:18,560 --> 00:20:22,960
And yeah, we were walking with the wife of the shepherd,
and she was really quiet.

220
00:20:22,960 --> 00:20:24,560
Didn't say a lot.

221
00:20:24,560 --> 00:20:33,360
Then her husband came in, he just got, a kind of a small machine to
to get to pick up the carcasses and remove them.

222
00:20:33,680 --> 00:20:38,240
And he was the same, really. Kind of taciturn, hardly saying anything.

223
00:20:38,240 --> 00:20:42,040
And, there was this kind of sense of hopelessness.

224
00:20:42,040 --> 00:20:45,840
Powerlessness. It's just kind of why why does this happen?

225
00:20:45,840 --> 00:20:46,560
Yeah.

226
00:20:46,560 --> 00:20:56,640
And the, the experts kind of started kind of,
measuring me, teeth marks and taking swaps and everything.

227
00:20:57,280 --> 00:21:07,960
And that bit were what, what really is what we couldn't understand
is when, when we kind of walked around there is that, that we saw. Yes.

228
00:21:07,960 --> 00:21:16,680
There was an electric fence on there, but the whole side of the street,
more than 100m, basically, wasn't fenced at all.

229
00:21:17,280 --> 00:21:17,800
Yeah.

230
00:21:17,800 --> 00:21:21,160
And it was a really small stream, just kind of 2 or 3m.

231
00:21:21,160 --> 00:21:24,480
So, and there was no fence at all.

232
00:21:24,480 --> 00:21:28,800
And it was the third time, the third attack in three months.

233
00:21:28,800 --> 00:21:34,920
And you have had wolf attacks, in this village
for more than five years.

234
00:21:35,480 --> 00:21:36,000
Yeah.

235
00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:40,680
And we knew he wouldn't get compensation
without a proper fence there. Yeah.

236
00:21:40,680 --> 00:21:42,440
And when I asked him, he was like,

237
00:21:43,560 --> 00:21:44,640
even with a fence.

238
00:21:44,640 --> 00:21:46,000
What's the difference? Yeah.

239
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:53,800
My neighbor over there, he had an attack last week,
and he had a fence, so, but but you wouldn't get compensation.

240
00:21:56,080 --> 00:21:57,640
Yeah. Shrugged his shoulders.

241
00:21:57,640 --> 00:21:58,720
Was was nothing. Yeah.

242
00:21:58,720 --> 00:22:03,840
It was like, Also, he gave up, a few months after that,

243
00:22:03,840 --> 00:22:06,720
stopped where we were with sheep.

244
00:22:06,720 --> 00:22:16,520
So so then there was kind of this this really just a sense of really
hopelessness, in there, the sheep where we're still really scared.

245
00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:19,800
Then there were kind of people, neighbors from the village

246
00:22:19,800 --> 00:22:25,800
coming in, when they saw us getting around them,
when they saw the big call from the wolf management.

247
00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:30,840
So there he started talking with the shepherds that were kind of,

248
00:22:30,840 --> 00:22:37,880
a young father coming in with a small kid,
and they were looking at everything, and, and so, I mean,

249
00:22:37,880 --> 00:22:43,880
the more and more people were coming, and then you could kind of sense
that it might get a little bit difficult.

250
00:22:44,600 --> 00:22:51,240
So we, we tried to grab up and, and, drive off again, 
as soon as all the paperwork was with them.

251
00:22:51,960 --> 00:22:53,040
Yeah.

252
00:22:53,040 --> 00:23:01,800
So, so this is kind of that was kind of a typical event,
when you go to, to some of these sites, I went to others as well.

253
00:23:02,080 --> 00:23:06,480
But this one was the one with the most sheep killed.

254
00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:11,520
And then you could just see that there, there was kind of a lot going
on. It wasn't just fear.

255
00:23:11,520 --> 00:23:16,440
Fear was kind of perhaps the least thing, going on there. Yeah.

256
00:23:16,440 --> 00:23:22,880
So it was mostly kind of this depressing
feelings, this feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness,

257
00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:32,280
maybe also of anger towards the wolf management, towards
wolves, some sympathy with the, with the dead sheep, of course.

258
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:35,400
With the the neighbors coming in.

259
00:23:35,400 --> 00:23:37,680
Their sympathy for the shepherds.

260
00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:38,000
Yeah.

261
00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:46,840
So there was a lot going on that that kind of made up this atmosphere
and was that area where the wolves naturally colonize that.

262
00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:50,560
Yet that's that's entire Germany, right? There was no. Exactly.

263
00:23:50,560 --> 00:23:50,800
Yeah.

264
00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:58,080
So what do you have to know about about Germany is, 
that there was no introduction or will stay all came back by themselves,

265
00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:01,400
from, from western Poland basically.

266
00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:06,640
And some from the alpine population, France, Italy.

267
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:10,320
So there there was no reintroduction program.

268
00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:17,400
So that is, that is straight away against,
you know, because the conventional wisdom says that if the wolves

269
00:24:17,400 --> 00:24:24,920
are naturally going to colonize, then the, the conflict will be lower,

270
00:24:25,440 --> 00:24:31,440
because on the one hand, you don't have as much of this human
on the human, let's call it this way.

271
00:24:31,480 --> 00:24:35,320
Elements right of like, oh, it's your wolf. You're introduce them.

272
00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:37,320
You're in the air quotes, obviously.

273
00:24:37,320 --> 00:24:46,200
And at the same time, there is also,
I think there is a some, peer reviewed science to back the thesis

274
00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:52,520
that the wolves that are colonizing
naturally there tend to get less in trouble, less in conflict

275
00:24:52,520 --> 00:24:56,400
with, with humans
because they're you know, naturally trying to figure out.

276
00:24:56,400 --> 00:25:01,360
And they don't want to too much conflict themselves. Do you think that

277
00:25:02,920 --> 00:25:07,760
your experiences are telling you that this is not entirely true?

278
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:15,360
Or is it like, wow, that thing would be totally off the chart
if there was where reintroduced?

279
00:25:15,360 --> 00:25:19,680
There? Yeah,
I mean, it would definitely be a different kind of situation.

280
00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:20,040
Yeah.

281
00:25:20,040 --> 00:25:26,040
I mean, a
I can only speculate that the, the conflicts would be even worse.

282
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:32,480
But what I also see is that, especially among those

283
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:38,480
who oppose wolves, 
so especially in, in the farming and hunting community,

284
00:25:38,600 --> 00:25:44,480
for, for them, you often hear the argument
and then that's not a particularly a German thing.

285
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:46,040
You hear that all over the place.

286
00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:53,920
Also in other countries, even when the wolves come back by themselves,
people suspect that they were introduced.

287
00:25:54,480 --> 00:26:02,160
And, so, you know, there there are all these stories,
I mean, in Germany, there was this, this one once, this funny story

288
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:10,800
about that, the the border police actually, got hold of a whole truck
full of wolves at the border.

289
00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:15,680
So seemingly, conservationists tried to sneak in the wolves.

290
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:21,680
We always knew it,
and it was a big story in one of the biggest hunting magazines.

291
00:26:21,880 --> 00:26:27,840
And then the police intervened, and said, well, actually,
I mean, we we found a truck and we stopped

292
00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:34,080
the truck full of wolves,
but it was, a truck full of bikes called Steppenwolf's.

293
00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:37,080
Yeah.

294
00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:40,440
So, yeah, it's, but these are all these stories.

295
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:47,160
I mean, I heard even kind of this rumors from from some Greek island
where where people had these,

296
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:53,600
rumors about wolves
being dropped by parachute from planes to the island.

297
00:26:54,080 --> 00:26:54,360
Yeah.

298
00:26:54,360 --> 00:26:56,640
So. Oh, I, I heard a story like.

299
00:26:56,640 --> 00:27:02,520
So the ones I heard was like the black helicopters
who are dropping wolves.

300
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:08,760
And, I think in Norway, blue Volkswagen camper vans are the ones to.

301
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:10,280
So to watch out for those.

302
00:27:10,280 --> 00:27:14,800
And so yeah, this is this is the big problem.

303
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:26,840
I mean so, so from that point of view for, for those people who are very
involved in anti wolf activism, for them this was an introduction.

304
00:27:27,360 --> 00:27:31,000
Yeah. This was no natural re colonization.

305
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:34,320
The question of course is do they do people really believe it.

306
00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:37,320
And I think kind of partly they do, yes.

307
00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:43,320
But partly it's also, a political argument.

308
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:48,120
Yeah, it kind of it's supposed to diminish the status of the wolves.

309
00:27:48,120 --> 00:27:53,440
They're not real wolves.
They are only introduced here probably from an enclosure.

310
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:55,920
It's it's a bit similar like this.

311
00:27:55,920 --> 00:27:58,320
Other stories about wolf hybrids.

312
00:27:58,320 --> 00:28:02,000
That's, what we have in Germany. They are not real wolves.

313
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:08,000
They are all hybrids, and therefore they shouldn't be protected
and we should start hunting them and so on.

314
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:08,600
Yeah.

315
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:14,400
So that's the difficulty with,
with with all these, rumors that there are.

316
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:18,240
And this is also, again, where the effective dimension, comes in.

317
00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:24,680
These are all stories that, circulate in order to stir emotions and to,

318
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:32,040
to change the, the supportive mood in society against wolves.

319
00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:33,360
Yeah.

320
00:28:33,360 --> 00:28:42,080
So this is this is part of the political dimension of of emotions that's
been going on in the last 25 years now that we have wolves in Germany.

321
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:50,400
And that reminds me of, we had an entire episode
when we talked about the, the narratives, the build narratives.

322
00:28:50,880 --> 00:28:56,640
And that was, unsurprisingly, about the program of, red Wolves.

323
00:28:56,640 --> 00:29:00,040
Protection of red wolves in the United States.

324
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:03,600
And there was like,
the same arguments are it's not they've, you know, they're like hybrids.

325
00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:05,480
There's this there's, there's something else.

326
00:29:05,480 --> 00:29:10,640
And, I spoke with a scientist who wrote the entire paper on

327
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:16,360
how those narratives are being built
and how they are then affecting whatever is going on.

328
00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:20,640
I just notice
I use the word affecting, which is just, just speaks to the,

329
00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:28,240
to to the, to the thing that that you're right, you know, like what
what that was, when I was reading your book

330
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:37,680
and this is another sort of like a question you also spoke with a
I think it was a hunter, but he was like a unty wolf, person.

331
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:43,280
And he asked you a question like,
oh, are you this wolf maniac or something like that?

332
00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:46,760
And and what struck me was that

333
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:52,560
once you guys finished a conversation,
he was like, like, oh, I'm not anti wolf.

334
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:56,400
Oh no, no, I want this just like my way.

335
00:29:56,400 --> 00:30:07,240
So I almost feel like nobody are these, there's fewer people
who going to be like oh I'm straight up anti war but I hate wolves.

336
00:30:07,560 --> 00:30:10,080
Maybe especially in the hunting community.

337
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:12,920
But it's more like no, no, no no no I'm not anti wolves.

338
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:16,400
But here's how it's supposed to be done.

339
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:26,520
Yeah I mean this is this has probably to do with let's say kind of the,
the rules of how public debates go in our societies.

340
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:27,200
Yeah.

341
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:37,200
And this is also something that is, in my view,
sometimes misrepresented, even by some scientists.

342
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:46,760
So the idea we sometimes gets and I know in places
with the strong rewire leading movement, that might be the case.

343
00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:55,920
And then in some ways, but we you often get the impression
that, kind of the return of large predators,

344
00:30:56,160 --> 00:31:05,160
whether by themselves or through reintroduction programs is kind of,
a project of a really small elite in the country.

345
00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:08,920
So just by a small group of people

346
00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:14,920
from urban areas, from the capital or wherever,
and kind of the real people.

347
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:15,560
Yeah.

348
00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:23,640
So kind of the majority of the people actually didn't want that
which which is kind of a distortion of how things are,

349
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:30,160
because we assess society
and also the majority of society, at least on us.

350
00:31:30,640 --> 00:31:34,880
I'm kind of speaking Germany in particular,
but also for, for other countries.

351
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:45,920
We have decided as a society that we would value biodiversity,
and that in within that concept of biodiversity,

352
00:31:45,920 --> 00:31:55,360
we also also value these species just because kind of,
we give them an existential right to exist, basically.

353
00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:57,400
And we say that that's good.

354
00:31:57,400 --> 00:32:02,000
And, and we have extirpated many species,
and now we want to do our best,

355
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:07,720
actually to make up for that past mistake and help them getting back.

356
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:08,360
Yeah.

357
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:14,600
So it's something that we as a majority society actually decided
it wasn't, an elite project

358
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:20,600
of some all powerful conservation lobbyists in Brussels or wherever.

359
00:32:20,840 --> 00:32:24,560
Of course there is lobbying going on, but from all sides.

360
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:27,240
But what I want to say, it's

361
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:30,120
it's been a project

362
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:36,480
that was, kind of agreed on by the majority of society, basically,

363
00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:42,880
and this is that we have something that we need to take into account
when we talk about all this.

364
00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:51,640
It's because at the moment and in the recent years,
we we have, of course, more and more of these populist movements now,

365
00:32:52,080 --> 00:32:59,880
who want to, portray also when it comes to wolves, that the,
there is some elites

366
00:32:59,880 --> 00:33:11,000
that basically rules over us, and over the majority of people, 
and that also is responsible for reintroducing wolves.

367
00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:12,640
To the country.

368
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:17,560
And that's part of a wider right wing populist movement, of course.

369
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:24,680
And, and they work, with,
the topic of wolves again, because it's such an emotional topic.

370
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:25,600
Yeah.

371
00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:34,080
So it's, it's really difficult these days to, to really understand
all these different levels of political conflicts.

372
00:33:34,120 --> 00:33:39,440
That's wolves are, basically entangled.

373
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:44,280
They're exploited,
I think. I feel like they're exploited in all that thing.

374
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:52,200
And, and what you're said about the society, I guess this is exactly
where there's such a danger as divisions in the society come from.

375
00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:54,000
That. Okay.

376
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:58,960
You say society,
we decide like, who is who is that society who decided that I'm not the.

377
00:33:58,960 --> 00:34:02,400
I'm not me. Not you. And this is. This is where it all.

378
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:04,280
Yeah.

379
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:07,440
Dawson, I have a, one observer.

380
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:13,720
I made an observation while I was reading,
and one of the chapters you were talking about

381
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:23,560
how people were afraid of their grandchildren,
that they're going to be harmed by wolves.

382
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:25,200
And and so on.

383
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:34,160
And I don't know exactly why,
but my impression was that there was different attitudes to wolves.

384
00:34:34,160 --> 00:34:39,360
Depend on the age group. Was that something that you observed?

385
00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:49,080
And if if so, like, what were the differences between like,
you know, with the older people, had different attitude toward wolves.

386
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:54,960
Yeah. So to this, this was kind of series of interviews.

387
00:34:54,960 --> 00:35:02,200
I did in, in relation to 
it actually, the place where I went to the, to the kill side as well.

388
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:09,280
And, and actually I talked with a couple who were, grandparents,
I talked with,

389
00:35:09,280 --> 00:35:15,680
with a guy who was kind of like, like my age
kind of now kind of early 50s.

390
00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:22,800
And his, daughter was also briefly
there as she was kind of, late teens or around 20, maybe.

391
00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:34,160
And, and of course, kind of when you look at those people
who are actively engaged, in this political debate about, well,

392
00:35:34,760 --> 00:35:43,800
it's mostly people my age and older, which probably also has to do
with the fact that, a lot of people who are involved stay,

393
00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:49,600
there are hunters and, and of course, we
we still have that kind of the age

394
00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:55,600
disparity in the hunting community that there are a lot of older hunters
say there are also younger ones now. But,

395
00:35:56,160 --> 00:36:02,160
the people usually kind of involved in that,
they are usually a little bit older.

396
00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:08,680
The interesting thing was then, with when I spoke
with the daughter of this activist,

397
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:15,200
she had a kind of a mixed, mixed feelings in regard to wolves,
because on the one hand, her dad was a hunter.

398
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:19,040
Were all family and relations neighbors.

399
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:24,240
There were a lot of hunters in there.
So she was raised in a hunting family.

400
00:36:24,240 --> 00:36:31,320
But then from school,
she was exposed to more kind of scientific narratives about wolves.

401
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:38,160
So she was actually, she learned that,
to have quite a positive attitudes towards wolves, from school.

402
00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:48,520
But then the third thing was, and that was kind of what made
the difference for her is she had experience herself with wolves.

403
00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:51,360
She saw the

404
00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:57,360
sheep that were killed by and and
and she told me that, I know dead animals.

405
00:36:57,440 --> 00:37:01,160
I know how that animals look like. Yeah, I know that from hunting.

406
00:37:01,160 --> 00:37:05,920
When my dad comes home
and and so on. Or when I went hunting with my dad.

407
00:37:05,920 --> 00:37:07,200
So she she knew that.

408
00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:11,760
But she said there's something different about when Wolf still.

409
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:17,200
And and this is something that I call the necro esthetics, with this,

410
00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:19,680
like scientific term, for it.

411
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:26,160
So it's kind of the, the pattern of sensory experience
that is so particular about wolves kill sites.

412
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:27,000
Yeah.

413
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:34,200
In, in German,
we actually we the, the word for it is, it's called a this, a rupture.

414
00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:42,480
And what's will do is they, they, they rip apart and,
and so this is part of how they kill,

415
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:52,960
and of course, this is very different from how we, in our days
now, experience animal death if we experience it at all.

416
00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:57,880
Because what happened in our societies
is in that in the last 100 years,

417
00:37:57,880 --> 00:38:03,520
we have tried more and more actually,
to exclude animal death from sites.

418
00:38:03,520 --> 00:38:05,760
So it's usually put out of sites. It's,

419
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:07,080
it's,

420
00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:13,200
it's even put to particular places, like slaughterhouses, for example.

421
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:19,080
It's put in the hand of specialists, 
like kind of butchers, for example.

422
00:38:19,080 --> 00:38:19,440
Yeah.

423
00:38:19,440 --> 00:38:24,840
So we,
we removed it more and more so that even in the countryside these days,

424
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:30,720
I would claim that most people actually don't have much experience
with animal deaths and killing animals anymore.

425
00:38:30,720 --> 00:38:34,600
Yeah. Apart from from very few, like hunters, for example.

426
00:38:34,600 --> 00:38:42,040
And of course, I mean, we have also sanitized, animal deaths,
also because of developments of animal welfare and so on.

427
00:38:42,040 --> 00:38:42,520
Yeah.

428
00:38:42,520 --> 00:38:48,000
So it's all about if you have to, to kill animals,
which we agreed as a society,

429
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:54,040
something that we allow for foods and other certain, purposes.

430
00:38:54,720 --> 00:38:57,040
Then it must be done in an ethical way.

431
00:38:57,040 --> 00:39:03,040
It must be clean and it's really quick
and so on, without much suffering.

432
00:39:03,240 --> 00:39:06,440
And of course, that that's always been an ideal.

433
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:08,800
I mean, we know the stories from slaughterhouses.

434
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:16,720
We know that this idea is not necessarily
part of the everyday work practices there.

435
00:39:17,040 --> 00:39:21,800
We also know that there's a lot of suffering and violence
going on in hunting.

436
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:25,920
Not every shot is really the single clean shots that you want to do.

437
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:31,920
But generally we have this idea in our heads
that this is how animals should look like.

438
00:39:31,960 --> 00:39:35,240
And then we come to a world skin side. Yeah.

439
00:39:35,240 --> 00:39:39,320
And we see all these ripped apart animals.

440
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:42,520
Maybe some of them even alive still.

441
00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:49,560
And and it's, it looks like, just like, one
shepherds told me it looks like a bomb had exploded.

442
00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:54,200
And of course, we are not used to that kind of death
and that kind of killing.

443
00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:57,720
And and of course, in comparison to what we are used to,

444
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:00,280
it looks really cruel.

445
00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:03,840
And therefore we have strong emotional reactions to it.

446
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:11,640
But what we don't see is that it's a quite an artificial situation
that we created in the first place.

447
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:21,000
And it's also an idealized, situation
which not always looks like we want to.

448
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:24,320
But, at least this is what how we want it to be.

449
00:40:24,320 --> 00:40:33,000
So what the will spring back basically is this,
this old esthetic basically of death and killing, which we fought.

450
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:34,960
We had left behind.

451
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:39,240
And now we've become really sensitive to these things. Yeah.

452
00:40:39,240 --> 00:40:49,440
So we basically we don't have to stomach anymore for these pictures
that wolves create, near our villages where the sheep passes.

453
00:40:50,080 --> 00:40:56,880
And this is one of the biggest issues, actually,
I think what drives people's negative attitudes towards wolves.

454
00:40:57,200 --> 00:41:04,160
And so even the daughter of this activist,
who was raised in the school with this positive scientific

455
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:14,800
narratives of wolves and their role in the ecology of all, even for
her age was hard to stomach, kind of the sides of the suffering.

456
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:22,280
And that sheep so, so, so this is one of the main questions actually,
because this will always be part of coexistence.

457
00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:22,840
Yeah.

458
00:41:22,840 --> 00:41:32,320
I mean, we might manage to improve her protection, in the long run
and to have lesser, incidences, but,

459
00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:39,720
the wolves will also develop and there will always be incidences
where protection is not 100%, going.

460
00:41:39,720 --> 00:41:43,520
Well, the shepherd might have done the small mistake.

461
00:41:43,520 --> 00:41:45,720
The wolves have found it and got in.

462
00:41:45,720 --> 00:41:54,360
So these incidents, this wolf kills,
they will always be a part of coexistence.

463
00:41:54,800 --> 00:42:00,800
So what we need to learn,
I think in the long term, is that living with wolves,

464
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:06,680
demands a certain kind of resilience, emotional resilience.

465
00:42:06,680 --> 00:42:08,720
Two sides like this.

466
00:42:08,720 --> 00:42:09,040
Yeah.

467
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:17,440
So not thinking that this type of of killing, animals is something
unnatural.

468
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:22,000
Yeah. And some would even say this is positively evil. What they do.

469
00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:26,840
But just to see it is. Well, this is how predators hunt and kill.

470
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:29,520
Yeah, it's it's it's basically nature.

471
00:42:29,520 --> 00:42:33,560
Yeah. We we might not like it, but we have to deal with it.

472
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:40,920
I think there is a also, kind of like an expectation
of how the animal should behave and what it should.

473
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:46,000
You know, again,
you had this, this story and just for, for all the folks,

474
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:52,440
I, I really recommend that that book
because there's like a ton of, like a real, real stories and you can

475
00:42:52,800 --> 00:43:01,240
they make you think at is they made me think,
where two hunters, were filming interaction with wolves.

476
00:43:01,240 --> 00:43:06,120
They see the wolves on the, on the edge of the, of the, forest.

477
00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:12,000
And and their conversation was, half jokingly, but there was like,
oh, it's not natural.

478
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:16,680
Oh, it's not like the expectation of what is natural.

479
00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:22,840
And then, you know, when I was reading that
and knowing about the wolves, what I know,

480
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:30,040
my thought was like,
how is it not natural like that Wolf is interacting with you.

481
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:36,080
This big ape, which is like maybe a little bit curious what,
you know, like, how come you can,

482
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:41,760
you know, authoritatively say like,
oh, it's not natural. Like, well, it just happened.

483
00:43:41,760 --> 00:43:43,960
Therefore it is natural. Right?

484
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:48,600
So this is this expectation that, oh,
this is how the wolves should behave.

485
00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:54,600
And when they not behave the way we expect, there's like,
oh, there are hybrids, there's this there that there's something else.

486
00:43:55,080 --> 00:43:58,480
Exactly. And this is also kind of one of the biggest problems.

487
00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:06,400
And, and unfortunately it's a problem
where science actually contributed to most of the misunderstanding.

488
00:44:07,080 --> 00:44:18,360
So kind of what I, what I argue there in, in that context actually also
and why I find this, this so interesting, the story is that

489
00:44:18,920 --> 00:44:25,760
there is this, understanding
of, of wild animals in this old style thinking,

490
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:34,480
kind of the dichotomy between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom,
that we are kind of special and exceptional and,

491
00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:43,840
and that the, the natural reaction of wild animals to humans
would be to, to be scared of humans

492
00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:51,080
and to to be shy and to basically to to run away from you,
which is partly true.

493
00:44:51,280 --> 00:44:57,120
Some, some, colleagues of mine,
some, some, wolf biologists from, from Norway.

494
00:44:57,120 --> 00:45:07,120
They, they did some, series of experiments also in Germany
and I think in Sweden, too, where they tried, to have experiments

495
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:16,240
about what happens when humans and wolves, meet and they used, GPUs,
collared wolves, actually, to find out where they were.

496
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:23,240
And, and then kind of, had a team of two people
trying to find them and approach them and provoke a meeting.

497
00:45:23,560 --> 00:45:27,720
Yeah. The problem was that the experiments almost never worked.

498
00:45:29,040 --> 00:45:30,760
They could never see wolves.

499
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:33,680
It was long before they could find the wolves.

500
00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:36,760
The wolves had already sent them and were off.

501
00:45:36,760 --> 00:45:37,440
Yeah.

502
00:45:37,440 --> 00:45:43,440
So in in a way wolves behaves quite similar to, to Lynx actually.

503
00:45:43,960 --> 00:45:48,000
And that even kind of talking with people
who have 25 years of experience

504
00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:54,000
of living with wolves in eastern Germany, hardly
any one of them have has ever seen.

505
00:45:54,360 --> 00:45:56,480
Yeah. And this is reality.

506
00:45:56,480 --> 00:46:04,600
This is what coexistence for most people who don't have sheep,
how coexistence look like they are basically they're not there.

507
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:10,200
Yeah, they they will never see a wolf really in real life.

508
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:12,120
They are still present. Yeah.

509
00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:15,200
In terms of this affective qualities. Yeah.

510
00:46:15,200 --> 00:46:20,440
So you you still feel them around. Yeah.
But you will actually never meet them.

511
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:25,040
This this is, this is the standard of coexistence.
Actually quite boring for most people.

512
00:46:25,040 --> 00:46:33,400
This is also the reason why most people in, in wolf country,
they don't really care about because it doesn't affect them in any way.

513
00:46:33,560 --> 00:46:35,120
Yeah. They don't have anything to do.

514
00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:41,120
They're they're not standing in your front garden
all the time or, or come to beg for food or anything.

515
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:46,360
Mostly they're they're out of sight. Yeah.
And then you don't need to think about them.

516
00:46:46,360 --> 00:46:51,240
Of course, it's different for when you are a hunter
or when you are a sheep farmer.

517
00:46:51,240 --> 00:46:57,680
But for the majority of people, even in the countryside,
they're just not there.

518
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:01,680
Yeah. And, and this is something that we shouldn't forget.

519
00:47:01,680 --> 00:47:08,320
So all the impressions that we have from the media, from social media,
that everything is geared

520
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:15,000
towards conflict,
this does not really represent what's really happening on the ground.

521
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:16,640
Apart from

522
00:47:17,720 --> 00:47:20,880
villages like the one that I just described,

523
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:30,000
where it's been a conflict where there was continuous attacks, often
more than ten attacks every year for ten years, basically.

524
00:47:30,120 --> 00:47:34,080
But then you have to ask, so why has that happened? Yeah.

525
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:38,240
Why was the situation there so difficult?

526
00:47:38,240 --> 00:47:40,200
Why was there so much conflict?

527
00:47:40,200 --> 00:47:46,120
Why did the wolves manage to kill so many animals year after year?

528
00:47:46,120 --> 00:47:51,880
And as I explained earlier, is why when I came to the side
and one part of the pasture

529
00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:57,880
wasn't fenced at all,
this was the main driver of the continued conflict.

530
00:47:58,120 --> 00:47:59,480
All these years.

531
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:05,480
And I think you mentioned it in the summer podcast
with, Jonny Hansen as well.

532
00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:09,480
The problem was they didn't want to fence properly.

533
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:13,160
Yeah, they didn't want to accept the wolves in their region.

534
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:15,600
They wanted to have a wolf free zone.

535
00:48:15,600 --> 00:48:17,080
They said, well, we have sheep here.

536
00:48:17,080 --> 00:48:20,440
We can't have wolves. Therefore the wolves have to go.

537
00:48:20,440 --> 00:48:24,200
Yeah. I don't fence off my my pasture. Yeah.

538
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:28,360
Even though they are, of course,
compensation programs for killed animals.

539
00:48:28,360 --> 00:48:32,400
And there are programs to finance the fences.

540
00:48:32,400 --> 00:48:37,560
It's always changing depending on the federal state,
but it's up to 100%.

541
00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:45,240
They even might get help from a wolf conservation
NGO, actually, to build the fence or to maintain the fence.

542
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:51,160
So they there's so many things they could do, but they don't want to.

543
00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:51,760
Yeah.

544
00:48:51,760 --> 00:48:58,880
And this has kind of this has driven the whole conflict over many years
until finally the lead

545
00:48:58,920 --> 00:49:03,480
Wolf of the pack died naturally after more than ten years.

546
00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:06,040
And then kind of the attack stopped.

547
00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:10,520
But, I've just read in the news that the attacks actually started again
this year.

548
00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:12,520
Now, with a different pack.

549
00:49:12,520 --> 00:49:18,920
Now, so it seems like they still don't fence, properly there.

550
00:49:19,120 --> 00:49:20,560
So, so and then and this is the,

551
00:49:20,560 --> 00:49:26,640
the tragedy of the whole conflict, you could actually do a lot
if there weren't all these politics involved.

552
00:49:27,240 --> 00:49:29,040
Yeah, yeah.

553
00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:36,960
Listen, you're I think that your argument
is that a lot of problems through the wolf management

554
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:45,240
is that the wolf management is a lot about emotions
and about about these affects and the atmosphere's.

555
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:51,200
And those management strategies are not taking that into account.

556
00:49:51,200 --> 00:49:55,320
So I want to bring that a little into the current events.

557
00:49:55,320 --> 00:50:01,920
Not so calm, but at the moment it is
it is like another, another stage or another act of,

558
00:50:02,040 --> 00:50:09,200
process of lowering the protection status of wolves in Europe
from moving them from annex four to annex five.

559
00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:14,400
We spoke about this, at length on the podcast.
I wrote a blog about it, etc., etc.

560
00:50:14,400 --> 00:50:19,120
so, I know I'm going to be repeating myself. Here.

561
00:50:19,120 --> 00:50:23,640
Long story short, Wolf, be not strictly protected.
It will be. Just protect it will.

562
00:50:23,640 --> 00:50:27,960
Which will, give some flexibility in management.

563
00:50:27,960 --> 00:50:31,400
And of course, there is a big outcry.

564
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:35,840
I think that's the only word I can use from environmental NGOs.

565
00:50:35,840 --> 00:50:39,080
And what's your take on this?

566
00:50:39,080 --> 00:50:43,560
Is that the right move that will help to address those,

567
00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:47,840
you know, emotional aspects of it?

568
00:50:47,840 --> 00:50:53,840
Even though we know that probably hunting
is not the greatest way of preventing,

569
00:50:55,320 --> 00:51:00,960
preventing the attacks
because you get more of the, you know, wolves that are dispersing

570
00:51:00,960 --> 00:51:04,680
because their packs are getting this disrupted, etc., etc..

571
00:51:04,680 --> 00:51:10,320
But where I sit, I feel like this will go the long way,

572
00:51:10,320 --> 00:51:16,440
or at least some way towards
addressing those emotional aspects of wolf management.

573
00:51:16,800 --> 00:51:20,280
So I'm curious where you sit, on this issue.

574
00:51:20,280 --> 00:51:23,000
I'm a bit critical with this whole move.

575
00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:30,480
And it in particular, I kind of I'm critical,
let's say, as a scientist, because I don't appreciate

576
00:51:30,520 --> 00:51:41,160
how the on the line kind of pushed through, this this,
this whole project, against science, scientific evidence, basically.

577
00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:46,720
And I know, I mean, there among the wolf scientists,

578
00:51:46,720 --> 00:51:53,480
I think there was just a paper published about two weeks ago
about the continued recovery of wolves and the success story.

579
00:51:53,880 --> 00:52:00,520
And that's where the European population
kind of doubled in the last ten, ten years or so.

580
00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:05,840
So, yes, it's overall it's a success story.

581
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:08,200
Yeah. So no doubt about that.

582
00:52:08,200 --> 00:52:14,200
But the problem,
of course, is that when you look into different parts of the country,

583
00:52:14,640 --> 00:52:21,120
or in different parts of Europe,
then at some much more diverse picture that you get.

584
00:52:21,480 --> 00:52:25,360
Yeah. So, it might be an overall success story. Yes.

585
00:52:25,360 --> 00:52:32,520
But when you look to Norway, Sweden, Finland,
it's it's not a success story at all.

586
00:52:33,120 --> 00:52:38,320
It's actually going down basically, when you look at Switzerland,

587
00:52:38,320 --> 00:52:45,680
they've just introduced the most massive wolf management
program culling program ever in the country.

588
00:52:45,680 --> 00:52:50,160
So 20% or something, is it? Yeah. At least.

589
00:52:50,160 --> 00:52:57,040
But in some areas it's basically, 
the they get rid of whole wolf packs basically too.

590
00:52:57,400 --> 00:53:03,760
So there, there is a certain tendency in several countries now that wolf

591
00:53:03,760 --> 00:53:09,760
coexistence, is to be interpreted as kind of the minimum population,

592
00:53:10,120 --> 00:53:16,080
and the minimum population is usually dictated more or less

593
00:53:16,080 --> 00:53:22,840
by certain stakeholders,
that have a really strong lobbying power in Brussels.

594
00:53:23,440 --> 00:53:30,400
Mainly farmers association face, farmers unions, land owners,
and so on.

595
00:53:30,720 --> 00:53:35,600
And it's an increasing trend.
And we have the same in Germany, basically.

596
00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:43,480
And and this is something that is slightly worrying me
about kind of the overall picture and the overall success story.

597
00:53:43,760 --> 00:53:50,160
The good stab, that recent article by John Dingell and 30 others, 
basically says that,

598
00:53:50,240 --> 00:53:56,560
one of the most important factors actually, for that recovery
was the protective status of goods.

599
00:53:57,040 --> 00:53:57,600
Yeah.

600
00:53:57,600 --> 00:54:04,960
And it's exactly that that is now most probably going to be lowered
if they get through.

601
00:54:05,160 --> 00:54:10,680
So it will from now on it would probably be much more difficult.

602
00:54:10,680 --> 00:54:17,440
And when you look at a country like Germany, yes, we have wolves
and they have been returning for 25 years,

603
00:54:17,920 --> 00:54:25,320
but almost exclusively to the east and to northern Germany,
there are hardly any wolf packs,

604
00:54:25,560 --> 00:54:32,840
in southern Germany and in central Germany,
they're still in my native federal state, here in Boston and back.

605
00:54:33,120 --> 00:54:34,640
We don't have a single pack.

606
00:54:34,640 --> 00:54:39,920
And this is where the Black Forest is.
Yeah, one of the biggest forest areas that we have.

607
00:54:39,920 --> 00:54:45,160
But still, after all, this is not a single pack. Yeah. Bavaria.

608
00:54:45,160 --> 00:54:48,560
Just a very few. They could could have many more.

609
00:54:48,560 --> 00:54:57,720
So, so what happens to these still, Wolf,
three regions that we have in Europe, same with France.

610
00:54:57,720 --> 00:55:06,480
Yeah, France has a wolf population, but more than 90% of
that is in the southeastern area of the country, in the alpine region.

611
00:55:06,920 --> 00:55:09,240
The rest of the country still no wolves?

612
00:55:09,240 --> 00:55:12,600
Yeah. Apart from the occasional wolves wandering through.

613
00:55:12,600 --> 00:55:20,800
So it's I really would be careful in kind of painting and,
a really positive picture of, of the immediate future now

614
00:55:21,160 --> 00:55:30,840
and also because what they, these articles do not talk about
is that, the connectivity of subpopulations within Europe,

615
00:55:31,080 --> 00:55:37,720
because what we have seen in recent years
is that we have entire migration fences

616
00:55:38,040 --> 00:55:45,520
going up in several countries,
and we have African swine fever fences going up in several countries.

617
00:55:45,520 --> 00:55:46,360
Yeah.

618
00:55:46,360 --> 00:55:56,400
So, when you look at the wolf population in Germany is you see,
there is a fence on the German Danish border shutting that off.

619
00:55:56,760 --> 00:56:00,480
There are two fences along the German Polish border.

620
00:56:00,480 --> 00:56:06,880
There's an anti migration fence, 
the Polish Belarusian border within eastern Germany.

621
00:56:06,880 --> 00:56:14,600
It's criss crossed by African swine fever fences everywhere,
sometimes even fencing in whole wolf packs.

622
00:56:15,480 --> 00:56:22,920
So we have fences going up in Europe everywhere,
basically destroying all these corridors

623
00:56:23,200 --> 00:56:29,960
that wolves had in order to, to feed into each other's, 
genetic, pool, basically.

624
00:56:30,280 --> 00:56:36,280
And the same with Finland, and the Russian border,
where a big sense is going up now.

625
00:56:36,560 --> 00:56:38,600
So we have fences everywhere.

626
00:56:38,600 --> 00:56:45,960
So, so this this is something that we need to take into account as well
when we think of this success story.

627
00:56:46,400 --> 00:56:54,840
But in regard to your question about what the effects of this
move in terms of, kind of emotion management or asset management,

628
00:56:55,320 --> 00:57:01,760
we know from, from Sweden, for example, or Norway
that when you introduce wolf hunting,

629
00:57:02,040 --> 00:57:08,360
it doesn't have any effect on, on people's attitudes on all wolves.

630
00:57:08,640 --> 00:57:15,960
The hunters are still as opposed to wolves as they,
as they were before to call it something.

631
00:57:15,960 --> 00:57:17,600
It's it's not enough.

632
00:57:17,600 --> 00:57:25,640
Because even then, you I mean, you have to to read
the, the face position paper on, on wolves.

633
00:57:25,840 --> 00:57:31,840
And then you see what the, the long term plan is
and what the, the lobbying campaign is about.

634
00:57:32,160 --> 00:57:36,240
It's about lowering the protective status of wolves.

635
00:57:36,240 --> 00:57:42,720
It's about, kind of getting more permissions to cull individual wolves,

636
00:57:42,960 --> 00:57:48,240
but then it's
the next step is to have the quota account, like in Sweden.

637
00:57:48,240 --> 00:57:53,640
And then you have, a normal hand with, open and close seasons.

638
00:57:53,640 --> 00:58:00,920
And in the end, you basically have, a hunt that is not as much,

639
00:58:00,920 --> 00:58:07,080
different from hunting any other kind of animal,
just like roe deer or wild boar or whatever.

640
00:58:07,400 --> 00:58:09,120
And this is the end.

641
00:58:09,120 --> 00:58:16,280
The end, a basically of the hunting association, both in Europe,
but also in Germany and many other European countries.

642
00:58:16,560 --> 00:58:24,480
So they want the wolf to be just like any other game
under their responsibility, not someone else's responsibility.

643
00:58:24,480 --> 00:58:31,320
And this is kind of the main struggle that's been going on
among recreational hunters in Europe, for, for decades.

644
00:58:31,320 --> 00:58:32,760
Basically.

645
00:58:32,760 --> 00:58:41,880
It's it's the question or the struggle of power over wild animals
was in Germany, for example, hunting was an aristocratic privilege.

646
00:58:42,120 --> 00:58:44,280
No one else was allowed to hunt,

647
00:58:44,280 --> 00:58:52,040
so they were the only ones who were responsible
and in power to decide what happens to wild animal populations.

648
00:58:52,320 --> 00:58:57,600
And they were the ones who could decide what happens to wolves.
And they want that power again.

649
00:58:57,600 --> 00:59:00,960
But now conservation has stepped in.

650
00:59:00,960 --> 00:59:05,040
And of course, it's not in their power anymore
because they are protected species.

651
00:59:05,040 --> 00:59:09,600
Now it's hunters against the state are in the struggle for power.

652
00:59:09,600 --> 00:59:15,200
So in in that sense,
I don't think that's just lowering the protected status now.

653
00:59:15,200 --> 00:59:19,600
And maybe introducing a little bit of hunting,

654
00:59:19,600 --> 00:59:26,600
will change anything in their attitudes
because their attitude is wolves should be treated like, normal game.

655
00:59:26,840 --> 00:59:30,800
And we should be empowered to, to kill them if we want to.

656
00:59:30,800 --> 00:59:36,960
And the fact is, for most recreational hunters in Europe,
they have a really negative attitudes towards war.

657
00:59:37,000 --> 00:59:42,160
So we we all know it's
and and I don't think there's this will change anything.

658
00:59:42,160 --> 00:59:42,400
Yeah.

659
00:59:42,400 --> 00:59:49,560
Because this negative attitude towards wolves is at least
so when I speak to Germany, where I've done research,

660
00:59:49,560 --> 00:59:51,640
we found this for about ten years now.

661
00:59:51,640 --> 00:59:57,000
It's part and parcel of their relationship to other game animals.

662
00:59:57,000 --> 01:00:05,840
Predators are always seen and historically been seen
as the enemy of the animals one cares for, and it's responsible for.

663
01:00:06,000 --> 01:00:13,080
And that's that's a fundamental conflict
that you can't get rid of by changing the legislation.

664
01:00:13,280 --> 01:00:14,360
Yeah.

665
01:00:14,360 --> 01:00:20,400
Yeah, I, I, I got this from not word for word from one of.

666
01:00:20,400 --> 01:00:28,480
I don't think it was in your book or maybe, 
but maybe one that some other book that I, I came to the conclusions

667
01:00:28,480 --> 01:00:37,360
like I was always, showing and thinking about similarities
between hunters and farmers in the society,

668
01:00:37,880 --> 01:00:43,360
in some conflicts and how they're treated
and how they're positioned, let's say, in the society.

669
01:00:43,360 --> 01:00:51,720
But recently, I'm coming to the conclusion
that there is that fundamentally hunters

670
01:00:52,640 --> 01:01:01,520
attitude is incompatible, with the with farmers attitude,
because for a farmer, wolf is an enemy.

671
01:01:02,240 --> 01:01:07,720
And I feel like for a hunter, the wolf is a brother, so to say.

672
01:01:07,720 --> 01:01:11,200
And and to your point, it's like,

673
01:01:12,920 --> 01:01:18,280
you know, making air quotes are the real hunters, or is it like,

674
01:01:18,280 --> 01:01:26,240
kind of like a borderline farming because are we have all those
and all we have all those game animals and we need to take care of them.

675
01:01:26,240 --> 01:01:32,400
It's it's pushing the hunters attitude towards
being like a, almost like a farmer of those wild game.

676
01:01:32,680 --> 01:01:40,920
And therefore the wolf is not anymore sort of like an animal
that does the same thing and have the same skills.

677
01:01:41,200 --> 01:01:49,560
And is this, you know, quote unquote, brother,
but rather this is an enemy of our game and, and so on and so forth.

678
01:01:50,120 --> 01:01:56,720
So me, I'm, I'm afraid this,
this view of, wolves as the brothers of, hunters

679
01:01:57,040 --> 01:02:05,760
that that might be, had kind of been there
and lost our view and inspired by, more from American Natives.

680
01:02:05,760 --> 01:02:07,360
It's,

681
01:02:08,680 --> 01:02:13,640
at least it's not what happened in most parts of Europe in history.

682
01:02:13,640 --> 01:02:19,560
It's never been considered an equal or a brother or anything like it.

683
01:02:19,560 --> 01:02:21,360
So, I mean,

684
01:02:21,360 --> 01:02:26,880
so this is about, kind of especially a kind of German history, but,

685
01:02:26,880 --> 01:02:34,200
seeing that Germany was also spread through the Prussian Empire,
over Poland, up to the Baltic states, on the one hand.

686
01:02:34,440 --> 01:02:41,640
And then the harp spoke, empire going up to Hungary
and, former Yugoslavia and so on.

687
01:02:41,920 --> 01:02:47,720
So it's it's really kind of an old hunting tradition
that covers many parts of Europe.

688
01:02:47,720 --> 01:02:54,800
And in that hunting, tradition,
it was, as I said, hunting wasn't aristocratic privilege.

689
01:02:55,120 --> 01:03:01,200
So the hunters were themselves, from the aristocracy, and, and,

690
01:03:01,440 --> 01:03:08,280
although they didn't own their game animals, that they still felt
they were part of their land.

691
01:03:08,280 --> 01:03:13,080
So it had to do with the conception of land,
of Socratic land ownership.

692
01:03:13,080 --> 01:03:21,480
And and for them, I mean, what they were interested in were especially
the, the Red deer and kind of the wild boar and and so on.

693
01:03:21,760 --> 01:03:30,760
And of course, they had to this, this responsibility, but also the,
the rights to, to harvest these populations of, of these game species.

694
01:03:30,840 --> 01:03:36,040
And the job of a hunter at that time was two things.

695
01:03:36,040 --> 01:03:44,240
The one thing was to organize this one was the I start to see
and the other one was to protect the game population from human poaching

696
01:03:44,880 --> 01:03:46,560
and from predators.

697
01:03:46,560 --> 01:03:52,440
And this is the reason why the aristocracy wanted to get rid of wolves
and bears and lynx

698
01:03:52,440 --> 01:03:59,280
and all these extermination campaigns,
perhaps that aim of protecting your game.

699
01:03:59,680 --> 01:04:00,000
Yeah.

700
01:04:01,000 --> 01:04:03,760
So from from that point of view, it's always

701
01:04:03,760 --> 01:04:11,760
been an enemy, for, for hunters, for them,
it was the so-called outwitted, kind of the predatory game.

702
01:04:12,240 --> 01:04:16,520
And this, this were always considered really negative.

703
01:04:16,520 --> 01:04:18,080
Yeah, you could do with them.

704
01:04:18,080 --> 01:04:23,400
So hunting ethics didn't really apply to, to this kind of game.

705
01:04:23,400 --> 01:04:25,280
You could do with them whatever.

706
01:04:25,280 --> 01:04:29,360
And we knew that the way they hunted
them was really cruel sometimes. Yeah.

707
01:04:29,360 --> 01:04:32,560
The same as with foxes. How they treated foxes.

708
01:04:32,560 --> 01:04:35,080
It's, it's also similar.

709
01:04:35,080 --> 01:04:38,320
So it's always been part of the European hunting conditions.

710
01:04:38,320 --> 01:04:45,840
And in that sense, but the other thing is about the influence of, 
farmers and farmers relationship to wild animals.

711
01:04:47,000 --> 01:04:49,080
This is also be the case.

712
01:04:49,080 --> 01:04:56,880
So, for example, wolf hunting was actually one of the very few that's,
were not exclusively reserved

713
01:04:56,880 --> 01:05:03,480
for the aristocracy, but everyone could kilowatts, 
and of course, the other people who killed wolves were farmers.

714
01:05:03,960 --> 01:05:09,360
And and of course, they, they couldn't go hunting with a weapon
and so on.

715
01:05:09,360 --> 01:05:12,960
So they use the most cruel methods, like poisoning and traps.

716
01:05:14,280 --> 01:05:17,320
And what do we have now in Germany, in the hunting community,

717
01:05:17,320 --> 01:05:24,640
is that there is a quite a large percentage
also of farmer hunters in the hunting community.

718
01:05:24,640 --> 01:05:35,640
And so we actually have a mix of these traditional, hunters attitudes
towards animals and then the farmers attitudes towards animals.

719
01:05:35,720 --> 01:05:36,240
Yeah.

720
01:05:36,240 --> 01:05:46,200
And I mean, hunters had always had to, accommodate, farmers,
because their game was actually damaging the fields and so on.

721
01:05:46,560 --> 01:05:49,360
But now we actually we, we have both.

722
01:05:49,360 --> 01:05:55,360
And the problem with wolves is that they,
they have, a negative reputation from both sides.

723
01:05:55,640 --> 01:05:56,440
Yeah.

724
01:05:56,440 --> 01:06:03,400
For let's say Red deer is positive with the hunters,
but negative with the farmers, with wolves.

725
01:06:03,400 --> 01:06:05,280
It's negative on both sides.

726
01:06:05,280 --> 01:06:13,760
And this is what makes it really difficult
because there is actually there's no positive relationship to wolves,

727
01:06:14,280 --> 01:06:17,240
either in hunting or in farming communities.

728
01:06:17,240 --> 01:06:23,240
And this is one of the major problems
that I see, actually, for our current coexistence problems,

729
01:06:23,640 --> 01:06:31,080
because I also I hear a lot of colleagues,
also social scientists who say, well, they we need to pay more attention

730
01:06:31,080 --> 01:06:38,760
to the voice of the rural communities of hunters and farmers
because they are the one affected, which is true.

731
01:06:38,960 --> 01:06:39,440
Yeah.

732
01:06:39,440 --> 01:06:46,240
All this things about compensation programs
and helping them to cope with Cope systems, this is all true.

733
01:06:46,600 --> 01:06:54,920
But what is also true is that we shouldn't forget that
these are the two groups that actually extirpated in the first place.

734
01:06:55,440 --> 01:07:01,800
And when you talk with them, the yeah, maybe the same attitude,
if not a similar

735
01:07:01,800 --> 01:07:07,800
attitude is still present
in the contemporary communities of hunters and farmers.

736
01:07:08,200 --> 01:07:10,320
It's still negative. So,

737
01:07:11,360 --> 01:07:13,840
if you if you just wanted to do

738
01:07:13,840 --> 01:07:19,840
what what they want to do,
you would have more free sounds basically just like to do in Norway.

739
01:07:19,840 --> 01:07:24,080
So it's really a balancing act of, hearing them.

740
01:07:24,080 --> 01:07:33,960
On the one hand and supporting them,
but also, kind of still protecting wolves because they have a really,

741
01:07:33,960 --> 01:07:41,520
still a really strongly negative attitude in some parts of the community
that have very powerful political lobbies.

742
01:07:42,280 --> 01:07:48,160
I would love to be able to say, Carson,
that you burst my bubble about hunting community, but you didn't.

743
01:07:48,160 --> 01:07:54,840
I'm well aware, well aware of of, you know, and I'm also well aware

744
01:07:54,840 --> 01:08:01,120
how slippery slope it is to talk about real hunters or real hunting
while talking about something.

745
01:08:01,120 --> 01:08:02,760
I've almost no hunters.

746
01:08:02,760 --> 01:08:10,640
Do and I, I yeah, I mean, I, I actually,
I have to say, you kind of when you research wolves and hunters,

747
01:08:11,120 --> 01:08:14,960
it brings out the worst in hunters, actually.

748
01:08:14,960 --> 01:08:23,440
I mean, I, you know, from from our previous conversation that I've done
a lot of research on hunting and also about all other kinds of things.

749
01:08:23,440 --> 01:08:29,440
And we talk about hunting ethics,
also about the positive use of these old rituals and so on.

750
01:08:29,520 --> 01:08:39,760
But really, when it comes to wolves, it's you really see that there is
there is something there's a need in the hunting community, actually,

751
01:08:40,200 --> 01:08:46,400
to critically reflect
on their relationship with wild, with large predators.

752
01:08:46,880 --> 01:08:48,720
It's, it's an issue.

753
01:08:48,720 --> 01:08:55,800
And I think it's something they should deal with
because it's, it seems to be from an old world for for me somehow,

754
01:08:56,120 --> 01:09:00,240
I mean, it's okay if you're an aristocrat
and you want to protect your game.

755
01:09:01,200 --> 01:09:02,240
If you're living in the

756
01:09:02,240 --> 01:09:08,240
Highlands on a game farm
as you protect your, red deer from from wolves.

757
01:09:08,560 --> 01:09:17,040
But if you consider that, that it's not just about animals,
but it's also about the whole ecology of our landscapes.

758
01:09:17,320 --> 01:09:19,920
It's about bigger things.

759
01:09:19,920 --> 01:09:24,080
It's not just about personal interests, but about the bigger picture.

760
01:09:24,080 --> 01:09:28,960
And then, and therefore, I think they need to, to work on that.

761
01:09:28,960 --> 01:09:36,200
So, shout outs to you to face and Brussels,
I think this is really something, something that's, that you should

762
01:09:36,200 --> 01:09:46,080
consider, especially since we in our last podcast, we, we talked about,
that killing animals always has an effect on the hunters themselves.

763
01:09:46,560 --> 01:09:46,800
Yeah.

764
01:09:46,800 --> 01:09:52,800
So we have to ask kind of,
what kind of hunter are you when you hunt like this?

765
01:09:53,160 --> 01:10:00,200
And I would also say, 
what kind of hunter are you if you can only see wolves as a problem?

766
01:10:00,880 --> 01:10:02,160
That's it, that's it.

767
01:10:02,160 --> 01:10:07,560
And yeah, shout out to face and shout out to Dave Scanlon,
who was, on the podcast many times as well.

768
01:10:07,560 --> 01:10:16,200
I, you know, I, I feel like face is, a little bit powerless versus
those big hunting organizations.

769
01:10:16,920 --> 01:10:20,960
I, I wish they had more leverage over them.

770
01:10:20,960 --> 01:10:27,000
But I think that face is tiny compared
to national hunting organizations.

771
01:10:27,000 --> 01:10:33,000
And, you know, I was on that conference
and I heard first hand, one of the,

772
01:10:33,600 --> 01:10:41,880
let's say, top folks in one of the one of the big,
if not the biggest European hunting organization, no names named,

773
01:10:42,320 --> 01:10:51,240
who was, you know, from his home, from his speaking place, were, say,
like, oh, yeah, we are all for more biodiversity and less predators.

774
01:10:51,240 --> 01:10:57,240
And I was just like, fail spy, make a dude like, bro,
do you even know what biodiversity is?

775
01:10:57,840 --> 01:11:00,600
You know, I was just like, oh God.

776
01:11:00,600 --> 01:11:06,880
Anyway, that's probably
that's probably a topic for another entire podcast talks.

777
01:11:06,920 --> 01:11:10,680
And I just want to wrap this up, with, question for you.

778
01:11:10,680 --> 01:11:20,040
You're arguing for more affect guided thinking in, in wealth management
and with managing wealth relationships.

779
01:11:20,640 --> 01:11:26,640
We establish that you are not a fan of, managing those relations

780
01:11:26,680 --> 01:11:33,520
in terms of like allowing a little bit of hunting
because that doesn't, doesn't do much good.

781
01:11:33,920 --> 01:11:38,680
So what in practical terms, in your view,

782
01:11:39,640 --> 01:11:45,240
would that affect guided thinking
or if a guide in management would look like.

783
01:11:45,240 --> 01:11:47,200
And what does it mean?

784
01:11:47,200 --> 01:11:50,040
Just just to to clarify one thing.

785
01:11:50,040 --> 01:12:00,440
I mean, I also think that one day we will have kind of a more regular
type of, hunting, in, in regards to wolves.

786
01:12:00,600 --> 01:12:08,080
It's just that I think that it's a little bit too soon right now
because, we're still at the very beginning, actually,

787
01:12:08,080 --> 01:12:10,800
especially when we look at different regions of, of Europe.

788
01:12:10,800 --> 01:12:11,040
Yeah.

789
01:12:11,040 --> 01:12:19,680
So it's, it's not that I, that I would not be,
would, would not see hunting being possible in the future.

790
01:12:19,680 --> 01:12:24,400
I guess at some level, we would need to talk about it.

791
01:12:24,400 --> 01:12:29,040
And on another level, of course, 
I think you were talking about the, the situation.

792
01:12:29,040 --> 01:12:36,360
The Netherlands, for example, with, with Johnny,
what we have in Germany and what is particular seems to be a problem

793
01:12:36,360 --> 01:12:43,360
in the Netherlands is how to deal with problematic
what's the ones that are habituated, to humans

794
01:12:43,680 --> 01:12:49,720
and, and then of course, there's always this possibility of derogation,
but getting individual permits to shoot the individual wolves

795
01:12:50,080 --> 01:12:58,080
and, and in Germany at least, the, the habituated wolves that we had,
they were also killed.

796
01:12:58,360 --> 01:13:03,200
So that seemed to work. And I think this is something,

797
01:13:04,400 --> 01:13:09,680
that that's not regular hunting,
but I think it's part of wolves management somehow.

798
01:13:09,680 --> 01:13:13,240
You need to deal with these kinds of situations.

799
01:13:13,240 --> 01:13:21,480
Yeah, but if you need proper hunting or culling quota for hunting, 
in any way, I think that's the question for the future.

800
01:13:22,560 --> 01:13:26,360
The population is still too unstable and and in my terms.

801
01:13:26,360 --> 01:13:28,960
But but I'm not ecologist might disagree.

802
01:13:28,960 --> 01:13:30,720
Effect guided thinking.

803
01:13:30,720 --> 01:13:36,840
So what I mean by that, what I mean is that wolf management, but also,

804
01:13:36,920 --> 01:13:42,960
large part of the scientific community, they are all about rationality.

805
01:13:43,200 --> 01:13:51,560
So it's all about, 
discussing facts and, separating facts from fiction or fairytales.

806
01:13:51,920 --> 01:13:54,600
And it's all about,

807
01:13:54,600 --> 01:13:59,840
looking kind of dispassionately on this topic of wolves.

808
01:13:59,840 --> 01:14:05,120
Of course, the problem is that, as we know, it's all full of emotions.

809
01:14:05,120 --> 01:14:11,080
And and when you tell people now, just leave aside the emotions
which just have a rational conversation,

810
01:14:11,080 --> 01:14:15,200
you might be able to try it out, but it will always come fruit. Yeah.

811
01:14:15,200 --> 01:14:19,000
And it will always disrupt your conversations. Yeah.

812
01:14:19,000 --> 01:14:24,000
So you can't just kind of leave emotions on on the side.

813
01:14:24,000 --> 01:14:26,880
You have to acknowledge them in some way.

814
01:14:26,880 --> 01:14:33,480
Now, the the worst thing that you can do about it
is that you are actually driven by these emotions.

815
01:14:34,040 --> 01:14:36,680
Yeah. As Wolf managers.

816
01:14:36,680 --> 01:14:39,360
And this is also kind of a certain tendency.

817
01:14:39,360 --> 01:14:47,120
Now I see that, if someone has a worry or a concern
that you need to take them seriously.

818
01:14:47,600 --> 01:14:56,520
Yeah, I'm taking them seriously means that you feel emotions
as being authentic and natural.

819
01:14:57,120 --> 01:14:57,600
Yeah.

820
01:14:57,600 --> 01:15:02,560
Something that just happens without particularism.

821
01:15:02,560 --> 01:15:07,880
And when someone is worried,
you have to acknowledge that and you have to support that person. Yeah.

822
01:15:08,840 --> 01:15:11,000
And what that leaves out is

823
01:15:11,000 --> 01:15:19,640
that in particular when it comes to wolf
coexistence, is none of these emotions are just there by themselves.

824
01:15:20,320 --> 01:15:24,160
Yeah. So we all live in a societal context.

825
01:15:24,160 --> 01:15:26,200
We all live with wolves.

826
01:15:26,200 --> 01:15:29,880
Their affective dynamics everywhere.

827
01:15:29,880 --> 01:15:36,120
And this is how our emotions, emerge and form and develop.

828
01:15:36,440 --> 01:15:44,320
This is what, influences 
also kind of the how intense the emotional responses are.

829
01:15:44,640 --> 01:15:48,920
And so we need to ask kind of what contributes to that emotion.

830
01:15:48,920 --> 01:15:53,440
Why are you having now, who is contributing to it?

831
01:15:53,440 --> 01:15:56,760
Is it just the wolves, or is there more going on?

832
01:15:56,760 --> 01:16:06,200
And, and when we teased that out, we might also see, I mean, yeah,
there is emotion or an effect management going on from all sides.

833
01:16:06,480 --> 01:16:10,200
The probable sides tries to manage emotions.

834
01:16:10,200 --> 01:16:12,360
The wolf management tries to do it.

835
01:16:12,360 --> 01:16:14,160
The politician tried to do it.

836
01:16:14,160 --> 01:16:15,800
The shepherds try to do it.

837
01:16:15,800 --> 01:16:16,200
Yeah.

838
01:16:16,200 --> 01:16:21,760
So we need to acknowledge just the political dimensions, of emotions.

839
01:16:21,760 --> 01:16:25,920
And this is what I mean is effect guided. It's not effects driven.

840
01:16:25,920 --> 01:16:34,680
So we're not just blindly following the ones who are the most concerned
or the most scared, but actually we say, okay,

841
01:16:35,040 --> 01:16:41,320
let's have a let's have a look at your emotions
and see what is actually at stake there.

842
01:16:41,680 --> 01:16:44,440
And what contributes to it. Yeah.

843
01:16:44,440 --> 01:16:52,320
And then we can have a better discussion
because we also know what's kind of the political dimensions are.

844
01:16:52,320 --> 01:16:57,960
And, and if it really needs to be that way. Yeah.

845
01:16:57,960 --> 01:17:03,480
So is fear just a basis for coexistence with wolves?

846
01:17:03,480 --> 01:17:05,560
Does it have to be fear?

847
01:17:05,560 --> 01:17:06,080
Yeah.

848
01:17:06,080 --> 01:17:13,280
If we just accept the statements
of some people that then has fear, then, there's nothing to work on.

849
01:17:13,280 --> 01:17:15,440
Yeah, unless you remove the wolves.

850
01:17:15,440 --> 01:17:19,200
Yeah, but the point is, we don't just have emotions.

851
01:17:19,200 --> 01:17:21,520
We also deal with emotions.

852
01:17:21,520 --> 01:17:23,520
So, we are not powerless.

853
01:17:23,520 --> 01:17:24,920
Yeah, we can also work on them.

854
01:17:24,920 --> 01:17:30,400
Then this is what I earlier, termed, emotional resilience.

855
01:17:30,400 --> 01:17:37,920
So we need also to discuss as a society
what are the emotions involved in coexistence,

856
01:17:38,200 --> 01:17:45,120
what is necessary, what is perhaps also fear mongering
and what kind of resilience do we need?

857
01:17:45,240 --> 01:17:45,520
Yeah.

858
01:17:45,520 --> 01:17:51,000
I mentioned in the epilog of the book,
this queasy feeling, for example.

859
01:17:51,000 --> 01:17:51,600
Yeah.

860
01:17:51,600 --> 01:17:56,720
Which is, which is not the best translation,
but there is no English word for it in German.

861
01:17:56,720 --> 01:18:00,240
It's, the more you make, a few more you'll make.

862
01:18:00,240 --> 01:18:02,160
It's one of my favorite words.

863
01:18:02,160 --> 01:18:03,720
It's it's kind of.

864
01:18:03,720 --> 01:18:09,240
It's not being scared,
but it's kind of the beginning of something arising. Yeah.

865
01:18:09,240 --> 01:18:13,920
So you feel uncomfortable, but it's also a visceral feeling.

866
01:18:13,920 --> 01:18:18,920
Yeah. So you feel it in your gut.
It's a but you don't know exactly what's happening.

867
01:18:18,920 --> 01:18:19,560
Yeah.

868
01:18:19,560 --> 01:18:27,280
And, I was talking to, to a woman in, in eastern Germany
where they had 25 years of work.

869
01:18:27,280 --> 01:18:30,480
So, she had never seen one, you know, life.

870
01:18:30,480 --> 01:18:37,240
But she described this, this one scene where she went into the woods
before Christmas with her husband and her two kids,

871
01:18:37,640 --> 01:18:39,600
and they were trying to get a Christmas tree.

872
01:18:40,640 --> 01:18:47,160
And then they came to this place with the with the trees and, they,
they saw, tracks

873
01:18:47,160 --> 01:18:54,080
on, on the snowy grounds, of of several woods, 
and of course, they didn't know how fresh the tracks were.

874
01:18:54,560 --> 01:18:57,240
But suddenly something changed.

875
01:18:57,240 --> 01:19:01,200
They didn't know they were still around. Is this something? Yeah.

876
01:19:01,200 --> 01:19:07,080
And yeah, they just kind of grabbed the kids
and and the thought maybe save it to go back.

877
01:19:07,080 --> 01:19:11,560
Yeah. And the kids also suddenly changed.
And for some, that something's not quite right.

878
01:19:11,560 --> 01:19:12,560
Why are we going back?

879
01:19:12,560 --> 01:19:15,120
Why you're taking us up on on your arms.

880
01:19:15,120 --> 01:19:20,400
Yeah. And yeah. There was nothing happened
there. Yeah. There was probably no wolves around.

881
01:19:20,400 --> 01:19:25,480
Yeah, but this was just kind of this,
this little feelings that you sometimes get.

882
01:19:25,480 --> 01:19:27,360
Yeah. So I call it sometimes,

883
01:19:29,360 --> 01:19:33,360
and this is something that is part of coexistence revolts.

884
01:19:33,360 --> 01:19:37,960
Yeah. Sometimes when you go into the woods,
you feel a little bit queasy.

885
01:19:37,960 --> 01:19:40,080
It happened to me. To where?

886
01:19:40,080 --> 01:19:45,360
When I was, Walking in wolf territory, in the evening.

887
01:19:45,360 --> 01:19:50,440
It's getting dark. Sometimes you wonder when you are in the dark forest.

888
01:19:50,440 --> 01:19:51,200
Yeah.

889
01:19:51,200 --> 01:19:54,360
You wonder, but then also, I had the queasy feeling when.

890
01:19:54,360 --> 01:19:59,280
When I encountered, a group of wild boar. So. Yeah.

891
01:19:59,280 --> 01:20:00,200
Is there's some.

892
01:20:00,200 --> 01:20:01,920
There is some emotional level.

893
01:20:01,920 --> 01:20:07,080
I think that we just need to be able.

894
01:20:07,080 --> 01:20:09,240
Yeah.

895
01:20:09,240 --> 01:20:16,360
To live with
when we want to live with wolves or with lynx or with bears even.

896
01:20:17,080 --> 01:20:23,520
Because, I mean, they they
they are always potential or at least they could be a threat.

897
01:20:23,960 --> 01:20:29,560
Yeah, we know that for us humans,
they wolves on a really a threat in Europe.

898
01:20:29,560 --> 01:20:33,120
They are just, you know, hardly any cases at all the norm.

899
01:20:33,120 --> 01:20:36,440
And in Germany, but this a feeling.

900
01:20:36,440 --> 01:20:37,080
Yeah.

901
01:20:37,080 --> 01:20:40,280
And and some people say we don't want to have that feeling.

902
01:20:40,280 --> 01:20:43,920
Not even this small, queasy feeling.

903
01:20:43,920 --> 01:20:46,600
We don't want that. We don't accept it.

904
01:20:46,600 --> 01:20:52,120
But I don't think that in this current world, that this is an option.

905
01:20:52,120 --> 01:20:56,240
Yeah. Because when we look at the broader
picture, it's not just wolves returning.

906
01:20:56,240 --> 01:20:56,560
Yeah.

907
01:20:56,560 --> 01:21:04,400
It's also, wild boars returning to Berlin and, raccoons, returning.

908
01:21:04,680 --> 01:21:12,840
And so there's so many animals who close in on us,
and we have to learn to deal with them because we can't kill them all.

909
01:21:13,200 --> 01:21:14,480
It's not an option.

910
01:21:14,480 --> 01:21:22,680
And, you know, like, I think that anyone who lives in this city,
they have a queasy feeling when they need to turn into their unlit alley

911
01:21:23,000 --> 01:21:32,960
and just move somewhere as like, you know, folks living with wolves
affects feelings and sentiments in human wolf coexistence.

912
01:21:33,680 --> 01:21:36,200
Once again, go into the description of this show.

913
01:21:36,200 --> 01:21:40,640
Get yourself a book you won't regret. Thorsten, thank you so much.

914
01:21:40,640 --> 01:21:43,440
Congratulations on the book. And thank you for your time today.

915
01:21:43,440 --> 01:21:44,120
Yeah, yeah.

916
01:21:44,120 --> 01:21:45,080
Thanks for inviting me.

917
01:21:45,080 --> 01:21:52,720
And, for giving me the chance to speak about the book with, really
good questions from your side, so it's always nice to speak with you.

918
01:21:53,160 --> 01:21:54,640
Always a pleasure. Thanks a lot.