Hidden Health Hazards: How U.S. Animal Industries Could Spark the Next Pandemic - A Conversation with Ann Linder

In our latest podcast episode, Ann Linder, animal law expert, discusses our relationships with animals, including captive wildlife, livestock, and exotic pets.  She details the risks of future pandemics due to poorly regulated animal industries in the U.S. and finds that the epicenter might not be a distant market but could be much closer to home - at a pet shop, a livestock auction or at your kitchen table!

Ann is a co-author of a groundbreaking report that delves deep into 36 different animal industries. Shockingly, all of these industries are far less regulated than believed, leaving wide gaps for pathogens to spillover and pose a constant threat to public health.

Dig into the details of Ann's report,  "Animal Markets and Zoonotic Disease in the United States"

Follow updates on avian influenza viruses in the U.S

Find out how you can take individual action to avoid inadvertently supporting concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)

Explore the writings of Ed Yong

Learn more about One Health and One Welfare

Check out the CETI Project

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Transcript

Intro 00:03

Welcome to SolPods Studio. We're not your average social network. We're a community of professionals, enthusiasts, and students taking sustainability to the next level. Join us on our journey and get inspired by Earth Heroes just like you. 

Amy 00:19

Hi.  Welcome to another episode of SolPods Studio.  I'm Amy Farrell, joining you from the San Francisco Bay area of California. And I'm delighted to have Ann Linder with me today.  Ann is an Associate Director of Policy and Research at Harvard Law School. She also teaches Animal Law at Tufts University, and she is on the Animal Advisory Commission for the city of Austin. Ann has dedicated her entire life to advocating for animals, from animals under human care to wildlife, with a law degree from Stanford Law School in California, and a master's in Animal and Public Policy from Tufts University in Boston, Ann has spent the majority of her career at the intersection of animal law and criminal law. Examples of her work include wildlife tracking and crimes of neglect and abuse of domestic animals. She is truly the voice for justice for animals. Thank you so much for joining us today, Ann.

Ann 01:35

Thanks so much, Amy. I'm really happy to be here with you.

Amy 01:38

Well, let's start out with a little bit of background on your legal work. It's really influenced how humans interact with so many different species. When did you decide that you wanted to speak up for those who can't defend themselves?\

Ann 01:57

So good question. So, for me, animals have kind of been a persistent passion that I've had since I was a very little kid. So before I was born, my mom worked as a backcountry ranger for the National Park Service. And growing up, we had sort of a parade of different domestic and wild animals coming through the house.  Orphan raccoons, dogs, cats, hedgehogs, you name it, but it was a really sort of a unique education for me and one that I can't really imagine my life without. So that sort of wonderment started at a really young age. And it still sort of colors the work that I do today.

I think, you know, as I grew up and sort of looked more closely and critically about, you know, how we interact with other species as humans, it seemed like there's, there's a real sort of need in this area for, for better awareness and better policy. So as a student, I sort of found myself trying to figure out how I could contribute to this field. I knew I cared about animals, but it wasn't necessarily something I ever thought could really be a career. And so for me, law school was a great way of kind of marrying that passion for animals with a practical skill set, through which I can kind of try to affect change in some way. So. So that's how I got here. And it's been a weird and interesting road.

Amy 03:27

When it comes to law and regulations that cover animals. Can you give us an idea of the scope? I mean, just in thinking about the types of work that you've done, and the animals that I mentioned earlier, whether they are domesticated or wild.  You know, what types of animals and which, I guess which organizations or bodies are actually involved and have oversight?

Ann 03:51

Yeah, so when we talk about animals, that's a huge kind of umbrella category, but we can break that down into a few sort of smaller categories that are easier to work with. So a huge percentage of those animals are farm animals. And so the US processed 10 billion animals for food last year, which is the highest number ever recorded.  Along with those land animals that we processed for food, there's a huge amount of fish as well.  And we don't know how many individual fish we just sort of measure them as tons and by weight, and so those are that's kind of one big category - animals that we eat. And then there's animals that that we love and we keep in our home as pets so cats and dogs, but also exotic pets. By some counts there's as many exotic animals living in in US homes as there are cats and dogs. So those are everything from ferrets and chinchillas, to chameleons and, and all kinds of exotic animals.  And then we also have wildlife.  So there's free roaming wildlife those are animals that are living on their own in nature. but we also have this big sort of growing category of what we would think of as captive wildlife. And those are wild animals that are being bred and kept in captivity for a wide range of different purposes. So for entertainment for zoos and circuses, for movies for, you know, as subjects in research studies, for captive hunting for fur production, we sort of use and consume animals in a vast, dizzying array of ways here in the United States.

And what makes animals such tricky sort of regulatory objects is that even though we consider them legal property, these are sentient beings. And they are different in many ways from a couch or other things that we would would consider property. And so they tend to sort of pose problems and tensions when we try to, to govern them as property. In the US right now, animals, of those different categories that I mentioned, are governed by kind of a patchwork of different state and federal regulators. And often we regulate them on this basis of how we use them as humans, which is helpful in some ways, but it doesn't necessarily tell us much about the animal in a biological sense, or anything like that, in some ways, kind of more a reflection of of us than it is of that.

So there's a breadth of different state and federal organizations that are involved. The USDA is kind of the premier regulatory authority in the federal space for livestock. But wildlife, for example, fall under a different department, the Department of Interior. And some animals have have vastly more protections under the laws than others do, because of this kind of human human preference and how we use them. So there's plenty of things that you could do to a cow or a pig. But if you did that to a dog or a cat, we would consider that animal cruelty. So it presents sort of a host of different challenges as far as how animals and the legal system interact.

Amy 07:13

In addition to the work that you do at university, I know you also write reports and recently co-authored one that looked at animal markets and supply chains, specifically in the US, but you really focused on zoonotic disease.  I guess, as a start, if you could define what zoonotic disease is, and and in this report, kind of who was involved, and what were the findings? And was there anything surprising as you started to dig into the supply chains, and across the different animals that you all looked at in this report?

Ann 07:55

Yeah.  So to start at the beginning then.  Zoonotic disease is a disease that spreads from animals to humans. And this accounts for a huge amount of all emerging infectious diseases, we think that somewhere between 60 and 75%, of these emerging infectious diseases come to humans from animals. And they account for sort of some of the most common and most deadly diseases that we, we face as humans, including things like HIV, which has killed 40 million people. So this is not sort of just limited to, to COVID, or anything like that.  But our research was started on this effort about three years ago.  It  was a project that was conceived up by our faculty director, Kristen Stilt, and she brought on board Dale Jamieson, who's a professor at NYU. And so the project is, is housed primarily at Harvard. But we're really sort of one of a constellation of different institutions that has been working on this project. And it spans not just the US, but 15 different countries. So we're trying to look at this kind of on a global level, and see what's going on and how human use of animals is driving outbreaks of disease and humans. And so to do that, we tried to sort of set out by documenting all these different supply chains, and all those different ways in which humans use animals for commercial purposes that I mentioned before.

And so we were motivated to look at this globally, but also we really wanted to focus on sort of seeing what's going on here in our own backyard, in the United States. Because I think too often here we think of zoonotic disease as a problem that comes from elsewhere. When in fact, by some counts, more emerging infectious diseases originated in the United States during the second half of the 20th century than any other country in the world.  And we use a consume animals here on a massive scale, you know, sort of outpacing even, you know, our large population as far as consumer demand, and things like that.  So, so we wanted to see what was going on here in the US, what practices and industries are sort of responsible for generating those zoonotic risks, and how well the regulatory system was able to account for those risks, you know, how are we doing, as far as mitigating those risks through policy. So that was kind of our mission. And we did that by looking at 36 different forms of animal industries here in the United States. So that was everything from really big industries, like industrial animal agriculture, which we mentioned before, you know, kind of counts animals by the billions, all the way down to really small industries that we might never think of like, coyote urine farming, which is something that that happens here as well. In addition to kind of roadside zoos, petting zoos, animal fairs, livestock auctions, captive hunting operations.  There's sort of a wide range of industries, but every time you have humans and animals interacting, it gives rise to this kind of risk of disease transmission. So we tried to analyze those 36 industries, looking at, you know, kind of the risk factors that are baked into to each of them and, and understand kind of how the regulatory system is addressing that.

So as far as our major findings, you know, I think it, it reaffirmed what we knew, which is that animals are used and consumed in the US on an immense scale. And that makes our countries particularly vulnerable to zoonotic disease in many ways. Generally, the more human-animal interactions, the more opportunities for what we call spillover where disease moves from, from animals to humans. And right now, many of those interactions are poorly regulated. We also found that the United States, in some cases lacks even really basic information about many of these forms of, of industries and the risks that they pose. So for example, in 2020, when mink on fur farms began contracting COVID 19, and in some cases, generating new forms of the virus that were spread back to humans. These operations are so loosely regulated that in some states, policymakers didn't know if, where, or how many farms existed within their state, because they don't require so much as a license to begin for farming. So there's a really urgent need, I think, for more and better data and different monitoring across these these different industries.  You know, at certain points, we found ourselves asking questions to public health officials about forms of animal industry that they'd never heard of, or first learned of when the animals and then began contacting COVID. So I think right now, there's, there's sort of a big disconnect between, you know, public health, and animal industry, and there's not a lot of kind of information sharing between the two.

So as far as conclusions go, you know, we've realized that risk can't be eliminated, right, but it can be reduced. And this could be done in many ways through regulation, that would scarcely be felt by the public at large. Law and policy are really important tool for for reducing risk. But first, we have to kind of understand what's out there, because right now we're trying to regulate in the dark. So what we're advocating at the end of all of this is really just for kind of clear eyed, candid conversations about which of these industries are worth the risks they're posing, and how we could act to to reduce risk wherever possible. So we're not trying to eliminate risks, but we're trying to get rid of this kind of unjustified risk, or unnecessary places where you know, the cost benefit of a fur coat versus a global pandemic might feel sort of grossly out of whack to many Americans.

Amy 13:59

Well, you know, on the point of risk reduction, I mean, maybe one of the easiest places or the most obvious places to start, is one of the largest. And so I'd like to ask a little bit more about industrial animal agriculture. I understand that in, in the US 98% of livestock that we're consuming, comes from 21,000 highly concentrated factory farms. So, you know, why are these very large industrial scale farms breeding grounds for novel pathogens?

Ann 14:41

So, I think, you know, just to start as far as background.  So for many of us, what we picture in our head when we think about where our food is from, is no longer accurate. So over the last 50 years, there's been this huge consolidation in the livestock industry, and we moved more dispersed smaller family-farms to these kind of big industrial meat facilities, which we call CAFOs, or confined animal feeding operations, colloquially, that are referred to often as factory farms. But these are quite different in many ways from from what we think of, you know, and then the picture in our head. So, not only is the livestock industry, a huge industry, it's one where huge amounts of animals are stored together in really close confinement. So some of these facilities hold more than 6 million animals at a single site, which is more than the population of the city of Los Angeles.  That's about equivalent to the whole state of Colorado. So when you have that many animals held together, pathogens can move very quickly, and can potentially sort of generate new and, and different forms, which may be maybe more dangerous. In addition, the conditions that exist in these facilities tend to be sort of precisely those that facilitate disease transmission. So we said, you have lots of animals crowded together, but we also usually have poor ventilation, poor hygiene or welfare. And on top of that, these populations tend to have really low genetic diversity, which can act as kind of a natural buffer to disease. So we're creating this kind of massive animal monocultures in these facilities as well. And those poor conditions can lead to higher levels of stress, which can undermine their immune system. Stress can also cause injuries are other behaviors, like self mutilation, or even cannibalism that can also enhance the risk of disease spread. And when you think about these densities, it's probably unrealistic to think that workers might notice a single animal that's sick moving among a flock of thousands, or hundreds of thousands. And so in these facilities, you also have humans interacting really closely with live, dead and sick animals as well as their waste. So there's plenty of sort of opportunities for spillover on these industrial farms. And when outbreaks occur, they occur at a really huge scale, which we're seeing right now with H5N1 Influenza.

These facilities are also dangerous, in part because of the types of animals that are raising. So both pigs and poultry are the two most common species that we produce here in the US for food. And these species are particularly significant because they're both carriers of influenza viruses, which are widely considered to be the type of virus most likely to give rise to a future human pandemic. So the last influenza pandemic in 1918, killed seven times as many people as COVID has and that was at a time when the world's population was just a quarter of its current size. And unlike COVID, many of the people that died in that outbreak were younger, healthy adults between ages 20 and 40. And we don't know, sort of, with certainty how that outbreak started, but the leading theory suggests that it did start here in the United States and potentially at a stockyard in Kansas. So when we interviewed experts for this research, we always ended by asking them the same question, what is it that keeps you up at night? And without hesitation, and without exception, the answer they gave us was always the same, a large scale influenza pandemic. So a disease event like this could occur on a scale, kind of beyond what we seen with death tolls that could rise into the hundreds of millions, potentially even into the low billions. And these concerns are augmented by the fact that we're producing more chickens and pigs than we ever have before in human history. So globally reproduce 85 billion chickens last year. But these animals are so abundant that scientists have found there will be a strata of chicken bones and the archaeological record that marks the present era. So we're coming to this problem at a really unique time. And at the same time, we're we're currently living through the largest avian influenza outbreak on record here in the US, which has left more than 58 million births dead on these industrial farms, since since the virus reached the States. That virus has spilled over to dozens of others species, including mammals and also to a man in Colorado who is working to depopulate infected birds at one of these facilities. So while this outbreak is devastating wildlife, the longer it goes on, and the more species it spreads to, the greater the chances that we might sort of hit on a strain that could be highly transmissible from person to person, which could potentially lead to these kinds of doomsday scenarios that all of us are worried about.

Amy 19:58

So we've covered a little bit about this human-animal interaction and how that can contribute to the risk of the spread of a zoonotic disease. But outside of that, are there other drivers that you've researched? Or that you're seeing that support the spread of pathogens? And if so, is there anything that we can do? Or think about in terms of, you know, kind of curtailing the spread?

Ann 20:30

Yeah. So that's a great question. So in addition to looking at kind of these specific human animal interactions in the way that we use animals in these different industries that if we sort of zoom out and look at this, from a macro perspective, there's these other kind of large scale background drivers that are occurring at the same time. So for example, climate change is kind of augmenting this risk in really dynamic and, and potentially dangerous ways. So climate is, it's changing where animals can live, it's forcing them to move. And that's driving kind of new interactions between those species of wild animals and domestic animals, those wild animals and humans. So if they're moving into new ranges, they're, they're these kind of first encounters that can occur. And with that disease spread can happen from from one species to another. So it's allowing pathogens to move at the same time that these animals are moving. So I'd say that is, is one kind of driver.

But in addition to that we have kind of human population that is rapidly expanding.  Our world is increasingly globalized. And then alongside that, you have kind of large scale changes in land use.  We need more room, to house ourselves, to feed ourselves and that has kind of managed to like continually squeeze these kinds of wild spaces. And that can potentially be dangerous as far as driving disease outbreaks. So we know that kind of intact, healthy ecosystems tend to spur fewer disease outbreaks than degraded ones. And so as we kind of venture farther into forests, and fragment landscapes in different ways, and then sort of infill those once, wild areas with our own domestic livestock, we're kind of paving the way for pathogens to move and these interactions that might not have occurred without our assistance.

At the same time, we're, we're moving animals, live animals across the globe, through the wildlife trade through live animal export of domestic animals. So we're kind of mixing animals and all of these, these different and potentially dangerous ways, I would say, animal agriculture is also a part of that. So if you think about a place of really high biodiversity, like the Brazilian Amazon, a lot of that land that's being cleared, and deforested is being cleared to raise cattle and to create more pasture land for cattle. So something like 75 to 80% of illegally logged forest land is now used to raise cattle. So we also see these kinds of connections between those industries we're looking at and some of these large scale drivers. But I think there's a real need here to focus on prevention, forced protection payments, things like that, that can kind of help keep these ecosystems intact and pristine, so that there are fewer kind of opportunities for disease to reach humans in that way.

Amy 23:44

Would you give people who are watching this or listening to this podcast ideas that are fairly simple, small ways that they can make change in their own lives that would help ameliorate the situation?

Ann 23:59

Yeah, so I think the first step for me was sort of just recognizing that all of us have participated in one of these industries and in some way or another, right. And so just kind of recognizing that and, and that those are kind of potentially dangerous interactions, and there are real costs to them, I think is an important first step.  You know, we might think about sort of visiting a pet store and handling a bunch of, of captive wild animals there as something that could potentially sort of drive disease risk, but it does.  Or if we purchase a product online that is sort of sourced somewhere else in the Global South and driving high risk human-animal interactions to to access that product before it's shipped here, you know, there's downstream effects to the decisions that we make as consumers here in the United States. And because we're such a large epicenter center of demand, we have kind of an outsized impact on what happens in the rest of the world for for that reason. And so I think just trying to be really conscious about those choices, whether it's, you know, what you want to eat, what you want to do with your leisure time, what activities you're going to sort of take your kids to, and patronize.  I think just thinking about those, from a different perspective is a great sort of first step.

But I think getting engaged as far as your local government all the way up to to the federal level, on animal issues is also really important and critical. So for some of these bills that relate to animals, you know, if if congressional offices get even four calls, or something from the public on one of these issues, that's enough for them to kind of sit up and take notice and take these issues seriously. So I think, you know, in many cases, animal industry is very well organized.  They have kind of sophisticated lobbying efforts, and they're doing all the right things to try and sort of combat any kind of regulation. So I think trying to be organized on the other side, and not just kind of being passive observers of our legislative system is is really sort of a powerful antidote to that. Lately, there's been a big trend in ballot initiatives related to animals, which usually carry sort of overwhelming support among the public. And I think that's another great way to, to get involved. But really, I think it just comes down to this kind of consciousness and just having that as a lens in which we view our everyday activities.

Amy 26:47

Ann, maybe you could you talk to us a little bit about your own career path and what sort of advice you would give to someone who wanted to follow in your footsteps and pursue a career in animal protection? And given that you're a lawyer, maybe you could also talk a little bit about what lawyers can do and how they actually tackle these issues specifically?

Ann 27:12

Yeah, so that's a great question. And I think first, I would say, if anyone has a passion in this space, I hope that they pursue it.  There's a lot of opportunities all the way from kind of volunteering at a local level, to getting involved in working for an NGO in this space. Or in this area of law and policy, which is sort of where my career has has taken me, for better or worse. So there's a lot of different ways in which lawyers can try to affect change, but one is to kind of shape and influence policies. So by drafting policy to be passed by legislator or through ballot initiatives. For example, in California and many other states, animal welfare groups have had a lot of success by drafting and passing ballot measures to improve conditions for animals on factory farms.  And these are really basic measures.  They require that producers give animals enough space to stand up, lie down, turn around, and fully extend their limbs. So not earth shattering, but for that animal, it really matters. And these have have seen sort of broad based public support, and can move the needle in various ways. I think animal industry is very sort of organized and well adept at trying to reduce regulation wherever possible. So I think reaching out on the other side showing support for these issues is as powerful in that way.

Another way that lawyers affect change is through litigation, so bringing court cases as a means of kind of creating change through the legal system. So for example, if we look at one of those ballot measures that I just mentioned, so Proposition 12 in California, which related to gestation crates for pregnant pigs.  After it passed, it was immediately attacked by the pork industry who really did not want to have to comply with this law. And so they sued a lot of different times a lot of different ways trying to get this law overturned. And they fought it all the way to the Supreme Court, where they just lost earlier this year. But we need lawyers, both to help pass those laws and then to try and defend those laws when they're under attack from industry or, or from others.

A lot of what we do in this field of animal law comes down to trying to sort of hold the government to account when it's not following the law. So to give you a specific example, there's about 300 wolverines, we think give or take left in the continental US. And that population is a particular risk because of climate change and their dependence on this kind of really cold environments and snowpack.  Even so the Trump administration refused to grant wolverines protections under the Endangered Species Act, and so several and environmental nonprofits, filed a lawsuit to challenge that decision, and convinced a federal court in Montana that the Department of Interior had not met their obligations under the Endangered Species Act, and told them to kind of go back and reevaluate that decision. So hopefully, by the end of the month, we will see this incredibly rare species finally protected. But that's just sort of one example of how a law can be a really powerful vehicle for change, to advance better outcomes for, for people on for animals.

Amy 30:32

That's amazing what you just said about the wolverines.  Did you say that there's only 300 left?

Ann 30:38

300.

Amy 30:39

That's incredible.  Alright, you University of Michigan fans, and alumni.  I hope you're paying attention.  I know that's your mascot.  And do something to protect.  Call to action!  Go Blue!  Sorry, I have one who went to U of M.  Anyway, separating a little bit from the academic work you've done, the policy work and the research.  I want to jump to your work in the field.  because I mean it's one thing to be doing something at a desk, it's entirely something else to roll up your sleeves, and get out in nature.  And I read, when I did a little background on you, that you're certified by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to handle and remove invasive pythons.  Now that's taking it one step beyond someone who just goes out into the wilderness.  Can you please give us a little backstory to that particular skill?

Ann 31:37

Well, you never know when this kind of training will come in handy.  So, this sort of happened by accident.  I was in my masters program, and I was doing an externship with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  So I was shadowing and doing sort of inspections of live wildlife coming into the country and working down in Florida around their national panther wildlife refuge.  But a big problem in Florida is invasive pythons which have been sort of a product of this exotic pet trade that we mentioned before.  A lot of times when snakes get too big, people let them go outside.  They're not native here, and usually they can't survive.  Except in Florida they can.  And they have reproduced and are starting to drive out all kinds of species of native fauna in particular, these birds that the Everglades in particular is really known for.  So it's a huge problem down in Florida in particular.  So, I believe that I was signed up for this training which I thought was just kind of an in-class training and watch a power point about these problems and things like that.  But then they told us that it was time for our kind of physical aspect of the training, and we went out into the parking lot then and released all of these pythons and gave us these snake hooks and a pillow case.  That was what we were armed with.  And try and catch those snakes and recapture them.  But the challenging thing is that because they are constrictors, they'll start wrapping you at the same time, so you have to kind of unwrap as you are trying to safely put them back into their.

Amy 33:31

And just out of curiosity, what size were these?

Ann 33:32

Mine, I would say, was about  eight feet which was longer than I was comfortable with.

Amy 33:38

Oh, significant size.

Ann 33:36

Yeah, I think they thought it was really funny to sign me up as an intern for this and not tell me what I was getting into. So, but um, ready for anything.

Amy 33:47

That's right. You've taken your skills into the field, and you are ready for anything.  Um, I guess turning it to influencers, or rather people that you admire, that you follow, whether in the scientific or legal community or organizations that you recommend.  Or even films, books.  I mean we said earlier that becoming aware of these issues is probably one of the most important steps you can take.  What would you recommend?

Ann 34:20

That's a great question.  And there are so many answers running through my brain right. I think the first person who comes to mind is Ed Yong who is a writer for The Atlantic, a staff writer for them. And he wrote a book recently called An Immense World which deals with this concept which most people are not familiar with, but he refers to it as Umwelt which is kind of this idea that even though we share the same environment, all different species are interacting and experiencing that environment differently.   And so it kind of poses these questions of what we can learn from other species and the way they see the world totally differently from ours.  But I think his writing, one is just really beautiful, but two kind of knits together all of these different themes of kind of One Health and Preserve Nature and kind of grappling with these moral questions of what are our obligations as humans to all of these other species and animals under our care.  So I recommend really anything that he's written.  But there is a host of really wonderful nature documentaries in the space. You have ones that focus on particular issues like Blackfish which really kind of captivated, pun intended, audiences as far as looking closely at the conditions of captive whales in the United States.  And the Cove which dealt with dolphin slaughter in Japan.  So finding opportunities to go deep on particular aspects of the issues, because animals is such a broad category, but each of those has really kind of changed the way I understand and see the world.  And I am a very visual person so I love anytime I can watch something and learn at the same time.  I am all onboard for that.

Amy 36:20

That's great.  You mentioned One Health. It's a term of a concept I have heard before, but I don't know a lot about it.  Would you mind just sharing what that means exactly?

Ann 36:31

Sure.  So One Health is the idea that human health, animal health, and environmental health are kind of three overlapping circles.  That these things are deeply connected, and what is beneficial to our health as humans is probably also, has benefits that would extend to animals and to the environment.  And in addition to this there's this kind of newer concept called One Welfare which would suggest the same thing.  That all of our fates are kind of knitted together in this particular way.  So One Health has been kind of an idea that's been floating around for many years and is kind of widely accepted.  But we're still really struggling with how to apply that, you know, as far as the law and regulation and what does that look like in practice.  But I think it's a really kind of powerful and motivating idea to understand that kind of these things we see as separate are really kind of an extension of our own health in many ways.

Amy 37:42

Ok, Ann, thanks so much for giving that background on One Health.  I think understanding the interconnectedness is another one of those first steps that we can each take on getting more educated.  Alright, so we are coming to the end of the podcast, and I have a fun question for you.  It's one that we ask everyone who joins us.  And that is, if you could have a sustainability superpower, one that would improve outlooks for planet and people, animals, etc.  What would that superpower be and why?

Ann 38:15

That is a great question.   I think this might seem like a silly answer.   And it's probably the same answer I would have given when I was four years old.  But I would love to be able to talk to animals.  I mean, I feel like if we could kind of break down these inter-species barriers and communicate with species outside our own, it would really force us to kind of reckon with and reimage our whole relationship with nature.  You know, if you could talk to sea turtles and ask them sort of about what they need in their environment to survive or how they're being impacted by warming ocean temperatures. I mean I think that would be revolutionary if you could talk to a pig and ask them sort of what their experience is like.  You know living in a cage that is so tiny that they can't turn around.  You know, I think it would, it would prevent us from being able to kind of throw up these cognitive barriers that we have placed between ourselves and every other species of animals. Because we are animals of course.  There's a lot of interesting research happening in this space.  So my dream may someday become a reality.  The CETI, for example, which is based at MIT is looking to use artificial intelligence to try and decode and communicate with Sperm Whales and develop kind of a lexicon of their sort of sonar sounds I guess. So I am really excited to see what change will bring in the next decade or two as far as our ability to communicate on an inter-species basis.  Until then, it will just be my sort of dream superpower.  But I hope someday it becomes something more tangible and real and causes us to look really deeply at the ways in which we interact with other animals.

Amy 40:26

That's amazing.  That's an amazing superpower.  And I agree I think we could learn a lot from other species.  So.  Well, Ann, thank you so much for taking the time to join us on the podcast.  Really have enjoyed the conversation, and thank you for all the work that you've done and your dedication.  We appreciate it.  Very much.  Thanks again. 

Ann 40:45

Thank you, Amy, I really enjoyed chatting with you.

Amy 40:48

Bye.

Ann 40:49

Bye.

Outro 40:50

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