Bad Kitties

[00:00:33] and start another Two Cat Show. Down at the Two Cat Kitchen we're starting on a mission to put you in the

[00:00:43] Kulin recipes you ever will find guaranteed to show you all a mighty fine time here at the Two Cat Kitchen

[00:00:55] time for a new edition of the Kulinary Two Cat Show. The Two Cat Kitchen, the show that mixes musical

[00:01:15] mayhem with Culinary Calamity. Rick McKinney is here to help with the mixing. Hey everybody, welcome to

[00:01:21] the kitchen. Each episode features new songs, a brand new recipe and a special guest. Who's our guest

[00:01:28] today? You know we're at the halfway point of the season which means we have a special science guest.

[00:01:35] Today we're joined by Martina Mueller. Martina is a wildlife biologist specializing in bird behavior

[00:01:41] and she's going to be telling us all about her exciting research. Every show also includes an

[00:01:48] informative segment. What do we have for the people today? Today we have a segment taking a look at

[00:01:54] endangered species conservation and we'll be joined by another guest, Alex Thibodot, who will help us

[00:02:01] answer some questions about endangered species. Speaking of which, I can hear that the coconuts are back

[00:02:08] but do you know what they're up to? Well, they learned how to make apple pie on last month's episode

[00:02:14] so they are in there fighting over the last piece. Wow, it's fighting over the leftovers.

[00:02:22] Yep. That sounds like uh sounds like the coconuts to me.

[00:02:27] Well if you can round them up Sarah, it's time for our first musical number and it's a world premiere

[00:02:33] of the Corral Cadacy. We're back at the Two Cat Kitchen and we're here with today's guest.

[00:08:22] We have Martina Mueller. Martina, welcome to the Two Cat Kitchen. Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.

[00:08:28] Yeah, thanks for joining us. It's great. Martina is a research scientist and she works in our wildlife

[00:08:34] ecology and also is teaching full-time here at the University of Rhode Island here in southern

[00:08:41] Rhode Island. And so Martina, tell us a little bit about what are you working on research-wise right

[00:08:49] right now? So I'm in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences and it's a pretty broad department

[00:08:55] and the people I'm working with we're studying birds and we're studying the distribution and

[00:08:59] abundance of coastal water birds in Rhode Island. So we're a tiny state but we have a lot of coastline

[00:09:04] and we have a like the largest natural estuary in New England just like a big bay in our state.

[00:09:11] That's a really important area for ducks and geese in the winter. They like to spend the winter here

[00:09:18] in our coastal waters and it's also just important habitat for other groups of water birds throughout

[00:09:24] the year. There's little islands where they breed and so a lot of birds pass through here in migration.

[00:09:30] So it's just important habitat for water birds and one of the questions we're asking is how do

[00:09:39] water birds interact with shellfish farms? So Rhode Island's also increasingly an important place for

[00:09:48] shellfish aquaculture especially oysters. So we're if you want to eat fresh oysters Rhode Island's a great

[00:09:54] place to come and more and more local farmers are growing oysters in our coastal waters

[00:10:01] and using different methods but it's just really not known how birds interact with that

[00:10:06] and so that's one of the things we're looking at is how does that impact the birds distribution and

[00:10:13] abundance and also how does the birds present impact farm operations because yeah birds can impact those

[00:10:21] in various ways as well. Oh that's really interesting yeah you know and I know that here in Rhode Island

[00:10:27] like you said they've made a real big effort to promote aquaculture I guess they call it right

[00:10:33] of different types and I mean I guess in other coastal areas they do aquaculture too I'm sure but

[00:10:40] it does seem like it seems to be a bit of a priority here in Rhode Island so it would seem like really

[00:10:45] important to know how that aquaculture would affect birds that spend part of their life here is it bad

[00:10:53] good for them bad for them right that's the whole idea yeah pretty much yeah and and then although and

[00:10:58] I guess if you're doing if you're growing oysters or mussels or whatever if there's birds I know there's

[00:11:04] ducks that eat mussels right so if the ducks are eating all of your farmed mussels that's not a good thing

[00:11:13] not a good thing at all okay so that's really interesting interesting and important research

[00:11:18] that's great and so but I know that um a little bit from talking to you that that's not really

[00:11:24] totally your line of research what what how did you come about let me just ask you how did you get into

[00:11:30] this line of research in general yeah it's been a like a long and winding road so I'm actually a

[00:11:38] graduate from this department um so 20 years ago I graduated with a degree in wildlife

[00:11:43] conservation biology from this um school this department um so it's like cool to be back home

[00:11:49] but um yeah after I graduated actually what happened is I just went traveling in Central America and

[00:11:56] didn't have a plan at all after graduation and then when I came back realized all the field jobs were

[00:12:01] gone um but then luckily chanced upon a field job in the Galapagos Islands um studying Nazca boobies and

[00:12:11] albatrosses um because unfortunately another field technician had had a rock climbing accident so

[00:12:17] they needed to fill the position really quickly I can't believe it that people are would love to work

[00:12:22] down in the Galapagos and you got to do it wow yeah yeah so I got super lucky and it was like eight

[00:12:27] months living in a tent on an uninhabited island with just a few other scientists and I was just

[00:12:33] spending all my days in this huge seabird colony walking around and in the Galapagos as you probably

[00:12:39] know animals aren't afraid of humans so it's just like a huge data farm and you're just hanging out

[00:12:43] with the birds and they pretty much ignore you and don't care that you're there so you're just sort

[00:12:47] of surrounded by this big soap opera of breeding birds going about their lives with all their drama

[00:12:52] and rearing their chicks and there's life there's death all happening around you and you're just

[00:12:57] immersed in it so that got me really hooked on animal behavior and seabirds especially

[00:13:03] wow that's fascinating yeah yeah so what kind of there's a lot of drama in the seabird colony

[00:13:09] absolutely you know I don't even think of that yeah actually there's a lot of like fights and stuff

[00:13:14] definitely and um I ended up turning that into my master's project um and one of the questions I was

[00:13:21] researching was looking at the cycle of violence so what happens is um Nazca boobies they're very

[00:13:29] long-lived seabirds so it takes them actually a few years to actually start breeding actually let me

[00:13:34] just say what was that it's a species of bird it's a seabird what is it called again uh Nazca boobie

[00:13:40] um and they're relatively like mid to large size seabirds um you know like a couple of kilograms

[00:13:48] so around the equator the Galapagos Islands there's like blue-footed boobies which many people may have

[00:13:53] heard of um Nazca boobies red-footed boobies got it all right sorry to interrupt no problem

[00:13:59] um and they're prone to violence they're prone to violence um and so like these non-breeders hang

[00:14:07] around the colony so they're not quite ready to breed yet but they're sort of like looking at other

[00:14:11] breeding adults trying to figure out like what they do and so they kind of like walk around the breeding

[00:14:16] colony where there's just like nests on the ground packed quite closely um and then so when the adults

[00:14:23] for fish at sea leaving their chicks unattended in the nest the these non-breeders will actually

[00:14:30] approach those unattended chicks and like attack them or they do like pseudo parental behavior where

[00:14:37] they kind of preen them and like pretend that they're the parent and sometimes they try to

[00:14:42] copulate with them so they're doing all kinds of weird stuff to these chicks yeah and so interestingly

[00:14:48] we had histories of these individuals because this is like a long-term study so

[00:14:53] the um professor i was working with dave anderson he's at wake forest university um i think he just

[00:14:58] retired a couple years ago but he had a very long-term study where he was he knew the histories of every

[00:15:04] single banded bird in this part of the study area and so he knew what they experienced as young chicks

[00:15:11] and so these non-breeders we could figure out oh the birds that are harassing chicks the most did they

[00:15:18] have some kind of traumatic experience in their like chickhood so we could look back in the records

[00:15:24] and found that the ones that were most aggressive and violent to the chicks actually had experienced

[00:15:29] most more violence like that when they were young so it's kind of quite parallel to what we see in like

[00:15:35] human populations um so that was a kind of surprising and unexpected result and there's i mean

[00:15:41] they're a siblisidal species so the older chick will always kill the younger chick because parents can't

[00:15:47] afford to rear both so there's really a lot going on with the boobies so what'd you call what kind of

[00:15:51] species uh oh siblisidal so siblings will kill each other yeah the older sibling will always kill the

[00:15:58] younger sibling if both eggs hatch that's crazy yeah i didn't know that wow yeah so there's never a dull

[00:16:04] moment so and there's lots of bad boobies around very bad wow that is crazy wow that sounds like a

[00:16:13] fascinating research yeah i mean i mean i was hooked on behavior after that yeah i can imagine too good

[00:16:19] so that so that's great so you spent some time down in the galapagos galapagos sorry and which is

[00:16:25] fascinating but you also spent time uh over in europe i think uh yeah so i don't know i was sitting in

[00:16:31] class one day during grad school and i got it in my head that i wanted to do my phd in europe and i'm

[00:16:37] originally from europe and i just thought okay i want to live in europe for a while and do research

[00:16:41] there and there were some um it's actually a great place for animal behavior research there's just like

[00:16:47] a lot of really um cool stuff going on and i was determined to work with someone who was studying

[00:16:55] sort of hormones and behavior and free living birds i didn't really want to work with captive birds

[00:17:00] and so that kind of narrowed the scope and i ended up getting in touch with someone in the netherlands

[00:17:06] and got a full bright grant to go work with him for a year and then ended up staying on to do my phd

[00:17:12] there and then i did like field work with kitty wakes in arctic norway um and in iceland for that

[00:17:19] project i worked with sheer waters in italy as during my vacations for fun so i got to kind of

[00:17:25] experience different seabird colonies in europe during that time which was really fun so you lived

[00:17:30] in the netherlands for a while five years wow that's great how what was that like is uh

[00:17:36] it's great i mean you're in a city or yep yep i was living in groeningen which is

[00:17:42] a smallish city um in the northeast so it's not really in the big hub of like amsterdam leiden the

[00:17:50] hague all of those cities which are more on the west and all kind of tightly connected it was sort

[00:17:55] of like a standalone city in the northeast sort of surrounded by a lot of farmland and about an hour

[00:18:01] away from germany but very dutch you know just biking everywhere very flat windy um but great

[00:18:09] great place to study um actually one of the kind of founders of the field of animal behavior

[00:18:16] um nico tinbergen who won a nobel prize for it he was at the university of groeningen and his grandson

[00:18:22] was a professor in our ecology group so it's like that lineage was very much there and it was a very

[00:18:29] kind of stimulating place with a lot of people from all over the world um studying there and also

[00:18:34] coming in to give talks collaborating it was very stimulating wow that sounds like a great experience

[00:18:40] yeah it was yeah and uh actually so you were born in europe too and we're going to get to that in one

[00:18:47] second we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back so martina we were talking about how you

[00:19:15] were born in europe where were you born i was born in basle switzerland switzerland wow that's an

[00:19:21] interesting uh place to live and you lived there for a little while um just about a year oh okay yeah

[00:19:29] and then uh where did you end up your parents moved i guess yeah so my dad's a physicist and he was a

[00:19:36] postdoc at that time um and so he got a one-year fellowship from the swiss national science foundation

[00:19:41] to come to the u.s to do research for a year yeah and where did he end up in the u.s so he was actually

[00:19:48] working at uri for a year and then he got another postdoc in long island for two years so we stayed two

[00:19:53] more years and we were going to go back to switzerland but then he got a job at uri so we stayed oh okay

[00:19:58] yeah so i grew up here so you were born in switzerland um but you basically grew up grew up

[00:20:05] here yeah new england or in the u.s right new island yeah oh cool that's really interesting

[00:20:09] but you still have family in switzerland yeah yeah yeah we visited all the time yeah and you spent a

[00:20:15] lot of time there i bet as you know visiting and yeah absolutely and my dad even did a six-month

[00:20:21] sabbatical there when i was in sixth grade so i got to go to school there and yeah i'm still very

[00:20:26] close to family there and one thing i know i mean i don't know a lot about switzerland but i do know

[00:20:30] that people that live there speak a lot of languages yes do you speak a lot of languages or you must

[00:20:35] yes i yeah um so we speak swiss german at home so it's a swiss dialect of german um it's not actually

[00:20:43] a written language um in school you learn like proper high german what they speak in germany but we

[00:20:48] have like our own swiss dialect um and then i also my parents got me a french tutor and a german tutor

[00:20:54] and then i just had an interest in languages and traveled a lot so i picked up other languages along

[00:20:58] the way wow that's that's great i think it's so great to be able to speak different languages and

[00:21:03] there's different types of german i didn't realize that i guess just a dialect right and but if you go

[00:21:08] to germany people can understand what you're saying it depends so there are pockets in southern

[00:21:14] germany where they also have a strong dialect and there's more overlap between that dialect and swiss

[00:21:19] swiss dialect so they kind of understand more but then when you get to like northern germany they

[00:21:24] understand less and less okay now how about when you were in the netherlands that you had to speak

[00:21:29] dutch there yeah so is that something you learned how you learned or i i think i started taking some

[00:21:35] dutch lessons or something but i realized everyone spoke such outstanding english there because none of

[00:21:42] their tv is dubbed into dutch unlike in germany where all the tv shows and movies are dubbed into german

[00:21:47] in the netherlands everything is in english with subtitles so their english is like outstanding

[00:21:52] plus i was in a very international university so i kind of got by with faking dutch so i would speak

[00:21:58] swiss german with a zurich accent and mix in some german like high german and some english and it

[00:22:06] sounded just like dutch no kidding that's awesome and of course everybody that lives there probably

[00:22:13] speaks multiple multiple languages anyway so communication wasn't the problem yeah that's

[00:22:17] really fascinating so anyway uh that's that's really an interesting uh past you have there which is

[00:22:24] great very um um diverse and so getting back to you did your phd i guess in the netherlands

[00:22:32] and where did you move would you uh end up going from there um so after that i i don't know there

[00:22:40] were just like other research questions i had and other parts of the world i wanted to experience so

[00:22:46] it worked out that i connected to a professor in japan who was doing really interesting work with

[00:22:52] streak cheerwaters and he just had access to all these very cool instruments that they put on birds

[00:22:58] so he puts cameras on birds and does like films of them flying and looking at what they eat when they

[00:23:03] dive what kinds of fish they eat he puts all kinds of gps loggers on them to track their movements

[00:23:08] even some like physiology recordings like heart rate loggers so that seemed really cool to me because i

[00:23:14] wanted to study their behavior in the wild not in a controlled setting so i got a fellowship to go from

[00:23:20] the japanese society of science or whatever it's called um to go do research with him for a few years

[00:23:28] wow that sounds so interesting i mean putting cameras on birds i know that's that's what people do i

[00:23:35] mean yeah it was pretty funny because one of them actually flew to north korea and i'm like i think

[00:23:38] we're on to something so i was working at nagoya university so nagoya is a fairly large city of

[00:23:57] about three million definitely the biggest city i ever lived in um and so it's kind of like southeast

[00:24:05] japan between tokyo and kyoto very roughly okay um but i was doing field work in the sea of japan so

[00:24:12] that's on the other side of japan um sort of tucked between like mainland asia and japan oh okay yeah i

[00:24:20] was working on island there yeah so you got to see a bunch of the country and everything and yeah

[00:24:24] back and forth i imagine yeah that's great wow really interesting work and then after japan you

[00:24:31] ended up uh after japan i thought about doing another postdoc in europe but then i thought okay i think i need

[00:24:38] a break then i thought about traveling the whole world on cargo ships and so i got a lot of vaccinations

[00:24:42] and then i realized i was too tired for that too and i was just kind of homesick

[00:24:48] yeah and i just needed a break because i had just been doing like hardcore you know like research

[00:24:52] first for many years and miss my family and wanted to i was also um i'd you know i've been working on

[00:25:02] seabirds for like 10 years by then and i just saw that so many of the seabird populations i was working

[00:25:07] on were really doing terribly actually like seabirds are really vulnerable to climate change and i had

[00:25:13] seen so many direct impacts of climate change on the birds um from like heat waves um like causing

[00:25:21] like whole breeding colonies to collapse in argentina to just like puffins not being able to get their food

[00:25:28] in iceland to like typhoons destroying nest boroughs in japan and i mean just so many different ways that

[00:25:35] climate is impacting seabirds and so i i don't know i felt like pivoting and sort of getting involved with

[00:25:42] climate advocacy for a while because i thought that might have a more direct impact rather than

[00:25:47] me just studying behavior for fun and then like four people are going to read the paper

[00:25:52] yeah yeah i see so you did you did kind of get into involved in climate advocacy for a bit and yeah

[00:25:59] yeah yeah so here in rhode island i got involved in it for a while um that's good and then realized i

[00:26:05] missed being a scientist um and so i started doing work here at the university um which i already told

[00:26:12] you about yeah um yeah wow okay wow so a really varied past yeah yeah uh very interesting route to end up

[00:26:22] here which is great um so what i wanted to ask you now um can you just give us a sense like what a day

[00:26:30] in the life of a research scientist like you is like you know what i mean pick one of those

[00:26:36] research topics and what kind of like like if you're doing some field work for example uh can you is

[00:26:42] that yeah yeah gosh i mean they were you know every place is different every yeah yeah but like does

[00:26:49] something stick out in your mind like oh yeah we had to go out i don't know i can tell you about

[00:26:53] about what i was doing in japan because it's sort of unusual um so i i actually had four full like

[00:26:59] summers of field work there um and i was working with streak cheerwaters in like a big colony and

[00:27:05] they're sort of like unusual because you know most seabird colonies are sort of like open there's not

[00:27:10] really any vegetation because there's just so much bird poop everywhere that like not much can grow

[00:27:14] there and it's just kind of like barren rocks nests but this area was different it was sort of almost

[00:27:20] like lush jungle on this island and the birds would like be breeding in nest borrows they dig in the ground

[00:27:27] under trees and so they kind of like crash into the trees and then land and then they find their

[00:27:33] little nest burrow and go to their chick and they would spend um the days foraging and then at night

[00:27:40] they would be in the breeding colony feeding their chicks and spending time with them um and so i did

[00:27:45] all my work at night so i would like eat dinner with our research group on the island and then we'd

[00:27:51] all get suited up um with our field gear and i'll then head over to the colony and i would spend all

[00:27:57] night working in the field like in the in the breeding colony from like 8 to 4 a.m so were you doing

[00:28:04] like observations of them or yeah so i was putting heart rate loggers on them and looking at their

[00:28:10] stress sensitivity um and so i was doing behavioral observations with infrared cameras in the dark

[00:28:16] and i would film their behavior while i had heart rate loggers on them um and so i would like also

[00:28:23] take blood samples in the dark from them to look at their stress hormones so there was just like so much

[00:28:28] stuff and i'm like crawling around on my hands and knees in the dark and i knew all the little paths so i

[00:28:34] wouldn't mess up the nests they were all like labeled i knew every single bird band um and the name of

[00:28:39] every bird um and i was just this kind of like feral animal crawling around um all night every night for

[00:28:45] about four months and so you had to catch the birds to put the monitors on them and to take the blood

[00:28:51] yeah how tricky was that i mean oh yeah that's a great question so for these birds usually the easiest

[00:28:57] thing was to just reach my arm into their nest burrow because i knew that was their home and that was

[00:29:01] where their chick was and so i knew that reliably i could find one parent there so i would reach in and

[00:29:07] then the animal would chomp down on my finger with its bill and then i would grab the bill and gently

[00:29:12] pull the animal out of the burrow and then i would stick the head into like a cloth bag to kind of keep

[00:29:18] the head immobilized keep it from biting me and then i could work on the bird um and i usually was

[00:29:24] like attaching a heart rate log or taping it to the back with tape um attaching the electrodes to the

[00:29:29] chest um and then i would put the bird back in the nest burrow and then i would put an algae bottle

[00:29:34] in the entrance a algae bottle full of water so that the bird would just like stay in the nest and

[00:29:39] it wouldn't escape with my um instruments on because you want to get it back yeah and i wanted to look

[00:29:44] at like how i wanted to look like the um sort of the profile of the heart rate during a stress response

[00:29:51] and how quickly it returns to normal because i noticed that some birds are really chill and they

[00:29:57] they're like pretty much unruffled like stressful things can happen but they don't really sweat it

[00:30:02] and then other ones are just really anxious and they stay anxious and so it's very much like humans

[00:30:07] they have temperaments they have personality and some are just more stress sensitive than others and

[00:30:12] that's also reflected in their behavioral responses so that was kind of like one of the questions i was

[00:30:16] looking at yeah okay so this is you stick your hand in this burrow and the bird bites you

[00:30:25] and that's how you catch them i don't know you can always tell from the bite if it's a male or a

[00:30:31] female because the males had huge bills there's something about that i guess uh yeah well you can

[00:30:37] see scars all over my arms from penguins albatrosses boobies sheer waters it looks like i have emotional

[00:30:44] problems but really it's just scars from the birds so you got to give it up to study these birds i guess

[00:30:50] you got to give up your hands and yeah but it's all nothing was i mean yeah it's just part of the

[00:30:58] wear and tear of being a field biologist you know you wear these scars proudly that's awesome yeah well

[00:31:05] that's really interesting and it's fascinating that the birds would have different temperaments and

[00:31:11] everything i wouldn't think about that but yeah well if you think about it i mean anyone who has dogs

[00:31:16] know that they have very kind of unique and individual personalities anyone who has any kind

[00:31:22] of pet knows that yeah and it's no different with wild animals there's a whole spectrum and there's a

[00:31:27] whole like field of animal behavior research focused on animal personality now from invertebrates to all

[00:31:35] kinds of vertebrates wow yeah people study in spiders spider behavior yeah yeah and personality so

[00:31:42] there's consistent differences in individuals in sort of behavioral strategies or behavioral syndromes

[00:31:47] and there's some genetic basis some of it's developmental it's interesting and i was interested

[00:31:53] in sort of like the hormonal underpinnings and also like the autonomic nervous system so stress responses

[00:31:58] yeah fight or flight response well it sounds like you've had some really fascinating experiences in

[00:32:04] the field and with that in mind we're gonna take a quick break here and we'll be right back

[00:32:10] we're back at the two cat kitchen and martina one thing that we ask everybody who's a guest on the

[00:32:33] two cat kitchen is what is your earliest musical memory i can't remember a specific memory but my mom's

[00:32:42] a piano teacher and as long as i can remember she was always practicing the piano um and she would have

[00:32:49] students come to her house even when i was very little and she would teach lessons there and then i think by

[00:32:55] the time i was three i insisted on lessons and i would just constantly be at the piano she would just park

[00:33:00] the high chair in front of the piano and one of my favorite early memories of making music with my mom

[00:33:06] on the piano is what we called the three little pigs and the wolf and we would just play on the black keys

[00:33:14] of the piano and improvise and it was call and response and we would just do improvisations and have

[00:33:19] like a little musical conversation about the story of the wolf and the three little pigs

[00:33:24] that's great yeah what a great memory yeah that's fantastic wow um so and then you've you are involved

[00:33:34] in music a little bit right um i think you sing a little bit um yeah yeah so i mean i learned piano

[00:33:41] when i was little but as you know i traveled a lot so i could never really take it with me

[00:33:45] and so and i always really loved singing with other people um and so i found a choir when i came back

[00:33:52] home here and started singing in a church choir first locally here in peacedale with the unitarians

[00:33:58] and then i found a really good episcopal choir in newport with really great choir directors and we sing

[00:34:04] a lot of early music and it's just some of my favorite thing ever wow that's great so you are active

[00:34:09] in music too that's good yeah that's great fantastic yeah my whole family is musicians and scientists

[00:34:14] oh yeah yeah this there's quite a history of that throughout time i guess so that's a good thing

[00:34:20] um yeah what kind of i'm just curious your mom being a piano teacher did she play

[00:34:26] a lot other than teaching did she play a lot when you were younger at home what kind of music did she play

[00:34:33] all kinds of classical music a lot of Bach i remember like early in my life just hearing her

[00:34:38] practicing a lot of Bach and i love Bach and but also Mozart and just all kinds of classical music

[00:34:44] it was really nice and my brother plays violin and so there was always like music happening in the house

[00:34:49] and my other brother is a professional jazz musician now and so i'm still like immersed in it and i live

[00:34:54] with him so our house looks like a music store oh no kidding yeah wow that's that's really interesting

[00:35:01] yeah so you are kind of uh i guess definitely a musical family on one side and a science family on the

[00:35:08] other side which is great i remember in high school we used to have family singing meetings

[00:35:12] and it was really annoying to me because i just wanted to talk to my friends on the phone but i

[00:35:16] was like oh i have to go sing with my family you're kidding yeah it's very swiss because the swiss always

[00:35:21] sing i when i was going to school in switzerland we would every day sing songs together everyone had a

[00:35:27] song book and we would sing several songs it was like my favorite part of the school day

[00:35:32] great well okay so we're gonna wrap up this part of the uh the uh episode and we're gonna move on

[00:35:40] and i think you have a recipe for us yeah yeah so when you asked me for a recipe i'm not like a very

[00:35:48] good cook but one of the things i remember it's just it's been a hot summer and i got really back

[00:35:53] into the foods i really liked eating in japan in summer because in japan the summers are just really

[00:35:58] hot and humid like they are here and so they're really good with like cold noodles and i remember

[00:36:03] in the field sometimes we would have somen which is like a very thin noodle that they actually put

[00:36:10] like ice on and it's just like so refreshing and that's not even the recipe but i just wanted to

[00:36:15] that kind of got me into like japanese food this summer again and then one of my staples that i always

[00:36:20] cooked there was okonomiyaki um and it's basically so that's the recipe i'm going to tell you about

[00:36:26] okay super simple yeah hold that thought okay we'll take a quick break and we'll be right back

[00:36:33] we're back at the two cat kitchen martini you have a recipe for us what is it it's okonomiyaki

[00:36:41] okonomiyaki i like the sound of it i can break down the word for you because i looked it up in

[00:36:44] wikipedia before i came so konomo means favorite and then you add an o to anything to make it sound

[00:36:50] more polite which the japanese are really into is making everything polite and then yaki the last

[00:36:55] part of the word means grilled so it means like basically your favorite grilled stuff your polite

[00:37:02] favorite your polite exactly excellent and and yeah and it's it's fairly simple that's what i like

[00:37:11] about it it's very flexible so there's different they make it differently in different parts of japan

[00:37:17] but basically you can kind of put your favorite leftovers in there mixed with maybe some noodle

[00:37:24] or some shredded cabbage some egg and you kind of just turn it into a pancake and then you put

[00:37:30] condiments on it so that's basically the concept wow yeah and it's just like always satisfying and

[00:37:36] delicious but you kind of only need to make one bowl dirty oh okay yeah so it's like simple to make

[00:37:44] yeah but the way i like to make it is um kind of like a healthy way i just shred some cabbage or chop it

[00:37:50] finely and then i dust it with some salt and pepper and some whole wheat flour just like a tablespoon

[00:37:57] you can put more if you want it to be a little hearty heartier um and this is like a typical bowl

[00:38:02] like a just get a bowl put it all in a kitchen bowl exactly okay um and you can put like you know

[00:38:09] a solid like large two handfuls of cabbage in because it all kind of like wilts yeah um and then

[00:38:15] kind of just coat it you know and toss it together and then add maybe two or three eggs

[00:38:21] and just mix it all together and then add whatever leftovers you have it can be like

[00:38:26] seafood or meat or veggies you could add some like other shredded um veggies like shredded carrot or some

[00:38:33] bean sprouts or whatever you want um and then you just basically fry it up in a pan into like kind of a

[00:38:41] pancake form better to do it kind of at lower heat so the cabbage can cook through you can also put

[00:38:46] noodles in like some parts of japan like in hiroshima they put a lot of grilled like noodles in as well

[00:38:51] um and then when that's done then you can add any kind of sauce or topping to it you want and it's and

[00:38:58] it fries up like a pancake type deal right yeah because the uh because you put some flour in

[00:39:05] with the cabbage and then eggs too yeah so that's how that's how it sticks together exactly yeah and

[00:39:11] you can like play with the proportions like some people want it to be more low carb and like more

[00:39:15] eggy and some people want it to be more pancake like and add more flour oh okay so you can just do

[00:39:20] whatever suits you it's like super flexible wow you don't even really need like measurements

[00:39:26] fantastic that's an ideal recipe for the two cat kitchen you know because we're not big on measurements

[00:39:31] here great and uh and you can do it in the field you can do it at home with yeah you basically don't

[00:39:37] need anything and you just fry it in a pan and then flip it and then fry it on the other side yeah just

[00:39:45] the extent that you want it to be like cooked through you know yeah yeah wow and then in japan of

[00:39:50] course they have like all kinds of cool sauces they put on they'll put like even some like

[00:39:55] japanese mayonnaise or some dried fish flakes um or some pickled veggies i used to make a really good

[00:40:01] like cashew like a vegan cheese sauce because cheese are really expensive in japan and so i found

[00:40:08] a vegan cheese recipe made out of nutritional yeast and cashews and lemon juice and garlic and i would

[00:40:15] make like a big batch of that sauce and slather it on maybe throw an avocado on it so it could go like

[00:40:21] breakfast or dinner or a snack it's very versatile oh that's fascinating that's great wow what a great

[00:40:29] dish yeah i yeah that's not something you see here in the u.s very much i don't think no and it's super

[00:40:35] practical yeah okonomiyaki wow all right we'll have to keep that in mind thanks for sharing that with us

[00:40:42] you're very welcome and thank you for being a guest on the two cat kitchen with us thanks so much for

[00:40:48] having me this is really fun we're back at the two cat kitchen and we're joined by alex tibetat

[00:41:05] alex thanks for joining us here in the two cat kitchen thank you for having me great alex is a

[00:41:10] student at the university of rhode island and is a major in environmental science and management

[00:41:17] just about to graduate yippee yeah and so your environmental science it's it's kind of a

[00:41:25] overarching uh major i guess so do you have any kind of specialty that you get into um within that

[00:41:32] or i've done a couple summer research uh research internships and fellowships that i've enjoyed a

[00:41:37] lot i did one that was more aquaculture centered and one that was more land sense centered i did one

[00:41:43] with about ticks and then i did one about brook trout which are two totally different things but

[00:41:47] i did enjoy them both equally um so i'd say i just like i like the environment and how all the pieces

[00:41:54] fit together and how lots of things come together to make an environment and that at any scale you can

[00:41:59] look at all the pieces fit together a little bit so and and talking about some research research

[00:42:05] experiences that you've had i know that you did something this past summer um can you tell us a

[00:42:11] little bit about that it was something to do with um something called e-dna which i don't know a lot

[00:42:16] about so and i bet a lot of the listeners don't either yeah so i went up to maine specifically orono

[00:42:22] at the university of maine and for 10 weeks i studied environmental dna which i like to think about

[00:42:28] it as humans shed skin cells um and animals do something very similar and all of that all the cells

[00:42:35] that they they shed like scales from fish and all that and just being in an environment

[00:42:39] you shed dna and that's what we had went out and collected so i had i used um different tools to

[00:42:48] collect surface water and also deeper water from a lake that we had studied and in that we performed

[00:42:54] dna extractions which involved a lot of steps of moving around tiny amounts of very clear liquid

[00:43:00] that looked like water um and then eventually after all those steps were completed we had an e-dna

[00:43:06] sample so in our tube was just suspended dna that we got to test and we were looking specifically for

[00:43:13] brook trout which we had placed in the water so that we could learn about where their e-dna was

[00:43:18] in that lake oh that's really interesting i thought it was super cool so i specifically um compared the

[00:43:26] surface water to the deep water sampling to see when or how it moved around up there too

[00:43:32] and found some really interesting stuff it's been a minute since i've presented this but we found

[00:43:38] surface level dna three weeks after the fish were removed from a lake which i thought was crazy

[00:43:44] because e-dna all dna is really susceptible to uv radiation heat um just general temperature changes

[00:43:53] really anything can ruin a piece of dna honestly so like sunlight sunlight sunlight sunlight the big one

[00:43:59] yeah um and then when we first started my experiment we found no e-dna in the deeper water

[00:44:07] yeah that's that's fascinating so you have to be able to figure out which dna belongs to the trout

[00:44:15] that's hard enough i think yeah they have like they have a i forgot what it's called but it's like a

[00:44:20] little um it lights up inside the machines that we use so it can tell the machine i have dna that

[00:44:27] matches the thing that i'm looking for and i'm going to glow green and you're going to see me and

[00:44:30] write about it that is so crazy man i mean you know back in the day that just even thinking about

[00:44:37] that was not even possible it's so amazing how complex things have become or how good these

[00:44:44] techniques have become and it sounds like so the whole if i get this right the idea behind your

[00:44:50] project you put the trout in the lake that there wasn't any trout there before right because

[00:44:57] eventually you want to go maybe somewhere where there are trout naturally and you want to know

[00:45:02] what to look for essentially yeah the end goal is to be able to count how many fish are in the lake

[00:45:06] without physically going like using other techniques that are sometimes inaccurate and very expensive to

[00:45:12] do to count the fish wow so hopefully one day with uh the help of this research that we that me and my

[00:45:18] grad student i worked with conducted we'll be able to count how many fish are in the water

[00:45:24] that is so awesome because you know it might sound like a simple thing to count the number of fish

[00:45:28] it's so important yeah absolutely incredibly difficult in probably impossible in many ways

[00:45:35] um wow that's great wow that's really interesting um so yeah that's so you're as i mentioned you're

[00:45:45] about to graduate and uh do you what happens next do you have any uh anything going on or

[00:45:52] so i'm not i'm not like married to any specific thing right now um if grad school is a good option

[00:45:59] when i graduate then i'll definitely do that maybe i guess fall start um if not i was offered a job at

[00:46:06] the usda for a temporary position working at an oyster hatchery with i think which i think is really cool

[00:46:11] um i'm going to a research conference this october i'll be shopping around for jobs and or grad school

[00:46:17] so whichever sounds the coolest i guess is what i'll go with that'd be a great opportunity oh yeah

[00:46:21] i'm very very excited yeah fantastic wow so you're just keeping keeping an open mind which is great

[00:46:27] yeah see what i'm not too picky i just want to do something with my degree awesome that's great

[00:46:33] um so you're here on the two cat kitchen because you're going to help us um with a topic that i think

[00:46:39] listeners will be interested in and we know each other from a class here at uri that um explored

[00:46:47] the topic of endangered species um which is something that i think is in the news uh a bit and um and

[00:46:54] we're going and you're going to help us kind of get to that topic and explain a little bit about it

[00:46:59] and we're going to do that in just one minute we'll be right back so you're going to help us learn a

[00:47:35] little bit about endangered species so um you know you've heard about people i think have heard about

[00:47:40] endangered species maybe in the news or from from other people but it's um one question that i have

[00:47:47] is what exactly is an endangered species great question so an endangered species is a plant or

[00:47:54] an animal that is likely to go extinct in a relatively short period of time from now oh okay so

[00:48:00] they're in danger they're in danger of going extinct exactly oh nice but don't now i the way i understood

[00:48:07] it is that most species on earth undergo extinction as a part of like natural evolution do you know um

[00:48:15] what's the average span of existence of a species on earth so the average life like span of existence of a

[00:48:23] species is like one to two million years give or take depends on the species absolutely like that was for

[00:48:28] mammals um but fun fact only like two to four percent of all the species that have ever lived during our

[00:48:35] 600 million years of of earth's fossil record still are around today uh which i think is pretty cool

[00:48:41] yeah so in other words like naturally a species is going to go extinct after one to two million years

[00:48:47] yeah it's part of evolution yeah okay um but what we're talking about for endangered species

[00:48:53] and why it's such an issue is because recent evidence has suggested that species are facing extinction

[00:49:00] at a much faster rate than they should be primarily because of human activities that have led to

[00:49:05] degradation of species habitat or their climate that they're in and it can cause harm to the species directly

[00:49:11] oh okay that's that's that's good to know and just to be clear so when we talk about species like a species

[00:49:18] is something like a polar bear right or or a fish well a particular fish or particular fish or like uh

[00:49:26] what's a particular fish what fish did you study last summer i studied brook trout which aren't

[00:49:31] so brook trout is a species right okay so that's what we're talking about so who keeps track of whether a species

[00:49:36] is endangered yeah so the worldwide worldwide the international union for the conservation of nature or

[00:49:42] the iucn uses a subjective set of criteria to determine a species conservation status and or how likely it is to go extinct so the

[00:49:51] iucn maintains this thing called a red list of species threatened with extinction which is the most comprehensive

[00:49:58] assessment of endangered species globally which is really cool many countries also have us also assess danger endangered species

[00:50:06] within their own borders and they have their own laws to protect those species uh so for example the u.s uses

[00:50:13] the endangered species act canada uses the species at risk act which both do help to protect the species

[00:50:19] determined to be at risk of extinction oh okay that's great so there's a lot of organizations looking

[00:50:24] at endangered species which is great so how many endangered species are there in the world

[00:50:31] yeah so the iucn lists about 45 000 species threatened with extinction and which is 28 percent of all of

[00:50:40] the assessed species on that list here in the u.s there's about 1300 species listed as endangered under

[00:50:46] our endangered species act wow that seems like a lot but i know there's a lot of species in general in

[00:50:52] the world but what happens after a species becomes endangered so there are a lot of organizations

[00:50:58] globally that work to improve the conservation status of an endangered species to help them

[00:51:03] be less vulnerable to extinction so under the endangered species act in the u.s the u.s fish and wildlife service

[00:51:09] is tasked with developing a plan to recover the listed species or make sure it's no longer in danger of

[00:51:15] extinction oh okay so they come up with a plan but what specific things do these organizations do to help

[00:51:23] protect endangered species so it depends on the species just like different people need different

[00:51:28] types of help different species need also need different types of help when it comes to the

[00:51:34] threat of extinction this can include not allowing hunting for that species or restricting land

[00:51:39] development in areas where that species lives and more extensive conservation efforts include

[00:51:44] things like captive breeding programs and habitat restoration oh captive breeding programs yeah i've heard

[00:51:50] about those how just how do they work to help endangered species so a lot of the time they happen in places like

[00:51:58] zoos where a couple of individuals of the species are bred under controlled conditions and offspring are then

[00:52:03] released back into the wild to supplement for natural populations oh okay wow that's really

[00:52:09] interesting can you tell us about a species that maybe was once endangered but is no longer in peril

[00:52:17] because of the activities that these organizations have taken yeah so i think the most iconic example i could give

[00:52:23] here's the bald eagle which was once which once ranged throughout every state in the union except for

[00:52:29] hawaii and when america adopted the bald eagle as its national symbol in 1782 as many as 100 000

[00:52:36] nesting eagles lived in the united states which is a lot so early on eagles were shot on a regular basis

[00:52:43] because they were perceived as threats to livestock right and also the salmon population because it was part of

[00:52:47] their food and bounties were given to eagle the eagle carcasses so that's crazy yeah so people were

[00:52:54] being paid to kill bald eagles so obviously people would go out and kill more of them and that's when

[00:52:59] before people really had a full understanding of nature i guess and how ecosystems work exactly okay

[00:53:05] so the decline of the bald eagles led to the passage of the bald eagle protection act which outlawed

[00:53:10] killing and just and outlawed killing eagles and also the disrupt disturbing of them as well as the

[00:53:16] possession of eagle parts including feathers eggs nests which you also have for a lot of other birds

[00:53:21] at the moment as well the numbers of eagles continue to decline decline though so in 1963 only 417

[00:53:29] nesting pairs were found in the lower 48 well so in spite of that protection yeah in spite of it exactly

[00:53:35] they still went down yeah so 417 is not a very big number we can like get into um like genetic

[00:53:41] bottlenecking so that's a huge problem with such a low amount of nesting pairs so what

[00:53:46] was going on so this uh this led to being one of like the first species listed and under the

[00:53:52] endangered species act that we have here in the u.s so conservationists determined that the primary

[00:53:58] cause of the decline was this pesticide ddt which caused like their eggshells to become super easily

[00:54:04] to break which obviously would kill the baby eagle yes so they couldn't reproduce exactly so the ddt was

[00:54:11] banned from the use in the u.s in 1972 in the u.s and then also by 73 in canada so which made it

[00:54:19] possible for eagles to recover and this program was thought to be successful is thought to be successful

[00:54:26] wow that's great what were some of the recovery efforts other than banning the ddt were there some

[00:54:31] other things that they did yeah yeah so it includes like habitat protection and releasing of bald eagles

[00:54:36] from artificial nests and in hack towers that help increase their population size so like that captive

[00:54:43] breeding that we were talking about oh okay exactly wow that's pretty cool so and how many other today

[00:54:48] do they think yeah so the bald eagle protection act in the u.s is now estimated at having more than

[00:54:53] 300 000 individual bald eagles which is so much more than 470 nesting pairs which includes now 71

[00:55:01] 400 nesting pairs wow that's great yeah so this has made it so that the bald eagles are no longer on

[00:55:07] the endangered species list which is a huge win for bald eagles wow that's great you know and uh just to

[00:55:15] wrap things up this is the two cat kitchen after all and i've heard that cats may have an impact on

[00:55:23] some endangered species but not necessarily in a positive way can you tell us any more about that

[00:55:30] yeah so domestic cats which i have three on my own are instinctively hunt they're hunting animals of

[00:55:38] course so specifically in hawaii there's a huge problem with domestic cats and what they're doing

[00:55:45] is they're killing the birds because on instinct these cats domestic or not or uh or feral rather

[00:55:51] will kill birds and because they don't have a sense of which bird they're killing all they know is

[00:55:56] that's a bird that's part of my diet we are having some huge issues with endangered birds being killed

[00:56:03] by cats oh okay it's because they don't discriminate exactly they don't know that they're killing

[00:56:09] endangered birds they just know that that's part of their food source yeah and i know that this i mean

[00:56:13] you mentioned there's no eagles in hawaii um but there are a lot in hawaii there's a lot of

[00:56:20] endangered birds yeah i mean hawaii has a lot of endangered species in general i think i heard once

[00:56:26] and is that is the cat problem really prevalent in hawaii in hawaii absolutely it is yeah so it being

[00:56:33] an island and um with different island biology than there is on like continents uh there's not a lot of

[00:56:39] places for the birds to really hide if they if the cats are all over the island these birds already have

[00:56:44] such a small habitat when compared to birds in the lower 48 yeah so there's this one bird it the name

[00:56:51] slips me that only lived on like one side of this one mountain that were being affected by these birds

[00:56:57] by these cats i'm sorry no kidding wow so it's it's a real issue in some areas well we don't like to

[00:57:04] think bad things about cats but the cats don't know they don't know that they're being bad being

[00:57:09] purposefully bad except maybe in a song that we have coming up which is about bad cats and in particular

[00:57:18] bad kitties

[00:57:20] they might be here and they might be there they might be found most anywhere

[00:57:33] in the shadows just doing their thing

[00:57:42] just to see what the twilight brings them swing and you see them sway with a shuffle and light on their feet

[00:58:35] moving to the rhythm of the feline beat

[01:01:20] that's all we have time for in this episode of the two cat kitchen we'd like to thank our special

[01:02:13] guest martina muller and our special guest with the coconuts alex tibotot i'm rick mckinney and i'm

[01:02:20] sarah grady join us next time right here at the two cat kitchen

[01:02:25] two cat show