Our soft, human brains have been bested by 2022 so we are taking a quick break over the Christmas period and will be back assaulting your senses in Jan 2023. But because we don't want your ears to go unentertained, we're digging back into the archives for eps that have made us squirm, think or vomit (or hopefully, all three!). Today, we're separating the lupine from the canine from the vulpine. Or rather, how did wolves turn into dogs and why don’t foxes fit in?
The Soviet Union in the 1930s was not a great place to be. And while we wouldn’t ever say they suffered the most, one group who experienced what might be called ‘interesting’ challenges were geneticists.
You see at the time, genetic, biological and agricultural research was dominated by a bloke by the name of Trofim Denisovich Lysenko. And he had some… interesting theories. One in particular was that you could educate plants to turn into other plants. Educate the rye into wheat. You know the trick. Agricultural alchemy.
Ok, that’s crackpot.
But these views (Lysenkoism) ended up the only acceptable theory in the Soviet Union at the time. Genetics was officially declared “a bourgeois pseudoscience”. In fact some geneticists - including rising star of genetics Nikolai Belyaev - went missing in the night, never to be seen again. Just for his science.
But Nikolai’s brother Dmitry Belyaev wanted to fight back.
So at the age of 20 he launched a secret quest in the middle of the Stalinist Soviet Union to repudiate Lysenko, keep the genetic flame burning for his brother - and for the sake of actual science of genetics and the non-actual science of cuteness, domesticate the fox!
Gaining work as a lab technician Dmitry carried out breeding programs to breed the softest fox fur imaginable, and to answer deeper questions of domestication. Why had wolves turned into dogs but foxes remained wild? What brought about cuteness, and strange patches and colourings?
And so, framing his experiment as an effort to improve the production of furs he launched a study that still continues today. What happens when you try to domesticate a fox? And, perhaps the most important question science has posed - can you manufacture cuteness?
SOURCES:
How to Tame a Fox (And Build a Dog) by Lee Alan Dugatkin and Lyudmila Trut
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Rod 00:00
Again, so we're on a break, you probably knew this from last week. So it's again, it's the boys. Were in a bit of a break where, you know, sunning ourselves, in my case, in the very north of the world and in Williams case, slightly more South one or the other way around.
Will 00:16
Yeah, my son is just just on the just on the news. Yeah, that's a little bit of the sun.
Rod 00:21
Yes me too. I'm doing it. Now. I've got a sunrise lamp on. So we delve into the archives, because we thought we can't leave you high and dry with nothing. And you probably haven't gone back as far as we went. So this episode that we really enjoyed, why did domesticating the fox Oh, classic, classic, far more interesting than it sounds. So we did this back in the towards the end of 2019. And we had a guest, we had a live audience who was in the before times. And we had a bunch of interesting things, including how some people thought you could educate plants to turn them into other plants. The one that stuck in my head was educating right into wheat. So you sit them at the back of the class and shout until that would be better if you could, I think it's fabulous. And also, problems with bourgeoisie scientific results, these results are far too bourgeois, so they cannot be true. That's an a very good Russian accent, but you'll hear many of those in that. Also a little comment about cats, running dog software. Those are my highlights, but there were many more in this one.
Will 01:19
We'll be back with fresh episodes at the end of January. In the meantime, enjoy. Sometime in the 1930s a district party conference was underway in Moscow province, the other best parties. It was presided over by a new Secretary of the district Party Committee, replacing one who had been recently arrested. At the conclusion of the conference, a tribute to Comrade Stalin was called for everyone stood up and the small hole echoed with stormy applause rising to an ovation. Everyone was clapping and clapping it kept going for a minute. And then for two minutes, and then for three minutes for four minutes. For five minutes.
Rod 02:09
You're gonna count the whole episode
Will 02:10
As the stormy applause continued. Palms were getting sore and raised arms were already aching, and the older people were panting from exhaustion. It was becoming insufferably silly, even those who read those who really adored Starlin but
Rod 02:25
I got to know something is this for him. When you get old you paint from exhaustion. If you're clapping for six minutes, can we get someone to step out and test that for us? We want you to time it.
Will 02:33
What is your longest clap period?
Rod 02:35
Nine minutes.
Will 02:37
But the problem who would be the first to stop? The secretary of the district party committee could have done it. He was standing on the platform. And it was he who had just called for the ovation, but he was a newcomer. He'd taken the place of a man who had been erased arrested, so he was a little bit worried racist, arrested. No. After all, all of the secret police were standing in the hall applauding along but also watching to see who would quit first. And then that obscure small haul unknown to the leader sitting somewhere else. The applause went on 678 minutes at the rear of the hall. A couple of them could cheat. They could clap a little bit less hard, but the ones up the front. Sitting on the front. They had to keep cheering for Comrade Stalin, the director of the local paper factory he was an independent and strong minded man. He stood up there with the Praesidium aware of all of the falsity, he still kept applauding. Then, after 11 minutes of clapping, the director of the paper factory assumed a business like expression and sat down in his seat shooting straight away. Yeah, well, Miracle miracle where those universal, uninhibited indescribable enthusiasm for Comrade Stalin. To a man everyone sat down and stopped cheering straightaway. They'd been saved. The squirrel had been smart enough to jump off his revolving wheel. The secret police, of course, were very happy with the event. Well, I know that because it stopped 11 minutes of clapping. But more importantly, it was how they could discover who the independent people were, and how they could go about eliminating clapping as a social filter. That makes sense. The people clapping were right to be afraid that same night the director of the paper factory was arrested, they put 10 years on jail for him on the pretext of something different. But after he signed form, form 206, which is his arrest warrant the final document of his interrogation, his interrogation interrogator reminded him Don't ever be the first to stop applauding. Welcome to The Wholesome Show, the science loving podcast
Rod 04:49
Well, we're still working it out. We're fond of them.
Will 04:52
We're having an affair with science podcast for people who sit up the back of the classroom
Rod 04:57
where we ask and say the dumb things and the dumb question. So you do listen and do not have to. We're taking one for the team. I'm well grant. I'm Dr. Roderick Gryphon limits. And you know what I have to announce today? Well, this involves you. Wait, what is it? You know how the Nobel Prize comes up with a new category every year? That's a thing. You can't just add a starting 2019 Every year that a new category and the wholesome shows just won the first Nobel Prize for science communication. I know you didn't know. I thought you'd be happier.
Will 05:26
That's great. You splitting the award with me.
Rod 05:27
I didn't say that. I'm just saying it involves you. I'm taking the money.
Will 05:31
And we are joined today by
Hannah Carle 05:33
Hannah Carle
Will 05:33
Welcome, Hannah. Thank you for joining us.
Hannah Carle 05:35
Thanks for having me. I'm excited.
Will 05:37
Yeah, because Hannah is from the Research School of biology here at ASU. So normally, the podcast is brought to you by the Australian National Centre for the public awareness of science and conducted in a very small windowless room. But today it is not in a small windowless room. It's in a beautiful room where blinds down. It's true. Well, at the Research School of biology, where it's lunchtime, and it's podcast time.
Rod 06:00
Yeah, there are about 940 people in the room too, which is pretty impressive.
Will 06:06
All of the research question biology. No pressure on you, Hannah. Hannah. There is one thing that I'm going to ask of you. I am dumb about biology, but I'm going to attempt to tell a little bit of biology and here, you're going to help me with the bits where I stuffed it all up.
Hannah Carle 06:20
Yeah, that will pull you up at every turn and
Rod 06:23
we're gonna pull you up on things whether they're right or not. Good. Let's get off the
Will 06:28
17th of July 1917
Rod 06:30
not biology
Will 06:32
No, that's a date. Dimitri Belyaev was born in the town of Protasovo, Kostroma Province, Russia. That's proto
Rod 06:42
Protasovo
Will 06:43
Protasovo, Protasovo Protasovo Probably possible. I looked it up. And I think that it's written different in Russian, so it's probably different. Again, nevermind, the fourth son of a rural priest, the young Belyaev grew up in a time of enormous social upheaval. Over the years in his schooling period. He'd be shipped from one relative to another where what you're, you know, doing something 1970 And he was born, so Oh, yeah. So relaxing time in Russia? Yes, it was. It was not well, not a relaxing time. So there was a revolution 1917 by the time he's 10, the country has been through much war, much Civil War, and things were not as they were, and being the son of a rural priest was not a great thing.
Rod 07:27
Your religion went well after that. Yeah.
Will 07:29
In 1927 At the age of 10, young Dimitri was sent to live with his older brother Nikolai in Moscow. Nikolai was 18 years older.
Rod 07:36
I gotta say to this is a straight from the Russian first name handbook, isn't it? Nicola and Dimitri Nicola, we got a URI. There's no URIs but there are actually a couple of Dimitris Coursera that ran out of names in 1970s. I like six of them. There is a Nina and Ludmilla mela that's my favourite. Svetlana is right up there too. Excellent.
Will 07:55
We don't have neither is it a bit loud? Yeah.
Rod 07:59
Really not much less Russian story
Will 08:01
there is a Svetlana that's great. You know, this one. Nikolai was was 18 years older than his brother. So he was off working. He was 28 years at the time. Nicola was studying at the cultural codes of Institute for experimental biology. Here we go. Yeah, there we go. What could possibly go? I'm working in the laboratory of Sergei chattery Verkauf. There's a Sergey for you. That's another name again, just for the people in the chat vertical. Shoot the vertical. I think I did. Very good. Very good. And Dora Dora, who was at the time, one of the country's most respected and well known geneticists. Chad verticals lab was producing many of the country's finest scientists.
Rod 08:44
Has anyone in this room actually heard of that name? Chad Vetter cough, and you call yourselves biologists?
Will 08:49
I've found an obscure story. That's great.
Rod 08:54
They're not worth it. I haven't even heard of it. It's really,
Will 08:56
there's no test. There is no test. That lab was producing many of the best biologists in the country at the time. Nikolai was a favourite protege. And he was seen by many in the research community as one of the lead leaders of the next era of Russian genetics,
Rod 09:12
also the first era.
Will 09:14
Ah, I was there. I'm sure there was a
Rod 09:17
good are you an expert in the history of Russian genetics by any chance?
Hannah Carle 09:21
No,.
Will 09:23
Thank you, Dimitri idolised his older brother, so Dimitri would help as a 10 year old helped Nikolai catalogue his butterfly specimens. Nicola was working on butterflies and silkworms, and he would help to catalogue them. While Nikolay explained how these delicate creatures might help geneticists unravel such One wonders as metamorphosis every Wednesday.
Rod 09:44
To be fair, how many creatures could help you with that? Well, you know, we're going to try and try it on horses. Nothing. Were tried on. Birds nothing.
Will 09:52
chrysalis of a horse. No. Okay. Yeah.
Rod 09:55
What is the one of the on
Hannah Carle 09:57
There is something that they do? I don't know. I I study plants. I don't really know anything about this. But there is something about about butterfly's wing formation that's controlled by lots and lots of genes. So if anything is going wrong in the genome, if there's some little mutation, then the wings don't form properly. Okay? Yeah, that's why they're good.
Will 10:13
I did I say caterpillars or something or
Rod 10:15
one wing. Helicopters.
Will 10:17
Alright, well, we might get to some of that. We might get to some of that. Not on butterflies, not on butterflies, but we'll get to something. So back to horses. Every Wednesday, the members of the chat Vedic of lab would have their directors seminar where they would meet not dissimilar, not dissimilar, where they would meet for tea and discuss the most recent findings. Nicola took his younger younger brother Dimitri to many of these meetings, the younger brother would sit
Rod 10:41
18 years younger, younger brother, I think you want to come to work with me. She's really, the to shit sandwiches are awful and you're boring.
Will 10:50
It's free. It's free sandwiches. That's why people turn up to these seminars.
Rod 10:55
Where when you're a kid all food is free.
Will 10:58
That's very that's true. It was during a time of upheaval anyway, but anyway, the younger Demetri he'd sit in the back. And he'd be fascinated by the unbridled passion of the debates, which featured a great deal of yelling, leading Dimitri to refer to them around around the house at the time as the as the yelling meetings. But unfortunately, the times were not in Nicholas float favour. In 1935 Trofim, which is not a famous Russian named Trofim Denisovich Lysenko had risen to the top of Soviet biological and agricultural science, director of the all union selection and Genetics Institute at ADESA, the director of the Institute of genetics of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, and President of the Vladimir Lenin, all union Academy of Agricultural Sciences at heart Lysenko rejected what people in this room or people back in 1930 in many other countries, was mainstream biology, the mainstream biology that Nikolay beleif followed, also Chet Verkauf but also Mendell and Darwin. He rejected all of this are you
Rod 12:05
do you mean evolution? Yes, we liked small small issue with your pedigree there Lysenko.
Will 12:11
Instead of evolution, he preferred the idea that plants probably animals, but he focused on plants could be educated.
Rod 12:18
Oh, wow, it's excellent. Yeah.
Hannah Carle 12:22
Like humans, do you just sit them down? Line them up?
Rod 12:24
In Shut up? Listen, you get water at little lunch?
Will 12:29
Look, look Lysenko had one or two ideas that were close to Okay.
Rod 12:34
I'm looking forward to hearing director honey for national institutions.
Will 12:38
Well, no, no, he was he was he was quite decent on animal ethics later on like he he because of his idea that animals can be educated he said that you should look after animals and be nice and not just beat them mercilessly. But the mercifully we are not here to talk about lice and goes good bits This is Lysenko was a
Rod 12:55
Is this the name of the episode Lysenko's bad bits
Will 12:57
No not at all. I
Rod 12:58
think goes good bit. Either way. Anyway have my attention
Will 13:01
Lysenko claim would claim for instance that right could be educated into wheat and wheat. Could I take it that last minute that's not true.
Rod 13:13
No, no, no, it's brilliant. I think that was that was everyone's thinking right now Why hadn't we thought of this before but
Will 13:18
but as well as rye could be educated into wheat wheat could be educated into barley, which is must be like a postgraduate barley
Rod 13:25
into dogs dogs into
Will 13:28
weeds could be educated into cannabis food grains, or something like that. Yeah. Phil, I think the environment alone shapes plants and animals put them in the proper setting and expose them to the right stimuli. And you can remake them to an almost infinite degree.
Rod 13:42
So you can turn bass rye into gold.
Will 13:46
A little bit. Yes.
Rod 13:47
You try hard enough
Will 13:48
and agricultural Alchemist but it never worked.
Hannah Carle 13:50
It was a bit water into wine, isn't it?
Will 13:52
It's a lot water into wine. The problem was work. It didn't work, but ruin the story. That's not the story. People in power believe that it works. You know the idea? Of course, it's dumb. You're you all know it's dumb.
Rod 14:05
Yeah, but it would be useful if it did work, therefore promising and must work.
Will 14:10
Thing is Lysenko was in power, and he used his power to make the dumb terrible. So in one famous speech in the 1930s, as firmly crystal Lysenko compared his opponents in biology to the peasants who still resisted the Soviet government's collectivization strategy, saying that by opposing his theories, the traditional traditional geneticists was setting themselves against Marxism. Stalin, who happened to be happened to be in the audience of this biological conference, was the first one to stand up and applaud calling out Bravo.
Rod 14:39
That's because one of his henchmen woke him up suddenly, and he was surprised. But
Will 14:43
Bravo comrade Lysenko Bravo and as we all know, everyone cheered along. So Lysenko used his favour with Stalin to fire specialists throughout the Soviet Agricultural Science system. He used his position to denounce biologists as fly lovers and people haters.
Rod 14:59
Just Just Just look around We're in briefly a few people looking at the floor
Will 15:04
Fly lovers. Fair enough. I think that was because they did a lot of their studies on flies so that he thought they were too focused on that suck up to them. And he did cried the records in biology who claimed who he claimed were trying to purposely disable the Soviet economy, eventually, finding facts out. Eventually, the Academy of Agricultural Sciences in the Soviet Union announced that Lysenko ism would be taught as the only correct theory. And genetics was officially declared a bourgeois pseudo science.
Hannah Carle 15:30
It's always a good sign when you add ism to the end and make it a thing. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, I mean,
Rod 15:37
that could be a good thing is I think it's going to take off so it's pseudoscience fly lover ism. Bourgeois pseudoscience for fly lovers.
Will 15:44
What is it... Lysenkoism? I think Lysenkoism. Lysenko is the baddie, Lysenkoism is the bad thing. We don't know He's good. He doesn't come to he doesn't mean he doesn't turn out. Good. Now, Nikolai, the older brother Nikolaev beleve. His research on silkworm genetics had produced some important results were bourgeois and therefore should be ignored. Yes, yes. They were declared boudoir results that should be ignored. But we won't get to that just yet. I'll tell you where he'd got to at this point.
Rod 16:13
I do have the idea that you get rich people results. These results are for the wealthy and the aristocrats, therefore they must be garbage.
Will 16:20
There's some journals for science for wealthy and
Rod 16:24
yeah, and the fact that differ. Physics is different for rich people as well, I'm sure.
Will 16:27
Yes. Look, I think they did have a problem here.
Rod 16:29
That was the French flag.
Will 16:34
Nikolai Nikolai had been appointed head of a government funded Institute in Tbilisi, a place where he could do both good research, but also contribute to an important the silkworm industry for the Soviet Union. So it was it was agricultural science and he was doing good things.
Hannah Carle 16:49
I'm really surprised that they're big on silkworms in Russia. Because...
Rod 16:54
Soviet silk you don't have any?
Hannah Carle 16:56
I mean, don't you have ear fur or something? It's been cold. I do.
Rod 16:59
I do, Soviet silk.
Will 17:02
Yeah, I think I think yeah, for for, but we'll come to come to fur is covering. But during a trip to Moscow to visit some friends and family in the fall of 1937. Nikolai was warned that arrests of his geneticists colleagues colleagues had begun back in Tbilisi, despite in spite of the danger, he went back for his wife and his 12 year old son,
Rod 17:24
Ah rookie mistake. You got to cut your losses in this situation. Yeah, no expert on the Soviet Union, but I've seen a few movies and that kind of behaviour doesn't go down. Well, it didn't. You seen the X Men right? Didn't go well, for you know, what's his name? Magneto knows this same thing?
Hannah Carle 17:42
It's, yeah, well, it was a there's many examples.
Will 17:45
The firm the the family never heard from Nikolai or his wife or his son. Again, I'm shocked. Dimitri 20 years old at the time, commenced a lifelong quest to repudiate Lysenko. And that's the story that I want to tell today.
Rod 18:00
About time Jesus. But minutes left, and everyone's trying to clear the drawer. Luckily, we locked at
Will 18:11
Dimitri had hopes of following his brothers academic path, but he was sent to live with his older sister Olga and her family and more. So here's an older I forgot. Because they were struggling to make ends meet Dimitri couldn't go to biological School where he wanted to, and instead, he was enrolled in a seven year vocational programme to become an electrician fixed tractors. But he switched and found, and he did try and apply for admission to Moscow State University. But the university no longer admitted the sons of priests. So he was denied there. But he did find a route into trade. He found a reason to trade college and he he enrolled at the Ivanova State Agricultural Academy. So everyone's doing Agricultural Science at the time, at least he could study Biology at the agricultural school, and yes, ish ish, but still, and many top notch scientists would visit and give lectures on the newest advances in genetics. So he's still got a little bit of what he wants,
Rod 19:04
like, actually the newest advances in genetics or the Stalin version a human sorry, my apologies, Jesus.
Will 19:10
Yeah, probably a bit more of the Stalin Lysenkoism version. Anyway. He graduated from college in 1939 and secured a job as a senior lab technician at the Central Research Laboratory.
Rod 19:22
bright new future 1939 I'm in Russia, I've got my degree. I'm ready to go out and face the world bombs drop.
Will 19:29
Yeah, there was but anyway at the Central Research Laboratory on for breeding animals in Moscow.
Rod 19:34
I do know this story?
Will 19:37
His job would be to breed silver foxes with beautiful fur for sale overseas. I mean, they'd use them in Russia as well.
Hannah Carle 19:46
this silk for Russians.
Rod 19:48
Right now, that's how the transport it to the docks. They can wear it to the docks, but then they have to sacrifice the photocell time.
Hannah Carle 19:55
That's why they're clapping for 11 minutes
Will 19:59
This would be critical importance to the Soviet government because furs were quite valuable and could sell internationally. And international currency was something that the Soviet government needed a lot of at the time. Yeah, actual currency, but it also offered him an opportunity a chance to repudiate Lysenko in secret. But before he could start his plan, as you guessed rod, the war got in the way.
Rod 20:20
Oh, it wasn't really a guess.
Will 20:22
I think I think a lot of people know that 1941 Belyaev, joined the Soviet Army, was wounded and received several military decorations. He went from the
Rod 20:31
books really replaces a leg and an arm doesn't
Will 20:33
No he didn't lose any legs and arms. He went from rank and file soldier to major. He was the Senior Assistant to the chief of the chemical department of the fourth Shock Army. They liked him in the army. He did really well out of the Army, but that's what we're here with fourth Shock Army. After the after the Yeah, I liked the name of that
Rod 20:50
fourth Shock Army. How many were the first three didn't do so well?
Will 20:55
Not too shocking. After that, he went back to his laboratory in the form for breeding animals. So return returning to Fox breeding, he dived into breeding to make evermore beautiful coats. And thinking about how the foxes lived on the Fox farms, he began to look at the foxes that he was breeding like dogs, but not like dogs. And he started thinking, how had wolves turned into domesticated dogs? And why not foxes?
Rod 21:30
Why don't foxes turn domesticated dogs?
Will 21:32
Yeah, why hadn't? Why hadn't foxes domesticated like cats? No. I know, I know some biology.
Hannah Carle 21:42
Look, I've got no idea. So I'm just gonna say they're cats.
Rod 21:44
You're a person should. Foxes cats.
Will 21:48
I'm putting foxes closer to wolves. And in fact, I've got the
Rod 21:52
I've got the Wikipedia entry to approve it.
Will 21:55
Foxes are wolfish they are in the in the canine family. As Donald Trump has said lately, I have a canine I call him a dog.
Rod 22:04
Is that Baron? Yeah, different podcasts.
Will 22:08
But he wondered why had wolves turned into dogs, but not foxes. In fact, how had domestication itself first started. He had a few other questions about the whole process of domestication.
Rod 22:21
So he invented a time machine. And back he went this is the true story.
Will 22:24
Yeah, this is the true story. He escaped Soviet Russia with Time Machine. No, he didn't. He asked himself a few things. Why had wolves domesticated? Why had so few species in fact, you know, there was only a few dozen domesticated at all. So there's millions of species out there. Only a few dozen mostly mammals, but there are a few other things like a few fish, a few birds, a few insects, why have they domestic
Rod 22:44
what's a domesticated fish relationship look like? That's something I can't tell you. Right, bringing my trout with me. It follows me as long as I walk along the edge of the lake God is loyal. You have to have a bit of pets. Not food isn't a domestic
Hannah Carle 22:58
like if you domesticate something to tell that counts?
Rod 23:01
I suppose. So. It's not just pets. So what it means is put a cage around it which means again, this is a thin thing. You can put a cage around anything No but also your heart man.
Will 23:09
There's a few things about domestication. It's it's their reaction to humans. And yes, some of the high end is you can walk them on a lead and and they'll come when you call, things like that cows, I don't think come on you call I don't know. But a lot of a lead though. Lovely.
Rod 23:23
Guy down by the lake. He walks his cow. Actually, there was a guy who used to walk his alpaca, and he put in the back of his car and you have a tiny little car, and the neck would stick out three feet above the roof of the car. Is that true? That's true.
Will 23:34
Everyone sees it the first time they arrive in Canberra and weirdly, he lives in my street now.
Rod 23:38
I was walking down the street in the same suburb and in the distance I went that is a weird looking fucking dog I've seen in my life. I'm getting closer and closer thinking these glasses aren't working and because it's heads all out of shape. This I think dude walking now Packer on a leash,
Will 23:51
I think what you need to get a dog into an alpaca is you have to educate it, you have to
Rod 23:56
stretch to make it smaller.
Will 23:59
So he had a few questions not related to why circle that's why why had so few species domesticated and what was it about those species? Why had a few other things changed when those species are domesticated. So dogs don't look like wolves 100% anymore. cows don't look like
Rod 24:15
wolves anymore. That's true,
Will 24:18
whatever it was. They developed . They'd retained different sorts of physical characteristics. And they all seem to be a little bit more childlike in terms of, you know, looking looking more like puppies or kittens than their wild, friends, friends. For bears, that's the one and he asked himself why would these character characteristics have been selected for by the breeders farmers raising cows after all had nothing to gain from their cows having black and white spotted hides?
Rod 24:51
I can tell you apart from other people's girls,
Will 24:54
Maybe. Pig farmers, why would you care about the pig having a curly tail? You wouldn't you wouldn't select for it to have a curly tail. And finally, there was one more thing about domesticated animals that was pretty useful to him as a fur breeder reader, but don't attack you every time you look at them. Okay, two more things. One was that they don't attack you every time you look nice, Poppy. Useful, you know, that's not going to help. The second was that they can have babies a lot more, they would have more babies, and they could do it any time of the year. So typically, wild animals like to have a baby at a special time of the year with special time when the baby is most likely to Yeah, they have special time first, and then the baby comes out. And usually they want to have them at the best time of year for that baby to survive. Spring and shit like that? And less of them? Yes, and less often. So domesticated animals in general can have more litters per it's always a good time of year for domesticated animal per flock of litter. And yeah, it's been it's always a good time of year they are. They're happy with that Vikings this year. So if you're Fox breeder, then these are things that actually I'm sure there's a few listening, these actually look good. And Sure. We're big in their community. So Dimitri set out to find out now, he was at the Central Research Laboratory on Ferber eating animals, he was in a perfect position to conduct the experiment he had in mind, this would be useful to him as an industrial scientist, helping to have more Fox babies, they would be calmer in the in the fox farms,
Rod 26:24
and they could run machines, but also maybe they could run what's, what's the industry part?
Will 26:29
Like growing?
Rod 26:30
Skinning them
Hannah Carle 26:31
They're the industry?
Rod 26:33
I was talking to the machine shop kind of place and it didn't seem likely. That's a lot of education.
Will 26:37
But also, he could answer some interesting questions about real science, and that's what he wanted to do. He wanted to get back at Lysenko his hunch? His hunch was simple that the answer to domestication rested in their tameness. So he commenced doing a parlour are
Rod 26:53
Can I ask, isn't it actually? Part of the definition of domestication? Yeah, the answer to the domestication is their time. So yesterday in the definition mate at the point, but maybe it hadn't been defined or they hadn't done
Will 27:05
enough to him. Front of the wave here. Point of order on that one. We'll we'll check that one later. Let's say yes, I Hannah's right here.
Rod 27:13
Hannah's right here. Happy to take it.
Will 27:15
So he commenced, he commenced a pilot project. This one working in Estonia with Nina Sora Kina, who was chief breeder at one of the many Fox farms that he collaborated with.
Rod 27:24
I want to live with the Russians as they always have to say both names so she would with me Nina sort of dinner. Go ahead and tell me what you're doing.
Will 27:31
Dimitri explained to Nina that in his work in fox and mink breeding had noted that while most of the Minks and foxes on the fur farms were either quite aggressive, or were nervous and fearful towards people, a few were calmer when people approached them. They weren't bred to be calm. So that quality must have been part of their natural behaviour, there must have been the natural variation in the population. And so some of them were just just calmer. This, he suggested, would have been true of the ancestors of all of the other domesticates all the original wolves. They might have been one comma one that might have been on this path towards becoming sure
Rod 28:04
but one would have been better at maths another one could swim. Well, I mean, like that's, is that revelatory at this time? I don't know. I'm not trying to shit on Dimitri. I'm sure he's a great guy, but it's not revelatory at the time. I want to know how amazed to be by this man.
Will 28:18
I think the thing is he cared and he wanted to follow through on it. The fact that he cared is always amazing, someone cares. It's good. So he said, Okay, Nina, every year, choose a few of the calmest foxes at breeding time, instead of the ones that have just the beautiful list for and make them with one another. From the pups of those selected foxes. They should again choose the karmis one, the change from generation generation might be subtle, you might not be able to spot anything, but if we just keep going see what we get and then we'll see where we get
Rod 28:48
How long's a generation one year. Foxes man that's a shitload longer than snow peas or whatever Mendel use them and that's going to be a strength potions.
Will 28:56
A huge part of this is that his experiment was one of the few that was set up with such a long time frame. He thought this might take 100 years to do but but we'll get back at Lysenko eventually. Or he from beyond
Rod 29:08
the grave i strikingly. But he did. He did.
Will 29:11
He didn't have an idea of how long this will take because nothing had been done before. But obviously a one year generation gap is much slower than something you can do in
Rod 29:19
most fry lovers with the drosophila. They don't have to wait that long.
Will 29:27
So he wanted Nina and he said, Okay, look, we have to be careful of Lysenko but we might be signing up for something that's dumb that's going to take ages to do but Nina jumped at the chance she was keen as.
Hannah Carle 29:37
she just gets to hang out with foxes. Why wouldn't you?
Rod 29:40
Why there's gonna be some spare furs lying around.
Will 29:44
She is involved in industrially farming foxes to later brutally murder. I don't know if she later brutally murdered them herself. But she's
Rod 29:52
what couldn't be pleasantly murdered gently euthanized.
Will 29:57
Let's say 1940s Russia is not
Rod 30:00
the food tastes better if you beat the animal to death? Is that Is that what it comes? Well actually, there's
Hannah Carle 30:04
there are people that think that
Will 30:07
the food tastes better if you are not the it's a less stressful for ya.
Rod 30:13
fits better it's not a snug.
Will 30:15
So Nina got started, she was keen asked for this, she would approach the cages and the Fox would lunge at them. But and some foxes would learn some would snarl some would back away, but about a dozen or so of the 100 that she would test each year were slightly less agitated, and they certainly weren't calm, but they were less highly reactive and aggressive. So a few of them would even take food when she would offer it from their hands. So?
Rod 30:38
So Dances with Wolves rip that whole scene off. That whole thing Kevin Costner getting the wolf in, no dance with Wolf fans come on to class speaks to a generation.
Will 30:48
So those are the ones that got to become mommies and daddies. They got to breed and within three generations three route three years, Nina was starting to see some intriguing results there not enough that you could necessarily publish on. But some of the pups of the foxes they'd selected were a little calmer than their parents and their grandparents couldn't they would sneer and react aggressively sometimes. But other times they seemed almost indifferent enough that they could start saying they look a bit different to the rest of the population. Dimitri was delighted. It was a hint of something and in much less time than he expected. So this is three generations. He needed to go bigger, and the times was elephant, this times were starting to change in his favour. So in 1953, Stalin died and everything in the Soviet Union began to change, things became a lot more free and open. Its relative those in the belly of himself, Dimitri was widely lauded for his stunning results he'd been able to, he'd been achieving and breeding beautiful furs, beautiful foxes sorry for their furs. He'd been able to achieve all sorts of different colours like cobalt, blue, Sapphire, topaz, beige and Pearl. But in 1954, Lysenko organised a series of lectures specifically to discredit him, his Lysenko his cronies would invite Dimitri up on stage, and they planned that they would ridicule him and denounce him and get him.
Rod 32:06
To dress funny. You have weird shoes
Hannah Carle 32:09
to ridicule the results that he can clearly show them that what am I saying? They're like he secretly educating them in different ways.
Rod 32:16
Topaz isn't a full colour idiot.
Will 32:19
I don't know. The lesson. Yeah, I think they would probably just yell at him. Like, like, I get off stage
Rod 32:25
zero my results. We showed him but Demetri that's pretty much like a normal seminar isn't it though?
Will 32:33
And this is what I love Demetri Demetri strode onto stage on the on when he was invited by Lysenko. And he dumped a giant pile of gorgeous fox and mink furs which he draped over the lectern. As a colleague in the room later recalled, the whole crowd felt utterly silent, like God. How can we critique this
Rod 32:54
man if you're also for muffled sound, which will help them be silent,
Will 32:59
Dimitri began to speak in a deeply resonant voices voice. Genetics was still an officially prohibited science but Dmitri not miming his voice right now. I'm not doing his voice, but Dimitri pulled no punches in sharing his discoveries about genetics of breeding that he'd been finding. He wasn't afraid of Lysenko anymore anymore, and he was openly defying him. After that, he felt like he could speak openly about his disgust at what Lysenko had done to Soviet science. Though he knew other people couldn't do that key thing, he got himself a better job cuckoo, key thing. Dmitry gained a new position at the Institute for cytology and genetics in Novosibirsk, which is a Soviet city just for doing science, beautiful beach town to great, great beaches. And no it's not. It's somewhere right in the middle of Siberia, and he's famous for beaches, artificial waves. He could build a much bigger farm and do a much bigger experiment and so he kicked things with his foxes into next gear will need a new collaborator, Nina Nina is done with her breeding.
Hannah Carle 33:58
She's just happy in a pile of foxes now.
Will 34:01
She's fine. She's got some slightly happier foxes and a whole pile of furs and he got Ludmilla throat. Lord Miller had trained at Moscow State Units,
Rod 34:09
It's not an attractive name. I'm sorry, but it sounds kind of like a bit imposing she can't help that old mill. She can't help that it's hard to say it lightly. Ludmilla is the hero in this story.
Will 34:18
So I've been so I don't like her. I think she's fabulous. Ludmilla had interestingly trained at the lab where Pavlov as in Ivan Pavlov discovered Pavlovian conditioning. I don't think he called it Pavlovian conditioning. What is that? That's where you ring the bell and the dog gets really hungry and slobbers and stuff like
Rod 34:33
ah, yeah isn't as a draw. I can go into great length if you want to describe that
Will 34:37
key result in psychology but also know also something where she knew that conditioning animals by could get them to do different things to train them. Okay, so something that she was a little bit weary weary about. Anyway. Dmitry proposed to Ludmilla that he wanted to set up a file should oppose the Angela most wedding. No, no. And he wanted To see how far they could go with selecting for the, the foxes. So Ludmilla dived in, and they set up a farm first, about 200 miles from novice American. And then eventually they set up a new farm right next door to the lab where they could watch these foxes all the time. So she would visit the foxes four times a year, seeing how calm they were, and then watching the mate and then seeing what the puppies were like and then choosing the next calm ones
Rod 35:27
watching them. Was this critical?
Will 35:31
There's a more of a perk, you have to see that it's done
Rod 35:33
like you think you can tell pretty soon after?
Will 35:37
I guess so I get Yes, it's
Rod 35:39
Could a lab assistant do that. I'm thinking
Will 35:40
okay, things got moving. So she she borrowed a couple of foxes from the original pilot, but she got some new foxes as well and, and caught some as well just to mix the population up. So as well as what she noticed straightaway is that after about third generation, you could pick them up, and they wouldn't fight so much. So things were getting a little bit there.
Rod 36:03
She says early tests would have been dodgy, they wouldn't pick them up.
Hannah Carle 36:08
Can I ask a point of clarification? Do foxes like parent their kids? Or is it just they pop them out? And so all we're seeing is effects of genetics. Cool.
Rod 36:18
So yes, do science.
Will 36:20
So they, they they raise the puppies in a den until the puppies I think are about 45 days old who couldn't know their puppy puppies there if the dog sort of species and after that the the puppies go out on their own so they're a solo animal mostly most of their lives adult who their solo.
Hannah Carle 36:36
So they reach maturity in a year, but that only with their parents for 45 days. Yeah. Okay.
Will 36:41
Now da can correct me on that later. But it's something like
Rod 36:44
this is shocking result in science, a bit of nature and a bit of nurture. We didn't never come across her before.
Will 36:49
So they started producing slightly larger litters, which was a good thing and their fertility window seemed to be a little bit wider, a little bit longer in time.
Rod 36:59
You can't give me euphamisms like that carry on.
Will 37:00
Yeah, stop it. Okay, April 1963, they had a bit of an interesting breakthrough. So the fourth generation of the pups, just a few weeks old, Lord Miller walked to the pen have one and one little male pup named Amber began vigorously waving his tail at her. Oh, that's a cute foxes will wave that wag their tails at each other and anger it when they're like cats do in anger. They had never before done this to humans. He was the only one in his letter that was doing this. And as Ludmilla had trained in Pavlov's lab, she was you know, she wanted to check is this a behavioural thing that we've encouraged or something like that. But until that point, dogs were the only animals that had ever done this. So she monitored over the over the next few weeks. But it was something that Dimitri could take to the International Congress on genetics in the Netherlands, in 1963, and he was starting to get a lot of interest in this story. Generation five rolled around, no big new changes. Generation six, there were, the pups would press up against the bars of the pens when Lord Miller approached, trying to nuzzle up against her and roll over on their backs to show their tummies when to be rubbed off. They would also lick lick her hands, when she would was affection or terror. No, it's affection. It's affection. When she would walk away from them, they'd whine these were all brand new behaviours that they had never seen in foxes towards humans. So some of these behaviours would they will show to each other, but never towards humans. It became harder and harder for Ludmilla at this point to walk away from them. Which softie? Oh, yeah, it becomes really interesting later on. Now, then.
Rod 38:36
I see the fur trade taking a plummet if you overdo this.
Will 38:39
Yeah, I think there's a big problem here. At this point, they established a classification system. So class three is basically the same as a as a normal population. So while basically, class two was a bit better class one, and then class one II, or the elite main thing in generation six 1.8%, they classed as elite. So they're showing these affectionate sorts of behaviours towards people. Elite, what a descriptor, one generation later 10% were what they called elite one generation, one generation. So that's plugged by 10 Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's amazing. In generation H, they finally got more and so this is eight years, so they've only been doing this experiment for eight years. At this point. More tailwaggers started to appear confirming the Amber was not unique. And that tail tail wagging to humans was heritable. Some had curly tails, they're also opening their eyes earlier and it seems the adults were continuing normal puppy behaviours. So playing with things things like that for much longer and there's what about the ones who didn't do they're not like each other? They weren't selected for and they were so they just didn't appear anymore? Yeah, they were turned into fur coats I
Hannah Carle 39:49
Does this tell us to you that if we had everything we needed, we'd never grow up? Like we just keep
Rod 39:53
worked for me. I work in a uni.
Will 39:59
Okay, generation to nine foxes would gaze into people's eyes, which super rare, super rare and there's a great there's a great study where someone compared dog gazing into dog's eyes and gazing into wolves eyes, which means that
Rod 40:15
I think one's a lot quicker than the other.
Will 40:17
I think some researchers in Japan did is not connected with this at all. But their job was to gaze into I don't know how am
Rod 40:25
I gonna look natural and affectionate but also get ready to sprint at top speed at any moment. That's terrible.
Will 40:30
Interesting. Interesting reporting about the researchers began to realise the tiniest foxes were having a powerful emotional effect on the people. So there's a great story of some big famous gruff army general you know, like a Soviet war hero who came to visit the farm and and he found this little fox puppy and he's like, Oh, my baby, you're so adorable. You're beautiful and it's sitting
Rod 40:53
here with the special help. Elite softy is no longer a general
Will 41:03
generation 10 came floppy ears and a change in the colour colouring. Particularly in the forehead so they got piebald colouring and they'd started sorry, in the forehead
Hannah Carle 41:14
piebald colouring. Yeah,
Will 41:16
are you gonna say that's wrong? Well, no, what is that? I was like, like splotches big spa catches a white horse like a piebald horse like it's supposedly
Rod 41:23
shittier fur coat because it's all blotchy. Yeah,
Will 41:27
so not not so. Tabby Cat tabby cat? They Yeah, that's good. But they'd also which is an interesting thing of domestication. Dogs get it cows get it horses get it white star in their fart.
Rod 41:41
I think there's something else going on there though.
Will 41:43
Well, no, it's not selected for but it seems to go and this is part of belly UPS theory, which is he called it to stabilise selection. A lot of these traits seem to go hand in hand with the selection for tameness. They seem to have been a bundle of things that
Rod 41:56
there are things that you didn't plan on happening as well. Yeah, exactly. Biology.
Will 42:01
So Belyaev would show pictures of mechta, the first wolf puppy now wolf, the fox puppy with floppy ears in all of his presentations at the time he'd taken around the Soviet Union and audiences would just die at the cuteness.
Rod 42:14
saying they're starving audience though.
Will 42:18
Come on, I'm sure there's lots of...
Rod 42:19
Cute puppy. Okay, back to stats. You sit on this invisible table.
Will 42:29
There snouts began to get more rounded and the adults continued to have more puppy like faces for longer periods. Gradually, the puppies began involving the adults and the carers and Ludmilla and the researchers in their play. So they'd be taking things over to them and playing with them. Now, this point, it gets interesting and Ludmilla decided to decided to mix things up a bit in one direction. They said, Okay, we've selected for tameness. What happens if we select for psychosis? I love it. aggressiveness. Yeah. And it went exactly as as you can imagine. Well, so they developed some truly truly, truly aggressive populations of foxes. No one wanted to work with these except for Natasha. She was a spy Natasha can with bodies like the domesticated foxes but I love the aggressive foxes. But the foxes would. I looked at one aggressive Fox and gaze straight into my eyes but didn't move her Fox eyes intently followed my every movement. I've slowly brought my palm nearer to the front side of the cage and she reacted immediately. She threw herself to the front side of the cage her front paws against the wire mesh talking. She had a really dreadful evening that's actually
Rod 43:38
You're making this hot. It sounds like you're reading a different kind of genre right now.
Will 43:43
So yeah, blind fury in these foxes, Ahsoka. That's not so good. So they did find out they could do this. But but the other way that they switch gears is they wanted to throw a little bit of objectivity out the window. Like all good science, like all good science, screw objectivity. And they said, you know, original domestication. It had involved humans, so it wasn't just the tameness, but humans might have reacted to these new dog things. So a lot of human family in with the foxes. Well, kind of Yes. What Ludmilla decided to she wanted to emphasise the human connection, so she wanted to give one of them one of the foxes the experience of living closely with humans like dogs do.
Hannah Carle 44:24
This reminds me of like the LSD experiments with dolphins from going to
Rod 44:29
live with the dolphin for six weeks. Yeah, that's exactly the dolphin spouse. Oh, no kidding.
Hannah Carle 44:35
Well dosing the pool water.
Rod 44:39
Quite well. She learned how to leave it wet all the time.
Will 44:41
Oh my God, and they had stopping next week. I Yeah. Okay. We'll do that. We'll do that one day. They only live together. They didn't get any further foxes. You
Rod 44:54
mean you're not the dolphin? Oh, different. Yeah. The fox. So I went to a dark end or beautiful place carry on.
Will 44:59
Look Milla selected one she called Pushinka a tiny ball of fur it means and, and she knew at this point,
Rod 45:07
I could suck up in a vacuum by accident. Beautiful
Will 45:11
and she knew it was okay to give in and play to their heart's delight. So she she'd scientifically justified it. One of one of the carriers actually jumped in front of Ludmilla and said, Listen with me first and he took it home for a few weeks jumped in front. Yeah, no, I'll take eventually he would take the take her for walks on a leash. And she would come when he whistled, which was another first, but then eventually eventually pushing her lived in with Lyudmila. And they experienced a whole bunch of firsts. So so the the move was traumatic, originally so it took a couple of no for pushing a couple of nights to get used to it and she wasn't eating. But then one night the fourth night, pushing her quietly jumped up on the bed while Ludmilla slept and curled up beside her. When Lord Miller woke up pushing her scooped her up as close to her head as possible, placing her face right next to Lord Miller's
Rod 46:05
crapping on the bedspread, like it was a toilet trained
Will 46:10
when Ludmilla put an arm on under pushing because head pushing her arrested her two front paws on it, cuddling in like a child in its mother's arms
Rod 46:17
Was it toilet trained? I noticed you're avoiding that one.
Will 46:23
I don't know. I don't know.
Rod 46:25
Domesticated and toilet train. For me. They they're pretty kindred spirits.
Will 46:29
A while later pushing her head her had her first letter at the age of one. And when Lyudmila arrived back at the house, pushing carried one of the puppies over to Ludmilla like as a present or as hey, there you go. You're my grandmother's, or something. I don't know. Ludmilla chastise her and said like look after this thing, but Pushinka cubic began to show all sorts of new behaviours. So jealousy when other foxes played with her humans, she would bark to protect her humans. And seeing pushing her unhappy was difficult for Ludmilla and she would bend the rules all the time. The Fox has started to display behaviours that lots of dog owners would know and often describing their dog's strong social intelligence, lots of bonding lability to escape through any fence you build. Possibly. Dimitri presented these results at the International genetics Congress in Moscow in 1978. At that point, he had delivered quite a lot in his rejection of, of Lysenko. A lifelong smoker, Dimitri Belyaev, died of lung cancer in 1985 Ludmilla truck continued the experiment with a blessing from a range of Soviet and external sources. In 1998, there was a huge problem that the bottom fell out of the Russian economy. And again, a lot of they got down to the Ludmilla was so desperate to somehow stop the foxes from starving that she went out onto the roads nearby around the farm and stopped cars asking people for money or any kind of food they could give.
Hannah Carle 48:01
I thought you're gonna say she was so desperate to make money that they killed on the foxes for their fur.
Will 48:07
Yes, she killed the aggressive ones and sold them and then the control population she kept that like she couldn't bring herself to kill the time population
Hannah Carle 48:14
Scott of the Antarctic. Yeah,
Will 48:16
yeah, eat that one first. Oh, I'm gonna die. But by 1999 Only 100 Time females and 30 time males were still alive. 99 Yeah, by 1999 How
Rod 48:26
old is Lyudmila at this stage?
Will 48:28
Let's, let's guess surgeon that was under 63. She can she considered selling the pelts of some of the time foxes. Eventually she wrote an article for Scientific American talking about their work. And this is the first time the work really became famous. In the West. She didn't quite ask for help. But the international scientific community responded, letters flooded in and donations and enough money to keep the experiment going. And it continues to today. And they're still doing lots and lots of work in the fox farm. What's left to find? Lots of things are looking at understanding how domestication works, social intelligence, all sorts of things like that. Now I'll just give you the wrap up for all the others. Lysenko held his post in in the mid 19th until the mid 1960s, with the blessing of Khrushchev, but he was gradually denounced throughout after Khrushchev ran out of power, or was dismissed. He was removed from his post in 1965 and restricted to an experimental farm in Moscow as Lenin hills on which they did
Rod 49:30
experiments on him. No, they didn't just he really didn't sound like he did an experiment in his life.
Will 49:36
He certainly didn't. He just wrote up the results. Throughout the Lysenko, West era, it's thought that 303,000 mainstream biologists were fired or sent to prison. Some number were executed. Very ANU, very ANU.
Rod 49:53
the reason the director's leaving.
Will 49:58
There, there are a lot of people that say that drove Lysenko probably killed more people than any other individual scientist in history directly and indirectly by starvation because of his bogus results. Dmitri belly ABS older brother Nikolai and his wife Nina Petrovna. And his 12 year old son disappeared in 1937 19 years later so in 1956 the family finally found out what had happened to some of them
Rod 50:23
next this happy ending route Would Pixar do this?
Will 50:26
no they wouldn't. I'll give you the happy ending in a bit. Okay, Nikolai. So he was the silkworm geneticist. He was shot on the 10th of November 1937. Soon after he disappeared
Hannah Carle 50:35
why?
Will 50:37
Why
Hannah Carle 50:37
Yeah
Will 50:38
for doing contraband science
Rod 50:39
Ah, okay for non non Soviet science
Will 50:43
No Lysenkoism. Okay. So, their mother searched for Nicola, his wife for years, finally learned that she had been sent to prison without correspondence, which means you're not allowed to write in the lead to tell the gulags basically near the city of base out but she could never make contact with her or find news about what happened to her grandson. So we don't know what happened to the
Rod 51:04
12 year old boy, leave them on high Good onya,
Will 51:07
the fox domestication experiment. I just want to remember that was born in a dark time. It was a dark time, where Dmitris goal was to get rid of Lysenkoism and they achieved some great science they showed some things that had been never shown before but I think they did something else as well as well. They wanted to manufacture cuteness I think they made a cute factory
Rod 51:29
and then Japan took it and ran with it boom.
Will 51:32
I wanted to just leave you with a picture here of adorable foxes that they made
Rod 51:37
over my shoulder too.
Will 51:38
They made what I think they really cute amongst the cutest little animals that you can ever see.
Rod 51:45
Yeah, they're not ugly and special surprise we have two for people in this room
Hannah Carle 51:51
if you just look under your seat yeah
Rod 51:53
biggest sob story wins
Will 51:54
there you go that's the story of Dmitry Pele I've and making the cute factory there you go.
Rod 52:02
who knew the Russians weren't all bad? Yeah.
Will 52:05
From darkness cuteness
Hannah Carle 52:08
It's gonna it's gonna need some work. See where you're going workshop does work with
Rod 52:14
the puppies come from dark. The darker, the cuter who knew
Hannah Carle 52:22
the more at risk of murder the better
Rod 52:25
Well, that's a lot of incentive to get bloody adorable bloody quick and easy. Walk me around kill you.
Will 52:31
Sources for that is an awesome book by Lee Alan Dugatkin and Lyudmila Trut herself, which is How to Tame Fox (and build a dog). It's an awesome read tells a lot of this story and what they went through for this. Also at the start there is from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Gulag Archipelago. There you go, Oh, you can supposedly have one as a pet. Not here in Australia. There are supposedly people in Europe, throughout Russia and North America who have little domestic foxes as pets.
Rod 53:03
It's no more outrageous than having a like a Rottweiler or a Chihuahua.
Will 53:07
No, but well, they're adorable. So I'd want one as well.
Hannah Carle 53:09
What you can actually do is you can go volunteer at the fox rescue shelter, where they have baby foxes that were abandoned or their parents was hit by a car or something like that. And they can't release them or have them as pets. Because obviously, foxes are terrible for Australia, Australia. But they're beautiful. And some of those changes you're talking about you see just through spending time with the foxes. So it doesn't even have to be a
Rod 53:34
You're talkign about those authentic Australian foxes that we have. Yeah,
Hannah Carle 53:37
well, they can be very cute and they start making funny noises and they start wagging their tail and they're very intelligent, lovely to spend time with
Will 53:43
go and do that. Thank you so much. Oh, no, no, that's an awesome piece of advice. This has been The Wholesome Show brought to you today by the recent school of biology and by cute foxes.
Rod 53:53
Yeah, that's lovely. I've been Will Grant and the Soviet Union. Let's not forget them men and the Soviet Union. Terrible rough Toronto things you've been who've I been I've been many people
Will 54:03
Rod Lamberts. And thank you so much Hannah Carle
Hannah Carle 54:05
Thanks for having me, guys.
Will 54:06
Thank you
