Animal Minds

Summary

Radiolab: "Animal Minds"

Podcast: Radiolab (WNYC Studios)
Episode: Animal Minds
Date: January 11, 2010
Hosts: Jad Abumrad & Robert Krulwich

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the eternal question: What’s going on inside an animal’s mind? Through stories, science, and personal encounters, the hosts explore whether we can share emotions, thoughts, and experiences with non-human animals—probing where the line lies between genuine animal communication and human projection.

Several stories—both moving and scientific—examine empathy, gratitude, and the authenticity of cross-species connection, asking: Can animals feel as we feel? Or are we just seeing ourselves in them?

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Key Discussions & Insights

1. The Blessing of the Animals (00:44–03:50)

• Setting: The episode opens in St. John the Divine, a cathedral in Manhattan, during its annual St. Francis Day "Blessing of the Animals."
• Observation: The church is filled with dogs, birds, hamsters, and even a donkey.
• Theme: The hosts notice the deep emotional bonds people feel with their pets.
• Crucial Question: Do animals have inner lives capable of feeling grace, gratitude, guilt—the sort of complex emotions invoked during religious ceremonies?
  • Quote: “All those things you might feel in a church—grace, gratitude, guilt. Can the animals feel those things too?” —Jad Abumrad, [03:37]

2. The Whale Rescue (04:08–14:31)

• Story: Divers set out to free a humpback whale tangled in crab gear 18 miles off the California coast.
• Adventure: Dramatic retelling from divers Mick Menego, Tim Young, James Mosquito, and Holly Dreard. The whale is described as “the size of a school bus” and tangled in 2,000 pounds of gear.
• Aftermath: Upon being freed, the whale approaches each diver, making prolonged eye contact and, as the divers interpret, expressing gratitude.
  • Quote: “I felt this whale was really thanking us.” —James Mosquito, [13:57]
  • Quote: “This mammal, this 50-ton mammal was literally saying thanks, thanks for helping me out… I’ll bring that to my grave.” —Tim Young, [14:01]

Key Segment: Whale Rescue Story [04:08–14:31]

3. Anthropomorphism & Scientific Skepticism (15:25–18:31)

• Interview: Psychologist Clive Wynne (University of Florida) challenges the divers’ interpretation.
  • “The problem is, I just don’t speak whale. I don’t know what thank you looks like in whale.” —Clive Wynne, [16:17]
• Debate: Wynne warns against seeing all animal behavior through a human lens, cautioning that this diminishes the true diversity of animal life.
  • Quote: “We live in a world that’s basically a world of human beings. It doesn’t matter—some of these human beings have fur suits on. Some… weigh hundreds of tons and live under the ocean.” —Clive Wynne, [17:21]

4. Animal Emotions: The "Guilty" Dog (18:31–21:43)

• Experiment: Alexandra Horowitz (Barnard College) explores whether dogs truly feel guilt.
• Result: Dogs always display the "guilty look" when scolded by owners, whether or not they misbehaved. The look reflects submission, not internal guilt.
  • Quote: “It didn’t matter whether the dog had transgressed or not. All that mattered was whether it was being chastised…” —Clive Wynne, [20:49]
• Implication: Our human interpretations of animal emotions may not match the animals’ actual experiences.

5. The Neuroscience of Empathy: Spindle Cells (23:19–34:11)

• Expert: Neuroscientist Patrick Hof (Mount Sinai) discusses the discovery of spindle cells—long neurons believed tied to empathy and social connection.
• Findings: Spindle cells are present not only in humans, but also in humpback whales, elephants, dolphins, and great apes.
• Hypothesis: Species that possess spindle cells may be more prone to complex social and emotional experiences, possibly bridging the empathy gap between species.
  • Quote: “If we assume these cells have such an influence on the sociability of the species… you would experience something of that kind with a species that has them.” —Patrick Hof, [32:23]
• Skepticism: Wynne argues there’s no single “empathy neuron,” suggesting behavior and development are more important than brain structure alone.
  • Quote: “I don’t for a moment imagine that there’s going to be a type of nerve cell… which is going to be such an acid test…” —Clive Wynne, [33:46]

Key Segment: Spindle Cells & Empathy [23:19–34:11]

6. Development, Socialization, and Communication (34:26–38:18)

• Experiment: Clive Wynne describes a study comparing chimps’ and dogs’ ability to follow a human’s pointing gesture to find food.
  • Dogs (socialized with humans) succeed. Chimps (even with spindle cells) fail unless socialized. Wolves raised by humans can also succeed.
  • Insight: Socialization and developmental experiences, not just brain structure, determine cross-species emotional attunement.
  • Quote: “Because there are things that go on earlier in our development that are crucial… you learn that… by looking around you and seeing who you’re interacting with.” —Clive Wynne, [36:21]

7. Literary Perspective: Paul Theroux, E.B. White, and Goose Minds (40:10–49:28)

• Author: Paul Theroux shares his own experience raising geese in Hawaii and reading E.B. White’s essay on geese.
• Critique: Theroux warns against projecting human emotions and narratives onto animals, arguing that it risks missing what's truly "goose."
  • Quote: “You're giving E.B. White too much license. If you're saying it really doesn't matter. It does matter to me.” —Paul Theroux, [44:15]
  • Anecdote: Theroux recounts nursing a gander back to health, only for it to bite him—reminding him of their essential goose-ness, not kinship.
  • Quote: “I'm not his friend. I'm not a feathered creature. I'm a human being among birds.” —Paul Theroux, [47:29]

Key Segment: The Writer and the Geese [40:10–49:28]

8. Intimacy and Mystery: The Leopard Seal Encounter (50:04–57:22)

• Story: National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklin spends days in the Antarctic, encountering a massive, potentially deadly leopard seal.
• Unexpected Behavior: The seal repeatedly tries to feed him penguins, switching from live to dead as he refuses.
  • Quote: “She was trying to feed me.” —Paul Nicklin, [53:08]
  • Quote: “I swear she had a look of disgust on her face.” —Paul Nicklin, [53:49]
• Emotional Impact: Paul confesses to falling in love with the seal, describing a sense of deep, cross-species connection, care, and even protection.
  • Quote: “I was starting to fall in love with the seal… I just can't wait to see her.” —Paul Nicklin, [55:00]
  • Quote: “I've never had an experience with another human that rivals this. ... Someone taking care of you and feeling safe and nurtured and protected.” —Paul Nicklin, [56:55]

Memorable Segment: The Leopard Seal Story [50:04–57:22]

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• Jad Abumrad: “All those things you might feel in a church—grace, gratitude, guilt. Can the animals feel those things too?” [03:37]
• James Mosquito (diver): “I felt this whale was really thanking us.” [13:57]
• Tim Young (diver): “This mammal, this 50-ton mammal was literally saying thanks, thanks for helping me out...” [14:01]
• Clive Wynne: “The problem is, I just don’t speak whale. I don’t know what thank you looks like in whale.” [16:17]
• Clive Wynne: “I don't doubt that there is the possibility of sharing between two species… but I think it would be a mistake if we thought that the love we feel for our dogs is the same feeling that the dog has back to us.” [18:17]
• Alexandra Horowitz (via Clive): “It didn’t matter whether the dog had transgressed or not. All that mattered was whether it was being chastised by its owner.” [20:49]
• Patrick Hof: “If we assume these cells have such an influence on the sociability of the species… you would experience something of that kind with a species that has them.” [32:23]
• Paul Theroux: “I'm not his friend. I'm not a feathered creature. I'm a human being among birds.” [47:29]
• Paul Nicklin: “I was starting to fall in love with the seal… She was trying to feed me.” [55:00], [53:08]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• St. Francis Animal Blessing & Intro: [00:44–03:50]
• Whale Rescue: [04:08–14:31]
• Clive Wynne on Animal Emotions: [15:25–18:31]
• Dog Guilt Experiment: [18:31–21:43]
• Spindle Cells and Empathy Discussion: [23:19–34:11]
• Socialization and Pointing Experiments: [34:26–38:18]
• Paul Theroux & Literature on Goose Minds: [40:10–49:28]
• Paul Nicklin & the Leopard Seal: [50:04–57:22]

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Episode Tone & Takeaways

“Animal Minds” swims between wonder, skepticism, and awe as it questions what it means to connect with another mind—animal or human. Listeners are left with a sense of humility before the unknowable richness of animal consciousness: We may glimpse it, share moments of recognition, or forge bonds, but always through the lens—clouded or clear—of our human perceptions. The episode is gently humorous, deeply curious, and unafraid to leave the central mystery unsolved.

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Final Thoughts

Radiolab’s “Animal Minds” probes profoundly into what we feel, hope, and maybe invent about our relationships with animals. It’s a poetic reminder: Sometimes, the mystery is what binds us most.

Transcript

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[Jad Abumrad]

You're listening to Radiolab Radio from WNY.

[Blue Buffalo Ad Narrator]

And NPR.

[Robert Krulwich]

So where are we?

[Jad Abumrad]

We're in a church.

[Robert Krulwich]

In a church. Oh, that's. That's different for us.

[Jad Abumrad]

It's not usually where we start. We're in a church. Cathedral, really. A huge cathedral. Upper Manhattan. St. John the Divine. Got an organ. Preacher. There's a preacher.

[Robert Krulwich]

Congregation, of course.

[Jad Abumrad]

Couple thousand people in the pews at least. Your basic Sunday service, except today you've also got Here it comes. The reason we begin here is because today the church is filled with dogs. Can I talk to you about your dog?

[Clive Wynne]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

What's his or her name?

[Patrick Hof]

His name is Blizzard.

[Jad Abumrad]

And what is he?

[Patrick Hof]

He's a Labrador and poodle mix.

[Jad Abumrad]

Well, I have Legend, who I just adopted in January. I have Denzel. Oh, by the way, more than dogs, you've got birds. His name is Jesse. It's a barn owl. And now, has this guy ever been blessed before? I don't think so, no. He was just born this year in hamsters. His name is Tubby Teddy Toes.

[James Mosquito]

And if he'd come out, you'd see why.

[Jad Abumrad]

It's because he's really fat and all kinds of creatures. We've got a little girl with a falcon. And behind her, oh, it's a giant tortoise. This is the St. Francis Day of the Animals. It's a yearly event coming toward us where people bring their animals to be bl. Blessed is a donkey. The folks that are gathered here, there's a little girl with a hermit crab. They don't think there's anything weird or inappropriate about this. In fact, if you ask them, and here comes a bull, here's what they say. I don't know if it means anything to her, but it means it to me because, you know, you want to baptize your babies and this is more.

[Robert Krulwich]

Or less the same kind of thing.

[Jad Abumrad]

And what does it mean to you? Just means when she finally does go away, she's going to go to heaven. What kind of parrot is she?

[Clive Wynne]

Oh, yeah, don't put your hand there.

[Paul Nicklin]

Face.

[Robert Krulwich]

And what's his Name? Chuckles.

[Paul Nicklin]

Chuckles.

[Jad Abumrad]

Do you feel like he has a. A soul or an inner life of some sort?

[Robert Krulwich]

It's a thinking being. They're.

[Clive Wynne]

They're as smart as we are, really.

[Robert Krulwich]

And J. Yeah. Since you invited me here, I don't want to be impolite or anything.

[Jad Abumrad]

Say what you gotta say.

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, okay. These people, of course, they love their animal.

[Jad Abumrad]

Sure. Yeah, you can hear that. Because when I'm feeling sad, he comes in the bed and he lays down spine to spine with me, and he just doesn't leave my side.

[Robert Krulwich]

But aren't they, presumably, that the animals they love are going to feel the grace of the prayer or feel the blessing, which is a.

[Jad Abumrad]

Well, which raises a question.

[Robert Krulwich]

What do we really know about what goes on inside the animal's mind?

[James Mosquito]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

All those things you might feel in a church. Grace, gratitude, guilt. Can the animals feel those things, too?

[Robert Krulwich]

How much can we share?

[Jad Abumrad]

How can you measure it?

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Grolvich.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Radiolab.

[Robert Krulwich]

And we'll begin the hour with a story about an animal who I'm sure loved to have been at the worship service, but it was a very inconvenient thing.

[Jad Abumrad]

You didn't get the amount.

[Robert Krulwich]

You couldn't quite get there.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay, just to get things rolling, this is a story that we heard about.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay. I give him enough to talk about.

[Jad Abumrad]

First from the following. Dude, hey, is it Mick or is it Mike?

[Robert Krulwich]

I go by Mick. There's way too many Mikes around.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay, Mick Menego is his name. And we met Mick recently at the Emeryville Marina, which is not far from San Francisco, where he's got a boat called the Superfish. Mick says he rents out for all kinds of things.

[Robert Krulwich]

Nature trips to ash scattering, bachelor priorities, fireworks, watching.

[James Mosquito]

I don't care.

[Robert Krulwich]

I got a little cardboard sign, I stand by the freeway. It says, have boat, need work.

[Jad Abumrad]

So, yeah, that's Mick. And our story begins one morning In.

[Robert Krulwich]

December, probably 8 o' clock in the morning or something.

[Jad Abumrad]

As I recall, a few years back, Mick was just kind of sitting at home.

[Robert Krulwich]

I was at home. Yeah, it was the middle of December. We didn't have any work.

[Jad Abumrad]

But then he gets this call.

[Paul Theroux]

Hello.

[Robert Krulwich]

Got this call.

[James Mosquito]

Hello there.

[Jad Abumrad]

It was a call relaying a message from a fisherman way out at sea.

[Robert Krulwich]

18 miles maybe outside the Golden Gate Bridge. They told me that there was a whale in trouble, tangled up in crab gear, and it didn't appear to be able to move.

[Jad Abumrad]

So after he hangs up, Mick immediately calls a few dive buddies.

[Tim Young]

Tim Young Tim Young, Air Force Pararescue.

[James Mosquito]

And then, let's see, James Mosquito. James Mosquito, professional diver.

[Robert Krulwich]

I called him and said, hey, you know, here's the deal. Are you interested?

[Tim Young]

It was a no brainer.

[James Mosquito]

I said, yeah, I'm in.

[Tim Young]

Absolutely.

[Robert Krulwich]

Figured, all right, we're going.

[Tim Young]

So I packed up my stuff, grabbed.

[James Mosquito]

My gear, and I went directly to the boat.

[Jad Abumrad]

And we left underneath the Golden Gate Bridge, nothing but the horizon in front of us.

[Robert Krulwich]

My name is Holly Dreard.

[Jad Abumrad]

I am James's significant other.

[Robert Krulwich]

We motored out for about two hours, headed due west towards the Farallon Islands.

[Jad Abumrad]

What were you feeling when you were on the boat heading out?

[Robert Krulwich]

I didn't think we'd find her.

[Jad Abumrad]

I really didn't. But about 8, 10 miles off the coast, completely open water. One of the divers spots some crab buoys in the distance and some seagulls flying overhead. And as they got closer, I saw the whale. It was just, just the very top.

[James Mosquito]

Of the whale, sticking up about maybe 6 inches out of the water.

[Jad Abumrad]

At the surface, a tiny sliver of black.

[James Mosquito]

That was it. I said, okay, we need to see what's going on. So.

[Jad Abumrad]

So Tim and James jump into an inflatable boat and they paddle about a couple hundred feet from the whale.

[Tim Young]

And it just wasn't happening. Every time that this whale came on up, it would just displace the boat back again. So it would push us back again.

[Jad Abumrad]

Not to mention the visibility in the.

[James Mosquito]

Water was just terrible.

[Jad Abumrad]

They couldn't even see down there to see, you know, what they were dealing.

[Tim Young]

With and you know what? Sometimes plans have to change in mid flight.

[Jad Abumrad]

So Tim and James look at each other and without saying a word, boom.

[Tim Young]

We got out of the boat and.

[James Mosquito]

Splashed into the water.

[Tim Young]

And I see a shadow, this massive.

[James Mosquito]

Animal, a hazy silhouette, and we just.

[Tim Young]

Started swimming.

[James Mosquito]

To the whale about 100ft away.

[Tim Young]

You know, parts of blubber and skin.

[James Mosquito]

Floating around 35ft, 20ft.

[Jad Abumrad]

And then they see it.

[Tim Young]

My goodness, this thing's the size of a school bus.

[Jad Abumrad]

A female humpback whale is one of the largest creatures on the planet. 50ft long, 50 tons. And this particular whale was in a kind of C shape where its head was at the top of the water, but its tail was almost pointed directly down.

[Tim Young]

It was almost like somebody was pulling her down by the tail to the bottom of the ocean.

[James Mosquito]

Yeah, there was probably 20 crab traps, £2,000 at least, just tied up to the tail.

[Tim Young]

She had just become an anchor. And to see her not be able to move that tail and to struggle just a.

[James Mosquito]

The whale was actually really laboring to breathe. It's a little puff. And there was just rope everywhere. It went around the whale's mouth, around.

[Jad Abumrad]

The whale's head, across her eye, over.

[James Mosquito]

Her back, Wrapped around the pectoral fins all the way down to his tail. I thought there was no hope.

[Tim Young]

There was no chance.

[James Mosquito]

We're looking at a dead whale. The whale just doesn't know it yet. But I knew that I had to try. I'm gonna swim to the whale. And as soon as I decided, okay, I'm gonna swim to the whale, well, the whale decided she wasn't gonna have that.

[Jad Abumrad]

What'd she do?

[James Mosquito]

She put up her pectoral fin, which is like her arm. And this pectoral fin is about 15ft long, about 4ft wide. And she just splashed down the water in front of me. You know, it's the size of an airplane wing coming down on top of you, just inches from my head. So at that point, I backed off and waited.

[Jad Abumrad]

Waited for the whale to settle down.

[Tim Young]

She was physically exhausted, which she did.

[Jad Abumrad]

And then they both swim back. James goes to the tail and Tim up to the whale's head.

[Tim Young]

You know, I was there with a six inch dive knife, cutting out line.

[Jad Abumrad]

Right near her eye, which was the.

[Tim Young]

Size of a grapefruit. And her eye was moving. Keeping an eye on me, really? Absolutely.

[Jad Abumrad]

He would go left or I would go left. He'd go right or I would go right.

[Tim Young]

She was tracking me.

[Jad Abumrad]

And all the while they're just cutting as much rope as they can.

[James Mosquito]

You really had a saw at it. It was very strong, very tight. Sometimes I'd cut a rope and it would be a loose rope, and all of a sudden something else would tighten.

[Jad Abumrad]

Up.

[James Mosquito]

Which was the one rope that would let it all free.

[Jad Abumrad]

This whole process took hours, but finally James gets to the end of it. He's at the tail, sawing his way through that big clump of line. And he realizes at a certain point, to cut through all that line, I'm.

[James Mosquito]

Gonna have to stab the whale to get my knife underneath the rope. It was that tight, though. I jabbed my knife into the whale's tail and pulled the rope and then cut it.

[Jad Abumrad]

And at once the rope went.

[James Mosquito]

It was a very surreal moment looking down and seeing the 20 crab traps and buoys just disappear into the abyss.

[Jad Abumrad]

And just like that, the whale was gone.

[James Mosquito]

I'm spinning around going, where'd she go? Where'd she go?

[Jad Abumrad]

But as the water settled, they realized they'd done it. They'd freed her.

[James Mosquito]

As soon as I came up, I, I was like, woo hoo.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wow.

[James Mosquito]

Hooping it up and yelling.

[Tim Young]

Unbelievable. I was screaming. Can you imagine?

[Jad Abumrad]

Now here's where the story takes a pretty startling turn. In fact, the whole reason we wanted to tell this story to begin with is for what happens next. So Tim and James and the other divers are in the water, they're celebrating, high fiving. And then all of a sudden James looks down.

[James Mosquito]

Next thing I know I have this 50 ton whale coming right at me. I'm thinking, oh my God, stop. I just saved you.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wait, so this whale is coming at you from below like Jaws?

[James Mosquito]

Yeah, she's rising up towards me.

[Robert Krulwich]

Oh God.

[James Mosquito]

I'm just thinking this is going to hurt. When she was only inches away from my chest, she stopped.

[Jad Abumrad]

And.

[James Mosquito]

Pushed me on the chest backwards and then released me and then kind of pushed again and then released and pushed again and again.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wow.

[James Mosquito]

And then she swam up right next to me, picks her head up above the water so that her eye was above the water and then came up and looked directly at me.

[Jad Abumrad]

And for what felt like 30 seconds, he says she just stared at him.

[James Mosquito]

The pupil didn't move around. She wasn't looking for anything else, she was just looking at me. You're in the presence of something that great, makes you feel small. It really was a very emotional feeling. I wasn't quite sure what to make out of it, make of it.

[Jad Abumrad]

But then he says she went off.

[James Mosquito]

To the next diver, did the same thing.

[Tim Young]

I remember distinctly, I was 18 inches away from her eye and she just looked at me and let me touch her and then swam off.

[James Mosquito]

Then she went off to the next diver and did the same thing and the next person did the same thing one by one, coming up right next to him, looking at him really good, you know, inches away, eyeballing them.

[Jad Abumrad]

She swam around to every diver.

[Robert Krulwich]

All the guys got it.

[Jad Abumrad]

So it was about dusk, the water was glass flat. I was sitting at the helm of.

[Robert Krulwich]

The boat just in awe.

[Jad Abumrad]

And they had to leave the whale.

[Robert Krulwich]

She didn't want to leave them.

[Jad Abumrad]

Now there's a real question here. What exactly was that whale doing or saying? Was she saying anything? If you ask James or Tim or Mick or any of the other divers that were in the water that day, they'll tell you.

[James Mosquito]

I felt this whale was really thanking us.

[Tim Young]

I know it sounds crazy, but I could see the look in her eye. This mammal, this 50 ton mammal was literally saying thanks, thanks for helping me out. And you know, I'll bring that to my grave, knowing the gratification that I felt.

[James Mosquito]

Hmm.

[Robert Krulwich]

Wow.

[Jad Abumrad]

So what do you think? I mean, here's the question, really. Was that whale saying thank you?

[Robert Krulwich]

Was the whale saying. Well, I think the whale was saying something. I mean, a whale, if she was just free of her ropes, I would think she would just go off and say, oof, I'm free. So the fact that she was.

[Jad Abumrad]

That she hung around and make these.

[Robert Krulwich]

Specific eyeballs visits, like, I don't know, I feel that there's something intentional about that. She didn't leave anyone out, right?

[Jad Abumrad]

No, she went. According to one of the guys on the boat, she actually went to the boats and did the same thing to the boats.

[Robert Krulwich]

She said thank you to the boats. Yeah. Well, then. So she was looking at the people, but she also thought that the craft was something she had to say thank you or deal with.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

So maybe she was just sighted. Maybe she was just. I really don't know. What. I mean. I don't feel completely comfortable just saying. Of course I know what I want to feel.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, me too.

[Robert Krulwich]

But let's just try to straighten up for a second. We have a guy named Clive Wynn who teaches at the university.

[Jad Abumrad]

Hello.

[Robert Krulwich]

Hey.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, Hi. Is this Mr. Clive Wynn?

[Clive Wynne]

Yeah, this is Clive Wynn.

[Jad Abumrad]

Hi.

[Robert Krulwich]

Clive is with the psychology department at the University of Florida.

[Clive Wynne]

Who am I talking. Who's this?

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Jad from Radiolab and.

[Clive Wynne]

Right. Hi, Jad.

[Jad Abumrad]

Clive also happens to be an expert on animal psychology.

[Robert Krulwich]

Hi. And this is Robert also.

[Joan Allaire]

Hi, Robert.

[Robert Krulwich]

Can you hear us pretty well?

[Clive Wynne]

I can hear you pretty well.

[Jad Abumrad]

I'm.

[Clive Wynne]

I'm wondering how well I'm gonna distinguish your voices.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, no need to do that.

[Robert Krulwich]

Treat us as a. Yeah, okay, listen, let me begin. This is Robert talking. We'll tell you a story, and we want to know what you think of the story.

[Jad Abumrad]

So once upon a time, and not too long ago. All right, we're going to fast forward a bit because we ran Clive through the entire whale story front to back.

[Robert Krulwich]

My question to you is, if a diver said to you this whale said thank you to me, what would you say?

[Clive Wynne]

Well, I would be put in a difficult situation because I don't doubt that what these people experienced was a very moving moment with that whale. But the problem is I just don't speak whale. So I don't know what thank you looks like in whale. If I'm going to be a cynic about it, I would say, well, the whale has been trapped for, I believe, over a day and may just be Disoriented.

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, but this was parking herself with one individual and then moving to the next. That's not a distracting. That looks like it's got some intention.

[Clive Wynne]

It shows some interest in the individuals, I'll give you that. But how do we get from that to deducing that the whale is trying to express things?

[Jad Abumrad]

What do you mean?

[Clive Wynne]

Let's play a different example. Let's suppose that you found a bear in the woods that was caught up in some netting that ended up in the woods, and you work for hours to free the bear, and then the bear eats you. Does that mean that the bears are an ungrateful species of animal?

[Jad Abumrad]

Yes. No, I don't truly believe that.

[Clive Wynne]

Right, well, so, I mean, it would make as much sense to ascribe ingratitude to the bear as it does to ascribe gratitude to the whale. I just don't think that's a useful way of trying to understand animals. And I think ultimately it demeans them because it means that instead of living in a world that's full of a diversity of wonderful creatures, each with its own ways of relating to other members of its own species and other members of other species, we say, well, we don't live in a world like that. We live in a world that's basically a world of human beings. It doesn't matter. Some of these human beings have fur suits on. Some of these human beings weigh hundreds of tons and live under the ocean and can hold their breath for a very long time. None of that really matters. Ultimately, they're all basically like us, and I just don't find that satisfying.

[Robert Krulwich]

Are you saying that you don't know if there's a possibility of sharing or that you don't think that there's a possibility of sharing at an emotional between two species?

[Clive Wynne]

I don't doubt that there is the possibility of sharing between two species. I mean, I see it with dogs all the time, but I think it would be a mistake if we thought that the love we feel for our dogs is the same feeling that the dog has back to us. It has different qualities.

[Jad Abumrad]

When you pet your dog and it wags its tail and it seems happy to see you.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

Do you just, like, not trust that?

[Clive Wynne]

Well, okay, so let me make clear that I wear two hats. When I'm talking about a dog, particularly a pet of my own, I have two possible hats I can wear. And one is that when the dog pants back at me, I just hug the dog and, you know, let him kiss me, and that's. That's life with a dog. But if I'm. If I'm now wearing my scientific hat and getting my blanket as wet as I possibly can, then I ask myself, what do these behaviors mean among dogs? There's a beautiful study that came out recently from Alexander Horovitz.

[Jad Abumrad]

I'm Alexandra Horowitz, and I study dog cognition.

[Robert Krulwich]

Where do we find her?

[Clive Wynne]

She's. Well, she's around the corner from you. She's at Barnard College.

[Jad Abumrad]

So we sent our producer Soren Wheeler, that's me, to meet her, and he ended up hanging out with her and her dog Finnegan in the park. Good snuffle. That's a nice snuffle.

[Clive Wynne]

She did this beautiful experiment that shows that when people think their dog is.

[Jad Abumrad]

Looking guilty, ears back, eyes lowered, tail.

[Clive Wynne]

Between the legs, actually the dog is just being submissive.

[Jad Abumrad]

So here's what she did. She tracked down a bunch of dog owners posted on Craigslist and put out posters. And she found a bunch of owners who believe that, like most dog owners do, that their dogs feel guilt. Yes, my dog feels guilty when he's done something wrong. And then she set up a situation where all of the dog owners had to scold their dog because, you know, they had been told that their dogs did something bad. But the trick of the experiment is that only half the dogs had done something wrong.

[Clive Wynne]

Half the dogs had actually been naughty, and half the dogs had not been naughty. But then she misinformed the owners, lied to half of the owners.

[Jad Abumrad]

We lied to the owners. So even the owners whose dogs hadn't been bad thought their dogs had been bad. So everybody scolded their dog. And almost everyone did this the same way, which was to say no loudly to their dog and maybe put their hands on their hip and express disapproval. Yes, Finnegan. Finnegan.

[Paul Theroux]

It's okay.

[Jad Abumrad]

See, Finnegan just made the look, even though he hadn't done anything wrong. And that's essentially what she found. Even the non guilty dogs made the guilty look.

[Clive Wynne]

It didn't matter whether the dog had transgressed or not. All that mattered was whether it was being chastised by its owner.

[Robert Krulwich]

So bad dog. Bad dog.

[Clive Wynne]

Right.

[Robert Krulwich]

That creates the look, not the deed.

[Clive Wynne]

That's exactly right.

[Jad Abumrad]

But for me, the pivotal question here is not whether or not they all had the look, but what's attached to that look. What feeling in the dog is attached to that guilty look? Maybe the dogs who were falsely accused still felt bad.

[Clive Wynne]

Well, maybe they did. Maybe they did. And maybe there are angels on top of this control console here.

[Jad Abumrad]

I Thought it was a perfectly valid question. Anyhow, we should thank Alexandra Horowitz. Her latest book is called Inside of a Dog.

[Robert Krulwich]

And before we end this section, have we resolved the question of what was that whale doing with those people? Was she saying thank you or no?

[Jad Abumrad]

No. And do we ever resolve any questions at all?

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, we try. We get a little closer than we got in this section.

[Jad Abumrad]

No, we have not resolved, but we will try harder. But in our next section, a mere 70 seconds away, we will try very hard to actually get scientific about it.

[Robert Krulwich]

Good.

[Tim Young]

Hi, this is Tim Young out in California on my first take of reading the Radiolab credits.

[Robert Krulwich]

So here goes. Radiolab is funded in part by the.

[Tim Young]

Alfred P. Sloan foundation and the National Science Foundation.

[Clive Wynne]

Hi, this is Clive Wynne. Radiolab is produced by WNYC and distributed by npr.

[Jad Abumrad]

Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

And I'm Robert Krolwich.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Radiolab.

[Robert Krulwich]

Today's animal minds. Animal minds, Right. Can one animal really know what's going on in another animal's head?

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, like really know.

[Robert Krulwich]

Really know.

[Jad Abumrad]

Thanks for meeting us. So we were thinking about that whale story that we heard before the break.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yep.

[Jad Abumrad]

You know, where the divers meet the whale and they were sure the whale.

[Tim Young]

Was saying thanks, literally saying, thanks. Thanks for helping me out.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay. That is their opinion. But we wanted to know, like, what can you actually scientifically say about that kind of exchange, that question?

[Paul Nicklin]

Let us introduce yourself to this guy.

[Patrick Hof]

My name is Patrick Hoff. I am a neuroscientist at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

[Robert Krulwich]

Although actually, the truth is he's really from someplace like Geneva. He's a Swiss from the French part of Switzerland.

[Jad Abumrad]

Right. Anyhow, we came to him because he. He may have found a way of separating the animals, of knowing which animals can genuinely have human emotions and which can't.

[Patrick Hof]

It starts in 1995. We were studying the anatomy of the human cingulate cortex.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's part of the brain. That's right here, kind of between your eyes, but down.

[Patrick Hof]

And a student in my lab, Esther.

[Jad Abumrad]

Nimchinsky, she was looking at some brains and she saw something odd.

[Patrick Hof]

This very slender bipolar neuron. I've never seen a neuron like that. Maybe it's abnormal. It's probably pathological, Just to be sure.

[Jad Abumrad]

She got some slides of other human brains, looked in the same place. There it was again.

[Patrick Hof]

Started to see them and again. And we were very pleased. Okay. We have discovered a new cell type, something that is unique to human.

[Jad Abumrad]

But then they went to the library and discovered that some guy whose name.

[Patrick Hof]

Is Constantin Fun economo.

[Robert Krulwich]

Constantin.

[Patrick Hof]

Constantin Fun economo.

[Jad Abumrad]

This Romanian guy had seen these cells 70 years ago, and he named them spindle cells because of their shape. Oh, that must have been a very sad day for Esther. No, no, no, because now they believe that these little brain cells may be a key to how humans relate to one another and whether or not other creatures can relate to us in the same way.

[Patrick Hof]

Right.

[Jad Abumrad]

Is it possible for us to see a spindle cell?

[Patrick Hof]

Yeah, we can show you a spindle cell.

[Robert Krulwich]

Patrick Hoff took us down the hall.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yep.

[Robert Krulwich]

Jad went first and parked him in front of a big microscope.

[Patrick Hof]

Here, for instance. You can look at it.

[Jad Abumrad]

Will it be obvious to me?

[Patrick Hof]

I'm looking, crossing the middle of the field, you can see a series of.

[Jad Abumrad]

Tall, slender, making me dizzy.

[Patrick Hof]

1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

[Jad Abumrad]

Is that the spindles?

[Paul Theroux]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, they're everywhere.

[Paul Theroux]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

Ah, you want to see them?

[Robert Krulwich]

What do you mean, I want to see them? Yeah. Here, you hold the mic. Oh, yeah. There's like. There's a whole troop of them, and they're long and skinny and purple.

[Jad Abumrad]

It's funny because the normal brain cells, which you can also see in there, are like dot, dot, dot, but these ones are do like little purple bananas.

[Robert Krulwich]

Like a team of purple bananas.

[Jad Abumrad]

And the thing that makes these cells.

[Robert Krulwich]

So interesting, all seeming to head off in this direction.

[Patrick Hof]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

According to Patrick Hoff, is that, you know, the normal brain cells, they just talk to their neighbors. But these ones, because they're so long.

[Robert Krulwich]

They seem to be yelling across a big distance.

[Patrick Hof]

Exactly. We know that these cells send an action at some distance.

[Robert Krulwich]

Hello. It's across the valley.

[Patrick Hof]

Yeah, it's across the valley. Exactly. It's projecting.

[Jad Abumrad]

Projecting what and from where to where? Well, Patrick Hoff doesn't entirely know, but he says he can make a pretty good guess based on. Well, if you look at the microscope, you do notice some things.

[Patrick Hof]

Yeah, yeah. So here, top of the spindle points toward the surface of the brain.

[Jad Abumrad]

The top, he says, seems to shoot up towards those more modern parts of.

[Patrick Hof]

The brain that involve higher order cognition.

[Jad Abumrad]

You know, language, abstract thinking. Whereas the bottom of the spindle seems.

[Patrick Hof]

To shoot down, deep down, lower centers.

[Jad Abumrad]

In the brain towards those older parts of our brain that involve feelings, emotions, instinct. So perhaps this is what Patrick Hoff thinks. The T cells are a kind of network, a really important one that allows the different parts of our inner selves to connect. Like, you've got the parts of us down here that feel things can now Communicate with the parts of us up here that think things. And this is an oversimplification, of course, but the point, the larger point is that this is exactly what happens when you look into the eyes of another human being. Because it begins with a kind of thought. You. Your eyes seem sad, but then that thought within you travels a great distance and connects with a feeling of sadness so that you feel sad too. I mean, it's the basis of a kind of empathy.

[Patrick Hof]

Exactly, exactly. You know, I see you're happy, you know, so. So that I feel good about it.

[Jad Abumrad]

You know, and consider those times, I mean, not just empathy, where, like, your thoughts and feelings are in conflict and they've got to really talk to one another.

[Robert Krulwich]

Like for, for example, when you get in front of me at the microphone yet again, and I hate you, but I know that I have to work with you, So I sit on that feeling. I just sit on my. It's going down to the bottom of my brain. But I say take a nap.

[Jad Abumrad]

See, that's the best part of your spindle situation, is that it's not just that thoughts connect to feelings, but that thoughts can sometimes suppress feelings.

[Joan Allaire]

Yeah, I think that's the idea, is that humans in social interactions can't rely on these hardwired emotions in the same way other animals might be able to.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's Joan Allaire, science writer, regular radio lab contributor, and a guy we often call to help us make sense of things.

[Joan Allaire]

You know, we can't, like a dog, just hump every other dog and see what happens. We've got to flirt and be funny and, you know, buy a couple drinks and. But that was. You guys have to cut that because.

[Robert Krulwich]

I don't get hate mail from.

[Clive Wynne]

I am sorry.

[Robert Krulwich]

So astonished. Well, I was like, wow, we gotta use that.

[Joan Allaire]

I just turned into a frat boy. But the point being that our social interactions are very complicated in that we can't rely. It's much tougher for humans to rely on simply these hardwired primitive instincts. So the job of spindle cells is to simply broadcast content to the rest of the brain.

[Jad Abumrad]

Because without our whole brain involved, we'd never be able to navigate the social world and make any kind of connection.

[Robert Krulwich]

Right. So if spindle cells then allow us to talk gently and emotionally to one another. The question is. This is the question for our hour. What about intra species? Is it intra or inter?

[Jad Abumrad]

Intra. Intra. Intranet.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah, that's inside.

[Jad Abumrad]

I think a cross species is what you mean.

[Robert Krulwich]

Does any other animal have spindle's house?

[Jad Abumrad]

And as it happens.

[Patrick Hof]

So where I'm taking you to my.

[Jad Abumrad]

Cold room, just down the hall from his office.

[Patrick Hof]

Professor Hoff has a freezer where I stored the specimens.

[Jad Abumrad]

Very, very big door, too, full of brains.

[Patrick Hof]

So it's gonna get a little bit cooler here.

[Jad Abumrad]

All different kinds.

[Patrick Hof]

We have brains of various species. The sedations are over there. We have the gray table, the whale wall. That's the whale wall. Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

He's got dozens and dozens of brains and buckets and in jars, and he keeps them all organized while each category of species has its own shelf.

[Patrick Hof]

You have more apes down there with gorillas and orangutans.

[Robert Krulwich]

It was really cold in there.

[Jad Abumrad]

So what they did was they took a bunch of those brains off the shelf and walked them down the hall to the lab and put little pieces of them under a microscope. They didn't expect to find any of those bizarro neurons in any of these other creatures, because he was pretty sure.

[Patrick Hof]

This is something that is unique to human. But one day we were looking at the brain of the humpback whale and we stumbled on spindle cells, Plenty of spindle cells.

[Robert Krulwich]

So what was that? Were you surprised?

[Patrick Hof]

And I was there saying, okay, this is fascinating.

[Robert Krulwich]

You weren't expecting that.

[Patrick Hof]

I was not at all expecting that.

[Jad Abumrad]

But on the other hand, here we.

[Patrick Hof]

Have the humbug whale, which is of very social animals. They form clans, they communicate, the males, they have a song, they hunt together, they develop hunting strategies, which requires perfect coordination of many whales. So they have to act together to do that.

[Jad Abumrad]

Now, if acting together is the key, you know, having complex social structures, well, then these things shouldn't just be limited to whales. And in fact, over the years, Hoff and other scientists have found spindle cells in chimpanzees, elephants, dolphins, gorillas, which begs the question, like, if we want to have an experience with another creature, and not just at the zoo, but a real shared experience, do those creatures need to have these things? Do you think the existence of spindosault creates more of a possibility of having that cross species sharing moment?

[Patrick Hof]

I think so. If we assume that these cells have such an influence on the sociability of the species, it is very likely that you would experience something of that kind with a species that has them. I doubt you would get a very good experience if you were trying to do this with the high end.

[Joan Allaire]

So maybe what we see when we look into, you know, these sad eyes of a blue whale, or when we look into, you know, the eyes of an elephant cradling a baby elephant, which are Just the cutest things on earth. Maybe what we recognize is that same flavor of emotion, that same inner life of feeling. Maybe, and this is a big maybe, maybe that inner life require spindle cells.

[Robert Krulwich]

But how big is that? Maybe it sounds like a really maybe. Maybe.

[Joan Allaire]

I mean, you know, it's important to know this is all just a. I think this is still very theoretical.

[Robert Krulwich]

And in fact, if you ask people like Clive Wynn, the fellow who pooh poohed our whale. Thank you. From before, ask Clive, like, could you look at an animal and find something in the animal that says yep, if he has that, he's got feeling?

[Clive Wynne]

Well, wrong. I don't for a moment imagine that there's gonna be a type of nerve cell or a type of structure in the brain which is gonna be such an acid test of whether an animal has a particular psychological capacity that we could then find that kind of neuron and say, well, now we know without having to look at the behavior of the animal, now we know that this species has this or that psychological ability.

[Jad Abumrad]

Well, let me ask a question a different way. I mean, do you think spindle cells or no spindle cells, let's just toss them out for a second. Do you think there are a category of creatures that are more likely to have empathic experiences with us? Would you draw lines between beings?

[Clive Wynne]

Well, the thing I would. The thing I would emphasize if we're looking for empathy between different species is their developmental experiences.

[Robert Krulwich]

To make his point, Clive told us about this experiment. He says, let's take a chimp with all the spindle cells inside the chimp. Put the chimp in a room and in front of the chimp let's put two cups face down. Now one of the cups has a grape, something delicious under it, and the chimp doesn't know where the grape is. Could be under cup A or cup B. So what you, the experimenter do is you simply point to the cup that has the grape, like that's the one, that one right there.

[Clive Wynne]

And all the animal has to do is to go to the cup that's pointed to it. Seems simple enough.

[Robert Krulwich]

But chimps, Clive says chimps find this.

[Clive Wynne]

Stunningly difficult to understand.

[Robert Krulwich]

Get this wrong.

[Jad Abumrad]

What do you mean?

[Robert Krulwich]

I mean they just look at you pointing and they look at you pointing and they look and you're pointing and they just go, what? Whereas dogs who don't have spindle cells.

[Clive Wynne]

Most pet dogs get this from the get go.

[Jad Abumrad]

The dogs can do this and chimps can't.

[Clive Wynne]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They quite spontaneously recognize that you should go where they point.

[Robert Krulwich]

And Clive says the explanation here is not that dogs have some special cell in their brain, it's simply because because.

[Clive Wynne]

They grow up in our households, they.

[Robert Krulwich]

Grow up with us.

[Clive Wynne]

Right.

[Robert Krulwich]

To test this idea, he did the.

[Jad Abumrad]

Same study, the pointing one.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yep. Except this time with some wolves, because.

[Clive Wynne]

Wolves are the animals from which dogs are descended. But they haven't lived in human households, obviously.

[Robert Krulwich]

And normally, like the chimps, wolves totally screw up the pointing test.

[Clive Wynne]

But we've done some tests on some wolves that were hand reared by human beings and are very friendly to human beings. And we find that those wolves behave just like the dogs, that they are just as good at following the human pointing to find the food.

[Jad Abumrad]

Really? Did you have to train them or.

[Clive Wynne]

No, we did not train them.

[Jad Abumrad]

They just picked it up.

[Clive Wynne]

Well, they just picked it up. But these are exceptional wolves insofar as they were reared by human beings. They were bottle fed when they were wee babies. Because there are things that go on earlier in our development that are crucial and that include learning who are your kind? Who am I? What am I? And you learn that in a critical period in your early life by looking around you and seeing who you're interacting with. Pretty much every dog you might meet has learned to accept humans as social companions. And that's because it was reared in a human home and because evolution has prepared it with a relatively slow development so that it's pretty easy to tame a dog. The wolf, on the other hand, it goes through its childhood and adolescence in the blink of an eye, in the course of just a handful of weeks. And so it's actually extremely difficult to successfully hand rear a wolf because you have so little time available to you and you have to invest 24 hours a day, seven days a week. During that brief period that a wolf is open to the possibility of learning who its companions might be.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's really interesting. You know, one of the pieces of the interpretation that I find intriguing, I want to run by you is that.

[Robert Krulwich]

When, Ooh, so interesting. I'm now sitting here thinking, boy, if I could raise a whale with a baby bottle, then I would know whether the whale was saying thank you to me, because I would have liked. It's not like I have to learn whale, but whale would have learned human.

[Clive Wynne]

Well, that's right. I mean, of course this is completely hypothetical. The whale's a really bad example to choose. But my guess would be if you bottle fed a whale, you would get a whale that might plausibly do something like a behavior that expresses thanks.

[Jad Abumrad]

That is such a hard mental image to conjure.

[Clive Wynne]

Well, that's right. That's right.

[Jad Abumrad]

Bottle feeding a whale.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah, well, because we have to keep rising to the surface for 21 years to breathe before I actually get to the experiment.

[Clive Wynne]

Yes, there are a number of drawbacks to that experiment.

[Jad Abumrad]

Radiolab will continue in a moment.

[Robert Krulwich]

My name is Mai Tha Toy, a.

[Jad Abumrad]

Radiolab listener in Singapore. Radiolab is supported in part by the.

[Robert Krulwich]

National Science foundation and by the Alfred.

[Jad Abumrad]

P. Sloan Foundation, Enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. For more information about sloan, go to www.sloan.org. Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Krulowich.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Radiolab. Today, kind of a hard topic to describe. We're calling it Animal Minds. Animal minds.

[Robert Krulwich]

Or maybe the better way to say it is minds other than our own.

[Jad Abumrad]

Which would be the animals.

[Robert Krulwich]

No, that's the animals.

[Jad Abumrad]

Well, we're animals, though. Yeah, you're right.

[Robert Krulwich]

So we live with. Yeah, so we live with. Yeah, I mean, we're having enough trouble just talking to each other. But imagine if I were. If you were a Labrador.

[Jad Abumrad]

That'd be tough.

[Robert Krulwich]

See, then we'd have a problem.

[Clive Wynne]

Or a whale.

[Jad Abumrad]

No, maybe we wouldn't. That's kind of what we're looking at. How much can you really share with, you know, a Labrador or a whale? Right.

[Robert Krulwich]

And we're not solving this problem in this show at all. No, but maybe we could do this. Maybe instead of talking to scientists about other minds, maybe we should talk to a writer. Yeah.

[Tim Young]

Paul, can you hear me?

[James Mosquito]

Paul, can you hear Paul?

[Jad Abumrad]

Paul?

[James Mosquito]

Paul?

[Robert Krulwich]

The writer we chose to look for, you may now know, was named Paul.

[Paul Theroux]

Okay, stand by, Paul Theroux.

[Robert Krulwich]

He's the author of any number of travel books, novels.

[Jad Abumrad]

Didn't he win a big prize?

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm sure.

[Paul Theroux]

Yes. Is that Jad?

[Jad Abumrad]

Yes. Hi, J, A D. That's me. Like a Pulitzer or one of the big ones.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay. No, he didn't win a Pulitzer, but he won the prize of my heart when he wrote the Patagonia Express.

[Paul Theroux]

Oh, so you're taping. Okay, great.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yes, yes. Anyhow, Paul Theroux travels all around the world writing about all kinds of things. But the reason we called him is for something that actually happened in his.

[Robert Krulwich]

Backyard, which, luckily for him, happens to be in the state of Hawaii.

[Paul Theroux]

I own seven acres on a slope, west facing slope on the north shore of Oahu. And I had very, very long grass, and someone said, oh, I know what you need, some geese. They'll take care of that grass. So I got a couple.

[Robert Krulwich]

And you decided not to go to the hardware store and buy a lawn mower. You decided to buy two animate birds.

[Paul Theroux]

That's right. I would have needed a really, really serious industrial moa. Instead, I got two non industrial geese. I actually got three. Two ganders and a goose. And a strange thing happened. One of the ganders imprinted on me.

[Jad Abumrad]

So what does that mean?

[Robert Krulwich]

So it means the baby chick boy looked at you and the first moving.

[Paul Theroux]

Thing they see is the mother figure. This goose became very attached, very protective. It would sit in my lap. When another goose came up, it would peck at them. Anyhow, it was both protective and attentive.

[Robert Krulwich]

But as the gander grew up, strange things began to happen.

[Paul Theroux]

First it became detached from me, then aggressive toward me, and then needed me. It was very strange and it made me think, I want to get some more geese and I want to read more about them and then watch them.

[Robert Krulwich]

So he, well, he asked friends and friends said to him, look, if you want to know everything that's important to know about geese, you have to read EB White.

[Paul Theroux]

Most people mention EB White when they talk about geese. And of course I know and love EB White.

[Robert Krulwich]

And if you're not a Martian, you probably love EB White too.

[Jad Abumrad]

I mean, what do you mean, people? It's possible.

[Robert Krulwich]

How many people have read Stuart Little? Or how many people have read Charlotte's Web? And if you don't love the children's fiction, he's certainly one of the great, greatest of all American essayists.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, see, that's the point. He is one of the great American writers. He actually wrote the Bible for writing.

[Robert Krulwich]

The Elements of Style.

[Jad Abumrad]

The Elements of Style, which is still the Bible for writing weirdly. And it was written like 50.

[Robert Krulwich]

So when people point to anything by E.B. white, you point Seriously. And in this case, very late in life, after he moved up to a cabin in Maine, he was in his 70s. And this particular essay we're going to talk about is called very simply, the Geese. The geese. Allen Cove, July 9, 1971. I have had a pair of elderly gray geese, goose and a gander, living on this place for a number of years. And they have been my friends. So Paul Theroux opened the essay early in the spring, fully expecting to learn all about geese. But then he kept running across these little phrases and adjectives that made him cringe.

[Paul Theroux]

You know, he talks about a gosling that grows into, I'm quoting now, a real dandy. A real dandy.

[Robert Krulwich]

Full of pompous thoughts and surly gestures.

[Paul Theroux]

Pompous thoughts and surly gestures, you know.

[Jad Abumrad]

But come on. I mean, doesn't that make the goose a little bit more easy to relate to?

[Paul Theroux]

All right, Take one word. Malice.

[Robert Krulwich]

I could not tell whether the look in his eye was one of malice or affection. Malice.

[Paul Theroux]

Malice is a word you use for, you know, Mussolini or, you know, somebody else.

[Jad Abumrad]

Not for.

[Paul Theroux]

Not for a goose.

[Robert Krulwich]

But what's the sin in that? If a man who's a professional storyteller and one of the greatest ones says, let me tell you about my geese, and then talks about them as though they were uncles and aunts and neighbors with moods that are distinctly human. So what?

[Paul Theroux]

Well, I suppose you could say so. Or you could say, so what if he put them in, you know, little Halloween costumes, too, for that matter. So what? But I'm a. In the writing business. The writing business should be unsparing. He could be quite unsparing himself in his writing. You're giving EB White too much license. If you're saying it really doesn't matter. It does matter to me.

[Robert Krulwich]

And the reason it matters, says Paul theroux, is that E.B. white got so attached to the idea of those geese as aging critters like himself that he missed something deep and important about the geese.

[Paul Theroux]

The elements of that behavior that is pure goose.

[Robert Krulwich]

Paul pointed to the end of the essay. Suddenly, I heard sounds of a rumble outside in the barnyard where the ganders were. Where a formerly great gander gets unseated by a younger male goose. There's a big fight, lots of squawking, and the old gander loses. I watched as he threaded his way slowly down the narrow path between clumps of thistles and daisies. His head was barely visible above the grasses, but his broken spirit was plain to any eye. I felt very deeply his sorrow and his defeat.

[Paul Theroux]

Well, the defeated gander goes off. Well, this isn't true at all. When a gander loses a battle, he goes off, gets his strength back and waits for a chance to attack again. That gander's gonna come back and fight again.

[Robert Krulwich]

So you're saying that he got it wrong about the geese?

[Paul Theroux]

Yes, of course. Of course. Here's a man who is solitary. He's a New Yorker who goes to Maine and becomes a gentleman farmer of a kind. And begins to relate to his geese and then writes about them as though he's one of them. I know I'm not one of them.

[Robert Krulwich]

But if you can't use words that are Very human and psychological words. And if you can't, because you're not a goose, have whatever it is that geese have on their insides, then what if you wanted to share something with a goose, and I bet you you do. Is there any way in which you could honestly describe yourself as a friend of any of these geese?

[Paul Theroux]

I would say, you know, this is a very good question. I. I had a very surly, to use an EB White word, a very. A very rambunctious gander. And he got very sick. You know, the thing is sitting on the ground, just fouling its nest. I thought he was really going to die and I nursed him back to health. I gave him antibiotic with a turkey baster and it took about three or four weeks. And the first thing he did when he was nursed back to health was he got up on two legs and I came up with the turkey baster, gave him one last drink and he bit me.

[Robert Krulwich]

And I thought, where did he invite you?

[Paul Theroux]

He bit my leg hard. And I thought, okay, he's back to health.

[Jad Abumrad]

You didn't think, ow. How could you?

[Paul Theroux]

Well, I thought, he's healthy again and he's behaving just as a goose would.

[Robert Krulwich]

Don't you see, though, that if the moment of.

[Jad Abumrad]

True.

[Robert Krulwich]

Of your true most goosey moment is the moment when you're. When the goose that you help bites you, then you are out of this story, in effect.

[Paul Theroux]

I absolutely agree with that. In all of this, there's an implied loneliness. I'm not his friend. I'm not a feathered creature. I'm a human being among birds.

[Robert Krulwich]

Although, curiously, Paul Theroux does have an approach to communing with his geese. He takes a chair, puts it on the lawn, plops down in the chair and disappears.

[Paul Theroux]

You know, my writing day ends in the early afternoon. I have lunch, and after lunch there's a long sunny period in the afternoon when I'm alone, I'm with the geese and I sit around with them and try to make out what they're doing among each other and paying no particular attention. To me, it's simply watching the world as it was. You're seeing creatures who are behaving as though cities don't exist, presidents don't exist, governments don't exist, roads don't exist, as if it's before the fall, as though it's the peaceable kingdom. Simply watching animals who are content doing their thing. Then you feel a bit like Adam Sam.

[Jad Abumrad]

Radiolab is produced by Jad Abumrad and Thorin Wheeler Michael Raphael, Ellen Horn and.

[Clive Wynne]

Lulu Miller, with help from Addie Narayan and Tim Howard.

[Jad Abumrad]

Special thanks to Brianna Breen and Kelly Green Carmody. Apologies for butchering any names. Wait a second. Stop. Stop the machine. It just feels weird to end the show this way with this lonely geese thing. So we're gonna play for you one final story. It's kind of a continuation of Paul Theroux and his geese, except it involves a very different guy in a very different climate. First of all, who are you? What's your name?

[Paul Nicklin]

My name is Paul Nicklin, and I'm a contributing photographer to National Geographic magazine.

[Jad Abumrad]

Paul Nicklin is basically National Geographic's Arctic guy.

[Paul Nicklin]

I've been pegged as their polar specialist.

[Jad Abumrad]

And this particular tale involves his attempt to photograph one of the great Arctic.

[Paul Nicklin]

Predators, the leopard seal.

[Jad Abumrad]

Leopard seal, which by reputation is a very nasty creature.

[Paul Nicklin]

Preface to this story is. In 2003, tragically, a scientist was actually killed. Kirsty Brown was doing underwater research and she was taken down by a leopard seal and drowned.

[Jad Abumrad]

Was she just yanked off the ice or.

[Paul Nicklin]

She was swimming and it just came up and grabbed her and took her down to 300ft.

[Jad Abumrad]

Nonetheless, our story starts with Paul and his guide, Godin. They're in a boat in the Arctic Ocean looking for seals.

[Paul Nicklin]

The first seal we encountered, I'd never seen a leopard seal before. And we came around into this bay where there was a penguin colony. And right away, Gaudan, who's seen many, many leopard seals, he said to me, you know, bloody hell, that's the biggest seal I've ever seen. And she came up to the boat with a penguin in her mouth. She went underneath the boat and she started ramming the penguin underneath the hull of the boat, lifting the bow out of the water. And that's when Gauran looks to me and he says, paul, it's time for you to get to Nuwater. Yeah. In his thick Swedish accent. Wow.

[Jad Abumrad]

Were you freaking out?

[Paul Nicklin]

I had dry mouth just from the nervousness. I was trembling and I put my mask on and slipped over the 29 degree Fahrenheit water. And there she was, instantly, right there, massive. Huge.

[Jad Abumrad]

Well, how huge?

[Paul Nicklin]

Probably over a thousand pounds.

[Robert Krulwich]

Oh, my God.

[Paul Nicklin]

12Ft long. She dropped her penguin, she came right over to me and she opened up her mouth and she engulfed the front of the camera. Her canines were on top of my head, two were below my chin. You know, I'm basically staring down her throat.

[Jad Abumrad]

I can't believe you managed to take a picture of this, because I'm Looking at this picture and these teeth are huge.

[Paul Nicklin]

The canines, they look massive.

[Robert Krulwich]

So you were doing business at this moment?

[Paul Nicklin]

Yeah, I'm working at that point.

[Jad Abumrad]

You can even see the texture of the seal's tongues. Like she has these little fibers on her.

[Paul Nicklin]

Oh, it's 180 degree view. So, yeah, to get that, that perspective, I'm basically in the mouth to get that shot.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wow.

[Robert Krulwich]

So then what happened?

[Paul Nicklin]

She backs off, looks at me, sniffed my flippers, touched them with her nose, poked me in the bum, came up, did this open mouth threat display again. And then she swims. Wow. I was just getting ready to swim back to the Zodiac. You know, I've been in the water for quite a while and I'm cold. And all of a sudden she shows up with a freshly caught live penguin chick in her mouth. And I'm sitting there staring at her. And she stops about 10ft away from me. And she's got the penguin by the feet and the penguin's flapping its flippers trying to get away. She lines the penguin up to face perfectly in my direction and she lets it go. The penguin swam right by me. And she chases off after it and grabs it, comes back and does this again and again and again.

[Clive Wynne]

Why?

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, I mean, what was she doing?

[Paul Nicklin]

At first I couldn't figure out what was going on. I thought maybe she was having a hard time eating it. And then it dawned on me. She was trying to feed me.

[Robert Krulwich]

Did you make any attempt during this period to say, no, thank you?

[Paul Nicklin]

No, no. I'm in such disbelief at this point. I'm just trying to capture it.

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, didn't you feel compelled as a social human to just offer some kind of gestural explanation? I mean, if it were me, I would have made some look like, come, I don't eat that stuff.

[Jad Abumrad]

Or, or maybe it's like you, you take, you take the penguin. At that point you're like, well, I.

[Paul Nicklin]

Mean, I couldn't roam, you know, penguin's swimming 15 miles an hour, you know.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, so you mean when she lets go, it just goes fum.

[Paul Nicklin]

Like a bullet?

[Robert Krulwich]

No, he's pathetic is what he's saying. He's. I'm a pathetic creature. I can't actually catch the creature.

[Paul Nicklin]

I'm thinking exposures. Get the shot, keep shooting.

[Robert Krulwich]

You're such a photo dude, you know?

[Jad Abumrad]

Well, I'm.

[Paul Nicklin]

I work for National Geographic. I don't want to anthropomorphize too much. But as the penguin was swimming by this huge seal, she looked over at me and I swear she had a look of disgust in her face. So she goes off and gets another penguin. And this penguin now is quite weak and tired looking, so I think she's worn it down. She lets the penguin go, penguin takes off, she grabs it, does that a couple more times and you're still not.

[Jad Abumrad]

Eating the penguin, right?

[Paul Nicklin]

Next encounter was bringing me dead penguins. And sometimes she would just drop off a dead penguin right on top of the camera. And she would just sit there with this dejected look on her face, staring at me. And then she went to the stage of flipping dead penguins on top of my head and trying to force feed me these penguins, telling me at this point, you know, eat these damn penguins. I'm trying to feed you. Why won't you eat my penguins? Eat the penguins. Then she would start to eat the penguins right in front of me and show me how to eat them. She would rip them apart on the surface, get the skin off them, and she's shredding them in the water in front of me.

[Jad Abumrad]

And how much time is passing here? I mean, are we talking minutes, hours?

[Paul Nicklin]

This went on for four days.

[Jad Abumrad]

Four days. And when you're in the water, you know, day after day, what's happening for you at this point? Are you still just a guy with a camera or.

[Paul Nicklin]

I mean, I was starting to fall in love with the seal. It's just this animal that's just so intelligent and so powerful and it could kill you in an instant. Yet you're. I mean, well, when you say you.

[Robert Krulwich]

Were in love, were you in love with the idea of this or did you really like her?

[Paul Nicklin]

I really liked her. She was beautiful. She was big. She had this beautiful face, beautiful silver color to her. She kind of glowed underwater. I'm just so in love with this seal at this point. Not sleeping at night. I have a hard time eating. I just can't wait to see her. I can't. And the first thing in the morning, you know, first sign of light, I'm in that zodiac. And then on the fourth day is when, you know, I was thinking, okay, maybe she's weary of me and she's getting tired of me, so I'm just going to totally leave her alone. That's when I started going off and presenting myself to other seals who were swimming around the rookery. And I was in the water and the same big female came up to me and she started to do all these really beautiful belly like moves. I'm photographing her and looking at her and all of a sudden she drops her Penguin. She turns upside down and she does this big, guttural, this big jarring noise. It's vibrating my whole body. I can really feel it in my chest, it's so loud. And I'm thinking, am I being attacked? She finally told me that she's sick of me and wants me off her feeding grounds. But as soon as she did that, another leopard seal shot out from right behind me. And so this leopard seal had snuck in behind me and she did that noise to chase that seal away. A smaller seal, she chased a seal away. It too had a penguin. She grabbed its penguin and brought me that seal's penguin and dropped it off in front of me.

[James Mosquito]

Wow.

[Robert Krulwich]

You are a lucky guy.

[Paul Nicklin]

I mean, almost getting emotional, reliving that. I mean, it's very powerful.

[Robert Krulwich]

Have you ever been in love with an animal in quite this way before?

[Paul Nicklin]

Never. Never.

[Jad Abumrad]

Have you ever had an experience with a, with another human that rivals this?

[Paul Nicklin]

Perhaps when I was a kid with my mom, someone taking care of you and feeling safe and nurtured and protected. But I've never had that in my life as an adult.

[Jad Abumrad]

It sounds, this is such an interesting species moment here.

[Robert Krulwich]

It sounds like you're doing something, you're transgressing or something. Sounds like you're stealing something from the gods right here, right at this moment.

[Paul Nicklin]

I mean, I don't know what words I can find to explain it.

[Jad Abumrad]

Thank you so much.

[Paul Nicklin]

Thank you guys.

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[Jad Abumrad]

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