Boozing Bees, Cheating Chimps, Dogs with Guns, and Horrible Hummingbirds
MR. SAM LITZINGER
12:33:34
Welcome back to "The Animal House." I'm Sam Litzinger. Bees that love alcohol, a pub-dwelling rabbit that's addicted to slot machines, pandas that enjoy pornographic movies. This is just a sampling of the surprising and actual animal behavior uncovered by our next guest, Linda Lombardi, who left her tenured university professorship to become a zookeeper and observer of animals.
MR. SAM LITZINGER
12:33:59
That job has been a great source of material in Linda's blog and new book "Animals Behaving Badly," which she says is a way to get back at the animals that have ruled her life. Linda, glad to have you with us in "The Animal House."
MS. LINDA LOMBARDI
12:34:11
Thanks for having me.
LITZINGER
12:34:12
Hey, before we get to the book, I have to ask about this phrase, who left her tenured university professorship. Did you get a lot of grief about that?
LOMBARDI
12:34:21
No. If I did, I wasn't paying attention. I was a little -- I was too pig-headed to care what anyone thought except my dissertation advisor. I felt bad since he had, you know, we had had a close relationship and I'm sure you've interviewed a lot of scientists, so you know, you know, working on a Ph.D. is a big deal, and I kind of felt like he was gonna be really disappointed in me that I had given up my previous life, but he's always been very nice about it.
LITZINGER
12:34:46
"Animals Behaving Badly," I just -- I hardly know where to begin. I thought I might start with a section called Boozing Bees. Can I read this little excerpt from Boozing Bees you have?
LOMBARDI
12:34:55
Please.
LITZINGER
12:34:56
"The drinking problems of bees have landed them in the news for as long as there's been news." I didn't know this, and I'm a journalist. "(unintelligible) of this 1898 New York Times Report about bees hanging out around sugar cane factories. The report goes, at first the bees carry on their labors diligently. Then little by little they learn that juices from the sugar cane contain alcohol.
LITZINGER
12:35:17
Forsaking even the semblance of work, the bees imbibe the intoxicating fluid. The sad fact is that bees get drunk. They fly about in a dazed and listless condition, ambitionlessness as far as honey making is concerned." Bees?
LOMBARDI
12:35:34
Bees. This just goes to show you that the animals we think the best of, I mean, the insects, you know, insects, most people don't care much for insects, but bees, we think they're busy and diligent and, you know, they make honey and, you know, they're very important to pollination, but it's just the case that the better an animal, the worse its secrets tend to be.
LITZINGER
12:35:54
How did you find out all these secrets? This must have been a kind of disconcerting journey I should think.
LOMBARDI
12:36:00
Well, I don't think so. Because I came to it from working with animals, I knew that animals are not -- they're not -- they're not what their press says they are. You say you were a journalist and you didn't know this about bees. Well, you know, that's because somehow there seems to be this media machine that animals have got going for them saying that they're cute and that they're better than we are, and it's all just -- I want to hire their PR person because I don't know how they do this.
LITZINGER
12:36:28
Animal PR people. I can see -- there must be an office someplace.
LOMBARDI
12:36:31
There is. There is, and it's a secret thing and, you know, I'm a lone voice against it.
LITZINGER
12:36:37
Okay. Well, just pick an animal that you've got in the book here and just expose the secrets. I feel like I'm on one of the like TMZ shows or something, except instead of Jennifer Aniston or whatever it is, it's like chimpanzees.
LOMBARDI
12:36:51
Well, let's pick an animal that I think you'd probably never think of, hummingbirds. They're beautiful. Little jewel-like, graceful, tiny, like flowers, like fairies almost. Hummingbirds are monsters. I quote a nature guide in the book who says, "If hummingbirds were the size of ravens, it wouldn't be safe to walk in the woods." They are -- they do such violence to each other. If you set up a hummingbird feeder, you can watch them go at it and fight each other.
LOMBARDI
12:37:23
They practice prostitution apparently in some species. If the, you know, if the lady will, you know, allow the man to have her favors, then she can come on his forage on his territory for food. So they trade, you know, their resources for sex. But mostly they're just violent, horrible, monstrous creatures, like little fighter pilots trying to kill each other.
LITZINGER
12:37:49
Could you imagine if they were like the size of a B52 or something?
LOMBARDI
12:37:52
We would be -- we wouldn't be able to go out. (laugh)
LITZINGER
12:37:55
Those are birds. Mammals surely no problem.
LOMBARDI
12:37:58
Well, mammals are the worst.
LITZINGER
12:37:59
Oh, come on, Linda.
LOMBARDI
12:38:00
Mammals are the worst. Mammal are -- you want to talk about furry mammals first.
LITZINGER
12:38:03
Yeah.
LOMBARDI
12:38:04
Well, what's a good furry mammal? Well, dogs. I mean, for one thing, we've got dogs in this book that are doing obviously bad things. There are dogs that have, you know, basically stolen cars and driven them away, dogs that shot their owners with guns.
LITZINGER
12:38:16
(laugh) Wait a minute.
LOMBARDI
12:38:17
But just the simple...
LITZINGER
12:38:18
Wait a minute, dog -- I gotta back you up. Dogs that have stolen cars?
LOMBARDI
12:38:21
Well, I mean, first of all, never leave your dog in the car while it's running.
LITZINGER
12:38:25
Thank you for that.
LOMBARDI
12:38:25
That's a really bad thing. Because they sometimes drive it around the parking lot or into a building.
LITZINGER
12:38:31
Mm-hmm. Because they're dogs. They don't know how to drive.
LOMBARDI
12:38:33
Well, they -- apparently they do know how to drive, but very poorly is the problem. (laugh) But even -- it's not even really enough just to not leave them in the car with the motor running, because there are cases in the book of a dog that jumped into a car and drove it off, and in one case even drove it over his owner. But what do we think? We think dogs are our best friends. I think we need therapy. It's obviously a really dysfunctional relationship.
LITZINGER
12:38:58
We're talking with Linda Lombardi, author of "Animals Behaving Badly: Boozing Bees, Cheating Chimps, Dogs with Guns," and cars obviously, "and Other Beastly True Tales." Do we want to get to dolphins yet, or are there other ones that you'd like to talk about….
LOMBARDI
12:39:11
You know, I think the dolphins...
LITZINGER
12:39:11
...before we debunk all the dolphin legends out there.
LOMBARDI
12:39:14
Dolphins are just really important to talk about.
LITZINGER
12:39:16
Okay. Dolphins are the geniuses of the ocean.
LOMBARDI
12:39:18
Yeah. And is that really a good thing?
LITZINGER
12:39:21
(laugh) Look how far it's gotten us I guess, yeah.
LOMBARDI
12:39:22
Well, for one thing -- exactly. What smarts, you know, what can you use smarts for, a lot of pretty bad stuff.
LITZINGER
12:39:28
Yeah.
LOMBARDI
12:39:29
You know, people think that dolphins are basically these mystical, you know, saints of the ocean. They have that mysterious smile. They think, you know, there are stories of dolphins -- well, just let's talk about the interaction of dolphins with humans. People go out to swim with the dolphins. They think it's healing. They talk about stories where people are drowning and dolphins push them back to shore. Well, sure, but you never hear from the people who the dolphins pushed away from shore.
LOMBARDI
12:39:57
You do, however, hear from people who the dolphins ganged up on and they could barely get away from, and just barely lived to tell the tale. And they're terrible to one another too. I mean, their family lives are just terrible. Their sex lives we can't even talk about on the radio.
LITZINGER
12:40:10
Well, what's the problem with dolphin families, dysfunctional dolphin families?
LOMBARDI
12:40:14
Well, you know, I mean, a little infanticide between family members I guess is, you know, it's no big deal in the animal kingdom actually. We think of, you know, we like to think of them as nurturing and loving and devoted parents, but it's very common in a lot of species to kill your babies.
LITZINGER
12:40:29
Well, now, look, you're -- you left -- as I repeat, you left your tenured university professorship to become a zookeeper. You obviously love animals.
LOMBARDI
12:40:39
Right. And then look what they've done to me. I gave -- in fact, that was a temporary job. I gave up a tenured lifetime secure position to take a temporary job as a zookeeper.
LITZINGER
12:40:48
Yes.
LOMBARDI
12:40:48
Look what these animals do to your minds.
LITZINGER
12:40:50
When did it start to go wrong with you animals, at the zoo? Because you were interacting with them every day, did you say, what -- you think -- you creatures are crazy, what are you doing?
LOMBARDI
12:41:00
I just, you know, as an academic, and then as a journalist, I feel that it's very important for us to know the truth. And also, you know, we're not doing animals any good by believing that they're saints. It's really not good for them. To be serious for a minute, people think that their dogs, you know, understand that they shouldn't pee on the rug because that's bad, and dogs don't get that. They're completely mystified. They don't know why you yell at them for peeing on the rug, and it's because we expect too much of them and we think that they're saints. It doesn't really help them.
LITZINGER
12:41:31
Well, wait a minute then. So how do we -- how should -- what should our attitude be toward for example our household pets? Do you have pets, by the way?
LOMBARDI
12:41:38
I do. I have...
LITZINGER
12:41:39
Well, see.
LOMBARDI
12:41:40
...I have two pugs...
LITZINGER
12:41:41
And you love them.
LOMBARDI
12:41:42
...and two cats.
LITZINGER
12:41:43
And you care deeply about the...
LOMBARDI
12:41:44
I don't care for the cats too much, but...
LITZINGER
12:41:45
(laugh) Oh, gee. But the pugs -- all right. Let's talk about the pugs for a second. You adore the pugs.
LOMBARDI
12:41:51
I adore the pugs, but they -- basically I'm a slave to them.
LITZINGER
12:41:55
Who's choice was that?
LOMBARDI
12:41:57
Well, and that's the thing. I'm not saying that I'm above it any more than the rest of you, all I can do is be this voice of warning crying out in the wilderness.
LITZINGER
12:42:05
How do you think the pugs view you?
LOMBARDI
12:42:07
Well, you know, pugs, as a breed apparently the legend is that in ancient China they had their own slaves, and these dogs remember that.
LITZINGER
12:42:15
They read their history?
LOMBARDI
12:42:16
They -- they know it.
LITZINGER
12:42:18
It's a really good book despite this conversation. (laugh) "Animals Behaving Badly," Linda Lombardi, illustrations by Kevin Sherry. And there are some wonderful illustrations in here too which supplement the reading. Linda, thank you very much. I know you really do like animals though, don't you.
LOMBARDI
12:42:33
I do like animals, but they don't like me.
LITZINGER
12:42:33
See, I knew you did. Because otherwise we'll get calls and emails.
LOMBARDI
12:42:36
I know you will.
LITZINGER
12:42:37
We don't want that. Thank you for being with us in "The Animal House."
LOMBARDI
12:42:39
Thank you.
LITZINGER
12:42:58
Dr. Gary Weitzman will have responses to your comments and your concerns next in "The Animal House."
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