Beth Shapiro

Why shouldn't we have elephants?

Is it invasive, though, if it used to live here?

Yeah.

I mean, right.

Yeah, I imagine it's really devastating to see something like that happening and know that somebody else made this decision and that you who actually experience it weren't.

I mean, I imagine the people who voted for that, I wonder what what they imagined was.

Oh, so they already had a taste.

Pray on cattle.

It's so important to actually talk to wildlife biologists and ecologists.

I mean, we can see from Yellowstone.

how important having this keystone predator is in ecosystems where they can be and where there is space for them.

But the land is not the same as everywhere as it is in Yellowstone.

And we need to be able to make, you know, when I was at Santa Cruz, I taught an introductory biology class for non-majors where my goal was to give the students tools to be able to think on their own, which is harder than you might imagine.

And their midterm exam was a debate.

And the topic of the debate was that wolves should be introduced into California.

Right.

But what's interesting, this class that I took, it was a debate that I taught.

Sorry.

It was a debate.

And what I made them do was assume roles of a rancher, a politician, a conservationist.