Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Curiosity.com.

I'm Cody Gough. And I'm Ashley Hamer.

Today you learn about the science of human wildlife conflict with America's funniest science writer Mary Roach.

You'll also learn why it can be unhealthy to believe that leisure is a waste of time.

Let's satisfy some curiosity. We share the planet with lots of different animals and sometimes our habitats overlap.

Luckily there are experts who know how to handle these human wildlife conflicts so that nobody gets hurt.

And today's guest is here to tell us about them.

Mary Roach has been called America's Funiest Science Raider, and she's the author of five best-selling non-fiction books, including her latest,

fuzz when nature breaks the law. And we asked her, what's a science writer doing writing about human wildlife conflict I mean what does that even

have to do with science well it is it is a science human wildlife conflict the science of it's essentially wildlife crime prevention like what can we do to reduce these conflicts or resolve them once they start happening.

So it's people looking at better ways to deter animals

or like looking into building an overpass

and then does that even work

or even in better, like highway planners deciding, you know, not to, this isn't the best place

to put a freeway that's going to prevent these animals from migrating.

Or sadly in the past it's meant developing a better rat poison that kind of thing.

So it's a hodgepodge of different branches of science, but it all, under the umbrella of human wildlife conflict is typically what they call it.

So it is a science. It's not, you know, it's not really a hard, there is some hard science in there, but it's kind of an odd science. Yeah. Yeah, is there I mean there has to be research on this right? Oh yeah there are

Textbooks and journals and you know the vertebrate pest conference it's it's kind of in its own way a big area and getting bigger because there are the conflicts aren't going away.

I was so surprised to read about you know first bear

encounters because that seems normal right I just moved to Asheville North Carolina and I see on

social media all the time people have have videos of bears in their front

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