Trophy hunting, Gene drives, Nuclear lightning, Peregrine falcons and drones
BBC Inside Science
BBC
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 7 December 2017
⏱️ 31 minutes
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Summary
Trophy hunters are always after the lion with the largest darkest name and the stag with the most impressive antlers. Research by Rob Knell at Queen Mary University of London finds that removing a small proportion of these top males can drive whole populations to extinction, if their environment is changing.
Gene drive is a new genetic technology that could be used to eradicate populations of species of 'pest' animals. The Roslin Institute in Edinburgh has just announced it is to begin research on gene drives to control rat and mouse populations. The Institute's Bruce Whitelaw and Simon Lillico explain how the approach would work and argue that it would be humane compared to traditional methods of vermin control. However there are concerns about its potential ecological consequences - namely the risk of female infertility in the targeted species spreading without no geographical limits. Kevin Esvelt of MIT voices his reservations. Bruce Whitelaw outlines how future research aims to bring gene drives under more control.
Researchers in the USA and Japan talk about their discovery of nuclear reactions in lightning strikes, and Caroline Brighton and Graham Taylor of the University of Oxford explain why they have been attaching small cameras and GPS units to peregrine falcons and recording the birds chasing drones.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello Podcast Downloader. This is the BBC Inside Science Podcast for Thursday, the 7th of December 2017. |
| 0:07.2 | And you can tell I'm not Adam because I didn't say hello you at the beginning. |
| 0:10.8 | I am somebody different. I am am Gareth Mitchell I've been here |
| 0:13.3 | before if this is the first time you've heard me it's very nice to meet you oh and I'm |
| 0:17.0 | at Gareth M on Twitter if you have nobody more interesting to follow I'll tell you |
| 0:21.9 | what science is interesting this week. It is |
| 0:23.6 | feeling daring, dangerous and certainly a bit extreme. In the wild of Africa, science has the big game |
| 0:30.8 | trophy hunters in its sights, whilst elsewhere it considers controversial genetic |
| 0:35.8 | engineering to eliminate pest animals. And in extreme experiments there are nuclear reactions |
| 0:42.0 | in lightning storms in Japan and drones dog fighting with birds of prey in Wales. |
| 0:48.0 | Wow, first though trophy hunting. |
| 0:52.0 | I've been a hunter my whole life. |
| 0:55.0 | I lost my dad a few years ago and he was a hunter. |
| 0:59.0 | And I think that he would be really tickled to be able to tell the people back home at the |
| 1:05.8 | coffee shop that his son is out hunting a lion. |
| 1:11.6 | Well that's from the recent documentary Trophy which investigates the ethics and cold-hard |
| 1:17.0 | economics of big game hunting. Killing for the thrill might not be everyone's cup of tea, but there is an argument that letting people pay for the privilege of shooting a lion, a rhino, or an elephant in the wild, brings cash into the local economy and into conservation efforts. |
| 1:34.6 | Not only has the issue been under the filmmakers gaze, |
| 1:38.2 | it's also been in the sights of Rob Nell, |
| 1:40.7 | who's an evolutionary ecologist at Queen Mary University of London. |
| 1:45.2 | Trophy hunters target male lions with the largest mane or stags with the most impressive antlers. |
| 1:52.3 | And guess what? These so-called sexually selected characteristics |
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