Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2023

The Current Transcript for March 24, 2023

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

MALE SPEAKER: Because the hippos were so large, it was too expensive to get them out of there. They just kind of let them loose. They ran free. And the lesson is that a small mistake that we think initially is just to create a conversation piece can become catastrophic for the environment.

MATT GALLOWAY: You’ve heard of the film Cocaine Bear. How about cocaine hippos? The drug kingpin Pablo Escobar smuggled four hippopotamuses into his compound in Colombia. After he was killed, the hippos escaped into the wild. The population has ballooned and now they're threatening the country's ecosystem. In 30 minutes, how to tackle a really, really big invasive species. Also this morning, the power of friendship in everything from humans to monkeys.

SOUNDCLIP

JUDITH PYKE: They do something that's kind of like a lip smack, which is sort of an invitation to friendship. It's like blowing kisses, but without the hand gesture that we might make

MG: A Nature of Things documentary looks at new research showing the role that friendship plays in mental and physical health. In an hour, the importance of maintaining close ties, how to get men in particular to open up to their pals, and whether your dog would choose you or a bowl of treats if tested. We start, though, with a push from Joe Biden to strengthen Canada's far north and the call to have Northerners actually at that table. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

NORAD

Guests: Andrea Charon, Clint Davis

MG: U.S. President Joe Biden is on day two of his official visit to Ottawa. One item up for discussion is the future of NORAD, the Aerospace Defence Agreement between Canada and the United States. President Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will talk about increase in spending to speed up the modernization of a system that was once the fixture of Cold War era defence. Andrea Charon is the director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba and the co-author of NORAD: In Perpetuity and Beyond. Andrea, good morning.

ANDREA CHARON: Good morning.

MG: How would you describe the current state of NORAD, particularly Canada's part in this system?

ANDREA CHARON: Well, I think NORAD still remains the first line of defence against North America. But with new adversaries and new technology, NORAD is struggling to be able to have that all domain awareness, which is really what both Canada and the United States need.

MG: I mean, I guess that I ask that question in part because those of us of a certain vintage, you know, associate NORAD with the Cold War and the tracking of missiles that might have been launched from the Soviet Union heading our way. How has NORAD’s mandate evolved since that time?

ANDREA CHARON: Well, that is still very much the mandate. It is to protect the air of both Canada and continental U.S. But in 2006, NORAD had added the maritime warning mission as well. So it's not just the air threats, but it's also any maritime threats approaching North America.

MG: So tell us more about the threats that NORAD would face today.

ANDREA CHARON: Well, we're still seeing what we call Russia the proximate, persistent threat. You see that they buzz the air identification zones with their bombers. But as we saw with the Chinese spy balloons and the other air objects, we also have lower and slower air threats. There's also now hypersonic missiles that travel very, very quickly, and they're manoeuvrable. And then we have a number of maritime threats, including vessels of concern, submarines. We really are in a new era.

MG: Can I go back to the balloons for a moment? I mean, they captured popular imagination in many ways because there are balloons or balloon-like things that were flying over our airspace. What did that tell you not just about NORAD, but how Canada and our allies interact and share information with each other when these objects were discovered?

ANDREA CHARON: Well, I think first, it shows that we do have some gaps in terms of radar coverage. And that's why one of the big priorities of NORAD modernization is new radar systems that will be able to cover that gap. But it's also the ongoing struggle to make sure that we take full advantage of allies and partners around the world, to make sure that we are telling each other and warning each other of any sort of unusual activity because one never knows when it may end up in another area. So for example, the Chinese balloon travelled across the Pacific. If our other allies and partners may have seen it on their radar, did they think to let North America know that it seems to be coming in their direction? These are all questions that I'm sure the NORAD Command is asking.

MG: And so what do you think will be at the centre of the discussions between U.S. President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau when it comes to, as I say, accelerating that modernization?

ANDREA CHARON: Well, you're right. It is about accelerating the modernization. The big priority right now is for what we call over the horizon radar that is able to sort of see beyond the line of sight and sort of get around the curvature of the earth, which makes it difficult to see with our current North warning system. And so the first of two will be set up in southern Canada. And I think that is the priority to confirm the receiver and transmission sites and get that up as quickly as possible, because it will provide far more acuity for the eastern approaches and also most of the Arctic. The second one, the polar over the horizon radar. That's going to take more time not only because, of course, indigenous people's rights holders have to be at the table to decide on things like the receiver and transmission sites. But technically, it's a far more difficult piece of technology given all sorts of concerns that come with being up over the horizon.

MG: What else would be on the table? The federal government has pledged a lot of money here, something like $4.9 billion over the next six years, 40 billion over the next 20. The Associated Press is reporting this morning that that timeline is actually going to be compressed and that money will go out the door or should go out the door quicker than that. But what else is going to be on the table, do you think?

ANDREA CHARON: Well, it's going to be protecting and then, of course, linking all these radar systems so that the information can be sent in a protected way to the various NORAD commands. It's going to be ensuring that forward operating locations in the Arctic have runways and the associated resources that one needs to have. For example, interceptors land there. It's going to be satellite systems and also eventually maritime based surveillance systems. And all of these we need to be able to link and then have the cloud computing, the artificial intelligence, maybe even quantum computing in the future to make sure that analysts are getting the best possible picture. And again, with all the domains, the air, the space, the land, maritime, cyber, all connected so that we really understand what is happening.

MG: What is the opportunity here not just to create military outposts, but also to build infrastructure in the north and help northerners?

ANDREA CHARON: Well, we are hoping that any technology and any infrastructure that comes to the Arctic is multi-purpose and multi-use. It's not only considerations for the rights holders in the Arctic. For example, if the military needs new communications systems, perhaps there's a way to have a high and a low side so that people in the Arctic can also take advantage.

MG: When you say take advantage, I mean, that there would be, for example, high speed Internet that would be available there.

ANDREA CHARON: Exactly. That would be the hope. There's also, of course, other government departments like Transport Canada who also need access to this information, so to be able to link them. But there is a limit because the military infrastructure and mandate, for example, is not to invest money to ensure clean drinking water in Iqaluit. So that's where the government of Canada really has to step in, because while the military may have ability to improve runways, which will benefit local communities as well, there's all sorts of other infrastructure associated with energy sources and clean drinking water and lack of ports and the like that the Government of Canada needs to take over.

MG: You used the phrase earlier at the table. How important is it that those northern communities, those northern populations are at the table, that there is buy in from those communities for this work?

ANDREA CHARON: Well, I do think it's essential. They are, as we say, rights holders. It is their land upon which we would be putting in place receiver and transmission site. So they absolutely need to be there. There's also the hope that there are going to be sustainable employment opportunities because at the end of the day, the best defence for Canada and the U.S. is an Arctic that is sustainable, that is healthy, where the population is growing and they have adequate access to the vital infrastructure that they need.

MG: What makes this moment different, do you think? There is a long history of U.S. presidents pressuring Canada to spend more on defence and military needs. And obviously, the United States spends an awful lot more on its military than Canada does. What's different about this moment, do you think?

ANDREA CHARON: I think it's a realization by both the United States and Canada that North America is vulnerable. We see that not only with the air objects that we recently witnessed, but also the fact that, you know, Russia has blatantly attacked Ukraine makes everybody realize that we are more vulnerable. And it's the fact that for the first time since maybe even before World War I, there's not just one adversary to the United States, but two adversaries. And this is now on a new scale with new technology, the speed of which is changing so rapidly. What Canada and the United States need is not legacy surveillance systems, but ones that can continue to adapt to new technology and to new adversaries in the future.

MG: Andrea, thank you very much.

ANDREA CHARON: My pleasure.

MG: Andrea Charon is director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba and co-author of NORAD: In Perpetuity and Beyond. As you've been hearing, concerns about national security in the Arctic go back to the Cold War.

SOUNDCLIP

MALE ANNOUNCER: This is the long tail of the DEW Line. Its exact location, top secret. Its general location, snow and ice. Should attack come, it is presumed it would come from the north. To be warned is to be ready.

MG: When the United States and Canada built that chain of radar stations in the 1950s, it transformed the Arctic. This is Deborah Kigjugalik Webster speaking to the CBC. She's curator of a new exhibition about the DEW Line at The Diefenbunker, Canada's Cold War Museum.

SOUNDCLIP

DEBORAH KIGJUGALIK WEBSTER: Here, we have a quote by Elder David from what used to be called Holbeach in Nunavut. He was on the land with his grandfather travelling by dog team. They saw out of nowhere a tent. A couple of months later, they saw that people were making an airstrip. And then they saw planes landing non-stop day and night, and the planes were bringing in supplies for the site. One time we saw a big dome that was being built using a helicopter. Someone like David and most anyway, he really didn't know what was going on. One of the problems with the building of the DEW Line is the lack of communication and informing Inuit about what was going on or involving or benefiting Inuit.

MG: A lot has changed in the North since the 1950s, obviously. And as NORAD modernization is considered, Inuit communities want to ensure any new investments deliver tangible benefits to those communities. Clint Davis is President and CEO of Nunasi. It's an Inuit owned development corporation with its headquarters in Iqaluit. Clint, good morning to you.

CLINT DAVIS: Good morning, Matt.

MG: When you hear about the talks that are going to take place in Ottawa and the push for modernization, again, a lot of money at stake here and the timelines are going to be compressed. What sort of role are Inuit communities and businesses hoping to play in that?

CLINT DAVIS: Well, I think this is a really generational opportunity for Inuit, for the communities and frankly, for the country to look at the Arctic in a very different way, to see the value that the Arctic brings to the country and the remarkable opportunity that it presents. And so I think that this is a great opportunity for our communities to be able to put forward some of the key issues, particularly around the infrastructure gap, to really garner some attention, to see what we can do to ensure that there's a multipurpose infrastructure that would benefit communities.

MG: So I mean, you've used that word a couple of times, opportunity and a generational opportunity. Specifically, what is the possibility here to address in particular that infrastructure gap?

CLINT DAVIS: Well, when we're talking about significant amount of capital being invested, I heard the previous guest talk a little bit about the multipurpose infrastructure, the requirements for the Department of National Defence in order to ensure that it is meeting these respective mandates for NORAD modernization. You'll see expansions hopefully around airstrips, airline infrastructure, potentially for roads, hopefully around renewable energy, how you’re going to electrify some of these new investments in infrastructure as well, as well as broadband connectivity. Matt, there are 52 Inuit communities in the far north. 51 of them are on diesel. And we're seeing other Arctic regions across the globe that actually see renewable energy as a vital source for electrification. None of that is actually happening right now. And even current federal infrastructure that exists with the North warning system, all of that is actually being electrified by diesel. There's a remarkable opportunity there for us to see what we can do to ensure that renewable energy is of benefit to the community.

MG: Your company is a majority shareholder in an Inuit owned corporation called Nasittuq. This was given the contract to maintain the existing Northern Warning system, which is nearing the end of its life span. How significant is that that it's that corporation that has the contract?

CLINT DAVIS: It's a great question, Matt, because this is a contract that Inuit in partnership with Atco. We've held it since 1994. We lost the contract in 2014 and just regained it in 2022. So many of us who are from the North, I'm from Labrador myself, Inuit And a member of the Labrador Inuit land claim agreement. So many of us have family members who have worked on these radar sites, who have visited these radar sites. It is a tremendous opportunity for us to secure that contract once again to ensure that we have that employment, that training and other sort of business opportunities that actually span from it.

MG: There are questions as to whether those communities are at the table or not. We got a statement from the office of Anita Anand, the Minister of Defence. The statement said that she strongly believes Indigenous and Northern communities are key partners as we modernize NORAD. The Premier of Nunavut said that northerners need to be at the forefront and need to be at the table. Are they?

CLINT DAVIS: So I mean, we're in a very unique position the fact that we have all of the Inuit development corporations who are shareholders with Nasittuq. And so we're managing the north warning system, which is at this point a fundamental part of the national and in some respects, international security system. So, you know, we've had some discussions. We've had some interactions with the Department of National Defence, but I wouldn't call them consultation. And so I fully support what the Premier of Nunavut talked about, what Inuit leadership have talked about, that we have to be at the table. Inuit businesses have evolved, Matt, over the last 20 years. And we've been able to gain a tremendous amount of business acumen, financial capital, and we have a new skill set to bring to the table as well. So it's pretty important for us to be there.

MG: If we're talking about community benefits, though, I mean, aside from the investments in defence infrastructure, there are things that those communities need. Internet, roads, clean drinking water and beyond. Would it not make more sense for the federal government simply to invest the money directly into those things, to make sure that clean energy, what have you, that the community has what it needs outside of the larger investments in defence infrastructure?

CLINT DAVIS: Of course, it would make more sense to do something like that. But I think if that sort of logic was brought to the table, we probably wouldn't have these issues that we're seeing now for the last 20 to 50 years, right? I think this just provides the pressure that hopefully that we'll see President Biden put on the prime minister to really compress this time frame will be a catalyst to bring attention to this infrastructure gap, that we’ll see viable, tangible investments in infrastructure and that should hopefully kick start other conversations around the need for other infrastructure investments to narrow that gap.

MG: Can you just spend the last couple of minutes that we have going back to something that you said earlier, which is that this is an opportunity not just for this investment, but to think differently and have the rest of the country think differently about the north. What is that possibility? How would you want people to think about this important vast part of this country?

CLINT DAVIS: So when we go across the world, Matt, probably yourself included, when people talk about Canada and they view U.s. Canadian, they view all of us in sort of a mountain of snow. They see Canada as an arctic northern country. Yet, the majority of Canadians live only a few miles away from the U.S. border. Very few people have ever been to the north, have ever connected with the north. And I get nervous and concerned that this is no longer part of our identity. I think we as a country need to really have that discussion, that inclusion of the Inuit and other indigenous people from the north so that we can actually see what an invested north would actually look like down the road.

MG: So that those investments would be made outside of a huge project to modernize the defence system, that you would have clean water, that you would have working high speed Internet without those, you know, large strategic investments.

CLINT DAVIS: So once again, I think that the logic there makes sense. And one would hope that that would actually happen. I think once politics starts to take over domestic politics, I think people just start to look at, you know, where the majority of the votes are. And all those votes are in the South. And so I think once again, this is a real catalyst to open up and have a different conversation about the North.

MG: Do you think that's actually going to happen? I don't want to put words in your mouth, but when you talk about politics, there's a cynicism that can creep into that. Do you think that that's actually likely to happen?

CLINT DAVIS: Listen, when you actually have the president of United States talking about the need to make real tangible investments and to start moving on a major project, I think that will certainly happen for sure. And I think it's going to. I think it will.

MG: Clint, glad to talk to you about this. Thanks for speaking with us.

CLINT DAVIS: I really appreciate it. Thank you.

MG: Clint Davis is CEO of Nunasi. It's an Inuit owned development corporation. Its headquarters are in Iqaluit. You're CBC News is up next. And then, the hippopotamus native to sub-Saharan Africa. In Colombia, a transplanted population of those gigantic animals is thriving. That's not a good thing. In six minutes, the story of Pablo Escobar and Colombia's hippo infestation. How do you go about sterilizing a hippopotamus? We'll tell you in six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current. You want to stick around, trust me.

[Music: Theme]

COLOMBIAN HIPPOS

Guests: Luke Taylor, Gina Paola Serna

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MG: What makes a good friend? In just under 30 minutes, the science of friendship and why building relationships should be second nature. But first, two things you probably don't put in the same sentence normally, hippos and Pablo Escobar.

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

[Narcos theme music]

MG: That music probably sounds familiar if you're a fan of Narcos, The Netflix series based on the life of the infamous cartel leader Pablo Escobar. And while cocaine, violence and obscene wealth might come to mind when you think of the drug kingpin, hippos probably don't. At the height of his wealth, Pablo Escobar built up a personal menagerie on his property. When he died, most of the animals were given away. The hippopotamuses, though, posed a problem. They were too big and too expensive to move, and so they were released into the wild. And now four hippos have become many, many more. And locals are torn between capitalizing on the hippos and living in fear of them.

SOUNDCLIP

Male speaker through a translator: These are animals that can weigh up to two tons as adults. They swim much faster than we do. They can run at over 40 kilometres per hour. That's a double edged sword for us environmentally conscious tour guides. We want people to see them, but we're also very worried about their presence here.

MG: Luke Taylor is a freelance journalist who writes about Latin America for The Guardian. He's based in Bogota. Luke, good morning.

LUKE TAYLOR: Good morning.

MG: They call these animals the cocaine hippos. How did they end up in this area?

LUKE TAYLOR: There were originally four hippos who initially escaped from Escobar's ranch, the Hacienda Napoles. They escaped after his death. But now, from those four, they've bred and they're more than, well, somewhere between 130, 150 of them. And they've just gone on procreating, loving life in the Magdalena River with no natural predators.

MG: But how did he get hippos from Africa into Colombia in the first place? We'll talk about them, you know, marauding through the countryside in a moment. But how did he actually get them into the country?

LUKE TAYLOR: I'm not entirely sure how he shipped them over to the middle of the Colombian countryside from Africa. But he did the same with, as I understand it, with giraffes, all sorts of exotic animals that don't belong in Colombia. I mean, this was the peak of Escobar's power when he controlled much of the country and was getting involved with the political system and was involved in these sort of storylines that are surreal and tough to believe, to be honest.

MG: So he could essentially do whatever he wanted to do and bringing hippos in was part of that.

LUKE TAYLOR: Yeah. I mean, Pablo Escobar during this period could do more or less what he wanted to do. I mean, when he was eventually jailed, he chose the place where he would be sent to jail and would live and got to do what he wanted there too and invited other drug lords and supermodels and got up to all sorts of crazy narcotics. Actually, importing hippos compared to many of the other things that he did during this period you could say is, I guess, quite believable.

MG: So you were down in the area not so long ago where these hippos are. Just paint us a picture of what that area is like.

LUKE TAYLOR: The area in which these hippos are living now is in between the capital city of Bogota and Colombia’s second City, Medellin. It's about a six-hour drive from here, the capital. It's in the middle of nowhere in the Colombian countryside. They've basically colonized the river Magdalena, which is Colombia's principal river. It used to be very important for the country's trade and kind of one of these very symbolic rivers. But nowadays, it’s better known as a haven of biodiversity, I would say. And they've taken home near the Hacienda Napoles and all along this river Now, I think for estimates over hundreds of kilometres. Some of these settlements are tiny villages, some are close to the small towns, some are essentially just little hamlets like scattered houses, wooden shacks along the river. And depending on the size of the town where they are, people have very different relationships to the hippos.

MG: I was going to say you spoke with a number of people around there. So chart out those different relationships that people have with these large beasts.

LUKE TAYLOR: The people who are living on the river and in very close contact with the hippos, that's to say they see them more or less every day and they're essentially living alongside them, are living in a lot of uncertainty and fear of the hippos and losing business because they're fishermen and they're unable to fish now. So they're obviously not loving the hippos very much. And they want action to be taken pretty quickly before things get worse as is expected to. In contrast, if you go far enough away from the river, let's say a half an hour away from where most of the hippos are living and go to these little towns, some of them actually have a lot of love for hippos because they’re far enough away to be out of harm's reach, but close enough where they take tourists on the river on small boats to see them and make some extra money. So they've got a new booming business that they hope is going to keep growing, which is taking Colombians on a weekend to go over and see them do Strange hippo narco safari. So it kind of depends on how close you are to them.

MG: Some of those people who are involved in the Hippo Narco Safari, I mean, they told you that the hippos are Colombians now too in some ways. They see them as locals.

LUKE TAYLOR: I was quite shocked with some of the comments that the locals made because they do seem to have a lot of genuine affection for the hippos. I don't think it's that they don't comprehend the danger of them. It's just because they're far enough away from them to be out of harm's reach. And they are quite an endearing animal. I mean, it's so exotic that these huge beasts, this is what a lot of locals have told me, which is that they’re very likeable animals. There are some clips where you see locals mixing with them and stroking them and caressing these animals even though they're absolutely terrifying and could tear them apart. So I think that's made them almost like local pets in certain areas as well.

MG: You've said harms reach a couple of times. I mean, have there been hippo attacks?

LUKE TAYLOR: There have been a succession of hippo attacks in recent years. I believe there was one in 2020 and one in 2021. Before, they didn't happen as far as I know or they weren't reported. But it sounds like as they grow, they're going to have more and more contact with humans. And as the mothers have their calves, they're more and more territorial. They're increasingly in the same territories with these fishermen.

MG: They're also a threat. I mean, you mentioned the biodiversity of this area. They're a threat to that biodiversity, right?

LUKE TAYLOR: They're a huge threat to the biodiversity. There are all sorts of ways in which ecologists are concerned for the Colombian ecosystem on the Magdalena River. For one, they eat something like 40 kilograms of grass a day because they're herbivores. And just their excrement is putting too many nutrients into the river, which creates this toxic algae blooms which is then killing off the fish. They're incredibly territorial, so they’re scaring off and displacing all of these rare species of caiman and manatee and all sorts of wonderful Colombian species. I'm told by ecologists just compacting the soil is enough because of their sheer size and how unadapted the Colombian ecosystem is can affect things like turtles from laying eggs and all sorts of trickle on effects. Because if they start affecting fish, they start affecting higher up the food chain as well. So that's the main fear there.

MG: And so we're going to speak in just a moment with a veterinarian who's been involved in helping to try to manage this population. But just broadly, what has the government done to deal with this invasive species?

LUKE TAYLOR: More than what the Colombian government has done is a case of what the Colombian government hasn't done. Through inaction, it's allowed the hippos to keep spreading. And obviously the more hippos there are, the harder they are to deal with. And the fear is now that they're approaching the point where it's going to be very difficult to solve the issue in a humane way because one of the hippos was killed by foreign hunters, which caused uproar and this huge campaign to save the hippos. They’ve since tried sterilizing them by hand, which is a mammoth task and incredibly dangerous. It's hard to get the right amount of sedatives, as I understand, for the hippos not to kill them. And now they're using some new chemical called GonaCon. And the hippos are only three or four full time beasts. They also can be quite difficult to find, which sounds quite counterintuitive.

MG: And so I mean, people have talked as well about maybe moving them out. Is that possible?

LUKE TAYLOR: The latest plan is to ship them abroad into zoos and sanctuaries. So the local environmental authorities says it's working on shipping a lot of these hippos to Mexico and also to India, which could be part of the solution. But on its own, obviously, there's not enough places for these hippos to go. And just getting them sedated and doing blood tests and quarantining them, which I believe would have to be the case, again, is a huge task. And they're probably going to go on breeding faster than they can expect.

MG: You said they're hard to find. Did you actually see one when you were down there?

LUKE TAYLOR: I didn't actually see them because they're nocturnal animals. So I was mostly focussed on speaking to the local communities who were affected. So for example, these huge trenches that they carved out in the river just from sliding down next to the local fishermen's house every day, for example.

MG: Luke, thanks for this. We're going to talk more about that tricky business of sterilizing hippos. Appreciate speaking with you.

LUKE TAYLOR: Thank you very much.

MG: Luke Taylor is a freelance journalist. He writes for The Guardian. We reached him in Bogota. Doctor Gina Paola Serna is a wildlife veterinarian. And for the past several years, she has worked with the local environmental authority tracking and managing the hippos on the Magdalena River between Bogota and Medellin. And we reached her in Medellin, Colombia. Dr. Serna, good morning to you.

GINA PAOLA SERNA: Hello. Good morning.

MG: You've seen the hippos up close. Can you describe them?

GINA PAOLA SERNA: Hippos are big and really aggressive. Really big and really aggressive. That's two words for them.

MG: And they cause big problems, as Luke was saying, in the community. What are the biggest issues that they pose, as you understand, to that region?

GINA PAOLA SERNA: Because they are so big animals, they are compacting the soil among the side of the river where they live. So right now, there are some soils that you cannot do agriculture or nothing else there. Also, they displace native animals like manatees and all the animals that are in like the river like fishes and turtles and all the birds that come and eat the fishes because they are all day in the water and at night they go out and eat. So all the day they are in the water, the hippos. They do all the faeces in the water. So the quality of the water is getting worse every day. So all the animals that live in that side of the river start to die.

MG: What's the big challenge in trying to manage them? I mean, if they're that big and can be that aggressive, what are you up against when you work with these organizations to try to figure out what to do with them?

GINA PAOLA SERNA: Hippos are like until three tons. They are big, big, big. And so one of the challenges is working with these animals in an area where you have people who love them and who hate them. So it's not that easy to do procedures with them because the local community who live from the hippos are watching you and like seeing what you are doing. They don’t want you to kill them. So it's really difficult. And also, we don't have money from the government to work with them. All the money that we have made to get it is from private organizations or donations like the governments of the United States. So we have no political help here. I think it's not a big issue for the government to work with these animals. So we have a lot of problems. Not only environmental problems with the animals, also all the problems to work with them because they are big and aggressive. So you have to be specialized like me a wildlife vet, but also the political doesn't care about the hippos.

MG: So you've done sterilizations on these animals, on about a dozen of them. How do you sterilize a hippopotamus?

GINA PAOLA SERNA: Yeah. I have two techniques. One is like the surgery we have. I have made 12 surgeries. And the other one is like an anti-conceptive called GonaCon. We only need two doses. These are donated by the governments of the United States. So because the hippos are not inside a zoo, they are like in the wild, so we have made a moment where you put some carrots. Hippos love carrots. So you put it like Hansel and Gretel stuff. You put all the carrots and you take them to this corral. So you capture them in that corral. So that's where you do all the procedures. Now they're like in a big enclosure, you can manage to do the anesthesia and then start doing all the surgery. But for a surgery, I need a lot of money because all the anesthesia is really, really expensive. And also, I need to hire professional people, not normal vets. I need wildlife vets that have been working with big animals like this.

MG: You said the first time you did this, you were terrified.

GINA PAOLA SERNA: Yeah.

MG: What was terrifying about sterilizing a hippopotamus?

GINA PAOLA SERNA: Everything. But first of all because it's the most difficult species to get to anesthesia in the animal kingdom. Something like that. All my colleagues were saying be careful because when they are in the water, they can stop breathing some 10, 20 minutes. So that's the first thing. You don't want that for an anesthesia, you don't want animals to stop breathing. So that's the first thing. The second thing is everything is so different in a hippo. You thought everything was big outside and inside. But inside, they're not so big. So it's like going like in something you don't really know what is going to happen. And then waking up the hippo from the anesthesia. Because if the hippo dies, you have all the community there like saying the hippo doesn't have to die because they deserve to live and they deserve to reproduce. So it's a lot of stuff that you have to deal with there.

MG: And as you said, it's expensive. This cost something like $7,000 per animal to do?

GINA PAOLA SERNA: Yeah. I think this year it will cost more because the anesthesia, all the years it's getting expensive and expensive. So that's the most expensive thing, the anesthesia, because like in Africa, they're used to having big animals. So the anesthesia is really concentrate. But we don't have that in Colombia. So we have to buy like five times the anesthesia that in Africa for example, you buy for working with hippos.

MG: What do you make of the protests from the animal rights groups? I mean, it's not just protests. They filed a court case as well for people who are just saying, let these animals live, let them reproduce, leave them alone, don't bother them. What do you make of that?

GINA PAOLA SERNA: Yeah. I think what the people don’t understand really good, These are exotic invasive animals. And what all around the world you do with invasive animals and with invasive species is that you take them out of the ecosystem that they’re doing the invasive because they are doing a lot of ecological damage. So the point is not that they have the right to be here or not. The point is they are not from Colombia. They are having a lot of issues. They're making some problems in the Magdalena environment and now they're starting to attack people. So it's like a time bomb. I think right now, we don't have so much hippos. But in the future, if we don't control them, there will be so much hippos that the people every day will die because of hippo’s attacks, or there are people living in the zone of the hippo and they got really angry and killed people.

MG: So and I mean, the protests aren't just coming from Colombia. It's people from all around the world, animal rights groups from around the world who are involved in this. Do you think that they understand what you're talking about now?

GINA PAOLA SERNA: No. I think they don't understand because it's so easy to be at your house watching your TV and say, that's not fair they're killing poor hippos. And then you're not living in the area. You don't have to be really afraid to go out of your house because a hippo will attack you or you're not afraid to go out and do your stuff in the river. Because if a hippo doesn't like you crossing that part of the river, they will attack you. That's so different to be in the area, to live with them, to know what it's like a hippo in the night go inside your house because that's happening right now. The people live near the river and their houses are made of wood because that's typical of the area. But imagine a three tons hippo going in your house 3 a.m. in the morning to sniff and look. So imagine what it's like to feel that.

MG: No, thank you. No.

GINA PAOLA SERNA: Yeah. No, thank you. But you're in your house and you're saying poor hippo, they deserve to live. But the woman who lives in that house with their children and said please, take them away.

MG: So we're just about out of time. Let me just ask you, what's the answer here? Is it for you to go and try to figure out how to sterilize all of these big aggressive hippos? Could they be moved out? What should happen, do you think?

GINA PAOLA SERNA: They can move them out. It's a massive industry to do it, but we can do it. But I think it's a lot of money that you can invest in conservation programs of local species. In Colombia. We don't have money in Colombia to work with our species. So why are we going to give so much money to translate hippos that are not from Colombia? So for me, the solution is definitely taking out the hippos. There are big hippos that are causing troubles and aggressive. The other ones are sterilizing them and making a big enclosure so that people can go and see them, but they're not like going out in the ecosystem doing all the problems and also not doing problems in the Magdalena River. So it’s not that easy.

MG: Gina, I don't envy your job. You've got a really tough bit of work to do, but I'm really glad to talk to you about it. Thank you very much and good luck.

GINA PAOLA SERNA: Yeah. Thank you so much for the invitation.

MG: Take care. Bye bye.

GINA PAOLA SERNA: Bye.

MG: Dr. Gina Paola Serna is a wildlife veterinarian. We reached her in Medellin, Colombia. We did ask the Colombian Ministry of the Environment what their plans are to deal with the hippo situation. We have yet to receive a response.

[Song: “El Pescador” by Toto La Momposina]

MG: That’s the Queen of Colombia, Colombia's Toto la Momposina and her song El Pescador. Toto la Momposina grew up in the village where those hippos are now thriving. Coming up after your regional update, making friends. It’s not always easy, but scientists say there is much we could actually learn from nature. In 90 seconds, the science of friendship from animals in the wild, monkeys, not hippos, to human beings. We'll talk more about the power of friendship coming up. I’m Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. Stay with us.

[song fades up and out]

FITCH PROMO

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. Next week, our program will be headed to Nova Scotia. I want to tell you about one of the conversations that we’ll have for you from that part of the country. The beloved children's author, Sheree Fitch, lives on a hobby farm in River John just about a couple of hours from Halifax, and she lives there with her husband, Gilles Plante. Seven years ago, Gilles was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. And in the time since, Sheree and Gilles have found ways to hang on to joy and fun in their lives as their lives are changing dramatically. Here's Sheree talking about an essay that she wrote called Still Kissing the Joy as It Flies.

SOUNDCLIP

SHEREE FITCH: So Kiss The Joys of Flies is a line from William Blake. I love the poet William Blake. And it's that notion that you can't cling to anything, you know, you kiss it and let it go and you kiss it and let it go and you kiss it and let it go. And to me, living with Alzheimer's is very much like that. Nothing's predictable. It can change each hour, sometimes every five minutes. And so that ability to kind of be in that joyful moment and let it go because you can't compare with what was. And that was what I learned after three years is if I kept comparing about what was, you know, then I would be sad. If I could see Gilles as who he is now and who I am now in this new relationship as it ever changes, that can be a source of great joy, great humour, a lot of positive. It's when you look at what was or if you're afraid of what will come that you suffer, I mean, that it seems overwhelming. And I'm not saying that I don't have times like that where I get angry that, you know, why would this beautiful man get ill. Yeah, of course I have. But it doesn't last very long because I look out that window. I know the man I've had in my life. I know what we've had and so I'm grateful. More than anything else, I'm grateful. And I did have to look around a lot when the first diagnosis came out. It was just so much coming at me that seemed so negative. And I kept thinking, no, no, there's got to be a way that this can also be something you journey forth together. And it's a different kind of life, but you've got to find a way to hang on to this joy and this beautiful part of who we are together. And Gilles still has his wisdom mind. I keep saying memory is one thing, but his wisdom mind is still there. I still turn to him and go, what do you think about this? It sounds corny. You count your blessings, but you find a way to be grateful for what is. And I mean, that takes a lot of work sometimes to be okay. I'm not saying it's easy because it's not, but there has to be an intention. And I do refuse to be a victim of the darkness. I always have. I write nonsense for a reason. Not because I see the world that way, but because I know that in order to balance the darkness, there has to be the creation of light. And that's why I write for kids. It's a literature of optimism.

MG: Sheree Fitch and Gilles Plante join me from their farm in Nova Scotia next week on the program. As we come from that province, looking forward to getting back to Halifax and beyond.

FRIENDSHIP DOC

Guests: Judith Pyke, Beverly Fehr

SOUNDCLIP

MALE SPEAKER: What's the most important quality in a best friend?

CHILD: That you Always listen to them. They don't talk behind your back, caring, loving, kind. Because if you don't listen, they'll think that they're not important.

MG: Kids have a pretty simple definition of friendship. But did you hear that? I mean, it was bang on in many ways. There is some interesting science emerging about why we connect with the people that we do and why those relationships are so important. That is the focus of a new documentary airing tonight on CBC's The Nature of Things. Judith Pyke is the filmmaker and is in our Vancouver studio. Judith, good morning.

JUDITH PYKE: Good morning.

MG: What do you make of what those kids had to say, that friends don't talk behind your back, That if you don't listen to them, they’ll think they’re not important. I mean, that seems fairly straight up.

JUDITH PYKE: It's insightful. And I think some of those desires for certain qualities in our friends don't change over time. The research shows that we value people who are honest, supportive, loyal, trustworthy, and we like to have fun with our friends too. So those kids know something.

MG: But again, it's stuff that we almost take for granted. So I wonder why you wanted to look at this now. What is interesting to you in this moment about friendship and how friendship is defined, but also what the research is telling us about why friendship is important?

JUDITH PYKE: So friends have always been an essential part of my life. They've always had an influence on what I've done and who I've become. And when we were all locked down and not really able to see our friends in the same way, I got really interested in friendship because I was missing my friends. So I was really curious about what the science said about this thing that I was thinking so much about. And when I started looking at the science, I realized, oh my God, there's so much fascinating research being done not just about friendship in humans, but humans and other animals as well.

MG: So let's talk about the animals first and then we'll come back to us human animals. You start by looking at monkeys?

JUDITH PYKE: We followed a fascinating scientist named Lauren Brand. And she's doing research on rhesus macaques, looking at their behaviour on an island called Cayo Santiago, off the coast of Puerto Rico. We share about 93% of our genome with rhesus macaques. And Lauren was really interested in looking at questions like, did friendship evolve in some of our closest relatives? And she's been looking at these rhesus macaques for well over a decade, demonstrating to us what the signs of friendship is in a monkey.

MG: In part, it's like scratching somebody else's back, right?

JUDITH PYKE: They spend a lot of time grooming, sort of going through each other's fur and sitting close together. They do something that's kind of like it's like a lip smack, which is sort of an invitation to friendship. It's sort of like blowing kisses, but without the hand gesture that we might make. What she's found is that rhesus macaques that have stable bonds and sort of extensive social networks tend to have better survival rates and have more babies. Just as an aside, in the world of science, for people who have been studying animals for a while, friendship was at one point described as the F-word. Scientists didn't really feel they could use the word friendship liberally, and it's only relatively recently that scientists are starting to use the term friendship.

MG: Why would scientists say that that was not an appropriate word?

JUDITH PYKE: Yeah, that's a good question. I think they felt like it was too loose a term to be used. But now we're finding that scientists like Simon Allen, Richard Connor, Stephanie King, who are the Shark Bay Dolphin scientists, are using the term friendship to describe what they're seeing in these animals.

MG: Tell us about dolphins and how dolphins off the coast of Australia formed friendships.

JUDITH PYKE: They're really interesting because that's an example of convergent evolution. You know, our last ancestor with the dolphins was many millions of years ago, and yet these male dolphins in Shark Bay have evolved friendship behaviour and they have incredibly elaborate social networks. And the scientists studying them describe them as the most elaborate social networks outside of humans. That comes along with some very interesting displays and behaviours. You know, they move in sync. They spend a lot of time with each other. They play and they touch each other with their flippers and they cooperate in groups to herd females. And they also communicate using a signature whistle. It's sort of like the equivalent of a human name. Yeah.

MG: People don't have perhaps, unless they’re out swimming with dolphins in some sort of tropical location, perhaps don't have direct contact with those animals. They do, though, with dogs. I mean, the cliche is, you know, the dog is a man's best friend.

JUDITH PYKE: Mm hmm.

MG: The suggestion is made in the film that friendship is baked into a dog's DNA. And you show this by making dogs what, choose between a bowl of treats and their human?

JUDITH PYKE: We filmed with a scientist named Clive Wen. And he's playing around with some studies to test the human and dog friendship bond. And he's also been involved in some genetic research where he suggests that there are friendly genetic markers that you can find in the dog's DNA. But one study that you're referring to is very funny because on one end of the room, we have a bowl of treats, and on the other end of the room, we have the dogs’ owner. And the dogs have to choose where they're going to go. Are they going to go to the owner or are they going to go to the treats? And it sort of begs the question like, does your dog like you just for the food or does your dog like you?

MG: Yeah. I'm the person who buys the treats so the dog should come to me perhaps to get more treats, right?

JUDITH PYKE: I can tell you that the dogs smell food, but they do choose their owners too. So it's a very interesting and cute study.

MG: There is a lot in here about human friendships as well. And I want to bring one of the scientists who researches that into our conversation. Beverly Fehr is one of those scientists, a social psychologist at the University of Winnipeg featured in the documentary. Beverly, good morning to you.

BEVERLY FEHR: Good morning, Matt.

MG: What do we know about why we need friends as human beings? What is it about friendship that improves our life or that is essential to well-being?

BEVERLY FEHR: Friends meet a lot of our basic needs. Friends certainly contribute to our sense of belonging, of feeling that we matter to someone. And we're beginning to see in our research that having close friends is very beneficial for our mental health and our physical health. So we just do better when we're connected to other people. And friends are really important in terms of our social connections.

MG: Tell me about your research because you look specifically at male friendships?

BEVERLY FEHR: Yes, I've done some work on male friendships. A number of years ago, I gave a lecture at a university in the United States. And in that lecture, I mentioned that there is research showing that women and men do friendships differently. It sure won't surprise you to hear that women's friendships revolve around talking usually about personal and relationship issues. Men are more likely to do activities with their friends. And we sometimes describe this as women's friendships being face to face and men's friendships being side by side. And so I had mentioned that research on the gender difference. And there also is research showing that women tend to be happier and more satisfied with their same sex friendships than are men, and a little sliver of research to suggest that when men open up more with their friends, they feel happier. And I was surprised after presenting this research that it was actually a psychologist in this multi-disciplinary group who seemed a little defensive about how I was reporting the literature. And he pointed to the person next to him and said, you know, my friend Bob here, we've been friends for 30 years. And every spring, I help him take down his storm windows and he does the same for me. And every fall, we help each other put up our storm windows. And he was essentially saying, we have a really good friendship and we're not doing what you say makes for a good friendship and I'm frightened by this. And when I got back, I mentioned it to a male colleague who I thought would respond with, oh, why were those psychologists so defensive? And instead, he said, well, I'm on a hockey team with another colleague of ours. And the bond that we feel playing hockey is stronger than any heart to heart conversation between women. And I said, we can test that. And that's how the research began. We started with bringing male pairs of friends into the lab, and we would have them either do activities that are typical of how men spend time together. So here in Canada, it's often revolving around hockey. So we have some male pairs playing hockey on the wing to try and approximate how they would spend time in real life, or they watch what my colleague said is just the most exciting segment of NHL hockey ever, or they are put in a situation where they have a conversation with their friend, and that takes the form of what we call small talk. So discussing neutral issues, or they discuss more intimate topics, more personal or relational topics. And so by setting up an experiment like that, we can directly look at is it beneficial for men to open up to their friends and will they feel closer to their friends if they engage in more personal disclosure?

MG: So I mean, we see this play out in the film. But just briefly, give us the snapshot of what you found through this research.

BEVERLY FEHR: What we're finding and we aren't quite finished collecting data because the pandemic certainly interrupted that. But what we're finding is that opening up to each other does have a beneficial effect on friendships for men. And the structure of the exercise is that we don't plunge right into pouring out your deepest fears and hopes and so on. So you can see in the film the questions start out in a pretty benign, innocuous way, and then they become gradually more intimate, more personal, and each person asks and answers all of the questions. And after 15 minutes or so of that kind of interaction, we see that the friends later are rating their closeness of the friendship higher, and they are also rating high levels of satisfaction with the friendship. We're seeing at this point that playing hockey on the way also is boosting ratings of closeness and satisfaction. Our participants seem to really get into it. They seem to find it pretty exciting as you might have noticed in the film, and that also is beneficial. But at this point at least, the ratings aren't quite as high as when you are engaging in more of a heart to heart conversation.

MG: That's just what I was going to ask, whether that cliche of men not being able to open up with their friends is actually true. I mean, that seems perhaps like something of a different generation to some people. And that's not being defensive. It's just the friends that I have, the people that I know, I mean, we spend a lot of time talking about the big serious issues. And those are the points. Sure, we might I mean, not play hockey, but we might spend time doing activities together. But it's really when you're sitting around helping somebody through a difficult moment or talking about the state of things that you really feel connected. I just wonder whether that cliche still holds up now.

BEVERLY FEHR: That pattern does. We still see it in the data now. So the scenario you describe of sitting around and helping someone through a tough time, at this point, that isn't particularly normative for men with their same sex friends. There's still a reluctance to open up about personal issues. And I've done some work looking at why are men not as likely to engage in personal conversations compared to women? And some of the ideas out there in the literature are that competitiveness between men or they haven't seen appropriate role models. And what I find in my work is the biggest factor is really just fear of a negative response or negative reaction from your friend.

MG: That you'll put out something really personal and you may not get the response that you're looking for.

BEVERLY FEHR: Yes. Yes. So you may risk that vulnerability to disclose something really personal. But the worry is is that going to seem weird to my friend? Is my friend just going to shut down? So it's this fear of a negative reaction or fear that you'll be rejected for behaving in a way that is out of the norm for how men typically do friends.

MG: Let me just ask you one other quick thing is just the way that we define friends is different. Friends used to be somebody that you actually met face to face and you knew who that person was and you could look them in the eye. We have friends now on social media that perhaps you've never met before or face to face, but you would still consider them a friend. How does social media change friendship, do you think?

BEVERLY FEHR: I think that social media is not changing friendship in terms of what I would call true friendship, which to my way of thinking still does involve being connected emotionally to another person, being bonded to that person. When we talk about having hundreds of friends on social media, I prefer the term acquaintances or friendly connections. If we return to how you started the interview with a friend being someone who is loyal to you, who stands by you, helps you through a hard time, cares for you, those kinds of ties, we don't have in the hundreds in our life. So I think it's a bit of a misnomer to call those social media connections actual friendships.

MG: I just wonder whether young people who I mean, that's the form, dominant form of conversation in many ways is social media, whether they have a different definition, a different interpretation of friendship.

BEVERLY FEHR: Yeah, it's a good question. In my research, when we ask people what is a friend, they still seem to report the kinds of qualities that we experience in face to face friendships. So they still emphasize more of the loyalty and the trust and the support and those kinds of qualities that typically are forged in our daily face to face friendships.

MG: Judith Pyke, one of the things that comes up in the film which I found fascinating is it takes 40 to 60 hours to make a casual friendship, 200 plus hours to make a good friend. If you are not engaged in that, we talk a lot about loneliness and a crisis of loneliness, what do we know about what loneliness is doing to people in the absence of those close relationships?

JUDITH PYKE: Yeah, that's a good question. So we know that loneliness and social isolation are associated with negative health outcomes. We did some interesting filming with a couple of social neuroscientists at UCLA who were looking at people's brain patterns and looking at that idea that when you feel you click with someone or you feel you're on the same wavelength with someone, and found that people had similar responses to various stimuli, could predict that they would become either friends or friends of each other's friends. And one of the studies that piggybacked on that work was a study looking at loneliness and found that people who described themselves as lonely or socially isolated tend to have brain responses that were dissimilar to other people in their social networks. And so that seemed to suggest that lonely people do tend to see the world dissimilarly than less lonely people. Knowing that, perhaps there are ways for interventions to help people feel less lonely.

MG: One of the things that comes up towards the end of the film is this idea of not just having a friendship, but cultivating and maintaining friendships. That sounds like gardening in some ways. Do you know what I mean? Like, you don't just plant the seed, but you actually nurture the seed. You make sure that the seed is watered. You make sure that it stays alive. Beverly, how important is it to, as I say, not just have those friendships, but maintain those friendships?

BEVERLY FEHR: It's really important. And one thing we see in the friendship literature is that people describe their friendships constantly and of slipping through their fingers, that other commitments in life, work and family and so on seem to take priority. And because friendship is what we call the most voluntary relationship, we don't have the kinds of institutional structures in place to support friendships the way we do for marriage or familial relationships. And so maintaining those friendships is really up to us and to make the effort to prioritize friendships when we're thinking about our leisure time or our social time. And that does require active maintenance, making the time, finding the time, staying connected to those people. It's very easy for friendships to just fade out of our lives when other things take over.

MG: I know that this is controversial at this point in time, but you know what? Pick up the phone and call your friends. People perhaps want a text before you call them, but call your friends. They'll be surprised to hear from you on the other end of the line. Beverly, thank you very much.

BEVERLY FEHR: Yeah, thank you. Thanks so much for shining a light on this neglected kind of relationship that’s so important.

MG: And Judith, this is a lot of fun. Thanks for doing it.

JUDITH PYKE: Thank you, Matt.

MG: Beverly Fehr is a social psychologist at the University of Winnipeg. Judith Pyke is a filmmaker in Vancouver, and her documentary The Secrets of Friendship airs tonight on CBC's The Nature of Things. 9 p.m. on CBC Television and any time on your CBC Gem. We’d love to hear from you about friendship and that idea of cultivating friendship. Not just letting it kind of wither on the vine, but how you go about cultivating it and how men develop friendships. Again, it sounds like a stereotype, but apparently the research backs that up, and whether friends on social media are acquaintances or actually friends. Email us your friends at The Current, thecurrent@cbc.ca. That is The Current for this Friday. Q is up next on CBC Radio One. Reminder, this afternoon, you can listen to CBC's Radio News special on U.S. President Joe Biden's first official visit to Canada. Live coverage begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern. Will include the president's address to parliament. You can listen here on the radio or on the CBC Listen app. We’ll leave you this morning with some music about friendship. This is the great Ben E. King and Stand By Me. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. Have a great weekend and we'll talk to you on Monday.

[Song: “Stand By Me” by Ben E. King]

Friday March 24, 2023 Episode Transcript