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 2024

The AIH transcript for December 19, 2024

For more episodes of this podcast, please click this link.

NIL KÖKSAL: Hello, I'm Nil Köksal.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening, I'm Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

[theme]

CH: Tonight:

NK: Her courage and their convictions. A French court finds Gisele Pelicot’s ex-husband -- and dozens of other men -- guilty of rape. An activist says no sentence is punishment enough for the villains -- but Ms. Pelicot herself is a hero.

CH: Get this party restarted. Jean Chretien's former chief of staff tells us this week’s events have convinced him Canada needs a new prime minister. And he says Christia Freeland is now the perfect anti-Trudeau candidate.

NK: Crowning achievement. A Montreal doctor is awarded a King Charles the Third Coronation Medal -- after she develops an early test for ovarian cancer.

CH: Reading the vine print. A British botanical garden releases its top ten list of plants and fungi newly discovered this year -- which includes a vine that smells like marzipan.

NK: Skate of confusion. Barbara Budd's classic holiday reading from Who Has Seen The Wind -- in which Christmas is laced with disappointment for a Saskatchewan boy who gets the wrong skates.

CH: And...it seems to me, it's lived its life like a camel in the wind. Well, it probably wasn't blown over, but somehow a camel in Rhode Island fell and couldn't get up -- until the local fire department gave him a hump-start.

CH: As it Happens, the Thursday edition. Radio that thinks, frankly, he sounds like kind of a melodrama-dary.

Part 1: Gisele Pelicot Verdict, Eddie Goldenberg: Transition, New Plants/Fungi

Gisele Pelicot Verdict

Guest: Muriel Trichet

SOUNDCLIP

[singing in French]

CH: The sound outside a courthouse in France this morning, right after dozens of men were found guilty of raping Gisele Pelicot. A crowd of supporters cheered as Ms. Pelicot exited the court -- some yelling, "Merci Gisele." She has become a feminist icon after waiving her anonymity and insisting the trial be open to the public -- to make sure, as she put it, that shame changes sides. Today, the judges sentenced her ex-husband Dominique Pelicot to the maximum 20-year sentence for drugging her, and recruiting dozens of strangers to rape her, over the course of a decade. Forty-nine of his co-defendants were also found guilty, and one man was convicted of drugging and raping his own wife with Dominique Pelicot's help. Muriel Trichet was part of the choir singing outside the court this morning. We reached her in Avignon. And a warning: the details of this story are extremely disturbing.

NK: Muriel, we've seen throughout this trial the crowds of supporters, you know, every day when, when Gisele Pelicot was walking into the courthouse and out of the courthouse. What did today feel like for you being there?

MURIEL TRICHET: Today, when I came early in the morning, had to be ready at 9:30 maybe, I was very anxious. So I was very stressed. I didn't sleep very well last night, and I didn't eat anything. [chuckling] And so, I was very anxious. It's difficult, difficult to say why, but I was afraid of the sentence or the verdict. And, and I don't know, I was not sure about what I will find in front of the court in the morning. I meet all my, my colleague from the choir and for the collective. I feel much better. So it was mixed with a tense moment. And in the same time, being safe and happy to be together. Because happiness and joy to be together is very important. And so, it's a mixed, it's a mix of, of a different kind of emotion. And it was very tired. I am very tired now because it was a very, very long day.

NK: Does this verdict satisfy you? Was justice served today?

MT: I was very disappointed because I don't know what I was expecting, but I thought in, deep inside me, I was, I was expecting something more, in fact. But it's more than just a rape. How can I put this into words? It was 10 years. There is something, it's just I put in this word, it's just not a simple rape of a man over a woman. It's 10 years. It's, it's to come all the men to rape a spouse. So, it is, it was not meaningful. Twenty years, for me, it's not enough to ask for what he did to Gisele. I don't feel, I don't feel that it is fair.

NK: The other 50 men were also found guilty, but many received shorter sentences than the prosecutors were asking for. Some left the courthouse free because of time served. How did that sit with you?

MT: It feels unfair. So, so unfair. It feels like once again, it feels like raped women doesn't mean anything. And you can just get out, I don't know. It's not, it's not a question, only a question of the, of the years passed in prison. But it was the meaning of the verdict because the meaning of the, of this kind of sentence. I don't know, I don't know, I feel like it's not fair.

NK: You mentioned feeling safe in that choir today.

MT: Yes.

NK: Do these verdicts and the attention this case has received make you feel safer?

MT: No, not at all. Not at all. Because to, to leave a trial like this one, it's worse than everything. It's a double, a double sentence after the rape. And you have to live this kind of trial, and it's unbearable, in fact. So I ask myself, is it a good thing to do, to, to complain, to ask for justice and live in this kind of of trial? I don't know. And maybe this verdict will have as big impact or consequences that maybe women will think about it twice before to made a complaint at the police or, or this kind olf thing.

NK: You don't think it will, you don't think it will encourage them to come forward?

MT: I'm not sure. Really, I'm not sure because we all see what Gisele Pelicot had to endure during this trial. We said in French secondary victimization, I don't know if we can say in English?

NK: Similar, yes.

MT: So, it's another, it's another way to, another way to made her victim again. And it's very hard to hear, and it's very hard to live.

NK: Do you think there's been a cultural shift? We've been talking to people in France during the trial, women, who say they've, I mean, it was such a high profile, such a disturbing case that there's international attention. I mean, world leaders have been commenting about Gisele Pelicot and this verdict today. Do you think that even a little bit there has been a cultural shift in understanding about rape, sexual assault and what survivors deal with?

MT: Maybe. I can say we hope for, we hope. Because this trial and the determination of Gisele is open to reflection about it, about domination, about rape culture. And maybe, I just said maybe, maybe it can change things in the year to come, probably. There is a domination that we call patriarchy and this kind of thing, it may have to be deconstructed if we want a more equal society.

NK: Gisele Pelicot said, you know, she expressed support for survivors of sexual violence whose stories don't get as much attention as hers has. And she said, quote, I want you to know that we share the same fight. What does Gisele Pelicot mean to people across France, particularly women, now?

MT: Yes, I think it was a very stronger word. In fact, she knows that her trial is very majestic and there is a lot of people who are looking at this trial. But most of the victims are alone. So, it's very important and, and strong for her to say that. That's why we were every, most every day to be at the trial and to be in front of the court every day to, to show her our support. So, she do the same for other victim. It's the beginning of the sorority, in fact. And the most powerful, the most powerful things we have women and, and we have to, to, to catch this and, and resist with this court.

NK: Muriel, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

MT: Thank you very much to you.

CH: Muriel Trichet was at the courthouse in Avignon today, when 51 men were found guility in a mass rape trial. We reached her in Avignon.

[folk]

Eddie Goldenberg: Transition

Guest: Eddie Goldenberg

CH: Multiple sources have told CBC News that Justin Trudeau is preparing for a cabinet shuffle tomorrow. So, a week that began with unexpected upheaval will conclude with planned upheaval. That shuffle will come after a day in which Prime Minister Trudeau's hastily-minted Finance Minister, Dominic LeBlanc, insisted that his boss has the complete confidence of the surviving members of his existing cabinet. But a veteran Liberal tactician doesn't share that confidence. Eddie Goldenberg served as chief of staff to Jean Chretien. He's called on Mr Trudeau to announce this week that he'll resign as PM effective January 6th. We reached Eddie Goldenberg in Ottawa.

NK: Eddie Goldenberg, is that January deadline you've suggested tied to the U.S. inauguration or is there more?

EDDIE GOLDENBERG: Well, what I've suggested is that given the situation in the United States, and given the sort of the precariousness of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons, that it's very, it would be very good to have a new prime minister as early as possible who will be able to form, to form a government that Canadians will, will learn and know about and will be able to prepare for whatever the Trump administration throws at us. And knowing that he's a bully, we're going to need somebody is prepared to push back on a bully. And that's why I think early is better than later.

NK: Your proposal doesn't leave time for a leadership race like the ones Canadians are certainly used to. How would this work?

EG: Well, the first thing I'd say is that we're in a very unusual circumstance these days. What is normal, what we're used to, is not where we are today. There was effectively a political earthquake in Canada earlier this week when Mrs. Freeland sent her letter of resignation. And at the same time, we're facing the American administration under under Trump 2.0, which is not going to be a lot of fun for us. So I think we have to get ready. So what my proposal is, is very simple, is that if a prime minister resigns, if you know, or if a prime minister dies, the caucus immediately chooses a new leader. And the party in normal circumstances would say, okay, there will be a convention to be held in three or four months. I don't think there's time in Canada to wait three or four months almost in a vacuum. And I think the easiest thing and the most useful thing would be for the party, obviously, to choose a new leader, a new prime minister, and for the Liberal executive to say, given the circumstances, given the fact that we're living in uncharted waters, there will be a leadership convention after the next election. If the new prime minister wins the election, it'll be pretty simple. If he or she doesn't, well, at that point, there probably will be more of a race. So you'd be able to have a new prime minister in office, you know, within a couple of weeks. There would be some very good candidates in the caucus, maybe even outside the caucus they'd have a couple of weeks to make their case. The caucus, which has members from right across the country, I think maybe one province doesn't have a member, would make it a Democratic decision.

NK: You told our Radio-Canada colleagues that your pick at this point would be Chrystia Freeland. How did you come to that decision?

EG: I came to that decision, it's very simple. I think that there are two major issues that Canadians are going to have to face and have to face in an election as well. One of them is who is best placed to negotiate with the Trump administration. And that's something Chrystia Freeland has done in the past. Trump obviously doesn't like her. And the more he attacks her, the more I think she will win the favour of Canadians. So, on the Canada-U.S. front, I think she would be the right candidate. I also believe that it won't be just Canada facing Trump. The G7 has to figure out what to do. The G20 has to figure out what to do. And Chrystia Freeland has been the minister who has attended all of those meetings, knows all of the players for many years. And I think putting her against Poilievre

on something like that, she comes out ahead. The next point I would make is that I believe that Canadians want somebody who is different than Trudeau, not necessarily a new party, but a new prime minister. And on Monday, she really declared her independence from Trudeau. And I think what that would do if there were an election, it would be a whole new ballgame from, from where we are today. I think that a lot of people are prepared today to vote for Mr. Poilievre because the alternative is Justin Trudeau. If there were a, an election where it's Poilievre against a new Liberal leader whose name is not Trudeau and who has declared his or her independence from Trudeau, I think it's a whole new ballgame. And, you know, we'll see what the Canadian people say.

NK: Our listeners, you know, may. May think back to what happened in the U.S. election, an expedited process to replace Joe Biden. Kamala Harris takes over. Are you concerned at all that a, that a liberal leader who comes in and has not had the benefit of a leadership race could risk leading the Liberals to a similar kind of defeat?

EG: I think you're asking a very good question. I'll give, the answer I will give you is that there's something fundamentally different. Kamala Harris lost, she, she didn't lose by very much, but she lost. She lost, you know, less than two points in the three states in which she needed to win. There's almost a consensus that one of the reasons, one of the primary reasons for her loss, is that she was unable to distinguish herself from, from President Biden. And when it was asked what she would do differently, she said she can't think of anything. In this case, it's fundamentally different. Ms. Freeland, this week, fundamentally distinguishes herself from Mr. Trudeau.

NK: But did she do it early enough, you know? People will think back to all --

EG: Oh, I think so. I think it's really, it's early, it's early enough. I believe it's early enough. You know, Canadians would decide that. And that's what you get for living in a democracy. But I don't think, I think the analogy with Kamala Harris is, is not false analogy, but it's, that if she had distinguished herself from Biden said, here's where I disagree, where we disagreed, she might be president-elect today. And in Canada, Ms. Freeland this week demonstrated very clearly that she's an economic centrist and that she doesn't agree with all of what Mr. Trudeau is doing after 10 years. So, I don't think that not having a race would be necessarily detrimental. You know, in ideal circumstances, of course, you go three or four months with the convention, but we're not living in ideal circumstances. There was a political earthquake this week, and we're dealing with having to deal with, you know, a government having to deal with whatever Trump is going to throw at us. And, as I said, I think you need somebody who's prepared to push back on the bully.

NK: Eddie Goldenberg, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

EG: Thank you very much.

CH: Eddie Goldenberg served as chief of staff to Jean Chretien. He's now a senior advisor at Global Public Affairs. We reached him in Ottawa.

[ambient]

New Plants/Fungi

Guest: Martin Cheek

CH: It's that time of the year again. The time when family and friends come together to celebrate the Top Ten list of plant and fungal species named new to science, as compiled by the U.K.'s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Last year, we gathered around the fire and laughed -- and cried -- about a possibly carnivorous plant in Mozambique. And an orchid with bright red petals found on an extinct Indonesian volcano. And this plant and fungi season, we're reflecting on a new list for 2024 from around the world, which includes a toadstool from the U.K. with teeth -- and a vine that smells like marzipan. And Kew Gardens is warning that some species on the list are already at risk of extinction because of humans. Martin Cheek helped put the list together. He's a senior research leader in London.

NK: Martin, I know you were a part of the team that named the marzipan-scented liana or vine. Is it like standing in a bakery when you're surrounded by these plants?

MARTIN CHEEK: No, because you're out in the tropical [NK chuckles] cloud forest in Guinea, West Africa. Everything is green. Everything is damp.

NK: Better than a bakery, I'd say. And that's saying a lot for someone like me.

MC: It's only when you scrape the bark of the stem or the root, which I did, just to see if there was any scent. And I think it's probably a response to, to deter predators like insects that might want to chomp on the plant, to put them off.

NK: Can you describe what it looks like for our listeners? And apart from the scent, what makes it so special?

MC: The liana? Well, there are quite a few things that make it special. It grows in a particular family of plants, which are all trees or shrubs, just about always in tropical forests. But this thing is unusual because it's a climber, it's a liana, and it's got adaptations that allow it to form kind of hooks or granules that can latch onto other plants around it so it can haul itself up into the forest canopy. And it, it's practically unique in its family, which are known as the Arecaceae, which are entirely tropical. You don't get any of them in temperate areas. So for a botanist like me, even believing that this thing could possibly be in this family is strange because of this liana habit. It just breaks the rules.

NK: There are some fungi or fungi on the list. But you are the plant guy, so we want to talk to you about some of the other plants. The orchid, just there's a photograph of that. It is stunning, quite romantic looking. There's another one, though, that has quite an ominous name, if we might, if we must say. It's called the black-souled Colombian aphelandra.

MC: Oh yeah! Yeah, I like that one. Yeah.

NK: [chuckling] What does it look like?

MC: This, actually, it's really gorgeous. When it's flowering, it's covered in lots and lots of big pink flowers, which, each of which can be about four centimeters long. It's really showy. Also, it flowers when it's dropped its leaves. So. This thing must be spectacular in the wild. I've just seen photos of it and read the paper. This is from Colombia, northwest Colombia, in South America. And one of my colleagues, called John Wood, has been spending time out there working with a colleague called Pablo Gallego on this particular family, which are very little-studied in Colombia. So this is one of about 20 species in that family that they publish is new to science in the last year.

NK: Where does the black soul come?

MC: Oh, the black soul, yes, so most of the new species to science that we publish are, these days, are quite rare and localized. And often, local communities haven't come across them or haven't named them. But in this case, they do. And the local name for it is almanegra, meaning black soul. And it's because if you cut the stem, you know, cut the stem in half with your secateurs or clippers or a machete, the heartwood, the centre of the stem, is dense black, hence it's got a black sole. I just thought that was quite neat.

NK: One hundred and seventy-two new plants and fungi this year named by Kew's scientists and the collaborators you work with. It's your job to read all of the papers and then make a Top Ten list. There's a lot to choose from, and I'm sure all are stunning and fascinating in their own way. So, how do you decide?

MC: Well, I go for papers where, actually, where there's a good photo and where there's some sort of story of more general human interest. All the papers contain masses of technical detail, as you can imagine. But a lot of that is not going to be of interest to the, you know, the general public. If you're interested to know what some of the technical information in some of these papers is like, I can give you a brief sample based on a new species of fungus that was, occurs in Canada. So this is Russula olympiana. It's a regular toadstool with a ruby, dark ruby red, cap to it. If you can imagine, like a mushroom. But the color on the top is different. Also, there's a kind of a hollow in the middle, so it's not convex. The cap is sunken slightly in the middle. And this is in a group of fungi called Russulas. And they smell of fish. So, if you smell, you know, a regular mushroom that you'd eat, it doesn't smell of fish. That's that's one of the differences.

NK: No. It looks like a story, it looks like, you know, the kind of mushroom you would see in a storybook or on The Smurfs, frankly.

MC: Yes. So this one, here, I've got the paper in front of me, where published earlier this year by a group of about a dozen scientists, including a couple Canadians from University of British Columbia, whose names I've got here, Mary Burby and Daniel Townsend.

NK: It's good to give them a shoutout at my alma matter [chuckle].

MC: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

NK: Martin, I'm very glad we could speak. Thank you.

MC: Thank you very much. It's an honour to be on CBC. Thank you.

NK: Thank you. Take care.

MC: Bye now.

CH: Martin Cheek is a senior research Leader with Kew Garden's Africa team. He's in London.

[hip-hop beat]

Camel Rescue

CH: It's the phone call every Rhode Island firefighter fears the most. Not the most, but they fear it! Or maybe they don't exactly fear it, but they do think, like, "What? What do you mean? I didn't -- this phone call is very unexpected, why is it happening?" It’s a phone call that begins with this chilling sentence:

SOUNDCLIP

CH: [echoing] My Camel can’t get up.

[epic choir music]

CH: When Henry Cabrera made that call to his local fire department, he knew it would confuse the person on the other end. "He made me repeat myself several times," he told Boston-dot-com. That's to be expected: he was calling about his camel, Harley, who weighs 900 kilos, or 2,000 pounds, who was lying on his side, unable to get up. Which was especially confusing because, both Mr. Cabrera, the camel owner, and Harley, the camel, are in Rhode Island. The Rhode Island in the United States. Nevertheless, the fire department sent a crew. Who immediately realized they'd have to improvise. Could they lift Harley up with their sexy-firefighter-calendar arms? They could not. Could they get an airbag under Harley, and inflate it? No, because their sexy arms couldn't lift him to get the airbag under him. What they could do was wrap a strap around Harley's hump, and gently winch him up to the point where he could stand. Which he did. And then, according to the fire department's incident commander, quote, "He kind of walked off into the corner like he was embarrassed." Henry Cabrera says he was a little embarrassed too, but he didn't know who else to contact. And it turned out to be the right call -- because those firefighters busted their hump not to bust Harley's.

[bluegrass swing]

Part 2: Ovarian Cancer Doctor

Ovarian Cancer Doctor

Guest: Lucy Gilbert

CH: Dr. Lucy Gilbert has a lot of titles. And they all speak to the work she's been doing for women's health over the past 35 years. Dr. Gilbert is the director of Gynecologic Oncology at the McGill University Health Centre. She leads the Women's Health Research Unit there. And she's the principal investigator on a clinical trial of a potentially groundbreaking new pap test called DOvEE -- or Detecting Ovarian and Endometrial cancer Early using genomics. And this week, she was awarded another title: King Charles III Coronation Medal recipient -- for her outstanding contribution to the medical field. We reached Dr. Lucy Gilbert in Montreal.

NK: Dr. Gilbert, do you remember the moment where you decided to shift from what you'd been doing around treatment and move into early detection of these cancers? What was that moment?

LUCY GILBERT: So, the most of our resources and energy spent treating advanced endometral and ovarian cancer, which causes a large amount of distress to patients because these treatments, the surgeries are very radical and the treatments are toxic. And about 2008, I felt this has to stop. We have to detect these cancers early so that the treatments are not so brutal and the cure rates are higher. The first few years we used what is already available to detect these cancers early. That is a transvaginal ultrasound scan and a blood marker called CA125.

NK: And it's a very invasive scan, by the way, for those who may not know.

LG: No. [chuckling] The scan, if it does what it's supposed to do, it's a price women will pay, you know? But the problem is it does not detect ovarian and high-grade endometrial cancer early enough. These tests will detect these cancers only in stage three. And so, we came up with a genomic test that would detect these cancers at its very start.

NK: Give us a sense, Dr., of what it is like in Canada right now for women diagnosed with these two cancers.

LG: These cancers account for the third most common cancers affecting Canadian women, and the third cause a death from cancers affecting women in all of North America.

NK: And what are the survival rates?

LG: For stage three ovarian cancers, survival rates really run at 30 per cent. And for high grade endometral cancer that's already in stage three, it's about the same.

NK: What have your patients been telling you about their experiences trying to get the care they need?

LG: Patients are often shocked because most women try their best to follow what is taught. They have a regular Pap test and they are very surprised to know that the regular Pap test does not detect these cancers early. So, I have women who have run a marathon, who have been hiked, who have just come back from holiday and they have some symptoms. And then I tell them, you have stage three cancer. There is a lot of public education to be done and we have to do better than we are doing now.

NK: Public education is necessary, but what about in the medical field? Because most women are not coming to see you right away. And there may be varying levels of, of understanding and experience with the doctors that, that they're going to see. So what is your advice to them?

LG: So most women, by the time they get symptoms, they're in stage three of four. So the symptoms are related to the gut, to the upper abdomen, chest, breathing problems. So you are right in that doctors also need to be family doctors, emergency medicine physicians, general surgeons need to factor this diagnosis when they see patients with the symptoms. But the most important thing, Nil, is that we need a test that women can have regularly, perhaps every two years, that will detect these cancers while they're very early and still confined to the uterus and tubes and ovaries.

NK: I want to talk about how your test works in just a moment, But I do want to go back to what you said to underline. You're talking about breathing issues, chest issues. Again, people would not make that connection when we're talking about ovarian and endometrial cancers.

LG: I'm glad you came back to this. When a woman gets generalized symptoms, I have been educating the doctors in Montreal to add on a blood test called CA125. I would very much like them to add it to the panel of investigations to somebody who has bloating, who has abdominal pain, who has what we call early satiety indigestion. So these symptoms, unfortunately, they're very weak. They can be present in all kinds of illness, but they happen to be associated with advanced ovarian cancer, too.

NK: I think that's important information for people to hear. So thank you for that, Dr. Now, your test itself, just as simply as you can for our listeners, how does it work?

LG: So, all cancers are caused by mutations. That is a mistake appears in the DNA that causes the cell to go rogue. We know the mutations that are associated with the development of ovarian and endometrial cancer. So, we have created a panel that has 28 of the most common genes that cause these cancers. And we look for fragments of cancer DNA in a sample we take from the uterus. So, we are able to detect these cancers at its very start. We use deep machine learning to differentiate the mutations that are associated with cancers from those that are associated with just getting older or having a benign disorder.

NK: And how do you test? How do you physically test a patient?

LG: So we have a sampler that goes into the uterus. This is then put into a buffer and sent to our laboratory for analysis.

NK: More than 4,000 women in Quebec are in your trial, as I understand it, and that trial is in its final stage. After that, it would be submitted to Health Canada for approval. There's recognition, obviously, from your peers, and it's an honour. But beyond that recognition, can it help further what you're trying to do?

LG: I believe women will take this as a sign that their disease is taken seriously because women's diseases have taken second place. For example, the most common cancer affecting men is prostate cancer. And for NIH funding, I think it's something like $145 million, something in that is given in grants to study this. But it's not as lethal as these cancers. And I think endometrial cancer gets about something like $14 million. So it is a huge discrepancy.

NK: Dr. Gilbert, congratulations on the recognition and I appreciate your time. I hope we can speak again.

LG: Thank you so much, Nil. Bye.

CH: Dr. Lucy Gilbert is the principal investigator on a clinical trial of a test that would help detect ovarian and endometrial cancer early. She received the King Charles III Coronation at a ceremony in Montreal. That's where we reached her.

[calypso]

Reading: ‘Who Has Seen The Wind’

CH: The younger you are, the more magical and important the Christmas season seems. The perfect gift can be life-changing. But the wrong gift can be life-ruining. Brian O'Connal's perfect gift was a pair of skates. In fact, it was the only gift on his list. But sometimes, parents get it wrong. Here's former As It Happens co-host Barbara Budd, reading an excerpt from W. O. Mitchell's classic 1947 novel Who Has Seen The Wind.

Reading:

BARBARA BUDD: In the O'Connal family, Christmas began as a rule early in December. When the boys started to decide what presents they would like. In Brian's second year of school Christmas was called earlier to the parents’ attention because with the beginning of winter Brian asked for skates. Maggie's first response was unbelief. It was difficult for her to think that one of her boys was old enough to want skates. She reminded him that he was just past seven and that Forbsie Hoffman didn't have skates yet. Brian replied that Art Sherry had them. Art who was a year and a half older than Brian had inherited a pair from an older sister. Their high tops had been cut down. They had to be worn with three pairs of woolen socks so that Art's feet wouldn't slide around in the shoes. But to Brian, skate-less they were things whose beauty would endure forever. Skates became a frequent topic of conversation at meals. At length the grandmother said she was sick of hearing about them. "Would it not be possible to get the child a pair so that he could break his neck and give them a few peaceful meals?" Maggie forbad Brian to mention skates at the table again. The day that he saw the new tube skates in the hardware store window. Brian called on his father at work.

"Oh, why can't I have them Dad?"

“Well your mother says you're too young for them."

"No, but I'm not."

"Seven is pretty young for skates."

“I was seven a long time ago in the fall. I'm past seven.”

"Well you're still too young. When you're older, next year perhaps."

"Yeah but I'll be older at Christmas. That's a long ways away. May I have them for Christmas”

"No, I don't think so son."

After Brian had left, Gerald felt a pang of remorse. It was difficult to see why the boy could not have skates so that night he had a talk with Maggie. "Perhaps by Christmas time." He asked her. "He'll be almost seven and a half then." His wife looked at him a long time before answering.

"You know I love him too Gerald. I hate to deny them anything as much as you. It's just that he seems so... do you think he's old enough? Do you honestly?"

"Yeah, I think so Maggie.”

“It isn't because he just wants them so badly?”

“Well he's old enough. Let him skate.”

So, after a decent interval Brian was told that he might possibly get skates for Christmas. Bobby then insisted that he should get skates too but he finally settled for a hockey stick and a puck. Brian looked forward with eagerness to the promised skates. He thought of them often. Whenever the boys gathered after school with worn slivered thin sticks to play a sort of hockey between tin can goalposts and with a blob of frozen horse manure for a puck and the more he thought of them, the less envious he was of Art with his women's skates. There would be nothing feminine about his. They would be sturdy tubes with thick felt tongues. The night before Christmas he was almost sick with excitement and anticipation as he lay in his bed with Bobby beside him. He could see the skates clearly with their frosted tubing and the clear runners that would cling to his thumb when he ran it along them to test their sharpness. He could see himself gliding over the river, alone on shining ice, with a twist and the lean a shower of ice snow and it came to a breathtaking stop. Bobby stirred in his sleep. "Are you awake Bobby?" But Bobby didn't answer him. Perhaps there would be straps over the ankles, not that he would need them for his ankles were strong. His feet wouldn't slop. He flexed them beneath the covers. Yeah, stronger than anything. Maybe they were too strong. And when he pushed, he would push the ice clean full of cracks. He closed his eyes tightly. If only he could get to sleep the time would pass more quickly. When one slept it was nothing. Swift as a person on skates. Swift as the wind. "He came Brian! He came." Bobby was jumping on the bed, his hair bright in the winter sunshine that filled the room. Brian jumped from bed. "Come on." There stockings lumpy with oranges each with a coloured cardboard clown protruding from its top hung from the mantle of the fireplace. Bobby's sleigh that could be steered was before the tree. Bobby threw himself upon the parcels. "Hey wait a minute," cried Brian. "They're not all yours, just with your name." He began to sort out the presents upon which Maggie the night before had printed in the large block letters that Brian could easily read. Anxiously Brian watched the growing pile of parcels beside him. He opened a deep box to find it full of coloured cars and an engine in little compartments. He opened another, a mechanical affair which when wound caused two long men to dance all the while turning around. Slippers were in one promising looking parcel. And as he opened the last of his parcels, he was filled with the horrible conviction that something was wrong. And then he saw a parcel behind the Christmas tree. His name was on it. He opened it. They were not tube skates. They were not single runnered skates. They were bob-skates. Double runnered affairs with curving toe cleats and a half bucket arrangement to catch the heel of the shoe. For a swift moment Brian's heart was filled with mixed feeling: a disappointment bitter and blinding was there. But with it a half dazed feeling of inner release and relief that he had got skates, they were skates, he told himself as he turned them over in his hands. "What's the matter Brian?" Bobby had looked up from his fire engine. Brian got up and went into the living room. He sat on the window seat next to the Shamrock plant, the bob skates upon his knees. When Bobby came through a while later clutching a hockey stick a foot longer than himself, Brian paid no attention to him. Throughout dinner he spoke only when spoken to. When his father and uncle were seated in the living room with lighted cigars and his mother and grandmother were in the kitchen washing the dinner dishes, he went unnoticed to the hallway, put on his coat and toque, and with the bob skates went out. He passed other children as he walked pulling Christmas sleighs and Christmas toboggans, some with gleaming Christmas skates slung over their shoulders. Through the fiercely tinsel snow sparkling unbearably in the sunlight he walked, not toward the downtown bridge where children and adults swoop over cleared ice but toward the powerhouse and the small footbridge. There he sat near a clump of willow, fitted the skates to his feet, buckled the straps over his insteps, and went knee deep through the snow on the riverbank to the ice. Once on the ice, he stood for a moment on trembling legs. He pushed with one foot. It skidded sideways. The other went suddenly from under him and he came down with a bump that snatched his breath. He got carefully up and stood uncertainly. He pushed a tentative skate ahead and then another. He stood still with knees half bent. He gave a push with one skate preparatory to swooping over the ice and fell flat on his face. He got up; he began a slow forward sliding across the ice. Painfully. Noncommittal steps of a stroke victim just risen from bed. He was not skating; he was walking with an overwhelming feeling of frustration that reminded him of dreams in which he ran with all his might but stayed only in one spot. He fell again and felt his elbow go numb. He sat on the ice looking at his own feet ahead of him and he began to cry. Brian's parents, his grandmother, and his uncle, were seated in the living room when he got back to the house. He was carrying the bob skates as he came out of the hallway. "Oh, you've been skating?" said Sean. Brian didn't answer him. "Uncle Sean asked you a question son," said Maggie. Sean's big freckled hand reached out to take one of the bob skates. "Now that's a damn fool question," said Sean. "Fellow doesn't skate with bob skates. Had somebody pulling ya, did ya?" Brian shook his head. "What's wrong?" Brian's father was looking at his tear stained face. Brian rush from the room. "What do you mean?" Maggie turned to Sean. "What do you mean? What's wrong with his skates? What did you mean by..."

"Oh yeah they call them skates," said Sean. "But you can't skate with them, just teaches kids a healthy respect for ice that's all. It got no grip at all. They skid like hell. Never forget the first time I took Gerald on ice with a pair, about the same age as Brian. He had a hell of a time, ended up hanging on to me coat tails whilst I pulled him around."

"But that means that Brian... That means that..." Maggie got up and went swiftly from the room. She found Brian at the kitchen window. "Oh, don't they work son?" Still looking out the window, Brian shook his head. "Oh, aren't they what you wanted?" "Tubes," he got out with difficulty. "Tubes like in Harris’s." "I'm sorry Brian." Maggie watched his shoulders moving. She turned his face around to her. "Oh, don't please. Don't sweetie. I'll fix it." And she went to the phone."Mr. Harris, have you got a pair of tube skates left? Is it a small size? I wonder... I wonder if you could come down to the store with me and my son, will you? You will." That night Maggie O'Connal stood at her children's bedside. With her white nightgown almost to her heels, her hair in two black braids, she looked like a little girl in the dimness of the room. A glinting caught her eye and she saw a length of leather lace hanging down the side of the bed. Brian slapped with his hand clenched around the runner of one tube skate. His nose almost inside the boot. Maggie reached out one hand and laid it lightly upon Brian's cheek.

CH: Former As It Happens co-host Barbara Budd with a holiday reading from the W.O. Mitchell classic Who Has Seen the Wind.

[folk rock]

Part 3: Italy Cave Rescue, 150 YO Lighthouse Preservation

MTV Canada

CH: You'd be forgiven for not realizing MTV Canada is still on the air these days. But about 15 years ago, if you were a millennial who loved pop culture, it was a very different story. MTV Canada was where you could watch shows like Jersey Shore, Laguna Beach, and The Hills. And those who know, know: before Dan Levy was David Rose on Schitt's Creek, he was commenting on reality-TV hits as a host of The After Show With Jessi Cruickshank. But those days are long gone. And MTV Canada is set to go off air on December 31st, with Bell citing "changing audiences." Our colleagues at CBC Toronto called up Jessi Cruickshank to get her reaction to the news. And she had to admit before they contacted her, she didn't even realize the channel still existed.

SOUNDCLIP

JESSI CRUICKSHANK: I was thrilled to hear that it was on and then simultaneously devastated to hear that it was ending at the end of the year. So, it's been a journey for me, David.

DAVID COMMON: I can see that. I can see that. And look, you're not the only one who was probably a little bit surprised. Let me go back to the day. It's not all that long ago. What's a memory? What really stands out for you from that time in your own life?

JC: Oh my gosh! For me, there was this moment that I will never forget, and that is that the show, the whole channel felt very grassroots. Like, it was before social media. We were all, you know, in our 20s working out of a basement. We never really thought anybody was watching. We created this show called The Laguna Beach Aftershow, strictly to comply to Canadian content laws. You know, for every 30 minutes of American content, we had to create 30 minutes of Canadian content. So, we thought, we'll just talk about this show that aired for 30 minutes after it airs. Our sort of basis for the concept was sports. You know, like after a hockey game, you're going to talk about it. So we were going to do the same thing. We had a telestrator like sports broadcasters, and that was the concept of the show. We recorded live on Friday nights at 10 p.m. We didn't even have a set. It was such an afterthought that Dan Levy and I would sit on the floor on pillows. We would drink real alcohol in our martinis and just talk about the show that we had watched. Didn't think anyone was watching. And then, for the finale, we wanted to do something different. We opened up the doors to a live audience, and this is the memory that I'll never forget. It's like 1 p.m., we're prepping for our show, and suddenly there's all this panic and chaos and police come into the building. And we say, What's going on? And they say, there's 3,000 people blocking Younge Street lining up.

DAVID COMMON: [chuckling] Turns out you had an audience.

JC: We didn't think anyone, we didn't think 3,000 people were watching, let alone coming to the building. And that day, I think 6,000 people showed up to try to come into the live taping. And I mean, I will never forget that moment.

DAVID COMMON: So, how did what you were doing at MTV Canada, how could, 'cause you've gone on and done a lot. How did it inform where you are now?

JC: For me, and perhaps this is emblematic of Canadian television in general, but we were thrown into this thing. We had a team of three was making The Aftershow. Literally, it was Dan, myself and three other people. And so, we were, we were forced to do everything. We were writing for ourselves, we were doing our own hair, we were choosing our own wardrobe. We were producing segments. Like, I learned everything that there is to learn about, you know, creating and producing television and content in general because I was sort of forced to do it. And having now worked on shows in the U.S., I often say, like, if you're a host on an American television show, you have somebody who's walking you to the set. If you're a host on a Canadian television show, you're building the set. [DC laughs] And I'm so grateful for it because it's taught me everything that I know. And it's allowed me to go on to a career in standup, in podcasting because I, now I write for myself, I produce for myself. And I'm so grateful to MTV for that.

CH: Former MTV Canada host Jessi Cruickshank speaking with Metro Morning host David Common about Bell's decision to shut down the channel down.

[lo-fi]

Italy Cave Rescue

Guest: Rino Bregani

CH: On Saturday, Ottavia Piana was 150 metres underground in a notoriously challenging cave system in northern Italy -- when a rock gave out under her. Ms. Piana is an expert spelunker who was there with a team trying to map an uncharted part of what's known as the Bueno Fonteno Abyss. She plummeted several meters, injuring her face, ribs, knee and spine. And then began the complicated process of trying to get her out. More than 100 rescuers worked non-stop for four days to bring her safely to the surface -- navigating four kilometres of narrow tunnels to do it. Yesterday, in the wee hours of the morning, they succeeded. Ms. Piana is now being treated in hospital. Medic Rino Bregani was among the first to reach her. We reached him in Milan.

NK: Rino, how is Ottavia Piana doing now?

RINO BREGANI: I'm not sure because I have no recent news. But I heard is she's okay in the hospital. She has been treated by a surgical operation for some fracture of the legs and some other bones. But now, she feels well.

NK: Can you describe what it was like to get her out?

RB: Okay. It has been a big challenge because the cage was not so deep. It was just around the equivalent of 350 metres. But the cave was very long and narrow, especially the last 400 metres were very narrow. And so, it was very difficult to climb on carrying the equipment, sanitary equipment, but also ropes and bolts and carabiners to try to move the stretcher. And as well as to move the stretcher in those narrow passages has been very difficult.

NK: How long did it take?

RB: I stay in the cave for 24 hours.

NK: Twenty-four hours you were there?!

RB: Yes. Yes. The whole rescue takes I think three days. Yes, three days.

NK: The whole rescue took three, three days. Just getting to her, how many hours did that take?

RB: I spent seven hours to reach Ottavia.

NK: What did she say when you saw her? When you reached her?

RB: She was very silent. She didn't speak unless I asked some question for her. She seemed sad and worried about her condition, and that long time was needed to take her out of the cave. So, she really didn't speak a lot.

NK: She's experienced at caving. She's not an amateur. She's not a tourist.

RB: No, no. Actually --

NK: What happened?

RB: Exactly the opposite. She's experienced, but also studies and exploration in deep caves. So she was just unlucky. She fell down on the cave.

NK: Yeah, something, something slipped under her feet.

RB: There was a crack, a crash down a part of the cave where she was working on. But on the same place other people worked before her. But the other people could pass. And when she get up, the, the rock crashed completely and she fell down for five metres.

NK: That shows a little bit of the dangers just for one person. What about for you and the rescue team?

RB: It was very dangerous for everybody because the rock was slippery but also very loose. So it was very difficult to climb. And it often happens that some rock crash. And so, we were in the dangerous condition to fall down as well and to be injured.

NK: So, how did you make sure to stay safe?

RB: [chuckling] We, we, we tried. We have even, even us, we have a lot of experience, but we are forced to stay, to walk and not so quickly and to spend time to find the best way and to protect us from, from fall down.

NK: After you reached her, you had to carry her on a stretcher through those same narrow and twisting passages. What did you have to do through that process?

RB: There were other two cavers that took the stretcher, and they spent 10 hours to reach the place of the accident because also, they get lost in a part of the cave.

NK: There are no maps of this section, right.

RB: The part of the cave was been explored by Ottavia the day before. And so, there was no map at all. And, fortunately, there was one of the team exploring that get out of the cave and brought us and Ottavia showing other passages.

NK: She was injured in this same cave system last year. What did Ottavia tell you about what she wants to do next, how she's feeling about what happened?

RB: She is big and tall. And she didn't comment on these things, but I think she was worried also because they knew, she knew that the rescue would have been, would have taken a lot of time. And there were narrow passages.

NK: I heard that she was thinking about quitting this work.

RB: She told me when we have to cut the boots and the equipment before to treat her for the lesion. She said, don't worry about my equipment because I will not came again in the cave.

NK: I mean, I can understand why she feels that way. What about you?

RB: I think she will change her opinion. She's a very good caver. And the cave exploration is a very, very interesting and amazing thing. So, I hope and I'm sure after some months she will change her opinion and I hope she will come back to her ideas and to cave and explore.

NK: Rino, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

RB: You're welcome.

CH: That was medic Rino Bregani in Milan.

[grunge]

150 YO Lighthouse Preservation

Guest: Kristin Gamble

CH: It's probably not what you picture U.S. Army Corps of Engineers working on. But at least one U.S. Senator is really hoping they can help with the lighthouse. The Hudson-Athens lighthouse was built in 1874. It's one of only seven lighthouses still standing on the Hudson River -- and Senator Chuck Schumer wants it to stay standing. This week, he announced that the federal government would pitch in $50,000 for a feasibility study on saving the historic site. The reason it needs saving is: it sits on 200 wood pilings packed in mud under the water. The turbulence caused by big modern boats is deteriorating the structure; cracks are visible on the building and its foundation. But now, the Army Corps of Engineers is on the job. Kristin Gamble is the president of the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse Preservation Society. She's been advocating to save the historic site for years. We reached her in New York City.

NK: Kristin, this has been a long fight for you and others. So, to hear the senator make this announcement, did it feel like an early Christmas present?

KRISTIN GAMBLE: Oh my gosh! Yes, indeed. [chuckling]

NK: Or a long-overdue one, I guess.

KG: Well, Schumer became aware of it, you know, and really connected to the potential that the project would have about two years ago. He's certainly been a force.

NK: You were at the announcement, and you also spoke --

KG: Oh yes!

NK: To the commander of the New York District Army Corps of Engineers. What did the commander tell you?

KG: His name is Colonel Alexander Young, and he is the regional head of the Army Corps of Engineers. And will, in fact, personally be leading the effort to restore and revitalize the underwater foundation that the lighthouse sits on. And that's the big problem. So, it's very exciting.

NK: It's exciting to have someone, you know, at that level excited, as excited as you are, I would imagine.

KG: He really is. I mean, the Army Corps of Engineers is very excited about this project. It's not the normal thing that they do, but it's an opportunity to really make a difference for our communities.

NK: I've seen some photographs, some aerial photographs in particular. It is quite quaint and lovely. It sits right in the middle of the Hudson River. It was built in 1874, the steamboat era, in case people were wondering. Why was it built back then?

KG: Well, it was built in the middle of the river because there was, north of the lighthouse, there was an underwater sandbar. And very often, especially in the high tide, there would be shipwrecks because the ship captains couldn't see the sandbar. And, and so, that's why it was placed in the middle of the river, which is unusual.

NK: When did you first become aware of it and enamoured of it?

KG: [chuckling] Well, I've been enamoured of it for at least 15 or 20 years, and I got actively involved really about three or four years ago. You know, I've been a longtime supporter of the Lighthouse and just believe it to be so meaningful. It's a sense of identity for both sides of the river. And it brings people together, which is so delightful in this day and age.

NK: What do people tell you They, they love about it?

KG: Well, they love seeing it and being on the lighthouse, but it, just seeing it from land is, it's romantic and it's very compelling. The communities along both sides of the river, and not just to our immediate communities, but all travelers from on Amtrak trains that go north from New York City. And they, they love the lighthouse when they travel right past it.

NK: Is there a keeper of the lighthouse now?

KG: There is not. The last keeper retired in the late 1940s. And. At this point, the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse Preservation Society actually owns the lighthouse. And we were given the deed to it by the Coast Guard in the year 2000.

NK: So, it functions but with LED lights, and people have --

KG: Yes, it has, yeah. And they have their own solar panels that light it. However, it's not absolutely necessary, but it still serves as a navigation aid.

NK: You know the daughter of that last full-time keeper you mentioned a moment ago. What did she tell you about her experience there?

KG: Yeah, The daughter of the last lighthouse keeper was Emily Brunner. And she had just wonderful stories about growing up on the lighthouse, and the intensity and, in some ways, the, you know, loneliness of being out in the middle of the river. Because, you know, you can't just go over to your neighbour's house and have fun. [both chuckle]

NK: Yeah, it's a cool place to grow up, but I can, I can see how it would be, it would be isolating. Fond memories still, it sounds like for her.

KG: Right, yes. In fact, Emily, actually, her mother was pregnant again, and the father rode over in a boat to get the doctor to come to the lighthouse. And in the meanwhile, the baby started coming. And so Emily Bruner actually delivered the baby. [chuckling]

NK: She delivered her sibling?

KG: Yes.

NK: My goodness. I wonder what --

KG: And she was only 10 years old.

NK: Oh my goodness. How many stories must that lighthouse have seen unfold on the water and on land?

KG: Exactly!

NK: And so, you have this funding now. What's the timeline? When will it be restored?

KG: It's going to be a multi-year project. There are two aspects to it. One is the above water aspect, and then there's the below water aspect. The below-water aspect is what the Army Corps of Engineers is going to be involved with. And what we have already done is started with the replacement of the roof of the lighthouse, because, as with any house, if the roof leaks, you've got a problem. So, we needed to start with the roof replacement. And then once that is accomplished, then the underwater part of the project, which is the main source of the issue, that will get started, I hope, in 2025.

NK: What do you hope people feel, whether they're on an Amtrak train or in the water passing by this lighthouse when it's restored, what do you want them to feel when they see it?

KG: It's part of history. It's kind of romantic out in the middle of the river. And it's quaint. It just represents so much history and so much passage of time that people want to continue to see it. If it just did fall into the river, then they would be heartbroken. You know, all of the communities that see it on a regular basis, but all of the the Amtrak travelers as well. I mean, it would really be missed tremendously.

NK: Kristin, I'm glad we could speak. Thank you.

KG: Okay. Well, I'm delighted to have the opportunity.

CH: Kristin Gamble is the president of the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse Preservation Society. We reached her in New York City.

[folk rock]

Halifax Explosion Ship

CH: It's been well over a hundred years since the Halifax Explosion. But just a few months ago, workers at the city's Irving Shipyard who were dredging in the Halifax harbour came across unexpected remnants of that terrible event. What they found appears to be pieces from the Mont Blanc -- the munitions ship at the heart of the 1917 blast. Irving and the province of Nova Scotia still haven't commented on the discovery. But their silence hasn't prevented a public debate over what should happen next. Dan Conlin is a historian who used to work at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.

SOUNDCLIP

DAN CONLIN: Three hundred and twenty feet of Mont Blanc turned into this deadly bomb. And often, these pieces arrive with really powerful stories about, you know, it fell right through grandma's bedroom and just missed her in the bed, or, or, you know, the roof is leaking. The day after the explosion, we found a piece, you know, stuck in up in the shingles. In one case, an undertaker from Moncton who'd come to help with the bodies, his family donated a piece that came onto someone's head because these pieces were deadly shrapnel that fell all over the city. So, you know, you kind of look at that site context to determine whether it's from Mont Blanc. And that's exactly the type of thing that the museum would be doing to determine whether it's from Mont Blanc. And from what I heard on December, the six at Fort Needham when I first started hearing about this --

PORTIA CLARK: About the new pieces.

DC: Yeah, the new pieces that Irving dredged up that it's car-sized pieces. So, they're much bigger than the pieces, you know, the biggest piece we had at the museum was just under a metre. So these pieces are large and they're significant, but they're mixed in with other stuff and there's probably issues of toxic waste. So there's a fair bit of analysis of that material that should be done to figure out where it came from and what should be done with it.

PC: Would there be a question with a car-sized piece of metal, whether it came from the Mont Blanc? Would it have, could it have come from anywhere else?

DC: Well, you'd be looking for, does it show those distressed patterns, the jagged edges? And they're really unique. You don't get that from cutting something up with a, with a blow torch or scrapping or, you know, just disassembling something. It's, they really show the, you know, that, that powerful explosive force.

PC: And how much, if taken together, would these pieces add up to of what was originally the Mont Blanc? I mean, how much of it has been preserved?

DC: Well, it's really, when we started analyzing and the collection of fragments we had in the museum, we've been collecting them for years. I thought we had 30. We had, we had 50. And then, I located about 50 in other parts. We determined we had about 0.04 per cent of the ship.

PC: Oh, just a tiny bit.

DC: Well, yeah, just represented sitting on the museum shelves. And we were also able to determine that based on the average size of the pieces from that data set that, Mont Blanc blew up in a boat between 200,000 and 300,000 pieces, just this cataclysmic event that shaped the face of the city. You know, I'm often reminded of Oppenheimer's words, You know, the ship was the, the bringer of death, the destroyer of worlds. So, it had this huge impact on the city. And studying and possibly preserving some large pieces of it, you know, is a real touchstone to that horrible event.

CH: Dan Conlin is a historian and retired curator. He was speaking with Porita Clark on Information Morning in Nova Scotia.

[ambient]

FOA: Murder Hornets

CH: For a while there, we were seeing the countryside overrun by the monsters known as "murder hornets". Because, after all, it does work that way.

SOUNDCLIP

PAUL VAN WESTENDORP: We are not seeing, and will never anticipate the countryside being overrun by these, quote, murder hornets. I mean, it just doesn't work that way.

CH: Oh. Okay. From an interview on this program in May, 2020, that was British Columbia's Apiculturist Paul van Westendorp, contradicting me in front of everyone. But he was right to say that. And to push back against the term "murder hornets". Because despite their heart-stopping size, and venom, and powerful stingers, they weren't really a threat to humans. Those northern giant hornets were a serious threat to honeybees, though. They would just fly into hives, tear the bees' heads off, and fly home with their disembodied thoraxes to feed their hornet kids. So, you know, maybe not "murder hornets", but definitely not who you'd want to invite to the pot luck. And officials on both sides of the border were keen to stop them from spreading -- and possibly destroying the North American honeybee population. In November, 2020, Chris Looney was part of a mission to track down giant hornet nests. He's an entomologist with the Washington State Department of Agriculture.

SOUNDCLIP

CO: How difficult is it to actually find these nests?

CL: That was really challenging. It probably was the most challenging part of this entire process. In both British Columbia and Washington state, we are not confident that we have tools that are really good at detecting them at low densities. So we've saturated the landscape with traps, but the traps are essentially mimosas hanging in a tree. There's probably lots of other things that could attract the hornets. We relied on public reports and that's what actually led to this. But that was just the first step of actually finding a hornet. Next, we have to figure out where does that hornet live? This is an animal that can forage easily eight kilometres. That's pretty far to run across the ground after a thing. So we used these radio tags and it turned out that they worked, but it was touch and go until we were positive.

CH: Entomologist Chris Looney talking to our former host Carol off in November of 2020. And those radio tags did work. Yesterday, state and federal agencies in the U.S. announced that northern giant Hornets have been eradicated. And we can all pat ourselves on the back about it. Scientists say that the media and the public played crucial roles in getting the word and the hornets out. So, let that be a lesson to all invasive insects, murder or otherwise. Once in a while, you'll receive a stinging rebuke.

The AIH Transcript For December 19, 2024

Social Sharing