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Science Communicators of TikTok: Lindsay Nikole (@lindsaynikole) - Ep 96
888 Plays3 years ago
On this episode of a Life in Ruins Podcast, we continue our series of talking with TikTok Science Communicators and talk with Lindsay Nikole. Lindsay is a zoologist with a passion for all living things in the animal kingdom, and has over 1 million followers on TikTok.
We dive straight into her experiences growing up and her experiences getting her undergraduate degree. This devolves into a discussion about upper division courses, dinosaurs, and evolution. Lindsay then recounts some of her professional experiences working with big cats in the Pacific Northwest, Namibia, and Minnesota.
Our conversation finishes with talking about TikTok and her experience on the app.
For rough transcripts of this episode go to A Life in Ruins Episode 96.
Literature Recommendations
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- Lindsay's TikTok - @lindsaynikole
- Lindsay's Instagram - @lindsay_nikole
- Lindsay's Coloring Book
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome to episode 96 of a life and ruins podcast, reinvestigate the careers of those living life in ruins.
Meet the Hosts and Guest, Lindsay Nicole
00:00:20
Speaker
I'm your host Carlton Gover. And I am joined by my co-host Connor John and David Howe. For today's episode, we are joined by Lindsay Nicole, a zoologist and tick tock personality by the handle of at Lindsay Nicole. Lindsay, thank you so much for joining us this evening. How are you doing? Great. Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
00:00:36
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. We're stoked to have you. Yeah. David has shared with us a couple of your TikToks and we got super stoked
Lindsay's Journey into Zoology
00:00:41
Speaker
about it. So we're really happy to dive into zoology today. Awesome. Yeah. I think I had seen a few of your TikToks before, but I didn't like know who you were. And then somebody sent me like your cat domestication one, which I assume was like a pretty viral one. Yes. And I was like, okay, that's actually a better content than I could ever dream of making. So I did add this person. Yeah. Yeah. No problem.
00:01:03
Speaker
So just to kind of get us started tonight, Lindsay, what were your first experiences with zoology growing up? Like, is this something that you've kind of naturally gravitated towards since you were a kid or discovered it really in college?
00:01:14
Speaker
Yeah, surprisingly, I wasn't a huge animal nerd growing up. I loved the generic animals that everybody was into, but I didn't really dive into anything out of the ordinary really until I went to college. And it wasn't until maybe a year or two into my zoology major that I got really into just the weird animals, the extinct animals and everything. So it was later on. Gotcha. Did you have a favorite animal growing up? I mean, like every kid has a favorite animal. Yeah, lions for sure.
00:01:44
Speaker
Respect. Yeah. What made you want to do like the degree in zoology or like go into that? Yeah. So funny enough, because I liked Lion so much, I found this volunteer opportunity in South Africa to do at the end of my senior year in high school.
Volunteering in South Africa and Career Shift
00:02:01
Speaker
And so once I did that and experienced, you know, working with big cats, I switched my whole path. I was going to do criminology and instead I transferred to Oregon State University to do zoology.
00:02:13
Speaker
because I wanted to go into animal care and conservation of big cats specifically. Got you. Where were you prior to Oregon State? I was at American University in DC. Really? Are you originally from the Northern Virginia? It's Southern Maryland area. Not at all. I'm from LA.
00:02:30
Speaker
And I loved American. I had a couple of friends already going there. And I just wanted to check it out, not really knowing exactly what I was going to do, but they had nothing related to psychology because it was more of a business school. So I had to transfer. Gotcha. Yeah. I'm from Northern Virginia, right across the river. So I had a bunch of friends go to American. I've talked about it at Nazium. You definitely checked out Ben's Chili Bowl though, right? While you were there? I didn't. I've never heard of it.
00:02:56
Speaker
Man. Bummer. You missed out. Next time you're in DC, Ben's Chili Bowl, hit it up. Yeah, I definitely will. Yeah, it wasn't there long ago. I think it was. Look at Ella. Ella Baldwin went to American too. And Jesse Tune. And me and Jesse went on a whole rant about Ben's Chili Bowl.
00:03:11
Speaker
for another time. So you're from LA, you're in DC at American. Why Oregon State? Why not any of the colleges in between the Chesapeake Bay and Oregon?
00:03:28
Speaker
So when I was trying to figure out where I was going to go for my zoology degree, I was in LA. So I went back to LA for a year, did some community college classes, and I wanted to stay as close to home as I could just because I, I love LA and the nearest school, I believe was UC Santa Barbara. And I decided I didn't want to go there because they required physics for zoology, which is something I'm so not about the nearest school apart from that was Oregon state. So I just went there.
00:03:57
Speaker
Cool. Do you have a lot of duck stuff? Well, beavers. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. My roommate, he was just like Oregon, Oregon, Oregon, Oregon. Like everything was Oregon. I didn't realize it was two different schools. I've never been up there. That's a monumental mess. I don't know sports at all. That's just like, I was never really into it. I don't really have any beaver stuff either.
00:04:25
Speaker
Okay. Did you, um, did you like your time up in the Pacific Northwest? It was beautiful. I really loved it. Just, you know, for the natural aspect of it, my classes were amazing. The resources provided by my school were incredible. The social aspect was weird because it was in a small town and I only experienced Los Angeles and Washington DC. So that was a huge adjustment for me. And I didn't, I would say I didn't really completely adjust to that while I was there.
Studies at Oregon State University
00:04:53
Speaker
But everything else was incredible. I mean, my teachers were incredible. The opportunities I had were incredible. So all in all a great experience. Excellent. So, you know, we're coming at this from anthropologists. So we know exactly what it takes to do an anthropology degree. So what kind of courses are you taking at at Oregon State University for zoology? Like, were there other disciplines that you had to dip into or is it primarily like biology focused? It was definitely biology focused.
00:05:19
Speaker
I had a lot of flexibility, luckily, just because of the zoology program that OSU offered. So I ended up kind of gravitating towards the evolution and paleontology classes and taking every one of those classes that I possibly could. But additionally, because I wanted to work with big cats, I was taking all the conservation classes, mammalogy classes, as well as, you know, the vertebrate-invertebrate zoology classes. Other than that, it was pretty much a biology degree.
00:05:48
Speaker
Cool. I think I took one zoology class in grad school. Actually it was behavioral ecology, but I definitely really wanted to do. Yeah, it was fun zoology in general. Cause I've just always, obviously been really into animals, but I'm kind of bummed. I never liked it any.
00:06:03
Speaker
So I tell this all the time to people, but I mean, they know I took my elective science as astronomy because I thought it'd be cool to like no star stuff. If I wanted to do my an archeology, which was the dumbest decision I ever made in my life. So it was a lot of math and I should have just done to ology. Yeah. That was my big thing too. Astronomy rather than learning about stars, it's like physics. And I was like, man, this is not what I wanted. This is not the speed of light. So you want to touch frogs.
00:06:32
Speaker
See, I took conservation biology, like Biology 101, which was super interesting. There were aspects of it that I could definitely see myself studying in
Favorite Extinct Animal: Paraceratherium
00:06:41
Speaker
the future. I actually really wanted to get in those upper division courses, because that's where you got the dinosaurs and all that kind of stuff. But you really needed to build up the repertoire to get to there, because I'd probably be way over my head.
00:06:54
Speaker
Yeah. That's, that's the annoying thing about those types of electives is you don't really get to the good stuff for a few years. So you really have to build up for it. So if you don't have the opportunity, then yeah, I had a couple of classes like that too, for sure. Yeah. What's one that stands out to you? Yeah.
00:07:12
Speaker
I mean, my evolution classes, I built up to the paleontology classes. So my evolution classes were mainly focused on general mechanisms. While, you know, once I got into paleontology, it was like extinct animals. Let's talk about the different geologic time periods and everything.
00:07:29
Speaker
getting more specific into extinct animals, how vertebrates developed and everything, which is what I really wanted to learn about from the beginning. It took a few years to get there, and I'm so glad that I kept with it. It really can be just a slog. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of time and money to get
00:07:48
Speaker
to that point. I know probably all of us here, us anthropologists, archaeologists, got our senior level, junior level courses where we're like, okay, this is what I want to do. But before that, I have to do cultures of the whole world and all the cultural anthropology, which is interesting for some folks, but not so much for us strict archaeologist science folks, for sure. Did you have a favorite dinosaur?
00:08:12
Speaker
or favorite, I should say, favorite extinct mammal vertebrate. Favorite extinct vertebrate. I would probably say Paraceratherium. For the audience who doesn't know, including myself, what is that? That is a giant extinct rhino, a hornless rhino. They were the largest land mammals to ever exist.
00:08:35
Speaker
Yeah. So they kind of looked like a weird mix between an elephant and a giraffe and a rhino, but they were, I think they were 26 feet tall. And just the thought of that, when I found out about them, I just, I wanted to see that in person so bad and I still do, but they're, they're my favorite. Yeah. Huh. There's a big giant outline of one. Like, you know, those like statue, like flat ones at the museum of natural history, uh, in the vertebrate section or vertebrate praline salad. And it's like.
00:09:06
Speaker
I didn't really know. I thought, I think they were in the movie Ice Age and I remember seeing like, okay, I was familiar with that like form of creature, but then I like looked up at it and I was like, Oh my God. And yeah, it was like a rhino elephant with like a giraffe neck. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was to scale an ice age though. I don't think, cause if it was like really to scale this little like sloth thing, talking to like this 26 foot tall creature, I don't think they really would have done well.
00:09:34
Speaker
That's true. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess in like the theoretical, what kind of stuff do you learn in like those vertebrate or like paleontology classes? Cause it's a lot of stuff that you can't observe ancient animals in there, like natural habitats, but you can do the fossil. So like, how's that kind of work?
00:09:52
Speaker
My favorite paleontology class went into different processes of evolution in different groups of animals. So the development of specialized teeth or the development of mammals from synapsids. So kind of just going through those processes while also showing different extinct species along the way.
00:10:15
Speaker
My teacher was cool because she went into, you know, just different things that she knew we would be interested in. Like why whales got so big and kind of just would take these tangents in different class periods that didn't necessarily follow along the scale or the time periods. And so, you know, we, we initially started with the Cambrian animals and then kind of went through the different periods that way, but then would kind of go on these tangents and yeah. Yeah. So I didn't take any.
00:10:45
Speaker
geology classes so it's like that's stuff I really wish I know but I learned through like PBS eons and stuff like that you mentioned the whales like so why did whales ultimately get so big
00:10:58
Speaker
There are a couple different hypotheses. The one that I learned about in that class was focused on the end of an ice age. I can't remember the exact time frame of it, but it wasn't the most recent ice age. I want to say it was the one before then, that as all of that ice was kind of pouring into the ocean, it was bringing these
00:11:20
Speaker
minerals and nutrients from the land masses into the oceans, which made phytoplankton explode, which made zooplankton explode, which just became an all-you-can-eat buffet for whales. And so there were really no limits on their size, how big they could get because they didn't have gravity weighing down on them.
00:11:40
Speaker
Gotcha. Well, undergrad is so fun on the courses, but I guess kind of tying this all back together, Lindsay, what was the game plan after you got your degree?
Big Cats Career Plans and COVID-19 Impact
00:11:50
Speaker
You go to transfer to a different school, you're pursuing the zoology degree. Originally, what was the game plan post-grad?
00:11:57
Speaker
The original game plan was to work with big cats. And I did do that right after I graduated, but I graduated in 2020. So it was right, you know, in the middle of everything, which didn't give me a lot of job opportunities also because I wasn't really ready to leave home at that point with everything going on. So I found an internship in Minnesota at the wildcat sanctuary and I was there for six months and I was
00:12:26
Speaker
going to continue with animal care, with big cat care specifically. But I ended up getting hurt at that job. Not none of the animals hurt me. I just overworked myself and I still have a pretty bad back from it. So I'm taking a break from that for now and I'm hoping to kind of go more into evolution, paleontology, maybe in some educational aspect of it.
00:12:51
Speaker
Maybe eventually I'll go back to working with big cats, but I also realized that it was just a lot of work. And given that was my only experience in the US was in Minnesota where most of the work was, you know, preparing for the cold. So maybe it would be different elsewhere, but yeah, it was, it was pretty tough on my body.
00:13:13
Speaker
I can imagine big cats can get COVID, right? Like that's been a concern with zoos. Yes. Yeah. Some of the cats did get COVID when I was there. Yeah. We did a COVID test on one of the tigers. It was released to the public, the public knowledge.
00:13:29
Speaker
It was scary because we didn't know what it was at first. There was wheezing, there was coughing. We thought maybe it was moldy hay, which would have been worse because that could lead to neurological damage. But then we kind of determined that it was COVID after the test and just because of the symptoms. Luckily, none of them, you know, passed away. They all healed from it. But it was scary for sure. How does one give a tiger a COVID test?
00:13:59
Speaker
So the tiger that we gave the COVID test to already needed to be put under for a different reason. I honestly can't remember what it was. She just needed to be checked for something. So while she was, you know, passed out, we did the nostril test.
00:14:17
Speaker
Yeah. I was just envisioning in my head, like, you know, trying to stick like a stick up a tiger's nose. It's got to be an easy way to get hurt. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Would have been bad. Do we know if like, cause I wondered that too. And I don't think dogs can get it. I know one got it at some point. I don't know if it's like widespread, a gorilla got it, but do they lose their smell? I never like kind of looked into it.
00:14:42
Speaker
But I wonder if like a cat or like old dog kind of lost its smell. I don't be a bummer. Yeah. I don't know if there's any specific research on it, but I mean, of the cats that did get COVID at some point, pretty much all of them just lost their appetite. And so I don't know if it was because they couldn't smell it or taste it maybe, or just because they weren't feeling well, but that's all I really know about that aspect.
00:15:08
Speaker
I had this mental image of caretakers asking the survey questions to big cats. Like, can you taste your food? No. Can you smell anything? And just taking surveys from big cats. All right. Well, that's it for segment one. We'll be right back with segment two. And we're going to get into more of Lindsay's work with big cats because she's done some other stuff prior to being in Minnesota that we really want to dive into. So stay tuned. We'll be right back.
00:15:35
Speaker
We're back with episode 96 of a Life and Earns podcast. We're chatting with Lindsay Nicole, fellow TikToker. What do the kids say now? TikToker. Yeah. TikToker. Okay. I still feel worried about it myself, but you're really good at it. So now we're going to get into big cats and your experiences in Africa and at these different places. But I wanted to start off really quick. Tiger King. What are your thoughts on that? I didn't watch all of it. So I can't speak from, you know, what was actually presented. I heard plenty. So.
00:16:05
Speaker
The places represented or shown in Tiger King, aside from Carole Baskin Sanctuary, which is a whole different thing. The other places are the reason why I went to school to, you know, work with big cats was to rescue from places like that.
00:16:23
Speaker
When Tiger King first came out, before I had, you know, attempted to watch an episode and I just read what it was about, I knew right away that it was going to have horrendous
Tiger King Series and Big Cat Trade
00:16:33
Speaker
impacts on the big cat trade in the US. And it did, unfortunately. Really? Yeah. I think they went into it hoping to bring awareness to the big cat trade in some aspect and ended up focusing on the drama a little bit too much to where most of
00:16:52
Speaker
the audience watching it were not really paying attention to the message that was supposed to be there. There's been a huge increase in animals that need to be rescued from bobcats to tigers, especially in the Midwest, just because the laws there are different. It is completely legal in a lot of places, which is just terrible. And so sanctuaries right now are actually
00:17:16
Speaker
overflowing with cats because there's just not enough space. So one of my goals, like a big goal of mine, if I ever have the opportunity to do this, would be to open my own sanctuary just because we are in desperate need of another one in the US.
00:17:32
Speaker
like a good one. Yeah. So I live outside of Denver and there is the US Fish and Game repository for illegal animal trade down the road. And we got to visit it because I'm in a museum program as well. And the amount of big cat skins in that place was horrifying. And one of those facts that always stuck with me was the Rangers there were like, yeah, there are more
00:17:57
Speaker
tiger skins in this building than there are live tigers in the wild and kind of went through like most of the things that they that are from in that repository aren't people trying to smuggle them in. They're trying to smuggle them out because of these people that have big cats, especially in like Texas and Midwest ranches where they raise cats for people to shoot. And it was just like, what? And that has always
00:18:22
Speaker
I just can't get it out of my head. It was a room of death, and it was just crazy to see all the animal products that they had, and it was just so disheartening. On the lighter note, have you guys seen Ace Ventura Pet Detective?
00:18:40
Speaker
long time ago. Okay. Well, in one scene, he's like a big conservationist. He like walks into this guy's like hunting like his room and he has all like the mounts of just like all these different animals and stuff like this. And he just like, it's just him freaking out. And he's like, are you okay? He's like, no, this is a lovely room of death. Did you say pet detective or when nature calls? I think it's when nature calls. It's when nature calls. Yeah.
00:19:05
Speaker
That was the scene I was referencing and I was like, no one got that. But I saw it. Yeah. Anyways. That really bums me out. Cause I mean all of that does, but like even not remembering the Ace Ventura thing, but the like tiger King, I thought would have made more awareness cause I did see they passed some law that like was influenced by tiger King. That was like, you can't, it was some kind of trading thing. That was a positive law.
00:19:33
Speaker
I believe you're talking about the Big Cat Public Safety Act. Is that what it is? I haven't been keeping up with it. I know that it passed through the House of Representatives. I don't know which one comes first Senate or House of Representatives, but yeah. Okay. So that act was going to make it illegal to have free contact
00:19:55
Speaker
unless you have the credentials to do so. And that was supposed to protect the public from being attacked. That was the main public push, but it was also to prevent this trade in a commercial aspect because so many of these cats that are being bred are just used for pay-to-pet facilities.
00:20:22
Speaker
right yeah that's it's terrible like the doc antle guy like i see them post constant stuff with like chimpanzees on instagram you know it's like cute because they're putting you know a diaper on chimpanzee that's objectively cute but then like no like you shouldn't be doing that and then the guy's like in a pond with like a tiger and i'm like i don't know that one guy just got his armbit off at a zoo like yeah
00:20:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's a bummer. I have more on that, but we should be more positive here. But to the reputable places that you've worked at Lindsay moving on. So you've got to work at some really cool. So sorry, this is, this is us. You've got to work at some really cool places during your undergraduate experience. And so starting off with the Timothy wildlife center, how did you get one? I guess, where is it? And how'd you end up working
Internship with Cheetahs in Namibia
00:21:08
Speaker
there?
00:21:08
Speaker
So that is a wildlife center right outside of Corvallis, which is where Oregon State is. So a ton of the zoology students were volunteers there.
00:21:18
Speaker
That's how I heard about it. I think my counselor told me about it. So they just rescue and rehabilitate injured wildlife. So for Oregon, that was a lot of rations. There were a couple of bald eagles there, some owls, crows, any of the birds from around there, lots of birds.
00:21:40
Speaker
Which I wasn't really into at all. Because at that point I was only in school for big cats. I didn't care about anything else. And birds kind of scared me. They still do a little bit. I'm not a big bird person. It's for the birds. Get out of here.
00:21:57
Speaker
One of my most favorable moments when I first met David and this is related, we were reading the origin of species for class. I'll never forget. I was, I was bugging David in his office with like three other people and David just turned around his chair and goes, there's a lot of pigeons. Be warned about the pigeons and just like turned around. And for some reason that always just stuck with me. And then, yeah, the origin of species has a lot of pigeons in it. I was like, huh? He just, it's like,
00:22:22
Speaker
400 pages of him just being like, Hmm, with like different iterations of breeding pigeons. And then at the end he's like, think evolution might be a thing, but I also love pigeons.
00:22:33
Speaker
Anyway, it's worth the read, but sorry, we cut in. So you didn't like birds. No, you didn't prefer birds. We'll say that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I have one experience there. And again, when I went into zoology, I was essentially a blank slate. I didn't know a lot about anything.
00:22:53
Speaker
other than what the general public knows. My supervisor told me that I needed to go feed the great blue heron. I didn't know what that was. I was expecting a crow-sized bird. She told me to go prepare the food and go up to the room and go put the food in. It was a huge tub of sardines.
00:23:16
Speaker
And I was like, how big is this bird? I walk into the room that the heron is being held in and there's this huge sign that says, do not enter unless you put the goggles on. And I was like, what am I getting into right now? There's these like, you know, lab goggles. So I put those on. I'm like shaking with those goggles on and a huge tub of sardines. And I walk in.
00:23:46
Speaker
And this bird is just essentially suspended from this ledge that was like four feet in the air already. And so this thing was just towering above me and I just threw the bowl in and I left. I didn't even step foot in there. I threw it in and I was like, I'm not doing that again. Don't let me go in there again. I'm not doing it.
00:24:06
Speaker
Dude, I get it. Because one, it's like the pterodactyl dome in Jurassic Park 3. And then two, birds freak me out. Because the way a chicken walks with a pigeon in the city, it's like how a dinosaur would have walked. So that is my biggest fear, is going in just reeking a fish into a bird thing. You're trembling because there's a dinosaur in there. Yeah. What do you mean I need to put goggles on? It's going to poke my eyes out? Come on.
00:24:34
Speaker
They're like little pock marks on it from like people before. Was it probably for that or was it just like you didn't get fish in your eye? No, it was to make sure just in case the bird tried to poke your eyes.
00:24:53
Speaker
I will never look at a heron the same because like, I always think they're like majestic creatures out in the wild, like, you know, doing nice things, but they're, they're really eye murderers. Yeah. I mean, from a distance, you know, just observe from a distance. And you said it was, the task was to feed the big blue heron. So I'm now going to use that as a figure of speech when you got to do something you do not want to do.
00:25:17
Speaker
Back to cats. So that was it? Chim chimney? Chim chimney. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I'll let you continue from there. Cause I forget what to ask. Okay. So, all right. So that was a, that was like a spring gig going from January to June. So like, okay. And then the following year.
00:25:41
Speaker
You end up in Namibia? Namibia, yeah. Yes. Excellent. Working at the Cheetah Conservation Fund. So you finally, you got the Big Cat experience. So kind of along those same lines, what was that process? That's right before your junior year, right? Yes.
00:25:58
Speaker
Okay. So January to May, how'd you end up there? My school offered an internship abroad and I signed up right when I saw it. Luckily I got accepted. I was a little nervous that it was going to be a really competitive gig, but for some reason, nobody wanted to go there. And so they accepted me right away. I could not believe it. So the task was just
00:26:25
Speaker
experience working with cheetahs and dip your toes in ecology and just animal care in general. It was incredible. It was definitely the most life-changing experience that I've ever had. If I could be back there right now, I would. Awesome. Did you have to wear any special safety goggles with the cheetahs? Not with the cheetahs, no.
00:26:52
Speaker
So what were you doing? What kind of roles and responsibilities did you have at this? Was it an internship or a class? Yeah, I was an internship. So I was living there on site as the lead carnivore intern. So I started off as just an intern, but because I had that experience in South Africa when I was 18,
00:27:14
Speaker
I was, you know, fortunately a little bit ahead of everybody else.
Releasing a Rehabilitated Hyena
00:27:18
Speaker
And so because I already had experience working with carnivores, they put me in that lead position. So I was generally supervising meat prep, which for cheetahs is a little bit more difficult because they don't have the jaw strength to crush the bones. And so you have to take the small bones out because they cannot swallow them. It could, you know, harm them.
00:27:41
Speaker
That was the main thing, the supervising meat prep was making sure that there were no small boats left. I also got to sit in on some workups of muchida that came in. So, you know, just putting them under and measuring them, making sure they're healthy, making sure they don't have any illnesses going on or anything. And that was really cool to be a part of and to help my supervisors with. I also got to
00:28:05
Speaker
help release a hyena that we had been rehabilitating. That was definitely one of the highlights of my experience there was just watching the hyena just run back into the wild and disappear. It was incredible. But other than that, it was like I said, meat prep, feeding the cheetahs, making sure that they were solid, looking good every day,
00:28:31
Speaker
Where are you getting the meat from? Because I imagine you guys don't have a Walmart that you can go dumpster diving for expired meat like Joe Exotic. How are you feeding all these large carnivores out there? Most of the meat came from local farms. It was the old and retired horses and donkeys.
00:28:52
Speaker
So they would come, you know, intact. And then we would have to separate them, which was a huge ordeal and took a lot of people, especially for the horses. Luckily, you know, the, the initial part of that I didn't have to do as an intern. There were people that were hired to do that because you know, that's pretty traumatizing in a way, but
00:29:18
Speaker
I was involved in some aspects of it. Luckily, I have a solid stomach for that, so it wasn't really a big deal. So your cheetahs ran on literal horsepower? Oh my God. Nice one. That was a good one.
00:29:33
Speaker
It's a rite of passage in anthropology to like dissect and rip apart an animal. Cause you have to do it for some archeological class at some point or bio class. And I actually got to take apart a, I shouldn't say take a part D D flesh, I would say a mountain lion, which is pretty cool. Okay.
00:29:50
Speaker
It smelled very bad. The baboon was the worst one I ever deflushed, but yeah, it's like, sorry, you said like taking apart the horse. Like it's just like literally makes me think. I had immediate flashbacks to cutting out that bison with stone tools. And it was just, am I the only person who hasn't cut up like a huge animal? Hey man, if you want to cut up the next goat with Devin, be my guest.
00:30:12
Speaker
I don't know, man. I saw you almost puke 15 or so times, and it almost got me. For context, we were throwing this goat that we did experiment with. It was dead, but we did ballistics experiments and then cut it up with stone tools. But then we had to deflesh it and throw it in a domestic colony, and the people that we'd left it with put in a trash bag and an unventilated shaft.
00:30:33
Speaker
and let it rot there for four days, and I was stuck in a small room trying to... I'm gonna start gagging again, man. Okay, move it on. Yeah, it's not great. He actually will actually throw up, so you might want to turn your camera off, Carlton. On that note, I think we're gonna end this segment before Carlton loses all his marbles. This is episode 96 of the Life in the Ruins podcast. We'll be back.
00:31:01
Speaker
Welcome back to episode 96 of Live in Ruins podcast. We're again here with Lindsay Nicole from TikTok. In the interim, we've had more riveting discussions about dead things, but getting us back on topic. Lindsay, you mentioned the story about the hyena, which is awesome to me. One, what would be a great experience or memorable experience you could talk about? And then two, what is something you'd like to tell the world about taking care of big cats and stuff?
00:31:27
Speaker
I would say probably one of the coolest experiences was at the Wildcat Sanctuary. On one of my first days there, when I was getting a tour of all of the buildings, there were 120 cats there, from small little cats to the big cats. And I walked into this one building called Feline Meadows, which is where a lot of the tigers were.
00:31:52
Speaker
And this one Siberian tiger named Tarek would not stop looking at me and following me wherever I went. He just would not take his eyes off of me. And it was a little bit scary, but it was, you know, obviously he was just kind of interested in, you know, this new person he had never seen. But the supervisor I was with was pretty surprised by his behavior and, you know, was thinking maybe I looked like somebody that
00:32:19
Speaker
used to be in his life before he was rescued. But it was it was so cool. And then when I turned around to leave the building, I heard this huge boom, like against the cage. And I turned around and he's just on his hind legs just pressed against the fence. And because he was a Siberian tiger, he was, you know, 10 feet up there. And I was just looking up at him and he was just staring at me. And I was just
00:32:49
Speaker
I was speechless and I still, you know, I still can't wrap my head around the fact that I witnessed that, but that day when he was my favorite tiger and the day that I left and I, you know, my last day feeding him, I couldn't even like see him because of the tears in my eyes. I just fell in love with that tiger. I'm planning to get him tattooed on me, but yeah.
00:33:12
Speaker
That's awesome. I don't think I've seen a Siberian tiger. I've seen many Bengals. Yeah, I imagine they'd be huge. They don't look real at first. They don't look like real animals. They look like some sort of machine built by somebody to make a tiger look scary. They're really big.
00:33:28
Speaker
I always tell people when I give lectures, I'll talk about it on Instagram sometimes too, but like if there were, I mean, there is life on other planets for sure, but like if there was one that was similar to us or just in general, there is probably some cat-like creature there because they are just so efficient at doing what they do. Absolutely. Like night vision, claws, smell, like balance, it's crazy. Cats are nuts.
00:33:54
Speaker
Yeah. Man, you get to see that. That's kind of, did you ever find out why he was, I guess not into you a real word, but like why he liked to look at you? I guess he was one of those cat surveys like they do for cover. Why do you like him? He can't lose you so much. Um, left hand. Do you like her? Are you hungry? Yeah. I don't, I don't really know. I didn't really ever figure out why, but
00:34:21
Speaker
I, you know, I always told the group that I was feeding with, like, I'm feeding Taric.
Emotional Stories: Siberian Tiger, Tarek
00:34:27
Speaker
Nobody else is feeding Taric. Like, I got really attached to him. And so I think a lot of it just became, you know, obviously my attachment to him. But he was just a huge, lovey guy. I mean, I would never ever, ever trust any of the behavior on Tiger King.
00:34:48
Speaker
because at the end of the day, even though they're acting so loving with you and rubbing up against the fence and clearly wanting to be pet in some aspect, the thought of putting even a finger in,
00:35:01
Speaker
just, you know, with what has happened in the past. I mean, you can feel that power from them no matter what. So I don't, I don't understand how people can even get inside the enclosure with them because it's just the thought of sticking a hand that is terrifying to me. Yeah. Yeah. There's like that video I've seen on YouTube. It's dude, I have no idea what the context, but he's talking to the camera. He's with a big cat and there's another cat of a different species like stalking him and starts booking it.
00:35:27
Speaker
And like a third cat comes out of nowhere, like a middle linebacker and checks him out and deflects the stalking cat. And the dude's kind of weirded out by it, but I've just one of those things. It's like, you know, crocodile hunter, you watch him and he's really good about it, but there's times where he gets snuck up on it and you're like, man, Steve, come back to us.
00:35:49
Speaker
RFP taken too soon. Yeah. Yeah. It seems like you can get like a healthy respect. Like that's something that should be necessary as part of that because they are big murder machines. I mean, efficient murder machines. Right. Yeah. Yeah. They're Apex predators.
00:36:06
Speaker
Absolutely. I just think it's bonkers that you've had these experiences. Like I think it's just so awesome that you've been put. Like those are, you know, from one group of scientists to another, like we hear it from some folks like, yeah, being archeologists sounds cool, but you know, some of those experiences you guys in bio have with like living animals and just, as you mentioned, like the raw power that some of these big cats have and you're around it is just, that must be just absolutely amazing.
00:36:31
Speaker
I have another one that could blow your mind. So same place, it was in the winter months, so it was really cold. So at night we have to bring all of the cats inside and lock them inside because if they for some reason get stuck outside, they could freeze to death. One of the lions, Gino had neurological issues. So he would kind of just walk in circles and get stuck in it. And it was pretty much impossible to get him out of that. And it always happened outside.
00:36:56
Speaker
It was really late. We were trying to get him out of that circling, trying to get him walked inside the building. I was right up against the fence, and it was pitch black. It was at night. And I could just hear him circling from the distance, and we were just going, Gino, Gino, Gino. And then it went quiet for a little bit, but we kept going, Gino, Gino. And next thing I know,
00:37:17
Speaker
I feel his breath on my face and he's just roaring at me and it was so dark out that I couldn't see him but I could feel the warmth of his breath and the roaring was just ringing my ears and my heart dropped.
00:37:33
Speaker
And it was a terrifying experience just knowing if that fence wasn't there, I wouldn't be dead. But because it was also, you know, this is what I went to school for, it was also that adrenaline rush was just like, I love my job.
00:37:49
Speaker
I would have been wearing brown car heart pants the entire time I worked in that place because there's no way. I just wonder how many prehistoric folks in North America or South America had a smile-a-don or whatever do the same sort of thing. You get the little breath and then you're just, that's the last thing you feel in this world as this animal destroys you, eviscerates you. Yeah, that's a rare thing to be able to talk about then.
00:38:16
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You don't really have that experience. You just, that's just how you're done. I always ask this when people are with animals. Well, like do they have a distinct smell or like was this, could you smell his breath when he was roaring at you?
00:38:28
Speaker
Um, probably hey, I guess, but yeah, I mean, there was definitely a smell, but I wouldn't say it's distinct. It just, it just smelled warm. I don't know. It's the high sense. Yeah, no, no, it makes sense. Okay. Like a cat breath is always interesting to me, but it usually.
00:38:46
Speaker
kind of is like fishy because I guess that's what their food's made out of. Yeah. Or like canned cat food. Anyway. Well, I got one more question. Are their tongues really crazy too? Because they're like a domestic cat's roughness, but like on steroids, right? Yeah. Yeah. So it just looks like a giant domestic cat's tongue. They constantly groom themselves too. And that's really loud just because of how big their tongue is in those bristles.
00:39:15
Speaker
Like the fur is loud or like the licking sounds loud? The licking sound is loud. Interesting. There are things you never think you hear. For sure. So obviously you are a TikTok personality. That's why we invited you on and how we know about you.
00:39:35
Speaker
What are some positives and negative things that you see as being part of a TikTok community and being a creator?
Being a TikTok Creator: Positives and Negatives
00:39:44
Speaker
Yeah, totally. Finding this community of people who are super interested in animals and sometimes know a lot more about a subject than I do.
00:39:54
Speaker
end up teaching me something is really amazing. Just seeing that fascination and people seeing, I'm so glad you did a video on this or you just made this make so much sense to me is definitely my favorite part about it. It's just helping people learn in a way that works for them. The negatives
00:40:15
Speaker
I would say are just the types of hate that can come from people expecting to be just another anonymous comment in the comment section. And the reality is there's tons of those, but I could open my app at any time and that could be the first comment that I see in my notifications. When I first started making videos on TikTok, I was never expecting them to get as big as they are now.
00:40:42
Speaker
I was just expecting to get 1000 views max on videos. And the first time that one of my videos went viral, right when it started hitting like 600K, even before then I started noticing that those hate comments started pouring in just because they expect to get lost in.
00:41:04
Speaker
everything else going on. And I wasn't really prepared for it. And it hurts. And I started thinking, I can't stop this. This video just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I want it to stop. But as time has gone on and I've gotten kind of used to it, I've gotten big skin, it doesn't bug me anymore. But I wasn't expecting to deal with this because I was never expecting to get this big.
00:41:28
Speaker
It was an adjustment, but the good definitely outweighs the bad. So good. Yeah, that is something I didn't.
00:41:36
Speaker
anticipate either and like is it more like for you is like anti-evolution stuff or is it hate like against you personally like ad hominem or just like it's both i mean a lot of it is on the evolution videos some of it is because i'm a woman they they don't trust what i'm saying because i'm a woman a lot of it too is because i'm gay and so i actually just saw a comment today that said it looks like you're having a great time and then i remember that you're a lesbian and you're going to hell it's like okay okay
00:42:05
Speaker
Yeah, I wasn't gonna ask if that was specifically why but I wondered. That's something I've run into with creators too. It's like there's a definite like our friend Ella put a video on TikTok and she got like absolutely just ripped apart for just making a point and it's like a bummer because like it's a vastly different experience for a man and a woman on social media and that really pisses me off.
00:42:28
Speaker
It was replying to a pseudo-archaeologist too. She was just saying, this is wrong, this is why, this is my background. She got absolutely eviscerated in the comments and she ended up deleting it. I'm not doing this. That's a bummer. What keeps you going? What was that first inspiration to do the TikToks? What compelled you to do it and what keeps you going?
00:42:51
Speaker
So I joined TikTok in July of 2020, so about a month after I graduated. I was so bummed that not only I graduated during the pandemic, but I also was about to stop
00:43:06
Speaker
this amazing process of learning. And I had all this information. I didn't have a job yet to reject that information to anybody else. The people I was quarantined with, I think were a little bit sick of it. And they told me to get on TikTok and start making videos, because I had all this information. So that was why I did it. Why I keep doing it is, I mean, like I said, when people tell me that I explained something in a way that finally made sense to them,
00:43:33
Speaker
that is my favorite thing ever. I love that I've been able to somewhat create this community in the comment sections of people connecting in different ways about different topics and just educating, just getting people aware of different topics, especially evolution. There's a lot of the comments on there, the positive comments are, I wasn't taught this in school or I am not being taught this in school and so thank you for providing this for me and I love that.
00:44:03
Speaker
Yeah. Awesome. We had, I mean, it was Isaac, but we had Zeke Darwin on the other day too. Like he teaches in rural Kansas, not rural, but next to Westboro Baptist church. Yeah. Yeah. And like as a teacher during the day and then on Tik TOK, it's just the evolution comments are crazy. I haven't gotten so many, like evolution is wrong. I get like a few. There's always going to be like, what are you going to do? But like,
00:44:27
Speaker
I agree. Like I haven't really talked to somebody with that same experience where like when somebody says, I never thought of it that way. Holy shit. And like, yeah, like just evolution isn't taught very well in schools if it is taught. So like people just have no idea. And then they just think it's like that linear for my monkey to a person that's just like not
00:44:50
Speaker
Right. And it's taught in a way that just removes the magic of it, I think. I think I was taught the perfect way in college by the professors I had. I was just constantly thinking about, you know, extinct animals and different species that used to exist and how things have changed over time.
00:45:10
Speaker
And I think generally, especially in high school and stuff, evolution is just, you know, gotta make the flashcards, gotta get the vocab down, like, gotta get everything right on the test and then just let it go. As is everything in high school. But just being taught the right way just makes you think about the world differently and ecosystems and, you know, species diversity differently. And it's an incredible thing to kind of open your mind up to.
00:45:39
Speaker
Yeah.
Importance of Teaching Evolution
00:45:40
Speaker
I think Carlton and Connor can speak to this too, but in grad school and like arc theory or cultural theory, like you're taught, like you have different lenses that you put on to like look at different, you know, to view science different ways. And like an evolutionary way of looking at things is a certain, like once you understand that, like the whole world makes a lot of sense. Like it's, it's like the animal kingdom specifically and like bugs and.
00:46:07
Speaker
Yeah. It just bums me out that people just don't want, not that they don't get it or that they don't want to know about it, but that people don't get it. Like how cool it is. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. Even if we take man or humans out of the, the story, like that story is still super, super interesting. You know, I think it's like if just, just the story of how things go from, you know, dinosaurs to
00:46:33
Speaker
even even closer to us like I know some of your videos on like recent megafauna in South America stuff it's just really it's really interesting and it's it's sad that it's become this buzzword this negative topic that no one wants to teach because like you said it is it's absolutely fascinating I guess as we wrap up here what
00:46:54
Speaker
I don't wanna ask you like four questions, but I'll put it this way. If there's something you'd like to tell the world either about, like what do you wanna do with your TikTok? Oh, it's something about big cats or just anything like that. Like what would you just like to say? Oh man, I guess I would say just respects the power that animals have, that ecosystems have, that this whole entire planet has in the process of natural selection and understands that there's a much bigger purpose than
00:47:24
Speaker
and you are part of a very big purpose.
00:47:29
Speaker
That's a really good way to put it. That's a great way to end it. Yeah. Thank you, Lindsay. So before we close out the show, what are a couple sources, these could be books, articles, videos, et cetera, that you would recommend for anyone interested in zoology or the topics that we talked about tonight? Yeah.
Recommended Resources
00:47:43
Speaker
I am actually only just starting to read Charles Darwin's Origin of Species. So I'm recommending that just as a baseline of, you know, if you're just learning about it, why not read the ideas of really the first person that published ideas of it.
00:47:58
Speaker
I would also recommend my octopus teacher on Netflix. It's pretty educational, but I think it also just really has that magic of respecting ecosystems and understanding the bigger, you know, mechanism of this, the way that the main guy talks about his experience, you know, interacting with this octopus is just incredible. So I would recommend that as well.
00:48:25
Speaker
that documentary thing, like my friends that made him cry for like at least a week. It was, that was deep. Definitely better than the puff, the puffer fish thing. Definitely not the same. Where can people find you? Yeah. You can find me on tiktok at Lindsay Nicole, L I N D S A Y N I K O L E on Instagram with the same spelling, but it's Lindsay underscore Nicole.
00:48:52
Speaker
Awesome. I think we're friends on Instagram too. Very cool. Did I also see that you have a coloring book out? I do. I made a deep sea coloring book. It has 20 different deep sea specimens with tons of space to create a whole environment around them, as well as handwritten informational messages about each species, where you find them, cool different qualities about them, all wrapped up in a coloring book.
00:49:17
Speaker
Cool. And you will be able to find that link to that stuff. TikTok or Instagram in the show notes. So we will have that there. Once again, thank you so much for joining us.
Choosing Big Cats Again
00:49:26
Speaker
And because we are a life in ruins, we usually ask the question, would you still choose to live a life in ruins? And this time I actually prepared ahead of time to ask a question that's more relevant to you because our producer told me last time that I sound like train wreck. So.
00:49:41
Speaker
Lindsey, so if given a chance again, would you still choose to live a life studying big cats and making besties with Siberian Tigers?
00:49:51
Speaker
Absolutely. Excellent. Well, everyone, we just interviewed Lindsay Nicole. You can find her on TikTok and Instagram at Lindsay Nicole on TikTok and at Lindsay underscore Nicole on Instagram. You can find all those in the show notes down below. I just Amazon one click impulse bought her coloring book as you were talking. So I think you guys should too. I'll put a picture, put on my Instagram guys. Also, I say this every time to the audience. Some of you actually got into our DMS and said, no, my DMS and said,
00:50:21
Speaker
that you did write and review the podcast. You guys are true kings, the three of you that did it, and I think there was a queen in there, too. Either way, great people is what I'm trying to say. We don't need to put any genders on it, but keep doing that. We're gonna review the podcast. It'd be great for us. Just please do it, and I will send you a sticker if you do it. That seems to incentivize people.
00:50:40
Speaker
And to the folks that did leave reviews on iTunes, we have no way to figure out your address. Can you please email us at life and ruins podcast at gmail.com so we can fulfill David's spur of the moment guarantee of receiving stickers. I don't want to buy stamps, guys, but I'll send more. Lindsay, it's been great. This is actually one of my favorite episodes, I think. I got a loaner. Thank you so much for having me. And with that, we are out.
00:51:12
Speaker
Thanks for listening to a life in ruins podcast. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at a life in ruins podcast. And you can also email us at a life in ruins podcast at gmail.com. And remember, make sure to bring your archaeologists in from the cold and feed them beer. Well, it's that time, everyone. For Connor's closer joke, Connor, what do you have for us today? So I wrote this myself, so it's going to be terrible.
00:51:42
Speaker
But it is biology related and archaeology related, so... So an archaeologist is walking in a field and trips over a mound of dirt and unfortunately falls and breaks his neck. Passes away. RIP. Very sad. It doesn't normally happen in the field. It's just a joke. Let me have it. His co-workers want justice and ultimately find the animal that created the mound and arrested. What did they charge the animal with?
00:52:37
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Culturo Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Rachel Rodin. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.
00:52:41
Speaker
Involuntary manslaughter.