Who foots the bill for forest fires? One expert argues there's a simple way to save taxpayer money

Guests: Jim Rook, Glenn McGillivray, Ed Struzik

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VOICE 1: Wild fires continue to burn in Northern Ontario, with crews working to bring more than a dozen under control.

VOICE 2: Order into the B.C. interior lightning strikes sparked 300 new fires and triggered an evacuation.

VOICE 3: Flames devoured seaside resort towns along Greece's eastern coast.

VOICE 4: It's almost like a tornado with fire in it and it wiped out our house.

MW: That woman's house was in the path of one of the dozens of major wildfires burning in Northern California. Fire has killed six people and destroyed more than 1000 homes in the U.S. state. And earlier this week California's Governor Jerry Brown warned about the financial toll fires take.

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So far this fire activity is a small part of our very large budget but it is a growing part and it will continue to grow as we adapt to the changing weather.

MW: We're going to hear more about what governments can do to deal with the flaring financial toll fires are taking. But first wildfires continue to burn across Canada, officials say almost 400 wildfires have started in B.C. since Tuesday along with an alarming number of lightning strikes and more expected today. And hundreds of people have been evacuated in Ontario. Huge areas that are blanketed in thick smoke as 148 active fires burn across the province. The biggest fire in Ontario is dubbed Parry Sound 33. And Jim Rook knows it well. He's a councillor and community emergency management coordinator for the municipality of Killarney. And Jim Rook is in the village of Killarney today. Hello.

JIM ROOK: Hi. How are you doing?

MW: Fine. I gather you're in a hotel this morning not at home.

JIM ROOK: Yes I am one of the evacuees. And I evacuated to the village of Killarney which is west of the fire by about 70 kilometers.

MW: How long have you been there for?

JIM ROOK: I've been here for three days. But the evacuations started two weeks ago on the Key River.

MW: How much time did you have to pack up?

JIM ROOK: Well we gave everybody two hour notice. But they were pretty soft about it. So we took about four hours to get everybody out.

MW: And you yourself of course had to pack up. Tell me about that. What did you have to take?

JIM ROOK: Well we wanted to save the computers and you know obviously some clothes and personal items. And we tried to take the stuff we knew that the insurance wouldn't cover, so we fired it all in the truck and a car and got out of there.

MW: So that can't be easy, especially I guess you don't know how long you're going to be out of your home, is that right?

JIM ROOK: At this point it's not determined when we'll all be allowed back. But you know for me I mean I know we're going to make it back. It was pretty difficult when I had to talk to some our elderly folks who were very concerned that they would never be getting back. So you know it's a pretty tough emotional experience.

MW: Yeah I'm sure. Now you're from Hartley Bay is that right?

JIM ROOK: That's correct.

MW: Yeah I actually was just up there a couple of weeks ago kayaking. A beautiful part of the world and that has sort of cottages. But some of them are quite remote. How are cottagers faring? I mean have some of them had to leave or what's happening there?

JIM ROOK: Like you said two weeks ago the area along the Key was evacuated and the OPP and MRF did a great job. I mean at some points the smoke was so thick going down the Key River they had to use GPS to get the folks out. Everybody got out of there safely about 90 people. And the next day the park and OPP and MRF got out on that river, the French River and the French River park. We got everybody out: campers, cottagers, and any visitors at the lodges, fishermen. They were all out by the end of the day that Saturday. They did a great job.

MW: So it went fairly smoothly did it?

JIM ROOK: It went really smoothly and our business operators really pitched in and got the cars for the people and rushed them out of there as best they could. And I thought everybody worked as a team. It was great. And we only had one casualty; one motor got busted by the OPP. No people were hurt or injured. So that's great.

MW: Yeah. So how big is the fire?

JIM ROOK: Well the fire as of yesterday was about eleven thousand one hundred hectors, which is about a 100 square kilometers. It stretches from the south of the Key River, a little bit to the west over to Georgian Bay up to the south shore of the French River and Pickerel River and then over towards Highway 69. A huge area.

MW: I don't know if it's still this large, but I read like 10000 hectors something like that.

JIM ROOK: Well yesterday it was reported that around eleven thousand one hundred. Although the good news is that you know we haven't had a new spot-fires started up anywhere. And in some areas along the north, which would be the Pickerel River area and northeast over by the highway, they've been able to actually push it back a little bit. Which is great news considering the weather is not conducive to fighting fires. It's so dry right.

MW: Yeah. Now you're a councillor and your wife is a mayor. What kind of financial toll could this fire have on the town's budget?

JIM ROOK: Well of course our budget to put it in perspective is like 2.4 million dollars. So you know it would be one percent, twenty four thousand dollars. I mean it's going to have a big big toll on our budgets. And of course you know we don't have that many [inaudible]. We've 935 people total in the whole, 1768 square kilometers. Right.

MW: Are you going to have to raise taxes?

JIM ROOK: Well hopefully we're going to get some financial help from somewhere, even if we have to ask all of the 200000 visitors we host every year to throw in two bucks or something. We'll do anything we can to try hold the taxes down. We haven't heard of any assistance being sent our way. So I don't know. I can't answer that question.

MW: Alright. Thanks very much for speaking with me today.

JIM ROOK: You're welcome. Have a good day.

MW: You too. I've been speaking with Jim Rook who is a councillor and community emergency management coordinator for the municipality of Killarney. And we reached him today in the village of Killarney. Like smoke from the fires themselves, the cost governments dealing with wildfires just keep rising. My next guest has a proposition for dealing with that however. Glenn McGillivray is the managing director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction. And he's on the line from Wasaga Beach, Ontario. Hello.

GLENN MCGILLIVRAY: Good morning.

MW: Good morning. How much are governments in Canada spending to fight forest fires these days?

GLENN MCGILLIVRAY: Well it's really not uncommon to have a billion dollar year in Canada, when you add all the provinces and territories. And we've had several billion dollar years over the last while and it's getting more and more common I think.

MW: Yeah and certain provinces obviously have been harder hit. What about B.C.?

GLENN MCGILLIVRAY: Right. I mean last year alone, B.C. spent over five hundred and sixty million dollars on wildfire suppression. That's a huge number.

MW: Now you know I was just speaking with Jim Rook from this small community and the idea perhaps having to raise tax or he's waiting for government help. Like what level of government is responsible for paying for fighting forest fires?

GLENN MCGILLIVRAY: Well for the most part it's the provinces. The British North America Act gives the provinces responsibility for certain things like natural resources and things of that nature. So it's largely the provinces. In the case of national parks it would be the federal government. But fire encroaches in the municipalities and local areas as well. So local governments often have other first responders in there too. So it's all levels of government but mostly the provinces and to some extent the federal government.

MW: So what should these governments be doing to address the rising cost?

GLENN MCGILLIVRAY: Well I think we really have to think of things a little bit more innovatively. We can't keep doing the same old-same old. And in Canada the same old-same old basically is that taxpayers pick up the bill for fire suppression. Which is understandable. We've been doing that for decades, but there's a way in which we can pass these expenses or at least part of them off to the private insurance or reinsurance sector. The state of Oregon has been doing it for 40 years.

MW: Tell me about that. What are they doing?

GLENN MCGILLIVRAY: So for four decades now Oregon has been buying a special reinsurance coverage cover off of Lloyd's of London and this cover basically will put a ceiling on bargains while firefighting expenses. So Oregon picks up the first 50 million dollars of their fire suppression costs. And then if those costs go over 50 million Lloyd's of London will pay the next 25 million. And that seems to hold very well for Oregon. They're very happy with that agreement.

MW: And I guess that gives them a predictability of what their budget is going to be. I mean how often though do the costs of a forest fire go above 75 million?

GLENN MCGILLIVRAY: Yeah it's very rare, so that you know 50 million plus the twenty five, suits Oregon very very well. I mean all you have to do really is analyze the numbers over a number of years and find out you know where their average expenses are, where their exceptional expenses are, and then you can kind of figure out how the agreement can be structured and so Oregon has done that. And they're quite happy with that Lloyd's picking up the extra 25 million in the case of bad years.

MW: Right, now I understand Alberta has cancelled its forest fire insurance.

GLENN MCGILLIVRAY: Well this was done many years ago, so we have to qualify that by saying it's probably a 20 year old agreement. But they did basically what Oregon did but they only left the cover in place for about a year or two. And then they canceled it. And we think for political reasons but there's no reason why places like B.C. and Alberta and other places can revisit it and do it again. The global reinsurance sector and the Canadian reinsurance sector is very open to this. I've talked to many people about it. They have the expertise. They have the capital. And all we need is political will.

MW: Apart from you know just getting rid of paying premiums each year. Is there any good reason why Alberta would have cancelled its insurance?

GLENN MCGILLIVRAY: Well the speculation is, and I mean this is an old agreement and some of the players aren't around anymore, but speculation is that after the province got the money from the reinsurers, so the coverage did pay out in the province's favour, they decided to take the money and run. I think perhaps with the anticipation that maybe the next year wouldn't be so favorable which was hard to say. But you know the best thing about reinsurance agreements is that they work really well when they're in place for many many years because when they're in place for many many years both sides will benefit over a period of time.

MW: Right. So how receptive are governments to the idea of this kind of insurance?

GLENN MCGILLIVRAY: Well I haven't heard any new ramblings about it. I don't think a lot of people really know about it to tell you the truth. But some provinces in the country are looking at various ways, not just on the wildfire side but various ways, to kind of pass these newfound expenses onto the backs of reinsurers and I think this will hopefully come up and then hopefully today's discussion will get some people thinking about you know revisiting this whole question.

MW: Okay thanks very much for speaking with me today.

GLENN MCGILLIVRAY: Thank you.

MW: I've been speaking with Glenn McGillivray who is the managing director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction. And we reached him in Wasaga Beach, Ontario. Insurance may be one idea for tackling the costs of wildfires. But my next guest says we need to get more creative about preventing and managing fires. Ed Struzik is a fellow at the Queen's Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy. He's also the author of Firestorm: How Wildfire Will Shape Our Future. He's in our Edmonton studio. Good morning.

ED STRUZIK: Good morning.

MW: So what do you think of Glenn McGillivray's idea that forest fire insurance for governments is one way to two hedge the problem or hedge fire.

ED STRUZIK: I think we need to consider everything. We've got to be creative. I don't know enough about insurance but Glenn's very credible. And if Oregon is doing it it's probably worth looking at here in Canada.

MW: Why is the cost of fighting forest fires rising?

ED STRUZIK: Well we're just seeing a lot more fires that are burning more often, more intensely, and closer to areas where we have to fight them. So the resources that we have are fairly tapped out nowadays.

MW: Now fires are burning in Ontario, B.C., around the world, Sweden even, and it's only early August. How unusual is this level of activity right now?

ED STRUZIK: Well 10 years ago-15 years ago it was very unusual but it's now really the new normal. And I think you know we only have to look at California, where you know in the past five days they had 900 calls for engines that went unanswered. And my fear is that California may be our future.

MW: Wow. One of the ways governments have tried to address the cost is by taking individuals responsible to court to try and recoup some of the expenses. And in Oregon, for example, earlier this year courts ordered a 15 year old to pay almost 37 million dollars for starting a wildfire there. What do you think about this tactic?

ED STRUZIK: I don't think that's going to pay off. I think what we really need to do is address the fact that we're using decades old tools to fight fires and manage fires and we've got to invest in new ones.

MW: Now can you tell me a little bit about those? You know I've been reading recently about the concept of defensible space around houses, like what are some of the ways in which we can stop the damage done by fires?

ED STRUZIK: Well that's one of them, but I think you know we need computer generated maps that better identify high risk sites so that we can move resources in more quickly. You know real time responses to fire, smoke projection maps, which identify if firefighters are in harm's way and also smoke projection maps that will tell communities that might be in the path of that smoke, that take precautions. You know stay indoors. There are all kinds of things, you know unmanned aircraft and drones that would help firefighters deal with fires. The list is really a long one.

MW: And how effective are governments implementing these sorts of techniques to prevent and lower costs on fires?

ED STRUZIK: Well they're not. You know the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council which is a major funding agency in Canada still has not identified wildfire as a priority. And that has got to change. Because if the major funding agencies aren't addressing this then all of the research that needs to be done is going to be left undone or being done by university students, PhD students, you know with very little resources.

MW: Why do you think there's such resistance to implementing these things? Or why we're so slow to do it?

ED STRUZIK: Well I think here in Canada is that we've just been lucky. You know we haven't had the deadly fires that Portugal has had. And I might add that following those deadly fires Portugal decided to invest 25 million dollars in the kind of things that I'm talking about. And I'm afraid that you know it's just going to take a fatal fire like fire that killed hundreds possibly thousands of people as Fort McMurray might have done to get the attention of politicians. And I really don't understand why they got their blinders on.

MW: Now if you had to recommend to a government to lower costs in the long term, what would be at the top of your list?

ED STRUZIK: Well I would say you know let's restore funding for the Canadian Forest Service back to 1990 levels. There were 2200 people working for them back then. There are only 700 now. And of that 700 I think only about a dozen work on wildfire science. So we have a decreasing resource to be able to deal with an accelerating problem. That's one of them and I would think the provinces you know they haven't picked up the slack. And you know Alberta has one wildfire scientist, we need more. We need the provinces to partner up with universities and invest more in the research that's going on there. There's a long list of things that we could be doing that we're just not doing.

MW: Is this something that should be shifted more to the federal government? I mean is this something that requires a sort of national policy as opposed to provinces dealing with it on their own?

ED STRUZIK: Yeah well I think you know that the provinces are responsible for fighting fires. And the territories. They have to work in tandem. So you know the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers back in 2004 following the Kelowna fires where there were mass evacuations. And a commission report that made a whole bunch of recommendations about how to move forward to both the provinces and the federal government, and most of those recommendations have not been implemented. And they still are valid today and all they need to do is look at the report and act on them.

MW: Okay so it has been a bad forest fire season so far this summer. How do you predict the rest of the summer is going to go?

ED STRUZIK: Who knows? I mean predicting weather as we all know is a gambler's game. But I suspect that you know we're heading you know holistically towards a year round fire season, maybe not here in Canada but you know we're getting closer to it. We had some very serious fires last year in September. California last year had fires at Christmas time, that went into the new year. The fire season is going to be extended as we move forward and I don't think that we can ignore that.

MW: Okay, thanks very much for speaking with me this morning.

ED STRUZIK: Thank you.

MW: I've been talking with Ed Struzik who is a fellow at the Queen's Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy. He's also the author of Firestorm: How Wildfire Will Shape Our Future. He was in our Edmonton studio. The CBC News is next. Then, for Rohingya refugees who fled violence in Myanmar for refugee camps in Bangladesh, there are new threats on the horizon. Monsoons and cyclones. After the news, an innovative initiative to prepare for the worst. I'm Megan Williams and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

Rohingya refugees 'very scared' as monsoon season approaches in Bangladesh

Guests: Kaamil Ahmed, Harun al Rashid

MW: Hello, I'm Megan Williams and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current. It's one of the most divisive questions among pet owners, which species is smarter, cats or dogs? And it turns out science may now have an answer. In half an hour from now we'll hear from a researcher who will give us the goods on who has more brain power. You're just going to have to sit for the answer. We're also revisiting our conversation with the people behind a new documentary film on competitive cat shows, cats and dogs coming up. But first, to Bangladesh.

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[Rain sounds]

MW: The sound of monsoon season in Bangladesh. The country is one of the most disaster prone in the world. Rains like these are a big part of the reason. And for the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees now living in camps in Bangladesh, the rains can be particularly devastating.

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My name is Shah Miah. I'm 55 years old. I'm from Maungdaw. [Indistinct chatter] We use this thing here. We just got some bamboos and over there we made a hut for my daughter. And this is my house. Already my daughter's house lost so much by the landslide. By the mudslide. But my house is stood like this. We do not prepare for the monsoon and we don't have anything to prepare with.

MW: Shah Miah is one of the more than 600000 Rohingya refugees who fled persecution and violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state and ended up here in a camp in the coastal Bangladeshi community of Cox's Bazar. And while people like Shah Miah may no longer be vulnerable to violence, they are vulnerable to natural disaster. Which is why a number of aid agencies are now arming camp residents with skills that they'll need to help their neighbours when the storm comes.

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[Indistinct noise]

MW: That's a disaster preparedness training session in Cox's Bazar earlier this summer. Hundreds of families gathered to watch as refugee camp volunteers ran through communication and first response drills. The training was overseen by Bangladesh's Cyclone Preparedness Programme, one of the world's most highly regarded and successful disaster response strategies. CPP was founded in the aftermath of one of the country's worst natural disasters, a cyclone that killed roughly 300000 people in 1970. We'll hear more about CPP and its work when we meet one of its founders. But first Kaamil Ahmed is a freelance journalist who has been covering the Rohingya crisis from Bangladesh. He has just returned from a reporting trip there that took him into a number of the refugee camps. Kaamil Ahmed is in our studio in London, England. Hello.

KAAMIL AHMED: Hi, Megan how are you?

MW: Hi, fine thanks. In a piece you published earlier this year you describe standing on some high ground in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox's Bazar looking east towards Myanmar. Tell me what you saw?

KAAMIL AHMED: What you see is quite a green undisturbed landscape. Despite all of the violence that's there. The villages are not undisturbed. The natural environment has not really been damaged in the way that when you look around you, at the Bangladeshi refugee camps which existed before but have multiplied in size now one of them Kutupalong is now the biggest refugee camp in the world by more than double, you see there everything green has gone. Instead you have this basically a city of bamboo and tarpaulin tents. There's no point where you can see all of the camps. Your vision doesn't extend that far. The camps take up the whole, they fill your vision.

MW: So a vast extension of as you say bamboo and tarp structures, and what does that look like as you're looking out into the horizon?

KAAMIL AHMED: It's like everything has been kind of drawn out of that landscape. It was a forest. It was an environment for elephants. It was very green undisturbed basically exactly the same as the vision you saw in Myanmar before. The separation between the two places is quite a small river. What you see now is, land stripped of every single tree and the roots because people have had to clear spaces to settle in it and then they've had to use the trees for fuel because they have nothing to cook with. And it's just the kind of very barren uniform in a way. In a way uniform you have all of these tents that are roughly the same but also very haphazardly distributed. Some on top of hills. Some in valleys. And paddy fields. And canals. Others somehow strapped to the edge of hills.

MW: Is there any infrastructure? I mean do you see roads and pathways?

KAAMIL AHMED: You have for one there's a road, which goes basically along the border in that area. So it's kind of a one lane each way road that existed before. It's how people commute and get between Cox's Bazar town and other parts of the district. And then you have a new road that the army has built within the camps, because as I said they've grown in about four or five times in size, so that aid is able to reach all corners. Other than that you have these natural pathways that have formed from that follow hills and the follow the valleys between the hills. Which are basically just the paths people have made for themselves in terms of getting from their shelter to pick up their aid.

MW: Now we don't have a sense of how long these people are going to be living there. So are there services? I mean are there schools and mosques or health care centres?

KAAMIL AHMED: There's a limited. I mean one thing you have to remember is the first big influx was in 1978. The second was in 1992. There were smaller influxes in between. And there are some services from 1992 but there's no indication that there will be a significant increase on the limits on the services that did exist from 1992, which was children are only really allowed to study until about 10 years old. There's restriction on Rohingya moving beyond the camps. Since this influx that started in August 2017, they have more services than there were previously. There are basic schools. And you have medical clinics. You have mosques that provide some kind of services. And Madrassas so like religious schools that have been set up with private funding usually. So there are services that have been put in to try to handle this load. But the latest counts are now that, there are 1 million refugees living along the whole kind of strip of camps and they definitely don't do much more than provide the basics.

MW: Now you were reporting on Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh back in 2015 and then you took a break for a couple of years. When you came back, how had the camps changed in that time between your reporting trips?

KAAMIL AHMED: The situation previously was kind of very unstructured. The government wasn't keen to have too much international involvement. It restricted access to the camps and the access of aid groups. So actually there were a lot of dangers and really a lack of structure before. And a lack of information about what was really happening there. Having said that even though now you have far more services, the whole international humanitarian community is present in Bangladesh now and you have schools and learning centers and health clinics, it's just so many more people in a really cramped living space. The tents are on top of each other. As I said some of these tents, Shah Miah who we heard from at the beginning his daughter's tent was completely wiped out by a landslide, but his one is kind of I'm not really sure how it is where it is. The incline is almost completely vertical where the landslide happened and somehow his tent they have chipped away at the hill to create a bit of a platform. But I mean just for me to get up it, it was really difficult.

MW: Right, you mentioned that trees have been cut. And roots have been ripped out, which of course are the natural barriers against downpours of water. For listeners who haven't experienced a monsoon can you tell us what those rains are like?

KAAMIL AHMED: In the rest of Bangladesh it is actually not the worst time. There are challenges and there's flooding. And Bangladesh is quite prone to flooding but generally it's a cooling period.

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[Children talking]

KAAMIL AHMED: In a way you even see that in the Rohingya refugee camps with the children, who are quite excited. It's the most tolerable weather they've had for a long time. They get to go out and get muddy. The World Cup effect is still there, so a lot of kids are playing football in like knee deep water. But for parents who have far more concerns, it's very sullen. Very gloomy, especially when the rain is heavy. A lot of people said what they do is they kind of take a corner of their shelter, sit there, gather everyone around and kind of pray. One of the big concerns in their minds, during those moments, is how long is it going to rain for? A short heavy downpour is okay. But if it's a long downpour, that's when the real problems start to emerge especially for those people who do live in landslide prone areas. That's when the hill starts to get saturated. And in the little valleys near streams when they do start to fill up and suddenly your house is, your shelter is flooding. Even though a lot of people have tried to at least some kind of, they've dug up the mud around their homes and created a mud wall. Just to protect it. Just to stop.

MW: The onslaught of water.

KAAMIL AHMED: And to stop the water coming in underneath the tent.

MW: I mean what is the danger that people fear the most?

KAAMIL AHMED: The one everyone has spoken about is the cyclone. One cyclone season has passed. Bangladesh has two cyclone seasons. And that's where there's a lot more danger because the houses are weak, the infrastructure is weak, and there's nowhere for them to go in those situations. There is not an evacuation plan because there's no where to evacuate them to. There's no space. Everyone is living way too close to each other. And the existing cyclone shelters for the local community, are already overwhelmed.

MW: What about the mosques? Or health centres? I mean are there any structures in the camps that offer safety?

KAAMIL AHMED: From what I can understand, through really asking a lot of people is, yes they have fortified mosques and schools and other communal areas but it hasn't been done equally everywhere. I was in a school which is funded by UNICEF, and in normal rains they had to have buckets everywhere to stop the leaks. So in a cyclone, I'm not sure that UNICEF funded school is going to be able to protect people.

MW: Right. Now you were on the ground through a couple of landslides last weekend. What did you hear from residents about those?

KAAMIL AHMED: It's kind of very confusing for them because they don't know what they're supposed to do. They're very scared. Once they happen, what do they do next? Yes, the international aid agencies do help them, but they don't reach everyone and they don't know everything that is happening. There are a lot of people who are living in tents with a whole wall missing. A whole side of it is missing. As I said Shah Miah, the refugee at the beginning, he's a very inventive man. He's kind of very resourceful. While most people have these plastic stools to sit on, he's actually bought some bamboo and built his own furniture. But even for him, he's got a whole side of his tent missing. Covered in mud, piled up in about at least a third of his home. And he has quite a few children, who he tries to take them to other people. But those are their concerns, the safety of their children especially if they're not home.

MW: A number of refugees are now receiving training and cyclone preparedness. I know you spoke with some refugees who were being trained. What did you learn?

KAAMIL AHMED: I learned that there's actually quite a lot of appetite amongst these Rohingya volunteers to do something for their neighbours. Most people basically Rohingyas are not allowed to work in Bangladesh, so they find the kind of purpose in this cyclone volunteering to respond to cyclones. They are taught the basics but the big responsibility is to go to their community and make sure they understand what to do to transfer the information. So what one of them was telling me is that he goes every day to central office they are told what the weather status is and then they relay that, they go to the mosque of other communal areas and relay that information to the other people in their local area. Their local camp. And they also tell them about how to prepare, which is mostly about kind of fortifying your house, sandbags, weighing down the roofs, tying everything down, making sure everything is safe for children.

MW: Now given all that you've just told us, how prepared do you think communities in these camps are to survive this monsoon season? And the cyclone season ahead?

KAAMIL AHMED: It's all very new for them. They obviously lived through monsoons before. Some of them haven't traveled very far. It's a very short distance across the border that they've come. But they had the resources available to them. They had trees that they could use for firewood sustainably. They had solid fortified land. Not this weak land. Not these weak hills that they are living on. So a lot of it is very new for them. They rely on other people a lot. And that's a struggle for them and that's really limited their ability to prepare for this monsoon season. And for the cyclones. Because it's a completely new environment. They've tried, but at the end of the day they haven't been able to stockpile firewood. In terms of food, they're having big problems. Again back to the firewood, because it's wet it doesn't burn. They don't have enough fuel. So they eat half cooked rice if anything and they try to save the rice for when they can cook. Almost none of these refugees have any income. They have no cash. So they have to sell their aid for cash.

MW: So when you look at everything they're facing, does training in disaster preparedness ever feel futile?

KAAMIL AHMED: I think there is a sense of that. There is a sense there are islands of preparedness but I don't think overall that people do understand everything and are completely prepared and trained. A lot of these trainings are only a couple of days. Maybe one day. So there is that sense. There is a little bit of a sense of futility. On the other hand as I said some people have really taken it on. They're really enthused by this idea that they are kind of protectors of their community. If not the training at least that those people they become someone to communicate with. They become a link between these very vast camps. That's the impact the training has had.

MW: Right. Thank you very much for speaking with me today.

KAAMIL AHMED: Thank you.

MW: Kaamil Ahmed is a freelance journalist. He was in our studio in London, England.

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[Indistinct chatter]

MW: That is one of the Rohingya refugees that Kaamil Ahmed met in his reporting from Cox's Bazar. He's describing his daily attendance at a training session led by Bangladesh's renowned Cyclone Preparedness Programme or CPP. Harun al Rashid was one of the founders of the program. Today he's helping to train refugees, like the one we've just heard from, in the methods he helped pioneer. Harun al Rashid is now the Disaster Risk Reduction Coordinator for the American Red Cross in Bangladesh. I spoke with him earlier from Cox's Bazar and I began by asking him about Cyclone Bhola. That's the storm that marched across Bangladesh in 1970 and killed roughly 300000 people.

HARUN AL RASHID: This devastating cyclone hit Bangladesh on the 12th November, 1970. When this happened the people of the world was stunned. I mean it was impossible that in one night so many lives would be lost.

MW: Was there any disaster preparedness before that?

HARUN AL RASHID: Basically there was nothing. And then the attempt of Cyclone Preparedness Programme established then carried on. And I was a member at that time. We were serving the coastal area. We are moving island to island with the motor lodge and interacting with the cyclone victims you know. In our mission of setting up CPP, it was most memorable time for me because we were engaged to develop a humanitarian solution you know in the middle of another human crisis. [Inaudible] Nowadays same strength of cyclone if passes over, you know the death toll is so little you know we cannot imagine.

MW: And one of the most recent examples was in 2016 when Cyclone Roanu blew through the country. CPP mobilized more than 50000 of its volunteers who were able to move half a million people into safety from the storm. Those numbers are pretty staggering. Why do you think it has been so successful?

HARUN AL RASHID: Yeah it is because you cannot imagine and people rely nowadays when volunteer announces they say that go to the shelter, people really respond. Because they have the experience and they trust the volunteers. In the coastal areas, the cyclone shelters those which are there existing in the coastal areas is become full nowadays but previously it was not. So the fact they were listening it is true.

MW: Now you're no longer with the CPP but you are still training volunteers in this CPP way. This time of course in refugee camps. What are the challenges in preparing refugee communities to respond to possible disasters or you know challenges that you might not find elsewhere?

HARUN AL RASHID: One is the language barrier. Another one was that the women initially didn't want to come forward. That was again another challenge but we have overcome that one. Now in the team of 20, you know 10 male and 10 female. Otherwise they are good, strong, resilient. They're willing to work for their fellow people. For their families. We somehow overcome these things. Now it is actually easier to train them. To mobilise them, it's not a problem now.

MW: Now we heard a bit of a training session off the top, of people listening to announcements over loud speakers and practising the raising and lowering of communication flags and children with with pretend injuries. Can you talk a little bit more about the skills that volunteers need to make this work?

HARUN AL RASHID: This simulation is a teaching technique you know. Through this we create artificial environment with every stage the preparedness is being done by the volunteers so people watch us what is going on. And then the people are acting through these and some people will fall down. And somebody is running to the shelter they're safe. So this is the way it goes, people gets a lot of interest.

MW: Now you've been involved with this program since just after 1970, and had people come from all over to see firsthand how the Cyclone Preparedness Programme works and I imagine take those lessons back to their own countries where they may or may not face natural disasters or unnatural disasters. What does that mean to you to see the impact of this organization that you helped found?

HARUN AL RASHID: When the volunteers when they save somebody, they smile and then when we see that smile, it's our pleasure. Our containment you know. We are keeping that within us.

MW: Can I ask how old you are?

HARUN AL RASHID: I'm 70. I have crossed 17.

MW: [Laughs] So here you are all these years still working in CPP and this area of helping to keep people safe. Are you going to retire at any point?

HARUN AL RASHID: Yes I was retired from my service. I was saving my retirement. The American Red Cross kindly asked me to join and then I gladly accepted. And it's my pleasure to work again in same thing. In the camps. It's really my pleasure and I'm very happy to be a part of this whole team.

MW: Okay thank you so much.

HARUN AL RASHID: Thank you very much. It's my pleasure to talk to you.

MW: Bye bye. Harun al Rashid is now the Disaster Risk Reduction Coordinator for the American Red Cross in Bangladesh. Coming up after the short break, whether you're a cat person or a dog person we've got something for you in our next half hour. From the fascinating world of competitive cat shows to research that reveals which species has the leg up in the brains department cats or dogs. I'm Megan Williams and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

Watch the fur fly in the surprisingly competitive world of cat shows

MW: I'm Megan Williams and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current. It's a rarefied world which you may not have realized even existed. A subculture with its own rules, its own language, and its own social norms. In a conversation that first aired in March, Anna Maria Tremonti takes us into a world where competition is fierce, stakes are high, and claws are sharp.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: This is a household cat. She's a rescue kitty. Her name is Baily. She belonged to a friend who died. You can see how calm — she won't stop purring. Yeah [laughs].

VOICE 2: This is Colin. He's a Norwegian Forest cat and he's now back out in the show circuit. He loves it.

VOICE 3: When you look at him, you first of all you notice his size but then it's his coat. You just look and go, ‘wow that's a...’

VOICE 2: That's a cat.

VOICE 3: Yeah.

AMT: Some of the cat lovers featured in the new documentary Catwalk: Tales from the Cat Show Circuit. It follows some of the top competitors in Canada as they chase top honours for their feline friends. Joining me in Toronto are the filmmakers, Aaron Hancox and Michael McNamara. And from Moncton, we're joined by Kim Langille. She organizes the annual Fundy Cat Fanciers Show there. And she is the proud owner of a champion Turkish Angora, Bobby. Hello to you all.

AARON HANCOX: Hello thanks for having us.

KIM LANGILLE: Hello.

AMT: OK. Now we’re calling him Bobby, but he's really Boston Rob of Finland. Tell me about him.

KIM LANGILLE: Bobby is a fun and feisty Turkish Angora. He has a little bit of colour on him and he's just a ball of fun. There's really no way to describe him other than just to say he's a fun, fabulous cat.

AMT: And tell us more about what he looks like for those who horror of horrors do not know what a Turkish Angora looks like.

KIM LANGILLE: So a Turkish Angora is the national cat of the country of Turkey. They are a natural breed. If you go to Turkey you can see them roaming the streets. They're basically a medium length coat cat. Their body has medium length hair. Their tail, their wrath, at their chin area and in the pantaloons you can guess of that that's around the buttocks that is long hair. They're very silky. They only have one kind of fur where most cats have two or three kinds of fur. And so they don't mat. You don't get a lot of knots. you can just comb them out once a week and you're done.

AMT: And Bobby is white. Are they all white?

KIM LANGILLE: No. They started out as white and if you go to Turkey you're going to see tons of white. But white and blue eyed brings deafness. So a lot of breeders have started breeding in colour into their cats to get rid of the deafness and improve the breed.

AMT: And so Bobby is very beautiful white cat with a really spectacular tail, I have to say. I really didn't know much about the pantaloon thing. But ok if you say that's what they're called, we'll go with that. When did you think Bobby could really be a champion?

KIM LANGILLE: The first show I took him to when he was maybe a five month old kitten, he was best kitten in show on the first day. And that's the first time that's ever happened for me and I just sort of went, "What?" And the next show he was best kitten both days. I was going to Mexico so he was sent off to Toronto for a three-day show on an Easter weekend and he was in the best of the best every day and then he became an adult. And so it was basically there I said ‘well we're going to see where this goes then’.

AMT: Now Aaron tell me how you stumbled into Kim's world, this world of competitive cat shows?

AARON HANCOX: Well geez it seems like ages ago now but it was two summers ago and I was at the CNE — Canadian National Exhibition — getting dragged there by my girlfriend because I do not like amusement park rides. And I saw what seemed like a handwritten sign that said “Cat Show this way.” And I got very excited and I ended up dragging my girlfriend in. I'm not really sure what I was expecting. I think I was expecting like an opportunity for me to play with cats and some cute kittens.

AMT: You like cats.

AARON HANCOX: I do. I do like cats. And what I saw was very surprising. It was a world that I had no idea existed. It was a full on cat show like you'd see a dog show. Only there were no tricks. There was a podium, these beautiful looking cats, beautiful looking kittens, and really really engaged audience members who didn't necessarily look like me. They were really dialed in. They were experts. So I thought that the people were just as interesting as the cats and I stuck around for half the day.

AMT: Wow. Now Michael what appeal to you about the idea of making a documentary about cat shows?

MICHAEL MCNAMARA: Well you know we make documentaries about subcultures. We're really interested in stories about people who are doing things that not everybody does. People who are passionately interested in their field of expertise like Kim. People who not only are passionate about it but they like to talk about it and tell you about it. And when you're a documentary filmmaker finding people like that is a challenge. Aaron has been working on this for a number of years and when he came in and started telling us about this we all went, ‘ok this sounds like a movie doesn't it’.

AMT: Are you a cat person?

MICHAEL MCNAMARA: You know I like to look at them but I can't own them. I have allergies and my eyes get itchy automatically if I handle them.

AMT: How did you make the film?

MICHAEL MCNAMARA: Well I very carefully didn't handle any of them. Although you know whenever I'm in a room with cats they pick me out because they see me as an opportunity for a convert and they will usually get very close and they'll climb into my lap or you know they'll rub up against me. I'm pretty sure they know who's a cat owner and who isn't and they are...

AMT: They are very clever, yes. Now this documentary is a story about a rivalry. So let's talk about the competition. Tell me about Ooh La La.

KIM LANGILLE: You want me to tell you about Ooh La La?

AMT: I want you to tell me about Ooh La La. The rival to Bobby. [Laughs]

KIM LANGILLE: Ooh La La is a red Persian who is a CFA winner — international cat association — that's very active in the U.S. and in China. And she is apparently an excellent specimen of the breed and her owner grooms her wonderfully.

AMT: Kim you say at one point Ooh La La just isn't your kind of cat. Why not?

KIM LANGILLE: She is not.

AMT: Why not?

KIM LANGILLE: I like the crazy cat too hanging from the ceiling and Ooh La La just doesn't do that. If I was going to get a cat like Ooh La La I'd probably go out and buy a $50 cushion and put it on my couch. [Laughs].

AMT: Those are fighting words. [Laughs].

KIM LANGILLE: I say it to everyone. You know it's not my kind of cat and the person who owns Ooh La La, she would lose her mind with my cats in her house. It's night and day — the activity level.

AMT: Well in fact you're good pals with her owner, Shirley.

KIM LANGILLE: I consider Shirley a friend. Yes.

AMT: Is there ever any tension?

KIM LANGILLE: I'd be happy if she didn't show up last year to shows. But I'm glad I got to meet her. She didn't have to come to all of the shows. [Laughs].

AMT: We should just point out Bobby was winning. Bobby was like head and shoulders above the other cats. Cat arches above. And that's all I'll say because then it becomes a rivalry. But yes Bobby was getting some stiff competition from Ooh La La. Aaron, be unbiased, how would you describe Ooh La La?

AARON HANCOX: You know I have to be very careful because as a documentary filmmaker I need to maintain some kind of objectivity here. I have a cat. My cat is more like Kim's cats. But Ooh La La is gorgeous and she loved the camera. I think she really liked me which was helpful because I was behind the camera sometimes. She's a consummate show person — show cat. She shows up and puts on a show, struts her stuff, loves being adored, and looks fantastic on camera. And what's great about her is she's such a great competitor but she seems to do it so effortlessly which makes for a great kind of tension in our film.

AMT: So what does it take to make your cat a champion, Kim?

KIM LANGILLE: Your cat has to come close to breed standard. If you have a cat that is breed standard perfection you're going to do well no matter what. If you have two cats that are close to perfection for breed standard and you have one that says “I don't think I want to be here,” and one that has a top hat and a cane and is dancing across the judging platform, you can pretty well guess what's going to happen. So in last year we had two top hat and cane cats.

AMT: You often run across cats who don't want to be there? You can tell?

KIM LANGILLE: Oh I have cats that didn't want to be there. [Laughs].

AMT: So we talked a little bit about the grooming and the importance of what suds up and that kind of thing. How much time do you spend working with them, preparing them for shows?

KIM LANGILLE: I am very lucky. Turkish Angoras, you put a comb through them once a week so that if there are problems with their coat it comes out. The Thursday before a show I'll take them and bath them as close to the show as I can get. I whiten them up. I fluff them up. I blow dry them and they're done. And in-between shows there are no baths unless I look at them and say “Oh you don't really look white anymore.”

AMT: So how do you wind up a cat?

KIM LANGILLE: There are whitening products.

AMT: Like what?

KIM LANGILLE: It's actually called White Lightning I think is the one that I use. Every brand of pet shampoo has a whitener. It has a shampoo for black cats. A lot of them have like very colour specific. There are red shampoos and there are golden shampoos.

AMT: I have to say when I had a cat I gave it a bath once and I probably still have the scars. [Laughs].

KIM LANGILLE: That's the awesome thing about cats is that they're basically self-cleaning. It's just you know sometimes they get dandruff in the winter or they get into a mud puddle and you have to step in. But it's very little work for most of them.

AMT: What's the hardest thing to do when you're preparing them for shows?

KIM LANGILLE: Blow drying. My guys don't like to be blown dry but I sort of demand it for pieces of them. The long haired part of them sort of need to be blown dry and then ok go off and dry yourself for the rest

AMT: Do you have to blow the pantaloons?

KIM LANGILLE: That is the hardest part to get blown dry because some reason they don't like hot temperatures back there. [Laughs].

AMT: Describe the room where you keep your cat show awards.

KIM LANGILLE: Ribbon palooza. I have wire on the wall and basically clotheslines and there's rosettes from every show hung up on those lines. It covers a wall.

AMT: What's that look like, Aaron? The first time we saw it.

AARON HANCOX: The first time we saw that room we just said, “Quick get the camera and Kim we're going to need a couple of minutes in here without you just to get all of our cutaways.”

AMT: And you guys are competitive. A one point Kim you're kind of musing about ‘well you know if Ooh La La didn't show up, like if there was an accident or if somebody got sick’, and I'm sitting there going “Oh oh.” You were just saying. You were just saying. [Laughs].

KIM LANGILLE: I was just saying. That's exactly it. I was not you know sending poison in a cat treat format to her house in any way. But you know if there was a snowstorm and a flight didn't make it into Moncton, it could have been a completely different story than what it ended up being.

AMT: Michael how did making this film change the way you think about cats and their owners?

MICHAEL MCNAMARA: Yeah well I have to admit that I probably bought into the stereotype a little bit that you were just talking about. And to be fair it's true that probably 95 or 96 per cent of the competitors are women. They come from all walks of life. All different socioeconomic backgrounds which is really interesting. And the one thing that they have in common is this passion for the cats and I have to admit having gotten sort of closer to this world and spending a lot more time with the animals than with the people who love them. I really am trying to figure out a way that I can actually have a cat in the house. I mean I think there are supposed to be hypoallergenic cats and I'm very curious about those. I think Kim could help you with that approach.

KIM LANGILLE: I tried a couple of weeks ago. [Laughs].

AMT: Why am I not surprised? So Kim I'm going to give you the last word. What do you love most about having cats in your life?

KIM LANGILLE: They're always there to give me a hug at the end of the day. I come in the door and Bobby is sitting on the table next to my door and he stands up and puts his arms around me and gives me kisses all over my face and who doesn't need that in their life.

AMT: And who couldn't call that a champion cat then, right?

KIM LANGILLE: Right.

AMT: That is a champion. Thank you all of you for this. The film is running soon. Thank you.

MICHAEL MCNAMARA: Thank you.

AMT: I'm learning more and more about cats. Bye.

AARON HANCOX: Thanks very much. Thank you.

MW: Anna Maria Tremonti was speaking with Aaron Hancox and Michael McNamara they directed the documentary Catwalk: Tales From The Cat Show Circuit. Kim Langille is one of the cat fanciers featured in the film. Her Turkish Angora Bobby has won prizes at cat shows across Canada. The documentary is airing again this Sunday, August 5th at 9p.m. on CBC TV's Docs Pov. It's also available to watch online. Visit our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. We'll link to the Docs Pov site and we'll have some photos of these magnificent cats. So that brought us a glimpse into the world of competition between cats and cat people. But of course there's also a longstanding rivalry between cat people and dog people.

Feline lovers beware: Study suggests dogs are smarter than cats

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Meow]

VOICE 1: He said hello.

[Meow]

VOICE 1: Hello. Hello.

[Sound: Bark]

VOICE 1: Say hello.

[Sound: Bark]

AMT: That's right. The sound of cats and dogs attempting to say hello. Or at least their owners trying to get them to say hello. When it comes to cat people and dog people it can be hard to even engage in that level of dialogue. So certain is each that their preferred species is the finest, the smartest of companions. It turns out science has finally spoken on that question. And brace yourself cat people because dogs have this one licked paws down. At least according to one key measure dogs are twice as intelligent as cats. Susana Herculano-Houzel is a neuroscientist and Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at Vanderbilt University. We've reached her in Nashville, Tennessee. Hello.

SUZANA HERCULANA-HOUZEL: Hi Anna Maria. Pleasure to talk to you.

AMT: Good to have you with us. Before we get to your study, how much hate mail are you receiving from the cat people?

SUZANA HERCULANA-HOUZEL: It hasn't been as bad as it could have been. And I think - I'm hoping that people realise that you can always love your pet. Doesn't matter how many neurons it has.

AMT: Well that's a fair answer but let's talk about your study. First of all and you just mentioned neuron's, what were you looking at? What were you doing?

SUZANA HERCULANA-HOUZEL: We have been in the business of studying different brains of different species to learn how many neurons there were made off, in the hope that that tells us something about the cognitive capabilities of different species and of course how human brains compared to them. And that's because the neurons are the basic information processing units of brains. So the more the neurons that a species has in its brain - or especially in a part of the brain like the cerebral cortex that is responsible for cognition, memory, planning, thinking ahead - then the the larger the capabilities that the species should have.

AMT: Okay so and you didn't just look at dogs and cats, which animals were you examining?

AMT: So this was part of a bigger study on carnivorous. So lion, hyena, ferret, and raccoons and in the brown bear. And we were interested in these species because they're a group of mammals that have a very large range in body size and brain size. There are animals that are as small or as large as primates or even larger than primates. And we were interested in comparing how many neurons these animals had in their cortex compared to the species that they prey upon. So our expectation was that lions for instance should have many more neurons in both in the cortex than the species that they chase. And to our surprise that was not at all what we found.

AMT: What's the connection between the number of neurons in the brain and what a carnivore does?

SUZANA HERCULANA-HOUZEL: The more neurons you have the more capable you should be. But you can only have as many neurons as you can afford, as you can feed - literally feed. The food that any animal eats goes into keeping the body. And of course the brain. So if you don't have enough energy you can't have - well maybe not a very large body and or maybe not as many neurons. So that seems to be the case in the bear. It has an enormous body that by itself costs a lot of energy. It has a large brain, so large brains are the result of a large number of neurons. But when we looked at the adult bear, it only had as many neurons as a cat in the cortex which is very very few neurons which suggest that these animals cannot afford to keep both a very large body and a large number of neurons in the brain.

AMT: So does it necessarily tell you how intelligent an animal is by looking at the number of neurons they have?

SUZANA HERCULANA-HOUZEL: We can't really answer that question because measuring intelligence is extremely hard. It's a very frustrating thing that it's so difficult to be able to compare one species to the next. Well even look at school children it's hard enough already to put a number on their testand say you did better or worse than somebody else. So imagine doing that with animals that don't have language, that have different, values different interests. Measuring intelligence is something very complicated which is why we are using what we think should be the next best thing which is how many neurons - how many units you have that process the information that is used. However it is that it is used by the different species.

AMT: So in other words because if you have more neurons you should have the more capability for intelligence.

SUZANA HERCULANA-HOUZEL: Exactly. That's exactly right.

AMT: Okay so that gets us back to the dogs and cats and the different animals. So you said the bear, even though it's really big, has fewer neurons than what?

SUZANA HERCULANA-HOUZEL: The bear only has as many neurons as a cat.

AMT: And so let's just stay with that theme of the idea of the capability that they might have with more neurons, because you looked at racoons. And what did you find?

SUZANA HERCULANA-HOUZEL: So the raccoons were the other big surprise in the study. It turns out that raccoons have fairly small brains about the size of a cat brain, but they have as many neurons as you find in a dog brain which is about twice as the neurons that you have in the cat cortex, which means that at least in terms of cognitive capability dogs and raccoons seem to rank above cats.

AMT: That's so interesting if you live in Toronto because with those little hands feet and the number of neurons that explains how they get into our garbage all the time [Laughs] . They are so clever.

SUZANA HERCULANA-HOUZEL: I know they are so clever that we have to design our objects to be raccoon proof.

AMT: That's right and when we do that they get around them anyway. I speak from experience.

SUZANA HERCULANA-HOUZEL: It's like you have a backyard school for raccoons going on all the time because you're always trying to outsmart them and they just keep coming back at you.

AMT: It explains a lot. So tell me more about the dogs then. What did you see in the dogs that was really notable?

SUZANA HERCULANA-HOUZEL: So it's not that dogs are outliers they are not. The dog brain it's seems fairly typical compared to the other non-primate brains that we have been studying the last decade. I think the striking difference between cats and dogs is that the cat brain is much smaller than a dog brain, even if you're looking at a fairly small dog. And that I think can be explained very simply because we know that the ancestor of dogs was a large carnivore. It was something similar to a modern Wolf. And that's a large animal with a large brain. So the old the artificial selection that we have been doing in the last few thousand years, domesticating dogs, has changed the size of their body but their brains are still fairly large. So it's not surprising that because dogs still have fairly large brains they have fairly large numbers of neurons. But it also goes nicely with the tasks that we have been domesticating, selecting them for in domestication. We have been expecting dogs to do to be able to do things. Whereas cats, they descend from a small bodied ancestor so probably with a small brain as well which already means fewer neurons. And I think it's fair to say that as humans have domesticated cat, we have kept them around in a way to adore them not to make them do stuff for us.

AMT: I'm thinking when you talk about dogs doing things for us I'm thinking of you know the dogs they use, the sniffer dogs, for everything from bombs to drugs to agriculture to seeing eye dogs. So you're saying some of that's because of the amount of neurons in their brains. They can be trained that way.

SUZANA HERCULANA-HOUZEL: Exactly exactly. That's the idea that they have the biological capability simply because they have a fairly large number of neurons in the cortex to begin with, because of their ancestry from both like animals. Which means that all that biological capability can be much more easily cultivated, turned into something trained to or to suit your needs.

AMT: So there have been studies looking at how smart animals are comparing one animal to another. But this study is different.

SUZANA HERCULANA-HOUZEL: Yes because we're not measuring behavior. We were simply looking directly at the numbers of neurons in the cortex and other parts of the brain of different animals.

AMT: So what do your findings tell you about human intelligence?

SUZANA HERCULANA-HOUZEL: We have found that the most striking thing about humans is that we have by far the most neurons in this cerebral cortex, even though our cortex, our brains, they are not the largest ones around. The African elephant for instance has a brain that is three times the size of ours. Its cortex is twice the size of our cortex but we still have three times as many neurons in the cerebral cortex as this large brained elephant. And that's something we've proposed that the simplest distinction between human and any other animal species. And that doesn't mean that it's the only distinction but just the simplest biggest distinction is this sheer absolutely enormous number of neurons that we have in the cerebral cortex. So if they're the units the process information that means that we have the most biological capability of processing all that information.

AMT: And can you give me the numbers like what's the average for humans, dogs, versus cats.

SUZANA HERCULANA-HOUZEL: On average humans have 16 billion neurons in the cortex. An elephant has 5.6, dogs have something around 500 million. So we have 32 times as many neurons in the cerebral cortex as an average dog and cats have half that many. Cats have about 250 million. So I think you can put that into context. We have twice as many neurons as the next in line, which is the gorilla. Gorillas have about eight to nine billion. So we have twice the neurons the gorillas have in the cerebral cortex, and dogs have twice the neurons that cats have in the cerebral cortex.

AMT: How does that fact in the human brain reflect our evolution?

SUZANA HERCULANA-HOUZEL: That has been one of the most distinctive characteristics of human evolution how rapidly our brain gained neurons and became the size that it is today. So you can imagine that becoming capable of having all these neurons in the brain was a major watershed in human evolution. The next thing to wonder is how come we got we got all these neurons and nobody else has. And I think there's again an easy explanation for that and that is cooking and I mean cooking in the in the widest sense of not only using fire but also anything that can pre-process food before you put it in your mouth. That starts with stone tools. So anything that you can use to cut meat, to get it off animals, to pound [unintelligible], turn it into purees that you can eat in your mouth and just ingest more quickly. Any kind of pre-processing that you do to your food should help you get more energy and less time which I think was a tremendous page turner in human evolution.

AMT: Because unlike the lion we don't have to chase everything down so the energy we expand is less. So we can have more energy to put toward our neurons.

SUZANA HERCULANA-HOUZEL: Well our ancestors are still hunted and that is expensive but once you have the meat and also once you have roots and fruits and vegetables of all sorts. So it's eating them raw is a huge effort and it also takes a lot of time because chewing on something that is really hard takes a lot of time. And also once you swallow it you're swallowing chunks. So only part - only the surface of those chunks is really going to be digested and is really going to give you energy. Now if you cook the food you eat first - and by cooking it can also be just slicing in small parts mincing or crushing - if you cook it, now it's much easier to chew to and to swallow. And what you do swallow is probably by now turn into a complete purees. So it does get fully digested and you get 100 percent of the energy out and transfer to your body. So when we eat cooked food, the energy yield is much larger and we also get all that energy in much less time. Which means you have free time to do something much more interesting with the neurons that you now can afford.

AMT: So interesting because in a way we're still evolving. Now we have so many calories and we have less movement.

SUZANA HERCULANA-HOUZEL: Yes. So now we have the opposite problem. We have to figure out how to deal with the problem of not having enough calories but actually the problem of having way too many calories available.

MW: That was Anna Maria Tremonti's conversation with Suzana Herculano-Houzel, a neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville Tennessee. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for q. Today on the show, a conversation with Ian Bonhote about his much discussed new documentary, McQueen. It tells the story of the hugely influential and controversial designer, Alexander McQueen. I'm Megan Williams and this wraps up my two weeks at mic this summer on The Current. Thanks to the talented team who made it such a pleasure. And tune in on Monday when Laura Lynch will be taking over. Thanks for listening to the summer edition of The Current.

The Current Transcript for August 3, 2018

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

Who foots the bill for forest fires? One expert argues there's a simple way to save taxpayer money

Rohingya refugees 'very scared' as monsoon season approaches in Bangladesh

Watch the fur fly in the surprisingly competitive world of cat shows

Feline lovers beware: Study suggests dogs are smarter than cats

Friday August 3, 2018 Full Episode Transcript

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