Wild Connection

My guest this week is all about the enchanted. Today I am talking to author and veterinarian Timm Otterson with an interest in wildlife conservation. He’s on today to tell us about his new book All Creatures Weird and Dangerous. It’s an autobiography of sorts that brings to life some of the animals that have remained in the shadows as legends and myths. Our conversation goes deeper than that thoug...

In March of this year The UK government declared that lobsters, crabs, octopuses and related species will be included under the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill. This means that they can finally get  legal protection that protects them from practices like being boiled alive and having the tendons of their pincers cut. All I can say is if you need a law to stop you from engaging in such horrific pra...

Hi Everyone, welcome back to a new episode of Wild Connection. You may have noticed there was a short break and that is because I had some traveling to do. I also have some big news that is going to impact the podcast. I will be going to Uganda, to a place called Bwindi Impenetrable Forest soon and I am hoping to bring you new episodes from there. If people in the communities are willing to share...

Summer is starting and things are heating up. And in some places temperature is exceeding human capacity for existence. What you may not realize is it is a lot harder to cool down than to warm up. And warming up is something that gets at the heart of human social behavior. Here to explain more about what this means is Dr. Hans Ijzerman. He is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Universitét Gre...

To celebrate Earth Day 2022 I am replaying my interview with author Nathaniel Popkin. We talk about his book,  To Reach the Spring: From Complicity to Consciousness in the Age of the Eco-Crisis, that was released in 2021. In our conversation we talk about environmental advocacy, the inequality of influence, decolonization, and integration of the messiness of nature back into our lives.  If you wan...

If you’ve been listening for a while you know I have a fascination with bones. I have a rabbit cooking in a bush as we speak. But the truth is that I know so little about bones. That’s about to change because this week’s guest is in the know about bones, muscles, how they work and how they shape what we and other animals can do.  Jason Organ is an Associate Professor of Anatomy, Cell Biology & Phy...

This week we are celebrating National Farm Animal Day and it's going to be a party. We are talking horses, pigs, cows, goats, and even sheep. Joining us for this celebration is the incredible Dr. Marty Edwards. You may recall from last week’s episode she promised us some stories from her time learning about farm animals. So hang on, it's going to be a wild ride.  To follow us on social media visit...

This weeks episode features someone near and dear to me. She was my vet who helped me take care of my beloved Senor Antonio Buttones in his final weeks. In fact I am dedicating this episode to him. As you will hear in the Show veterinarians have one of the highest suicide rates by profession so be sure to check out the show notes for links to help support veterinarians. Dr. Marty Edwards is more t...

March is Women’s History Month, at least in the United States so I am continuing to feature women scientists on the podcast all month. I thought I would start off with a little history about women in Stem. We women have a way of persisting and despite continuing to face barriers to professional advancement, we just will not stop. What lengths have we gone to? Like Rosalind, of Shakepeare’s As You...

This week’s guest is Samantha Farquhar. She is a dynamic interdisciplinary researcher with a focus on coastal systems in the Integrated Coastal Science Program at East Carolina University working on her doctorate. I got to talk to her about her past and present work and the importance of community led conservation initiatives.  Here are links to some of Samantha's work that we cover on the podcast...

In another life I would have been a forensic anthropologist. I devoured books by Iris Johanson and her main character forensic specialist Eve Duncan. The truth is I like to solve puzzles and becoming a police detective or forensic anthropologist was high on my list. I still love crime/mystery novels and as you’ll here, who knows maybe there is a career change in my future. It is this love of foren...

Today’s episode is part of the special WIS series. You may have heard me talking about this on other episodes and that is because I got a small grant from the AGU’s Sharing Science program to highlight some incredible women scientists. This week it's all about what does it mean to get involved with science for the layperson or nonexpert. What does it look like, why is it important, and what are th...

This week’s episode is all about sweat, smelling it, hiding it, and people whose job it is to decide what the nature of yours is like. Never let them see you sweat right? Not this week. And before I forget, this is the second in our special WIS series sponsored by the American Geophysical Union’s Sharing Science grant.   Sarah Everts is the author of The Joy of Sweat: The Strange Science of Perspi...

 It is post holiday and before New Years and this episode starts the launch of a special Women in Science Series. I want to acknowledge the sponsor of this series, the American Geophysical Union. Wild Connection was the recipient of their Sharing Science grant and I couldn’t be more thrilled. The James Webb  infrared  telescope successfully launched this week. You might be wondering why this is a...

This episode is a fun one for me because, well, I have ummm navigational difficulties. I should be more precise. I can navigate perfectly well in exactly the opposite direction I should be going. That means if I was a snow goose that was supposed to end up on Pea Island from Alaska I would end up somewhere near the Philippines instead. I have what I call directional dyslexia and I found out that I...

My guest this week is composer, instrumentalist, producer, arranger, editor, and author Ruth Mendelson. She has written award-winning scores for film and television. She teaches at the Berklee College of music and she has written a fantastical, multi-dimensional, treasure hunt fairy tale for children of all ages called The Water Tree Way that will positively alter your trajectory through the world...

This week we are continuing the conversation around some of the issues that came up and din't come up at COP26. My guest is Dr. Katherine Kennet, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and is who is also the social prescribing lead at the Royal College of Psychiatrists Her and I talk about the psychological traumas associated with climate disasters and what we can expect in the future. We also chatte...

Back from Glasgow after attending COP26. It was intense which is why I am devoting 2 weeks to talk about some of the things that came out of it. I also made a few key observations while there and one of them was that Glasgow needs to clean up it's act. Literally. Pick up your trash.  My guest, filmmaker, community organizer and author John de Graaf and I talk about a few more things people can and...

This week’s episode is all about horses. If we had to give a relationship status on horses, it might likely be “It’s complicated”. Using advanced genetic techniques and analyses, Scientists found a signature genetic event 4000 years ago that revealed  that the ancestors of all modern horses were domesticated in what is now southern Russia. Scientists had been on this trail for a while and in 2016...

Happy Halloween. After speaking with cultural and conservation ornithologist, J Drew Lanham about the how certain birds are abused and targeted because of the way they look, in our conversation starlings and cormorants specifically, it occurred to me that halloween was the perfect opportunity to talk about this more and give some animals a re-brand. And since Friday the 29th was World Lemur Day, I...

This week I’m thrilled to introduce you to a spectacular scientist, author, poet, and well...human. J Drew Lanham is a professor of cultural and conservation ornithology at Clemsen University, he’s a poet laureate of his home county Edgefield, and the author of two books The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature and Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts Chec...

The Queen of England on a hot mic uttered the words many of us who care about this planet, the lives of others, including other species, feel: It’s really irritating when they talk and don’t do. I would suggest it is more than irritating. ThenPrince William admonished the uber billionaires selling tickets to the edge of space for throwing their money up in the air instead of putting it to use on t...

Last week the USFWS released the list of 22 extinct US species and for a minute it was all everyone talked about. The ivory billed woodpecker was on the list having worked its way through the laborious US system of classifying a species as extinct after last being seen and filmed in 1935. Here is link to a video of what it looked like.  In total 23 species were on that list. It included 11 birds,...

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but there is a lot going on in the world and a lot of misinformation being spread. This past week YouTube committed to removing anything containing anti vaccine misinformation. That includes anything related to vaccines causing autism, which they don’t, cancer, which they don't, microchips, which they don’t have, and so on. In an unprecedented step they also committe...

Hi Everyone and welcome back to Wild Connection: The Podcast. This week’s episode is pretty special because we are talking about how service animals not only improve well-being but sometimes they save our lives by the love, kindness, compassion, and attentiveness they give us. One thing that came up in the episode that I have not spoken about is the loss of my support, my family,  my beloved compa...