USFWS/NCTC Thoughts From Home: Your Conservation Podcast from the National Conservation Training Center

The USFWS Library is celebrating 60 years of Silent Spring! This April, we're reading Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, the classic that launched the environmental movement for America's Wild Read. Conservation hero Rachel Carson (1907–1964) was a renowned author and one of the first female biologists to work for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She became one of the most celebrated and beloved sc...

Some creepy crawly and misunderstood wildlife offer a lot of benefits to our environment. In Part 2 of the Creepy Crawly and Misunderstood Wildlife podcast, the team talks about skunks, opossums, and snakes and their important ecoservices. Skunks, opossums and snakes are some of the most efficient and effective natural pest controllers! Snakes keep prey populations in balance. The skunk's charm is...

Some creepy crawly and misunderstood wildlife, like spiders, bats, and raccoons offer a lot of benefits to our environment and we'd like to shed some positive light on those important ecoservices. In Part 1 of the Creepy Crawly and Misunderstood Wildlife podcast, the team talks about spiders, bats, and raccoons. Spiders are hardy builders, using their cable-like silk to create intricate webs to ca...

Ever wonder what the Native Youth Community Adaptation and Leadership Congress (NYCALC) is all about? In this podcast you'll learn about NYCALC and hear participants' reactions to the program.

Dr. Jim Siegel, US Fish and Wildlife Service biologist and NCTC Ecology curriculum manager, reviews the calls of the most common frogs and toads that can be heard at the NCTC each spring. Hearing the intricate descriptions and sounds of the frogs and toads, you can envision being near the springtime ponds at the NCTC.

Catherine Woodward, Fish and Wildlife Biologist in the USFWS Conservation Library introduces a series called Off the Shelf, where she hopes to inspire you and other readers to connect with conservation literature and nature writing, as she talks about books pulled from the library shelves. The Home Place: A Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature by Dr. J. Drew Lanham is a powerful and motivating me...

During the Great Eastern Brood of periodical cicadas Catherine Woodward, Fish and Wildlife Biologist and Jim Siegel, Ecology Curriculum Manager from the National Conservation Training Center talk about this natural phenomenon and wildlife spectacle of millions of cicadas emerging from the soil after seventeen years and answer many questions about these insects.

In this episode of Thoughts From Home, Mark Madison, our Fish and Wildlife Historian, talks with the NCTC Director, Steve Chase, about NCTC, who we are, what we do and other information you may not know.