Nature's Archive: Wildlife Forensics

Please enjoy this crossover episode where Ashley appeared as a guest on the podcast Nature's Archive with Michael Hawk to discuss all things Wildlife Forensic Sciences! You can listen to Nature's Archive wherever you get podcasts. You can join Jumpstart Nature on Patreon here, and follow Nature's Archive/Michael on Twitter here and on Instagram @NaturesArchive.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, it's Ashley. Although we are still on a
brief hiatus because I got married recently, I did promise
that we would release an episode of another podcast that
I went on recently, called Nature's Archive with Michael Hawk,
so that episode is going to be released on our
feed as well, but I do highly encourage you to
go listen to Michael's podcast. We've shared a lot of

(00:21):
guests like doctor Emily Taylor and sim Montgomery, and his
podcast is just about nature in general and diving deeper
into some topics, and it is much more PC than
this one, so if you like this one, you will
definitely like that one. Michael also has one of the
best podcasting voices I've ever heard, so please take a
listen to this episode either on this feed or on his.

(00:42):
Either way, enjoy and I will be back next month
with regular Get Out Live episodes for you all. Thank
you so much for your patience, your time, and all
of your congratulations. I love you all, see you soon.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
I've been looking forward to today's episode for a really
long time, and for two great reasons. First, it's about
wildlife forensics, which is an immense field that requires knowledge
of everything from wildlife behavior and morphology to DNA, to
crime scene investigation and policy and the law. I've always
been a bit of a generalist who likes to occasionally

(01:17):
deeply dive into topics, So this is a field true
to my heart. And the second reason I've been looking
forward to it is because of our guest. It's forensics
wildlife biologist Ashley Bray. As you'll hear, Ashley, in addition
to being a biologist, is also a podcaster, and her
podcast is a unique slant on human wildlife conflict with

(01:37):
as you might expect from a forensic biologist, kind of
a true crime twist. Oh and it's called Get Out Alive,
so be sure to check that out. Today we take
a broad look at what forensic wildlife biology entails and
the surprising connection it reveals, such as the connection between
wildlife crimes and drug and human trafficking and organized crime.

(02:00):
For that matter, Ashley has a couple of nice case
examples that we walk through and hold tight. They're going
to learn about a super cute animal called a vakita,
So get ready for a wide ranging discussion with Ashley Bray. Ashley,
thank you so much for joining me today.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
I wanted to reach out to you because, well, for
two reasons. One, you're also a nature podcaster. Yeah, I
find that in speaking to other podcasters there's always a
really interesting perspective that you bring because you have an
opportunity to delve into lots of different topics and stories.
And then at the same time, you are studying wildlife forensics,

(02:38):
which seems incredibly interesting. So I'm hoping we can get
into that basically most of today's discussion.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
What I want to do is talk a little bit
about your podcast first, because that's how I first became
aware of you. What is your podcast? What's it called,
what's it about? What do you do?

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Yeah? So my podcast is called Get Out Alive in
an Animal Attack podcast. It is about animals, and I
started it, gosh, what was it twenty twenty one? I
think it was originally with my very good friend Nick.
He's no longer like a permanent co host kind of thing,
just and he has no background in nature, so he
served as like my member of the public who didn't

(03:15):
really know anything, and he could ask questions that I
thought other people might ask. So I was serving as
like the wildlife biologist of the show the quote unquote expert.
But we do have experts come on, like in different species,
like black bear experts, tiger experts and whatnot. Sometimes we
have animal tax survivors come on, and basically we just
go over animal tacks over like a bunch of different species.

(03:38):
What happened, Why did it happen? What were the things
that like caused it? Is their human wild life conflict
issues that are really behind why tiger attack somebody? That
kind of thing. So I used to listen to a
lot of true crime podcasts, so I was kind of
basing it off that a little bit like that kind
of vibe. But then I wanted to be like, Okay,
in true crime podcasts, you leave those podcasts being like, wow,

(04:01):
isn't it horrifying? I could be murdered at any point, right,
and there's like nothing you can really do. But in
my podcast, I was like, all right, people are afraid
of animals. I know this from my own background as
a biologist, So why not give people like concrete advice on, Hey,
if there's a black bear stocking you, what's the appropriate
thing to do to keep yourself safe? And how even

(04:21):
common is that? So that's that is the podcast, right.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
You're not sensationalizing these stories, at least from the episodes
I've listened to. And you know, I'm glad you bring
that up, because I have to admit I was a
little bit skeptical at first when you know, based on
the title and animal Attack podcast, like I was assuming
it was going to be one of these playing up
fear aspect.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
So I've enjoyed listening to your episodes because it helps.
I think it helps people understand the reality but then
why these situations occurred and the context they occurred in
and what they can do. And generally I walk away,
as you said, feeling like, Okay, not a big deal.
I don't need to worry about the yeashpairs so much.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yeah, and that's what I really hope for. I mean,
I do want to be like so clear when we're
talking about attacks. Yeah, this is horrifying, like literally the
worst case scenario, you could be attacked by a grizzly
bear and what is that? And we've talked to grizzly
attack survivors and like it is one of the worst
things you can experience, of course, but I don't want
people to come away like I'm terrified of all grizzlies.

(05:28):
It's like, yeah, being attacked would be awful, but the
odds are pretty low comparatively so, and I try really
hard not to sensationalize, I know, marketing it as like
an animal attack podcast. I wanted to draw in people
that normally wouldn't listen to a podcast like this where
they're like, oh, I'm already into nature, you know what
I mean. So trying to draw on people that might
be into true crime and are like, oh, animal tacks, Sure,

(05:49):
that's cool, and then you hopefully learn something along the.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Way exactly you draw them in, and then you reveal
a new truth yeah, that perhaps they wouldn't have heard otherwise. Yeah,
have you done any episodes on mosquitoes?

Speaker 1 (06:03):
No? I haven't done any insects, and I really need to.
But I've been waiting to find someone who's like a
quote unquote expert on like wasps or mosquitos or something,
because the other thing is I mean, like talking about
a grizzly attack. We could talk for like an hour
about that, you know, but like if you're bitten by
a mosquito, that's kind of it, and then you might
get malaria and die, So it's hard to talk about.

(06:23):
So I need to find an expert to be like, hey,
here's what happens. Here's the odds of you dying of
malaria stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
So no, yeah, And the reason I brought that up
is I often hear this stat thrown about how the
mosquito is the most dangerous animal in the world, and
then very often after that it's like in the US anyway,
maybe it's not the mosquito, Maybe it is it is
the mosquito or bees, and then after that it's like
white tailed deer, yeah, because of car collisions. Yeah, how

(06:53):
did you get interested in wildlife in the first place?
You mentioned you're the expert on your show. You're a biologist.
What you into biology?

Speaker 1 (07:02):
So I can't tell you if there was any inciting incident.
I just remember, for as long as I have had
memory that I've been really into animals and I always
wanted to do something with wildlife. I was that kid
growing up for Christmas, I was like, can I have
an animal encyclopedia? And then I would read it religiously
and try to like discover new animals and be like, hey, mom,
did you know that a jerboa is like a desert

(07:23):
grat and that kind I was that kind of person.
So when I was growing up and people would ask,
you know, what do you want to be when you
get older, they would always assume like a vet because
I liked animals, so that was the only real option.
But I would always tell people I want to be
like Steve Irwin, which maybe some people think is a
problematic answer nowadays, since he would just run around and
grab wild life. But I wanted to be a conservationist
and he was the only person I really knew that

(07:44):
did that kind of thing. So that's the path I
am trying to carve for myself still currently.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
And did you you know say, once it was time
to head the university, it was biology, just like the
default choice or did you have to deliberate a little
bit about that.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah. So I originally went to my undergrad as a
microbiology student because I knew being a wild life biologist
I would make no money, and that is still true
generally for that field. But when I was doing microbiology
my first year at undergrad, there was so much chemistry,
and that is not how my brain works at all.
Like I'm not into chemistry, physics. It just doesn't click.

(08:22):
So I was like, I can't do four more years
of this and also being stuck in a lab all day,
I couldn't do it. So I switched to a wildlife
biology and it just everything made so much more sense.
I still have done like lab work after that. I've
worked with Rabi's, I've worked with HIV polio, but I
would prefer to be outside in the field most of
the time.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
Gotcha, And now that's led to you to wildlife forensics.
What I mean, I can kind of I can definitely
see a connection with maybe some of that introduction to
microbiology and lab work and things like that, but forensics
is so much more than lab work. So how did
you then land in the field of forensics.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
Yeah, So when I was and I want to be
a conservationist, my big thing was like, all right, I
want to stop poachers and I want to stop illegal
wildlife trafficking. There was no set path to do that.
There was no field for that beyond conservation, and I
didn't even know wild life forensics was a thing until
I started doing my podcast. Ironically, I interviewed Jim Crosby,
who is the world's leading fatal dog attack expert he

(09:22):
is getting a PhD through the University of Florida in
veterinary forensics, so that is investigating abuse and neglect cases
and dogs, cats, other domesticated animals. And as we were
chatting and he was hearing about my interests, he was like,
I think you would be perfect for the University of
Florida's wildlife forensics program. And the more I looked into it,
it was perfectly just encompassed all the things I wanted

(09:43):
to do. So it encompassed conservation because the degree is
technically wildlife forensics and conservation because they're super tied together,
and it is all about combating poaching, illegal trade, everything
that encompasses that. So it was like the perfect thing.
And it's a very new field. There is not a
lot of research in it yet because a lot of
what we have to draw on is cases either from

(10:05):
humans or from domesticated animals. So it's like a really
up and coming field if people are interested in it.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
And you already answered one of my next questions is
there actually are there degree programs in wildlife forensics, So
University of Florida has one, Are there others out there
or is that still pretty unique to Florida.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
This is literally the only one I've ever heard of.
I think it is the only one in the US,
and it is an entirely remote program. There's different levels,
so I'm in a master's degree. I believe there's a
PhD program, and then you can do like degree certificates,
which is like shorter than a master's degree, but you
could take like a few classes kind of thing. I
know there are somewhat similar programs in South Africa, so

(10:47):
outside of the US there might be more. In the US,
it is still a very new thing. In the University
of Florida seems to be at the forefront of it.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
For those universities that don't have a full degree program,
do you find or see that there are actually really
maybe individual classes people can take to get a taste
of what's involved here.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
Yeah, So the University of Florida, I mean they have
the best classes for wildlife forensics because the whole programs
faced around it. If you want to just take a
few classes and get the certificate. There are things like
Wildlife crime scene Processing, which teaches you how to process
a crime scene but specific to wildlife, and then there
are things like wildlife forensics and conservation, So there's a

(11:25):
bunch of different classes. Even if you just took a
one off, it would still give you like a great
perspective of the field. But there's just there's so many
aspects to forensics to dive into. So, like, you know,
wildlife crime scene processing might be great if you are
a conservation officer, but it's not going to give you
the entire background that you might want if you're trying
to like really get into the field.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
So then what types of job opportunities are there for
people with this background? You mentioned conservation officer, game warden,
like those are pretty straightforward, but what else is out there?

Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yeah, I mean that's a great question, and because it
is such a new field, it's not really, to be
honest clear And I've found that the more I talk
to professionals in this field, the more that they're like,
oh man, we could really use someone like that with
that skill set, but there's just no set jobs for it.
So I think if you are trying to get into

(12:15):
this field of wide life forensics, you have to be
like a little bit of a pioneer, make a niche
for yourself, or put yourself in a position like a
state biologist or something and be like, all right, let's
find out how we can use these skills to combat
poaching or whatever. But right now, it seems like a
lot of consultant work, so going places and teaching people
these forensics techniques, like teaching a team of conservation officers,

(12:38):
for example, how to process a wildlife crime scene, because
that's not a thing that is very common knowledge. But
there is one singular federal wildlife forensics lab and it
is based out of Oregon, and they do, you know,
like they take in animals or like parts of animals
from crime scenes and like do all the forensic stuff there.

(12:59):
But as far as I know, they're the only one
really in the US right now.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
Interesting. Yeah, I definitely could see, you know, as a
staff biologist or something like that where this would come
in handy because even if you're just researching a population
of I don't know, name your animal, bobcats or whatever,
interesting things are going to be found and you might
need to understand what happened here. Was it poaching, was
it a natural occurrence of some other mountain lion predation

(13:28):
or you know, who knows. I heard a very brief
interview with a wildlife forensics expert from Australia, I believe
it was, and they had a lab there and were
affiliated with the equivalent of Customs and Border Patrol that
they have in Australia. And the interesting thing that she

(13:50):
mentioned is when people are participating in illegal wildlife trade,
for example, trying to smuggle something in that very often
it's to some broader crime organization. And it sounded like
she would get involved in some really interesting cases that
were tied to organized crime or tied to terrorist groups

(14:10):
or things like that, and they were doing things like
sharkfin import or ivory import or just more straightforward animal trade.
And that was really eye opening to me that I guess,
where there's a way to make money, organized crime tends
to follow that.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah, that's so funny that you say that, because one
of the points I had written down that I really
wanted to mention about forensics was were wildlife forensics specifically?
So wildlife crime is, like you said, if someone is
involved in it, it is extremely like either also involved
in drug trafficking or even human trafficking. But of those crimes,
wildlife crimes tend to be seen as less serious or

(14:49):
less important, so it might be an easy way to
get into finding out the players in these games. But
the likelihood of people being prosecuted for wild life crimes
specifically is lower compared to like drug trafficking or human trafficking.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
That makes sense. I could also see it, you know,
almost like al Capone. You know they brought down al
Capone because of tax evasion. Yeah, maybe some of these
wildlife crimes are easier to prosecute for one reason or another.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
I think it could really go either way, depending on
who it is and what it is.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
You know, we're talking about like illegal wildlife trade and
things like that. But what are some other applications for
wildlife forensics?

Speaker 1 (15:30):
So in the notes that you gave me before we recorded,
you hit the nail on the head because you had
assumed like legal cases, animal attacks, environmental crimes, and conservation issues,
and those are all like primary uses of wildlife forensics.
But I think the biggest and most important use of
wildlife forensics is the fight against illegal trade and poaching,

(15:50):
like we're talking about and right now, the big pushes
to teach these forensic techniques to people like conservation officers
or anti poaching rangers because they're the ones at the
four front who are stopping it, and they'd be the
ones finding these crime scenes or collecting evidence. So it's
really important that these people know what quote unquote good
evidence is, how to collect it, how to not contaminate
crime scenes, and the broader implications of stopping poaching. But

(16:17):
then we've also seen it used recently in the US
because now I'm seeing a lot when an animal attack happens,
like a person is killed by an animal, things like
DNA are taken from the person to identify the animal
that attack them. You can take DNA from the attack
figure out the animal species, but then you can also
get even down to the individual level and get DNA

(16:41):
testing done to the point that you can find out, Okay,
this is the specific mountain lion that killed this person,
So now what are we going to do with it.
So there's a lot of different ways that it could go,
but right now, at least in the US, I'm seeing
that as like the primary use.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
I find this all really interesting because my background is
not in biology. I am still relatively new to the
field of nature conservation and I don't have a formal
education in it. But my education and career up until
recently was based in technology, data, networking, cloud computing, these
sorts of things. And one of the things I learned

(17:17):
along the way was computer forensics data forensics, and I'm
seeing lots of parallels on what you're talking about, because
we have to train people if something has happened, if
something seems amiss, you have to train them what to
do so they don't contaminate the scene of the crime
in this case, like in computer it's just kind of
a virtual scene. Yeah, and then maintain a chain of custody,

(17:39):
you know, so that we know that things are still clean,
you know, when they get to the proper authorities.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah. I am totally going to check in with you
towards the end of the year because this fall I'm
taking a class in cybercrime and wildlife forensics, So I
feel like we could have a whole other conversation about
that specifically.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah, So as we kind of continue our broad overview
of what is wildlife forensics, can you tell me a
little bit about some of the methods, some of like
what's in your toolkit to assess a scene. And obviously
this is extremely broad, so take it in whatever direction
you feel most comfortable in.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
Yeah, So forensics really starts with crime scene investigations right
before you even get into collecting the evidence. Though, you
need to know what good evidence is, which involves knowing
how evidence is going to be used in court and
what it means to serve as an expert in court
if you are a forensic biologist, how to properly collect
it without contaminating a scene, how to document a crime

(18:36):
scene with specific crime scene photography methods, and so on.
So like that in and of itself is already a lot.
And then you've got testing evidence or performing necropsies if
you have a corpse, and a necropsy is to animals
what an autopsy is to people. Starting with necropsies, from
my very limited experience, I can tell you knowing how

(18:57):
to do ne cropsies on wild animals is so oh had.
I have so much respect for veterinarians and like anyone
that can do it because and humans, of course, we
all have the same parts, and there's hundreds of years
of research we can go through about like what is
and is not normal in a human. But there are
so many different species of wild animals, arranging from amanatees
to California condors. Like we're gonna talk about a little

(19:19):
bit later to sea turtles and bears. So like, you
need to know whatever animal you're looking at, and they're
basic anatomy, but then you also need to know, Okay,
what is a normal sea turtle throat? And I say
that because if you've never seen the throat of a
sea turtle, it is deeply unsettling. The first time I
saw anee cropsy performed on one, I was like, if
I was the first person to open up a sea turtle,

(19:40):
I would be horrified.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
You can't just leave it there, like, what's going on there?

Speaker 1 (19:45):
Okay? It looks as if their throats have like teeth
in it, and I don't know how to describe it
better than that. I highly encourage everyone to look it
up if you have the courage. I guess it's pretty spooky,
but it's basically to just like keep food down and
then also regulate the fact that they are consuming water,
so like you need to keep stuff going down your throat.

(20:05):
But it's it's horrifying. It looks like teeth in their throat,
which I can imagine would be upsetting if you cut
them open. For the first time.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
It had no idea, Yeah, yeah, definitely a nightmare inducing
I think. Okay, as you might imagine, I had to
look this thing up and I found a lot of
pictures out there. It really looks like something straight out
of sci fi. Maybe it's that creature that lives in
the sand in Star Wars Return of the Jedi, or
Sandworm or something from the movie Alien. But check it

(20:33):
out if you're brave enough. I have a picture in
the show notes from.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
The NY cropsy. You're also collecting evidence, so like whether
that be weapons for example logen animal like a bullet
or an arrowhead, to actually taking samples of different organs,
sending those off two pathologists who will look for disease
or contaminants.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
Whether it could be poisoning.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
Yeah, no, there's so much that can go into it.
So like you know, to start, you could be someone
that investigates crime scenes, like kind of a detective, or
you could gone cropsy kind of route if you have,
for example, just parts of an animal, or you know
you're dealing with a human that has been attacked and
you need to use DNA and genetics. That's a whole
other thing too, because we're talking wildlife, so you've got

(21:14):
to be species specific. Or even subspecies specific if you're
talking about conservation, because sometimes a subspecies is threatened or
in nature, but the entire species is not getting that granular.
And then to get to a species ID you can
use a lot of different techniques depending on the situations,
like using antigen antibody reactions, mitochondrial DNA, the cytochrome B

(21:36):
gene for mammals and so on, and those are all
their own really complicated specific thing.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
I'm guessing that maybe some of that information isn't even
well known. There's just so many animals out.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
There well, and that's the problem, right, Like, if this
is such a new field, there's not the research to
really back these things up. And yeah, so we might
be investigating dead manatees, but what isn't isn't normal for amanity?
How long have we been cutting open manatees and keeping
track of different things that could be wrong. That's where
it gets hard. And then you know, of course, outside

(22:06):
of wildlife, you have classic human forensic techniques like ballistics,
blood splatter analysis, and bitemark analysis, and those all can
be applied to wildlife as well. So it's a huge
broad thing that we're talking about.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
So no shortage of interesting rabbit holes to go down
if you're in this field.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
I was also thinking about how in recent years, plant
poaching has really become a big problem, especially for some
of the succulent plants, the rare succulent plants. So I
could see even overlap even though we're talking wildlife here
with some botanical forensic work, there's probably some overlap there too.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Yeah. So, I mean, and that's the thing that we've
touched on very lightly in my degree. So we've talked
about the fact that orchids are the most illegally trafficked
plant in the world. But it's a plant, so it's
not like a sentient thing that people necessarily are going
to be like, oh my god, this plant is suffering,
you know what I mean. But like you're saying, I mean,
it's easy to just look at a plant and be like, oh, hey,
you're not supposed to have this, But if you're detached

(23:06):
from where that plant is being taken from, and like
the devastating effects of not having that plant where it's
supposed to be. Yeah, So I'm assuming I'm not a
plant person by any means, but the whole field of
like plant forensics has got to be like leagues behind
wildlife forensics.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
All right, So I know that we're going to talk
about a couple of case studies that you've prepared to
kind of make this more real for our listeners. But
before we jump into that, I'm wondering, is there anything
else about wildlife forensics in general that you wanted to say?

Speaker 1 (23:33):
So, I guess as a formal definition of what we're
talking about, because it is so broad and be confusing.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime,
which has the best definition I've seen so far, it
is that wildlife forensics is a field that applies scientific
analysis to support wildlife law enforcement using forensics techniques, which
is a mouthful if you know anything about human forensics.

(23:56):
It is basically that, and we're just applying that to wildlife.
But the important part is that wildly forensics is often
involved with conserving species that are protected or preventing poaching
and things like that. So we're gonna the first case
we're going to dive into is like a really blaringly
obvious case of why forensics is pretty important and how scary,

(24:17):
frankly it can be to combat it if you're also
dealing with people who are involved in drug trafficking and
human trafficking.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
And I think that case from what you were telling
me before I hit the record button here is about
the wakitas. So why don't we jump in what's a aika?

Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah, So I'm really excited about the fact that you
don't know anything about them, because that is like a
perfect reason for me to bring them up. So if
you haven't looked them up, please look up the wikita.
It's spelled vaquita. They're so cute. So they are a
species of porpoise. So they are the most endangered porpoise
in the world, so like a type of dolphin, and

(24:55):
they are so unfamiliar or like endangered to the point
that some people in Mexico believe that they they were
like a mythical animal made up by the government to
criminalize fishing and whatnot. A survey conducted this year by
the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society observed only six to eight wikitas,
none of which were new calves, which is down from
spotting the eight to thirteen last year. And this survey

(25:18):
did encompass their whole range, but there's only thought to
be around or less than twenty individuals left in the wild,
so like devastating. We could get into like genetic bottlenecking
and stuff like that, but it is it's not great
to have that few of individuals and we don't know
like how related they are and whatnot. So there have
also been attempts to capture them before and like try

(25:40):
to keep them in captivity. One wikita was caught and
tried to they try to keep her in like an
open sea pen so that they could further protect her,
but then also like do some breeding, and she ended
up dying. So they aborted the entire program because they
were like, it's not worth another kita dying. There's already
so few.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
Yeah, if one dies, that's like five percent of the
global population.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
Yeah, which is horrifying.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
Yeah. And these wikitas only live in the northern Gulf
of California, also known as the Sea of Cortez. The
thing that has driven down their numbers isn't even direct
poaching of the bikita. It's the illegal poaching of a
fish called the totoaba. Have you heard of the totuaba before?

Speaker 2 (26:20):
No?

Speaker 1 (26:20):
Okay, So the totuaba is a fish and they are
poached for their swim bladder, which is sold on the
black market for Chinese traditional medicine, and that is why
this all ties into forensics.

Speaker 2 (26:33):
So the toto aba is found beyond the Sea of Cortes.

Speaker 1 (26:37):
Yeah, so the totawaba's found like exactly where the vikitas
are as well, and like slightly beyond. But the fact
that it's so the totawabas are like kind of like
a little bit closer into shore. It's not like they're
like a deep sea fish. And same goes for the bikita.
They're not like a deep sea animal, so they're found
the same areas. So what ends up happening is people

(26:58):
who are poaching the totoaba use gill nets, which are
nets that are just set and left in the ocean,
and the wikita's become by catch in those nets ended
up drowning. Gill Nets have been outlawed by the Mexican
government in an attempt to save the wikita. But because
the swim bladder of the totoaba can fetch so much money,
and because fishermen went out of business because they could

(27:20):
no longer use gill nets, even if they were not
trying to take the totaaba. If they were just doing
you know, normal fishing, so now they're not allowed to
do that. And then the Mexican government tried to subsidize
money and like you know, tried to compensate for making
gilnets legal, but it was not nearly as much money
as they would have made fishing, so a lot of
people started struggling and then actually turned to poaching the

(27:40):
toto waba because they can get so much more money.
So where this gets even more complicated, and we've touched
on it, but the people that are involved in totoaba
poaching are also involved with the Mexican cartel, and the
cartel is the one making contact with Chinese nationals to
purchase the swim blacke and then export them to China.

(28:02):
So as you're trying to combat this illegal poaching of
this fish and the death of Wikiita's, you're also going
up against the Mexican cartel. Pretty big deal, to put
it lightly. And if anyone wants any more context about
this or they want to actually see it, there's a
fantastic documentary called The Sea of Shadows, and I highly

(28:24):
recommend everyone watch it because it is actually it's about
a journalist who is on the forefront of videotaping what
it's like to save Wikiita's, what it's like to talk
to people who are involved in the cartel, like informants.
It's a crazy documentary. It's very upsetting, frankly, but it
gives you an insight into how serious this can be.

(28:45):
So organizations like the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society that I
mentioned before are really doing some great and hard work
in the Sea of Cortes, specifically by having boats and
drones out in the ocean nearly constantly trying to find
and dismantled gillnets and then also find and chase down
people who are actively poaching the totuabas. And they're also

(29:07):
trying to keep an eye on Bikita's and you know,
like keeping track of how many there are and whatnot.
So the Sea Shepherd, this ship is doing exactly that
in the Sea of Cortez where they are chasing down
poachers and running them out of the area. A lot
of times these poachers are armed, so it's like a
very contentious situation.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
They got to be extremely brave because if the Mexican
cartels are backing these people, you would be fearing for
your life.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
I think constantly exactly right, and that's that was my
biggest takeaway coming from watching that film. I was like,
these are the bravest people I've ever seen, because you're
trying to conserve this creature where there's like less than
twenty of them, and you were against impossible odds, seemingly,
because you're not only up against the Mexican cartel and
frankly the Mexican government, you're also up against China and

(29:56):
all the people They are involved in traditional Chinese medicine,
and that is like a whole huge thing. So it's
a very scary thing to be involved with, and I'm
sure a lot of times it seems pretty hopeless. But
if it wasn't for these people, we would not have
Kikiitas anymore. So the Sea Shepherd also, because they're chasing
these poachers, they're collecting evidence. So when they're stopping poaching

(30:19):
boats or you know, they're calling in the Mexican like
navy or Coastguard, they're collecting evidence. So whether that be
totawabas themselves, either live or dead, Totaba parts, so swim bladders,
gill nets, because if you have a gillnet on board
for small it's illegal, but that's like presuming that you're
going to send it out to try to poach at Totawaba.
That is where forensics also ties in because you know,

(30:42):
gaining evidence to make criminal cases against people, right, but
you also need people to be doing detective work to
try to figure out who the main players in this
are so that the supply chain can be cut off,
which is, of course, like we've been talking about, very dangerous.
And in that documentary Ceo Shadows, they speak to two

(31:02):
informants from the cartel and they said that the cartel
has so much firepower in the town of San Felipe alone,
which is where a lot of this conflict is happening,
that they could literally wipe out the entire town. And
it is a very popular tourist destination too, and I
don't think a lot of people realize, like when you
go there, there's this huge conflict happening behind the scenes.

(31:22):
But the cartel has said that if anyone tries to
come forward and prevent them from poaching Totuwapas, that they
will go up against you with all of this firepower.
So it's a very scary prospect, and it's all for
a fish a specific part of one fish.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
So I was just listening to a podcast episode about
some of the very first game wardens in Florida, and
in that scenario, I mean, it was similar bit different.
Where in the era of the early nineteen hundred's, bird
adorned hats were very popular and the plumes of egos

(32:00):
were often placed in hats as a fashion statement. And
they decided that, okay, well we'll start to enforce some
of these new laws and prevent people from poaching all
the egrets. You find a rookery of birds, and there
could be thousands of these birds in one place, so
it's easy pickings and people could make a lot of
money from it. And the game wardens, some of them

(32:23):
were actually killed by the locals because they were a
threat to their livelihoods. And you know, who were these
people coming in to enforce these laws taking away my livelihood.
That's kind of the gist of what was going on.
But ultimately what solved it was the supply chain was
cut off. Most of the processing of bird feathers was
in New York, and they passed a law in New

(32:44):
York eventually saying you could no longer process these feathers
and put them in fashion garments, and so it basically
broke the supply chain instead of going straight for the
people doing the shooting. They were able to solve the
problem that way. Now you're talking about multinational conflict, it's
a little more difficult to break a supply chain there.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
Yeah, And that's such a good point too, And that's
something I really like to touch on a lot when
I'm talking about poaching. Is like, all right, it's easy
enough to say, like, I hate these poachers, let's stop
these poachers. But the people that you're looking at who
are actively the ones like killing this animal, are at
the bottom of this chain. And there are people who
are probably in the most need of money and like

(33:28):
who are the least financially stable. And you'll see in
the Sea of shadows a lot of the people that
they speak to, the ones that are setting out the gillnets,
they're like, I have no income besides this, and this
is the easiest way for me to make money. I
have no other support from the government, there's no other jobs,
like I need this. And of course they're going to
be the ones who are like first prosecuted because they

(33:50):
are holding the evidence unless they sell people out, and
then you're combating selling out members of the cartel. And
there's even one informant in that film spoiler, I guess
who ends up. They interview him at the beginning and
he ends up being killed by the cartel. So it's yeah,
it's tough. It's easy to hate these people, but a
lot of times we don't really understand their circumstance. And

(34:12):
it's easy enough to pass judgment when we're not the
ones who are like suffering and you're like, well, it's
just a fish, and you might think that as one person,
you're not going to make the species go extinct, But
when there's hundreds of you suffering and needing to get
money quickly, then tragedy of the commons. You're all killing
this fish. Gathering evidence and making a criminal case against
people is one thing, but a large part of forensics

(34:33):
too is knowing laws. And when you're talking about international
trade between Mexico and China, you also need to understand
international treaties and the regulations in other countries. The biggest
international treaty about wildlife that we have is called site EASE,
which is the Convention on the Endangered Species of Wild
Flora and Fauna, which seeks to control international wildlife trade

(34:56):
and prevent things like illegal trade and the decimation of
species like the Wikida in this case because of trade
and trafficking. So Mexico and China are both signed on
to SIDS, but due to the wording incieties, if either
of those countries do not deem wildlife crime as like
a quote unquote serious crime, they actually don't even have

(35:18):
to cooperate in foreign investigations if they don't want to,
which is especially a problem if you have corrupt governments
who are involved in this trade. The informants for the
cartel even said that they are bribing their way up
the chain. They are bribing people in customs so that
they can smuggle these things across countries. It is a
very complicated problem, and we don't have great regulations when

(35:39):
you're trying to combat it. Between countries, and then even
among different countries, there's varying legislation and it's all very new.
So I think the US has some like pretty decent
laws like the Lacy Act and whatnot, but there's still
plenty of work to be done in the US and
outside of the US for sure.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
Yeah, I think it's easy to be dismissed of the
problems of say Mexico or China or other countries not
knowing the realities on the ground. But even in the
United States, things like political action committees and lobbying and
everything else goes on probably can fit into the category
of bribe as well. It's a little less direct, so

(36:18):
it can happen here too. And then, as you've pointed out,
overlay that with lack of resources, other priorities, different priorities,
and it's pretty easy to see how people can just
get away with some of this.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
Yeah, no, it's really tough. And like you were saying,
it's the US. We have our own problems for sure,
but I mean when you have other countries, who are
they have so many other struggles besides this endangered porpoise,
I understand if it's not on the top of their
priority list. So it's that's why we need more people
who care and are brave, like the people who are
in the Sea Shepherd doing this kind of work, because

(36:52):
it takes a village more than a village.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
But yeah, all right, well, I'm going to work on
my own personal bravery. Just to watch Sea of Shadows.
It sounds like I'm going to have to prepare myself
a little bit before watching it, but I will watch it.
I promise you that perfect. All right, So I have
some homework to do. I need to find some nice
pictures of wikitas because it sounds like it's really worth

(37:15):
seeing and maybe understanding a little bit more about why
these animals are important. Yeah, and of course the documentary.
So thank you for enlightening me on several different new
things just in that one story. And next on your
list you said you had a story about California condors,
So can you tee that one up for us?

Speaker 1 (37:34):
Yeah, for sure. So California condors maybe a little more recognizable,
especially for listeners of your podcast, and probably a little
more well known than than the wikida, like their story
of what has happened to them. But I'll go over
quickly the plight of the condor. I won't get too
in depth, but I want to touch on them because
there's like a really recent, extremely recent example of how

(37:54):
forensics can be used. The California condor is the largest
landbird in North America. They way up two twenty five pounds,
which might not sound like a lot, but I've worked
with a lot of raptors like birds of prey, and
a bald eagle on average is like ten pounds and
they're huge, so twenty five pounds is an incredibly large bird.
And they have a wingspan of up to nine and
a half feet, which is also insane. And they used

(38:18):
to arrange from western Canada all the way down to
northern Mexico, and their range in the US was between
California and Florida. And they are a species of vulture.
So if you have never seen one, imagine a giant
bird that is mostly black and they have some white
on the underneath of their wings and tail, and they
have a bald pink head that is somewhat reminiscent of
a turkey, because everyone knows what a turkey looks like,

(38:41):
so kind of like that. But by the nineteen sixties
they were listed as endangered by the federal government, and
they were actually the first ever officially listed and endangered
species due to a very dramatic decline in their numbers.
And their decline was due to a lot of things.
It included habitat degradation, poisoning, shooting, and like you said,
collection of feathers and eggs. A relatively recent study published

(39:05):
in twenty twenty two found that in California, condors that
live near the coast, particularly in southern California, they had
high levels of DDT in their system that was seven
times more than condors that were inland. And if you
haven't heard of DDT before, and it was a past aside,
I'm sure you'll touch on it at a later point.
So that's a whole other thing.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
But well, yeah, but we can quickly, like just to
put a couple other things out there. Yeah, DDT. I
think it was really brought to light through Rachel Carson's
Silent Spring. And one of the impacts it had on
birds is it made eggs softer. So there is a
lot of nest failure that happened with osprey and eagles
and condors and other birds as well. So as a result,

(39:46):
the eggs would fail, they would crack under the weight
of the birds, or I just didn't have proper protection.
It was kind of the ten thousand foot summary.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
Yeah, And why we were seeing it more in things
like eagles and falcons and condors is because at the
top of the food chain, so they're eating deer that
was eating plants that had a bunch of DDT. The
deer wasn't having enough of DDT to like kill it.
But these animals that are eating a ton of animals
that all are infected so to speak, with DDT, it

(40:15):
accumulates in their system more. So it was affecting them
more and like you said, it wasn't directly killing them,
but killing their offspring by crushing their eggs. So that's
what was happening to condors as well. And as the
nineteen eighties, there were only twenty two condors, California condors
left in the world, so they were all captured and
brought into captivity for a captive breeding program. It was
incredibly successful and it's the reason that we still have

(40:37):
condors today. And they began releasing in the nineteen nineties.
So part of California condor recovery program is monitoring existing
condors because they're all fitted with IT tags on their wings,
and also some have radio transmitters on them, so biologists
can like go out and track them and if one
stops moving for a while, they can go to it
and be like, all right, is it dead, is it sick?

(40:58):
What's going on? So right, there is already an example
of forensics, because if you're finding a dead bird and
you have to conduct a knee cropsy, you need to
potentially collect evidence if it's thought to be a crime, because,
as you can imagine, killing an endangered species that the
government has put a lot of money and time into
saving comes with some hefty fines and also potentially jail time.

(41:19):
Back to my reason for bringing all this up. In
March of this year, twenty twenty four, biologists in Zion
National Park noticed one of their more iconic condors had
stopped moving. This bird was known as one K because
he was the one thousandth California condor tagged as part
of this recovery program, and he had hatched in May
of twenty nineteen and was the first California condor to

(41:41):
successfully fledge in Zion, meaning that he was born in
the wild and successfully got out there, and he was
the first to do so in the park. And he
was really like an icon of hope for the species
in the park and like you can find his picture
on informative signs there on merchandise for the park. He
was really beloved by everybody. When biologists this year reached

(42:03):
his GPS location, they found him dead in a remote
canyon in the park, which of course was devastating for everyone.
Necropsy results as of this month revealed that one k
died from lead poisoning just before his fifth birthday, which
means he was just a year or two away from
finding his lifelong mate and breeding. So he wasn't even
at maturity yet. So it takes them quite a while

(42:26):
too mature, and so as you can imagine, devastating to
get almost of five years and then just not make
it because of something that has humans caused. Where does
forensics come in more to this? So you know, finding
him dead doing necropsy already of forensics, but wildlife forensics
also encompasses environmental contamination, and that is exactly how condors

(42:47):
and other birds die of lead poisoning. So it's not
necessarily that they get shot by lead bullets. Like obviously
being shot would be a whole other thing and would
be a crime. But when hunters use lead ammunition on
deer or waterfowl or even livestock and California condors being
vultures or scavengers, when they go to eat those animals
and the lead bullet is left in them, they can

(43:09):
eat the tainted meat and become contaminated themselves.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
So I think when we released this episode, I will
have recently released a different episode with Sophie Osbourne, who's
a wildlife biologist and was involved with some California condor reintroductions,
and she talked more in depth about lead and the
problem of lead. And one of the really interesting things
is she shared a study that is linked in the
show notes that has photographs basically X rays of what

(43:34):
it looks like inside an animal that's been shot with
a lead bullet. Because a lot of people ask the question, well,
aren't the condors smart enough to avoid the lead or
spit it out or you know something like that. Well, actually,
at fragments into so many tiny little pieces that very
often it's totally impossible. And then the thing I wanted
to point out was these X ray photographs make it
very apparent some of these photographs were taken of meat

(43:59):
that was being old to the general public. So even
us as humans have a risk of eating lead shot meat.
The problem with lead is not just a condor problem.
It's also a people problem.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
Yeah, and it's such a huge waterfowl problems. So I'm
up here in New Hampshire, And that is something that
they talk a lot about with loons because if people
are using lead bait for fishing and they leave that,
it takes such a small amount to kill loons or
really any other bird. So yeah, it's interesting you say that.
I just recently finished a class called skeletal trauma analysis

(44:33):
and we went over that specifically, like what is what
happens to an animal's body when it's shot by a bullet,
you know, or a human's body, Like how does it fracture,
How does the bullet go through the body, and like
does that bullet there's different types of bullets, of course,
but like how do the different types of bullets go
into the body, and how can you find like traces
of what it is? So that is also a whole

(44:55):
forensics thing, like using those techniques to figure out like
trace amounts of things in the system. And that's what
I meant by like environmental contamination things, because you can
use forensics techniques to discover like companies that are dumping
VOCs into the environment, volatile grained compounds, or like even
the BP oil spill in the ocean from like years

(45:16):
and years ago that could technically be considered a crime
scene if you really think about it, a lot of
different applications. But yeah, so for California condors, them being
infected by lead definitely a whole forensics issue, and of course,
like wildlife, forensics could play more of a part if
there were suspected poisonings or outright poaching of condors. For example,
if biologis keep finding poisoned carcasses, you'll need to utilize

(45:38):
all the forensics methods that we've talked about at your
disbosal to build a case against somebody. But for now,
it seems like a lot of these lead poisonings are unintentional,
and it seems like there's been a ton of good
outreach in the area to talking to hunters about like
not using lead shot for things, and especially if you
are shooting an animal that you're not sure you can

(45:59):
retrieve it, like definitely don't use lead and just leave
it out there.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
So, just to kind of summarize one k, it was
lead poisoning. It was found to be lead poisoning. Yeah,
and since it's not a direct it's not like a
hunter shot the condor with leads. It was scavenging on
other animals that they had like poisoning. So is basically
the gist of this story that wildlife forensics was able
to help determine that. Okay, yeah, lead is still a problem.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
Yeah, basically that lead was the thing that killed him, so,
you know, ruling out that it wasn't a crime, but
if it becomes more of a consistent problem we're building
a case against, Like, Okay, let's try to find these
contaminated meat piles, and if there's some legislation passed about
not using lead ammunition and it becoming like a criminal offense,

(46:47):
then using forensics techniques to take a deer carcass that
was left out that contains lead and holding somebody accountable
for it essentially gotcha.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
So condors, as I understand that they have pretty large
foraging ranges, do you happen to know like how big
of a range that they may following?

Speaker 1 (47:07):
I don't know off the top of my head, but
I mean, because their wingspan is so huge, I can
imagine they can cover a crazy area, So it would
be hard to point out like, Okay, they're consuming this
one carcass that's contaminated. I guess you'd have to find
them pretty close to it.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
But yeah, and the reason that where my mind was
going with this is, I know, in California there are
some laws that outlaw the sale of lead ammunition. But
where I was going with it from a forensic standpoint
was I guess, depending on knowledge of the individual animal,
you might find that, well, this animal could not have
strayed beyond the borders of California. It just is not capable.

(47:46):
And then now you know someone was using a legal
lead shot in California. Potentially, now that would be extremely
costly to figure out exactly what happened and where, And yeah,
you know, but it's interesting to think about how this
might evolve in the future as we learn more about
specific behaviors of animals and how it ties into you know,
in this case like lead poisoning.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
Yeah, and if you harken back to the Endangered Species Act,
it could tie into that too. Because there's been a
lot of discourse within the last few years in my life,
I've had people complain like, ah, man, if an endangered
species shows up on your property, you no longer own
that property, it's habitat for that endangered species. And companies
being upset if there's endangered species found because they don't

(48:28):
want to have to deal with the Endangered Species Act,
So it'll be interesting as time goes on. And you know,
obviously lead is so much of an issue. If lead
is straight up banned, like the use of ammunitionist band
in California, it'll be interesting to see how they go
about prosecuting people who use it, because in theory, if
a condor feasts on a carcass that has been killed

(48:51):
with lead and they find the person who is accountable
for it, I think there is a path there to
making the person account for like a condor ak and
endangered species dying, and then they'll be held to the
Lacy Act, the Endangered Species Act like a ton of
more things, which sounds scary, but I think could be
a good thing. Yeah, you know, it'll be a lot

(49:14):
of work, but it might be the thing to push
people to like really start caring more. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
You use the concept of tragedy of the commons earlier,
and that's very often what we're dealing with. And I
think that's why it's so hard. It's an indirect effect,
and as the individual who's perpetrating this potentially crime, it's
hard to see it. It's hard to see the actual impact,
and I think that's why it continues to happen in
a lot of cases now. Of course, there's also people

(49:39):
who are like, you know, who are you to tell
me what to do? And you know, they're just going
to go do it, which is another story altogether. It's
very interesting. And yeah, the other tidbit that I took
away from some of the condor conversations I've had in
recent months. So first of all, I live, like as
the condor flies, maybe seventy miles from Pinnacles National Park. Cool,

(50:01):
and they have a program that's been successful down there
in reintroducing the condors.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
It's super cool cool.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
And where I'm going with this is that there's still
a lot of handholding that has to happen. As you mentioned,
there's a lot of monitoring, and very often most condors
end up back in captivity briefly for leed chelation and
different things to help keep them healthy to make it
to breeding age so that you know, they can actually
be breeding populations in the wild. But it is generally

(50:33):
a positive story. And I just want to mention this
because it's personal to me, So of course it's important
because it's me, but so I'm in San Jose, California,
and I mentioned this population they have now going down
in the pinnacles and there are now periodic flights that
they can track of condors coming all the way up

(50:54):
to There's this area called Mount Diablo here in the
Bay Area that was historically a you know, a condor
I don't know if I want to say haven, I
don't know that anyone really knows how popular it really was. Yeah,
but they're starting to see condors straying further and further afield,
kind of looking up potentially looking for new nesting locations,

(51:15):
new territories. We're all eagerly awaiting for the first condor
couple to make Mount Diablo its home, a solid like
hundred plus miles I think from Pinnacles, which, yeah, you know,
it'll be a big day when that happened. It seems
to be getting closer because these flights are happening more
and more often now.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
That's so exciting. Yeah. Yeah, to the to your point
about you know, having to bring them in from medical care,
that seems like a band aid for the larger issue,
like we've been talking about, you know, forensics cutting off
the supply chain, so to speak, and it seems like
there needs to be more done to cut off the
quote unquote supply chain to DDT and lead poisoning. So

(51:54):
it's like, yeah, you know, caring for these condors and
they're poisoning right now is like we're doing treo, like
trying to stop the bleeding. But the overall issue is
we need to really get DDT and lead out of
the environment, which is like way more of an issue
than just fixing the one condor right now. But yeah,
there's so many birds that are affected by lead, and

(52:17):
I mean we haven't even touched on like rodenticides and
rat poisons, but that's another huge issue for all types
of raptors and I mean other mammalian predators too, So
there's so many things out there that could be harmful
to them. It's like it feels like a losing battle
a lot of the time.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
That reminds me of you mentioned in some of that
early investigation that DDT was found in higher concentrations on
the coastal condors. Yeah, why was it more often seen
on the coastal condors? Do you know?

Speaker 1 (52:51):
So I can give you the study that specifically talks
about it, but from the gist that I got there
was a lot of dumping into the ocean. Mammals that
they would scavenge on were consuming things that had been
contaminated with DDT or run off into the water from
like more coastal areas, just like made it accumulate more
in the water so that the marine mammals ate it.

(53:13):
If the marine mammals like seals and whatnot are also
bioaccumulating the DDT, it's already at high levels in those animals,
and the condors are feeding on even higher levels. So
it just seems like a perfect storm over there.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
Yeah, that sounds really familiar. That seems right from the
deep recesses of my brain from what I've heard before,
and I think that's actually where some of the DDT
still makes it into the environment today. This whole conversation
has been a lot of fun, and I appreciate you
and the energy that you've brought to it, and the
preparation and everything else equally fun. I think is I
always like to ask some standard wrap up questions of

(53:48):
my guests. I never know what kind of response I'm
going to get, and they're almost always really enlightening. So
if you're ready we can jump into the wrap up. So,
thinking back, do you have a top of head event
or it could be a specific wildlife encounter or book
or mentor something like that that really stands out to you.

(54:09):
Is escalating your interest in your care for the natural world.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
Yeah, I have so many examples. The first one that
comes to mind is Jane Goodall's book about studying chimpanzees,
which is ironic because if you know anything about me,
I am horrified of chimpanzees. They scare me to no end.
I do not like them. But I love Jane Goodall
because she was one of the first people, or the

(54:33):
first biologist conservationist I heard about, and she's a woman,
and she's one of the very few women who were
doing it very early on. That was huge for me
early on. I also I was really into, like I said,
Steve Irwin, but also Jack Hannah and Jeff Corwin were
some other conservationists, and I actually got to see Jack
Hannah in person when I was younger. He did like

(54:54):
a talk and he brought a cheetah on stage, which
was like mind blowing to eight year old Ashley. That
could be happening in front of me. So that was cool.
And then just another time in middle school, we got
called in for a program and this person brought in
a bunch of birds of prey in my area, and

(55:14):
he brought out a sawwet owl. I don't know why
that one specifically stuck out to me, but saw what
owls are like, these tiny little owls, They're so sweet. Yeah,
and I just like was so in love. I had
no I had never seen that b before. Even to
this day, I have never seen a sawt owl in
the wild. It's crazy to me that, like, these animals

(55:34):
probably live in my backyard and I had no idea.
So seeing animals in person is something that, like I
think can really trigger a love and passion if you
didn't already have one. So highly encourage everyone see as
many animals as you can. If you're someone trying to
make people care about animals, like showing them the thing
is what will get them to care. And that's why

(55:56):
I recommended Sea of Shadows, because like, you'll see the
Wikita and I promise you'll come away being more enraptured
with them than you were before, or just knowing literally
anything more than you knew about Wikiita's before.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
Yeah, it's easy for me because I knew nothing but
before Yeah, there you go. Yeah, that's I mean so true.
Showing people these connections, showing people these animals, yeah, so important.
The other question that I'd love to ask you is
if you could just say, snap your fingers and magically
impart one ecological concept to help the general public see
the world like you see it? What might that be?

Speaker 1 (56:28):
So I have one, but like some points under that
one we'll take, okay. So my main point is that
each species is worth saving, and it is our duty
as humans to do everything that we can to save
them from extinction, especially if their oncoming extinction is caused
by us. And then to piggyback on that, I also

(56:50):
would like people to know that all animals are also individuals.
And it may sound like really obvious to be like, well, yeah,
all people are individuals, so every animal is an individual. Two.
But even though like, for example, all American robins look
the same, they all have their own personalities. Although they
may not feel things exactly the same as humans do,
all animals still have emotions and feelings and can experience

(57:13):
things like grief. And I think it's easy to pretend
that some animals aren't as sentient as we are. But
the more that we learn and research, the more that
we find that that's really not the case.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
Yeah, they might manifest in different ways that are foreign
to us and harder for us to recognize. And I
think when this topic comes up, I always immediately think
of Ed Yong's book An Immense World, where he talks
about animal senses and he goes through all these amazing
ways that different animals perceive and sense the world, And
to me, it was a huge, huge eye opener as

(57:45):
to why it's hard for us to relate to other animals.
So I see you writing that down.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
Have you? I haven't heard that.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
Ah, Yeah, it's a that's fun read, it's informative and yeah,
I can't recommend that book enough.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
Nice. Yeah, And you know, the more I work, I've
worked with a lot of different kinds of animals, and
the more I do, the more I'm like, it is crazy.
How like even in a wildlife rehab setting where you're
taking care of animals that are injured, like, each animal
has their own preferences. One skunk may like blueberries and
the other mite like marshmallows. Each animal really is different
no matter what the species looks like as a whole.

(58:22):
Even though they all look the same and act generally
the same, they are different.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
Yeah. When I do interpretive talks and things like that,
I often bring up house cats or dogs as an example.
Dogs are a little harder, I think, because they can
look so different, so you can imagine that all these
dogs are going to behave differently or have different personalities.
But cats, maybe they have different colors, but they're still
kind of the same physical morphology. So it's easy to

(58:48):
think that they're all the same and they're all going
to eat the same thing, act the same way, do
the same thing. But once you own two cats and
you see how different they can be, and it's like,
why would that not extend and at least to other
mammals if not beyond. And same goes with birds. You know,
people that have owned pet birds, they see it. They
see the differences and preferences, personalities, behaviors. So totally makes sense,

(59:13):
and I think it just needs to be more on
the forefront of our minds.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
Yeah. I mean, even recently, I had a job where
I was working with an endangered species of cottontail rabbit
here in New Hampshire and I had to take care
of some of them who were in quarantine for tularemia,
which is like a whole other thing. But even among
those few rabbits, some of them, every time I would
come to feed them, would come up to the front
of the cage and wait for me. And they're wild animals,

(59:36):
and some of them would hide in these little boxes.
Some of them were afraid of the boxes and would
hide on top. Even among them, like those rabbits who
have very short life spans, they all look the same.
Even they had preferences and different little personalities, and I
could tell which one was which based off of like
the way that they preferred things. So it really the
more you look, the more you find that they are

(59:57):
all different and also like a little more like us
than I think that we may like to realize. Sometimes.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
Do you have any upcoming projects that you want to highlight.
Maybe it's podcast episodes, maybe it's something else.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
By the time this comes out, I will have released
an episode on my podcast with doctor John Goodrich, who
is a worldwide tiger expert, lived in Russia, worked with
Siberian tigers, was at the forefront of a lot of
that early conservation work for Siberian tigers and he works
for Panthera, which is a conservation organization that does a
lot of big cat stuff. But he was actually attacked

(01:00:33):
by a tiger, so not only is he an expert
in tigers, but he also is a survivor of an attack.
So that was a really exciting episode. I highly encourage
you all to listen to that. He's knows so many
things and has lived such a cool life, so I
would say that. But then on a more personal note
and a personal project, I'm actually getting married at the
end of September, so I'm going to be taking some

(01:00:53):
time off from the podcast so I can focus on
getting married because it's a lot of work to plant
it with O.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Congratulations, that's thank you obviously big news.

Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
Yeah, ironically, I'm actually getting married. I was talking about
how I just took care of some animals before I'm
getting married at the place where I've done widely rehab,
they have like a botanical garden, so I'm getting married
around animals, which is pretty fitting. So I may have
fun wedding pictures with animals. You can follow me on
socials and maybe you'll see them. We'll see.

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
Speaking of that, where can people follow you?

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
Yeah, So my podcast has a website, get out a
Live Podcast dot com. That's where you can find pretty
much everything but for me personally. You can follow me
on what is formerly known as Twitter, but I refuse
to call x at the Angryologist. I just post random stuff,
mostly animal related, and then on Instagram. Get out a
Live pod is where all my animal related or animal

(01:01:45):
taculated things are and where you can be updated on
the pod. We have Facebook, get a live podcast. Uh
TikTok is mostly about my pets. At this point, I'm
not even gonna pretend that it's about the podcast anymore,
but that least get out Alive.

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
So I'll make sure to link to all of that,
the documentary, some of the people and other things that
you mentioned in the show notes of course.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
Perfect.

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
So before I hit the stop button here, is there
anything else that you'd like to say?

Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
Just thanks for having me. This was great. I really
loved being able to dive into forensics. I want to say,
it may be like a better forensic biologist to have
to condense all of this and talk about it in
such a broad way. So thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
That's great to hear you'll have nice little soundbites now
at parties when people ask about it. Thank God, all right,
I'll take care. Thank you again, and I appreciate you
and the work you do. And best of luck with
your upcoming marriage.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
Thank you so much