Golden State Naturalist
Golden State Naturalist is a love letter to California's ecological past, present, and future. Come with Michelle Fullner as she climbs to the top of a beaver dam, descends into a tar pit, peers into the canopy of a giant sequoia, and basks in the glow of the Milky Way under the eerie silhouettes of Joshua trees. Each episode, Michelle interviews captivating experts in their natural habitats across California to find out how the unique plants, animals, geology, and hydrology of this biodiversity hotspot make this state Golden.
Episodes
Chances are, you’ve never seen our state amphibian in the wild.
In this episode, find out how the California red-legged frog became so rare while also delving into international border crossings with endangered frog eggs, urban drool, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, things that can fit into a bullfrog’s mouth, and the essential mindset shift that might just change the world.
Join me and Brad Hollingsworth from the ...
How can listening deepen our relationship with place? What do birds think about highway noise? Is that ice bridge safe to cross at this time of year? How can I learn to listen more closely?
Join me and Fil Corbitt as we snowshoe down the Eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in search of a handmade desk and a place to listen to flowing water, to birdsong, to each other, and to the ever-changing landscape itself.
Links:
What do cacti and rare pines have in common? What’s a paleoendemic? Do pinecones have teeth? Why do so many different plant species live in Mediterranean climates?
Join me and Jon Rebman as we go behind the scenes of the San Diego Natural History Museum, explore the herbarium, and discuss the rarest pine species in North America.
Links:
San Diego Natural History Museum
Have you ever wondered what little-known and mysterious beings are living among us, just out of sight? This episode is about one such creature that most Californians have no idea even exists.
Join me, Dave Wyatt, and Kristyn Schulte as we discuss clever little foxes, oak mistletoe, the floor is lava, dissolved poop, the smallest mountain range in the world, tasty taxidermy, classroom design, convergent evolution, weasel lemurs, a...
Join me and Dr. Alexandra Syphard as we discuss what makes some neighborhoods more fire prone than others, the Santa Ana Winds, defensible space, the massive differences between fires in forested Northern California and shrubby Southern California, the pendulum swing of public opinion, ways that climate change does and doesn’t contribute to wildfires, the WUI, positive uses of abandoned Fry's electronics buildings, waxy leaves,...
Flying over San Diego, you can see them: Fingers of green extending through neighborhoods all across the city.
San Diego’s urban canyon’s serve as refuges for people and wildlife alike, but they’re also often isolated islands of habitat. This can keep animals from accessing the resources they need to survive. And human neighbors aren’t always able to access these spaces, either.
In this episode, join me and Michelle Thompson as...
What do oak trees, goldenrod, willows, and ceanothus all have in common? They all belong to the group of roughly 14% of plants supporting 90% of caterpillar species.
In other words, they’re all keystone plants.
Join me and Doug Tallamy as we discuss the vital role these plants play in their native ecosystems and how we can bring them home to welcome hundreds of species into our own yards.
Helpful Links:
Calscape b...
What do fake rattlesnakes, California ground squirrels, odd eye bones, bubonic plague, bizarre choices in home decor, and regurgitated mouse bones have to do with burrowing owls?
Join me and Phil Unitt as we venture into an urban canyon in San Diego to find out.
Helpful links:
Urban Burrowing Owls piece by Clinton Abbott
The sea is rising, and I have a lot of questions.
Questions about sand movement, seawalls, nature-based climate solutions, ecosystem engineer plants, sand dunes, climate literature, and how we can harness the power of our collective imaginations to adapt to a changing world together.
Join me and environmental reporter Rosanna Xia at Point Dume in Malibu as we discuss my many questions and explore a beach that's been reimagined wi...
It's fall!
And all around the country, tidy piles of raked leaves rest on the corners of lawns, ready to be bagged up and thrown away.
But throwing away leaves means throwing away free mulch and fertilizer.
It also means throwing away habitat and belching methane into the atmosphere.
Join me and National Wildlife Federation naturalist David Mizejewski as we discuss the benefits of leaving the leaves, the harms of removing them,...
How is the story of tule elk tied to the story of California? What’s the difference between a grazer and a browser? Why do tule elk have such big feet? How much grazing is the right amount of grazing? Why do elk bugles sound like something straight out of a horror movie?
Come with me and Orlando Rocha as we strike out in search of tule elk in the Grizzly Island Wildlife Area, and then join me and Tom Batter as we discuss the ecol...
Did you know that California's Central Valley once contained a vast inland sea and was home to camels, 400 lb. saber-toothed salmon, and tiny four-tusked mastodons? Or that, just a couple of hundred years ago, it was a network of wetlands, peat bogs, riparian forests, and shallow lakes? So how did this place that was once so defined by an abundance of water become somewhere marked by water-related controversy?
Come along with me ...
Some animals plod across roads without hesitation. Others dart across quickly, while still more freeze at the sight of an oncoming car. A final group avoids roads altogether. Four distinct approaches, yet roads can have devastating impacts on animals regardless of their type of response.
Thankfully, wildlife crossings can help.
Join me and award-winning author Ben Goldfarb as we explore a fragment of old growth oak woodland, disc...
What are your top ten favorite California native species?
Join me, Griff Griffith, and Michael Hawk as we joyously compile our collective top ten list (a veritable menagerie meets botanical garden) and discuss how we can help each species.
Don’t forget to follow Nature’s Archive and Jumpstart Nature wherever you’re listening now.
Learn more about the great work Jumpstart Nature is doing on their website.
The cover photo is by ...
Are coastal wetlands the same thing as estuaries? What about salt marshes? How can some plants grow in saltwater? Can I use them to salt my french fries? What’s an endangered river? Why do some birds build floating nests? Why should I visit nature that’s close to home?
Join me and Empress Holliday as we explore the Tijuana Estuary to admire plants, gush over birds, and discuss everything from blue carbon to baby halibut.
Helpful L...
What makes California such a great spot for snake diversity? Where does antivenom come from, and why is it so expensive? Can you really inoculate yourself against snake venom? How did evolving alongside snakes impact who we are as humans today?
Join me and Michael Starkey, founder of Save the Snakes, as we get a close look at California snakes and then sit down to discuss bright blue snakes, snakes with legs, snake myths, evolutio...
How do sea stars move around? Why am I jealous of giant green anemones? When's the best time to go tide pooling? Why is life so hard in the in the place where the ocean meets the land? How have so many creatures adapted to thrive in this strange place where two worlds meet?
Join me and Michelle Kunst as we explore the intertidal zone on the Northern California coast and discuss the incredible diversity of life that can be foun...
Indigenous people have lived in the place now known as California since time immemorial and are still here today.
In this episode, join me and Frank Lake as we discuss mutualistic relationships between Indigenous Californians and the land, traditional burning, oak orchards, the powerful ways Indigenous and Western knowledges can come together, common misconceptions about pre-colonial California, reciprocity, and how we can mo...
Have you ever noticed a bee that looked a little…different? Maybe it was a bit fuzzier than a typical honey bee, or maybe it was obsidian black, bright orange, startlingly large, or as tiny as a gnat. Chances are, if you’ve seen a bee meeting any of these descriptions, you observed one of Earth’s 20,000 species of native bees (with around 1,600 of those species living in California).
Join me and National Geographic Explorer, TEDx ...
Author, artist, poet, and eco-philosopher Obi Kaufmann doesn't want to craft a better argument.
He wants to tell a better story.
But what does that kind of story look like? How do we begin to convey the incredible complexity of a place like California? How do we avoid unproductive divisiveness, embrace a better worldview, and move forward together in healing the land?
Join me and Obi in a field of wildflowers on Mt. Diablo a...
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