Captain David Hochman is a competitive freediver and has competed in spearfishing competitions since 1996. In 2003, he and his Three-Man team won the United States National Spear Fishing Championship beating 130 of the top competitors in the US. He has captained boats in the Block Island sound for 26 years and has 31 years of boat handling and spearfishing experience. Through his company Spear-it Charters, he runs premiere spearfishing charters to Block Island, RI. Block Island is the best location in the country for fishing striped bass and hosts a wide array of species. We cover TONS of topics from spearfishing with sharks, preventing shallow water black out, the ethics of spearfishing, issues with commercial fishing, and what is known about striped bass (to list a few). There are a lot of cool stories contained in this episode. Enjoy!

Links from episode:

 Spear-it Charters

Check out All Things Wild YouTube here: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5_MH_H-LW9ZUBR-layMc6w

Henry Bandure is a world renown professional wildlife guide who operates canoe and walking safaris in Mana Pools Nation Park in Zimbabwe. He was David Attenborough’s personal guide for the shooting of the Dynasty series episode on painted wolves (also known as African wild dogs). In today’s episode we talk about the filming of this episode, his approach to close encounters with the large animals of the National Parks in Zimbabwe, how he “babysat” a wild elephant calf who still remembers him to this day, the incredible bravery of the African honey badger, and much more. Below is Henry’s website, email, and Instagram where you can reach him to learn more about experiencing the amazing wildlife of Africa. 

Links from episode: 

Email: [email protected]

Henry_Bandure

Jekwe Tours & Safaris 

Allthingswildpodcast Instagram  

Tom is a writer whose work has been featured in Scientific American, Sierra Club, The Awl, Gothamist, Business Insider, Atlas Obscura,  and Untapped New York. His book Wild City is an illustrated guide to 40 of the most well-known, surprising, notorious, mythical, and sublime non-human citizens of New York City, and love letter to its surprising ecological diversity. Wild City tells the funny,  quirky, and memorable stories of forty of New York City’s most surprising nonhuman citizens. In today's episode we talk about a few of the interesting stories about wild life and New York featured in the book. One a more personal note, I truly enjoyed this book and if you are interested in New York City or wild life you will not be disappointed. Grab your copy! Link below.

Wild City

Thomas Hynes

Falcon Fuck Hats

Part 2 of my conversation with Geri Vistein. We speak more about the persecution of Coyote's and the efforts in Maine to provide a legislative response.

Geri Vistein is a Conservation Biologist whose focus is on carnivores and their vital role in maintaining the biodiversity of our planet. Her work centers on educating her community in Maine about carnivores, their ecology, complex cultures and history, and how we can coexist with them. She is the Founder of Coyote Center for Carnivore Ecology and Coexistence whose mission is to share with community members the science of our returning carnivores and the skills to live well with them. In today’s episode we talk about the natural history of the coyote as a native North American canid, shifts in coyotes range distribution throughout its ancient history, as well as in response to the arrival of Europeans, the unique biology of coyotes that has allowed them to survive and expand their territories during efforts to eradicate predators by early European Americans through efforts to “control” coyote populations today. We also discuss the new role coyotes are playing in ecosystems that have been disrupted by the extinction of apex predators, how humans and coyotes can coexist, and new legislation her organization is presenting to the Maine legislature to restrict using dogs to hunt coyotes and other cruel measures that are currently practiced in parts of the state. 

Links from Episode:

Geri Vistein’s educational websites: www.CoyoteLivesinMaine.org and www.FarmingwithCarnivoresNetwork.com 

Geri Vistein L.L. Bean Speaker Series

Coyote’s howling

The following videos are graphic and may be disturbing. This is real footage of recreation that occurs legally in many parts of the United States. 

Hunting Coyote’s with hounds

Predator Killing Contests 

Geri Vistein is a Conservation Biologist whose focus is on carnivores and their vital role in maintaining the biodiversity of our planet. Her work centers on educating her community in Maine about carnivores, their ecology, complex cultures and history, and how we can coexist with them. She is the Founder of Coyote Center for Carnivore Ecology and Coexistence whose mission is to share with community members the science of our returning carnivores and the skills to live well with them. In today’s episode we talk about the natural history of the coyote as a native North American canid, shifts in coyotes range distribution throughout its ancient history, as well as in response to the arrival of Europeans, the unique biology of coyotes that has allowed them to survive and expand their territories during efforts to eradicate predators by early European Americans through efforts to “control” coyote populations today. We also discuss the new role coyotes are playing in ecosystems that have been disrupted by the extinction of apex predators, how humans and coyotes can coexist, and new legislation her organization is presenting to the Maine legislature to restrict using dogs to hunt coyotes and other cruel measures that are currently practiced in parts of the state. 

Links from Episode:

Geri Vistein’s educational websites: www.CoyoteLivesinMaine.org and www.FarmingwithCarnivoresNetwork.com 

Geri Vistein L.L. Bean Speaker Series

Coyote’s howling

The following videos are graphic and may be disturbing. This is real footage of recreation that occurs legally in many parts of the United States. 

Hunting Coyote’s with hounds

Predator Killing Contests 

Alex Schnell is the researcher behind the experiment that proved cuttlefish can “pass” the marshmallow test (a test originally designed to test delayed gratification in humans), that has been circulating the internet in recent weeks. Alex is a comparative psychologist and a behavioral ecologist with a background in marine biology. Her research interests center on complex learning and memory mechanisms in animals and how these abilities have evolved across diverse taxa. Her primary model species include cephalopods (octopus, cuttlefish, and squid) and corvids (members of the crow family). 

Links from episode:

Alex Schnell

The Marshmallow Test

Cuttlefish Can Count to Five

Diver Plays with Octopus 

Befriending a Wild Octopus  

Professor Phyllis Lee is the director of science for the Amboseli Elephant Research Project, which was started in 1972 by Cynthia Moss and is the longest running study of wild elephants anywhere in the world. Phyllis has been carrying out field research on animal behavior since 1975 and has been studying the elephants of Amboseli since1982. She has collaborated with a number of researchers working on forest and Asian elephants as well as primates from around the world and she is the author of over 80 journal publications. In this episode we speak about what has been learned through this long-term study of individual wild elephants and what is still unknown. We speak extensively about the wide range of behaviors elephants engage in that highlights the unique personalities of each individual animal. We also speak about the different modalities of elephant communication, the dynamics of elephant social structure, the phenomena of “Musth” in bull elephants, and the challenges mother elephants face raising their young in the wilderness of Kenya. 

Links for Episode

Amboseli Elephant Trust

Professor Phyllis Lee 

Collaring Wild Elephants 

Wildlife Warriors Episode (Amboseli Elephants)

Rescuing Baby Elephant Stuck in Mud

Kevin Schneider is the Executive Director of the Nonhuman Rights Project. The NhRP was featured in the documentary Unlocking the Cage and works to secure fundamental rights for nonhuman animals through litigation, legislation, and education. Specifically, the NhRP is involved in ongoing litigation to change the common law status of great apes, elephants, dolphins, and whales from mere “things” to “legal persons” that possess such fundamental rights as bodily liberty and bodily integrity. Kevin earned his law degree from Florida State University in 2013 with a specialization in environmental and land use law. He graduated with a B.A. in political science from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, in 2009. We discuss the differences between animal welfare laws and rights, the history of habeas corpus, the legal definition and application of personhood, the clients of the NhRP, and the common counter arguments of opponents to legal rights for nonhuman animals.

Links from episode

Nonhuman Rights Project

Nonhuman Rights Project Progress

Happy the Elephant

Elephant Mirror Test

Dolphin Mirror Test

Chimpanzee Memory Test

Unlocking the Cage

Sandra’s personhood status in Argentina 

Kristi Ashley Collom is a Senior Research Associate and Dolphin Catalog Manager for Gotham Whale and an acoustic analyst for Wildlife Conservation Society’s New York passive acoustic monitoring research. Prior to these positions, Kristi completed her graduate degree in Animal Behavior and Conservation with Dr. Diana Reiss at Hunter College. Kristi grew up in New York City, and began her wildlife career as a polar zookeeper at the Central Park Zoo, where she worked with seals, sea lions and penguins. Kristi traveled to Belize with Oceanic Society to study bottlenose dolphins, and ultimately ended up back in New York City working in marine conservation. In today’s conversation we discuss what is known about the dolphins and whales that are seen in New York City waters, with an emphasis on the bottlenose dolphin and humpback whale populations. We discuss the history of these animals in New York, what is known about their social lives and migration patterns, and many of the questions that continue to be a mystery in the lives of these animals. 

Gotham Whale

Kristi Collom 

Common Dolphins in the East River

The America Princess

Artificial Reefs 

Alexa Fredston is a quantitative ecologist who gained her BA from Princeton University in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and her PhD from University of California, Santa Barbara. She is currently a postdoc at Rutgers University where she studies how human activities alter biogeographic patterns and ecological processes. Her research has specifically investigated how fast species are shifting their spatial distributions in response to climate change, and the consequences this has for nature and for people. We talk about species distribution ranges in the ocean in response to climate change, the affects this has on marine ecosystems, the challenge of managing human impacts on the ocean in international waters, sustainable fisheries, and what the labels at Whole Foods mean. Unintentionally, this episode addresses and exposes much of the misinformation that is contained in the popular Netflix documentary Seaspiracy. If you have seen the film, the contradictions will be clear. 

Links from episode

Alexa Fredston

The great apes range distribution

Bottlenose dolphin range distribution 

Importance of fish in developing countries  

Decline of shark and ray populations

Challenges of managing fisheries in international waters

Whole Foods sustainable fish

Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch