Nature's Archive

Today’s episode is all about California Condors with Tiana Williams-Claussen, the director of the Yurok Tribe’s wildlife department. This episode is actually from my friend Michelle Fullner of the Golden State Naturalist podcast. If you don’t know Golden State Naturalist, I think this episode is pretty indicative of Michelle’s work. She travels around California to meet and interview interesting people in the field. There is a definite advantage to in-person interviews, and I wish I could do more.

Even though this episode is about California Condors, and the podcast is California-centric, today’s episode is still broadly applicable. California Condors historically lived in a large chunk of the western North America, from southern Canada to northern Mexico. And the challenges facing Condors, and the efforts to reintroduce and sustain them have many parallels.

Now, I don’t want to take away from Michelle’s introduction for this episode coming shortly. But I do want to tell you why I wanted to cover Condors on Nature’s Archive.

Right off the bat, condors are huge - boasting a 9 foot wingspan. They’re also critically endangered, which is why Tiana Williams-Claussen is such a great guest - she’s leading a reintroduction program with the Yurok Tribe in northern California.

As long time listeners know, I particularly enjoy covering overlooked and misrepresented flora and fauna. And for today, I’m going to lump condors and vultures together. In fact, in North America, vultures and condors are in the same family of birds, and occupy similar ecological roles.

And what role is that? Well, the textbooks say “scavengers”. And if you are like most people, you might have an unconscious negative bias towards scavengers. Why? So much of our human-centric perspective is based on how we live, and casts a negative light towards other evolved lifestyles, such as parasitism, or in this case, scavenging.

To scavenge - that is, eat already dead animals - one must have some pretty amazing adaptations. Afterall, the moment an animal dies, bacteria starts to take over. And the fact the animal died in the first place might indicate that it was already diseased, especially if it didn’t die as roadkill.

If a diseased carcass remains on the landscape for an extended period of time, it can become a disease vector. But vultures and condors are special. Their acidic stomachs and unique immune systems help protect them.

I heard a great reframing of the role condors and vultures play - instead of scavengers, they are nature’s immune system. By rapidly clearing dead animals, they prevent and halt disease spread. And there are examples around the world where vultures had died off for various, usually human-caused reasons, and this resulted in significant increases in diseases in other animals - including rabies.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Support Us On Patreon!
Buy our Merch!

Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist site: https://brianholtzmusic.com

Discover the Jumpstart Nature Podcast - entertaining and immersive, it's the nature fix we all need.

Check past Nature's Archive episodes for amazing guests like Doug Tallamy, Elaine Ingham, and Rae Wynn-Grant, covering topics from bird migration to fungi to frogs and bats!

Double the nature content in the same amount of time as a typical Nature's Archive? Well, I think we've come close today, and no, we're not playing an interview at double speed.

Here's your chance to hear two episodes of the Jumpstart Nature podcast from our pilot season, covering the topics of treating your yard like a habitat  (The Yard of the Future Full Show Notes), and how shifting baseline syndrome affects our perception of the health of the environment (We Live in a 10% World Full Show Notes).

You might recognize bits and pieces of these episodes, because I aired a couple of the interviews in their entirety on Nature's Archive. But there is lots of new content that hasn't aired here.

I hope you enjoy this format! Jumpstart Nature brings multiple perspectives to topics we cover, and ties it together with an entertaining and inspiring narrative from Griff Griffith.

Let me know what you think! And if you like it, please subscribe to Jumpstart Nature on your favorite podcast app.

Guests in this double feature include Dr. Doug Tallamy, Mary Phillips, Leslie Inman, Dr. Loren McClenachan, Dr. Alison Whipple, Ben Goldfarb, and Francisco Saavedra Jr.

And regular Nature's Archive interview podcasts will be back in two weeks!

Links
The Yard of the Future Full Show Notes
We Live in a 10% World Full Show Notes

Subscribe to the Jumpstart Nature Podcast
On Apple
On Spotify
On Overcast
On Other Apps

Additional Music Used in this Project:
Music: Sunny Morning by MusicLFiles 
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/7813-sunny-morning 
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license 

Music: Horde Of Geese by Alexander Nakarada 
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/9835-horde-of-geese 
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Lofi Prairie by Brian Holtz Music
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/9247-lofi-prairie
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Support Us On Patreon!
Buy our Merch!

Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist site: https://brianholtzmusic.com

Discover the Jumpstart Nature Podcast - entertaining and immersive, it's the nature fix we all need.

Check past Nature's Archive episodes for amazing guests like Doug Tallamy, Elaine Ingham, and Rae Wynn-Grant, covering topics from bird migration to fungi to frogs and bats!

Let’s dive into the enchanting world of hidden wonders that come to life after dark!

Our guests today are Charles Hood and José Martínez-Fonseca, authors of the new book “Nocturnalia: Nighttime Life of the Western USA" from Heyday Books.

Charles is an author, poet, birder, and world traveler, and as you’ll hear, an exceptional naturalist, too. Jose has a PhD in Bat Ecology, and as a result, has extensive experienced studying animals of the night.

Today we uncover the intriguing behaviors of nocturnal creatures such as nectar-feeding bats and vampire bats, scorpions that glow under UV light, and the often ignored but fascinating small owls - we’re talking owls the size of a American Robin - or even smaller! Observe how even the familiar environment of urban backyards transform into arenas of ecological discovery when the sun goes down.

Tailored for nature enthusiasts and curious minds alike, this conversation is a gateway to a world less explored - the intriguing and overlooked world of nocturnal nature.

FULL SHOW NOTES (with photos!)

LINKS
A Salad Only The Devil Would Eat, by Charles Hood
Charles Hood's Website
Jose Martinez-Fonseca on Instagram, and his photography website
Nature's Archive episode about Bats with Dr. Dave Johnston

Support Us On Patreon!
Buy our Merch!

Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist site: https://brianholtzmusic.com

Discover the Jumpstart Nature Podcast - entertaining and immersive, it's the nature fix we all need.

Check past Nature's Archive episodes for amazing guests like Doug Tallamy, Elaine Ingham, and Rae Wynn-Grant, covering topics from bird migration to fungi to frogs and bats!

Weather is like your mood, and climate is like your personality. Those are the words of today’s guest, Dr. Marshall Shepherd (Twitter,  Facebook and Instagram).

Despite the clear differences between these two concepts, there are many topics of confusion that persist. For example, is El Nino, which we discussed a few weeks ago on this podcast, a climate condition or a weather condition? And how can forecasters be confident in their long term climate predictions when it is so hard to predict weather 10 days out?

Dr. Shepherd is just the person to help us understand these concepts. He is the Director of the Atmospheric Sciences program at the University of Georgia. He’s also host of the Weather Channel series Weather Geeks, previously a research meteorologist for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and has had multiple popular TED talks.

Today we talk about climate and weather and how they are predicted. We discuss the computer models used for both, how they differ, how they've improved, and  where they still need improvement.

He also shares some of his research on how urban areas affect and change weather, and several other fascinating topics.

This episode might sound different than a typical Nature’s Archive interview. That’s because we were planning to use this conversation in an upcoming Jumpstart Nature podcast. So, you might hear a few terms and concepts mentioned without explanation - but stick with it, because we end up defining everything later.

Check these past episodes for more information on topics discussed today: episode #80 on oceans and El Nino and episode #62 on snowflake and precipitation genesis

FULL SHOW NOTES

Dr. Shepherd's Publications
Ed Lorenz and Chaos Theory
Example Forecast Discussion available from the National Weather Service
Hurricane Otis
Six America’s Study
TED Talks: 3 kinds of bias that shape your worldview (2018); Slaying the "zombies" of climate science (2013)

Support Us On Patreon!
Buy our Merch!

Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist site: https://brianholtzmusic.com

Discover the Jumpstart Nature Podcast - entertaining and immersive, it's the nature fix we all need.

Check past Nature's Archive episodes for amazing guests like Doug Tallamy, Elaine Ingham, and Rae Wynn-Grant, covering topics from bird migration to fungi to frogs and bats!

There are living trees in the United States that are approaching 5000 years old - and I’m not talking about trees that clone (I’m looking at you, aspen). Imagine if those trees could talk! Well, in a way, they can!

That’s where dendrochronologists like Dr. Grant Harley come in.

And it turns out that the science of dendrochronology is so much more far reaching than I ever imagined. Dr. Harley tells us how he reads the trees, inferring things like climate patterns, wildfire history, and community ecology. But this unique science even allows for dating artifacts, such as coffins, cabins, shipwrecks, and other wooden objects.

We cover all of this and more, including how tree rings are assessed without killing the tree.  And how technology is used to make these assessments. Dr. Harley also answers why trees in the western US make better specimens for assessing historical climate. And just what is the medieval climate anomaly and why is it important to us today?

I feel like Dr. Harley could make a series of podcasts out of dendrochronology, the history it tells us, and the mysteries it helps us solve. Find Dr. Harley on Twitter @dendrotrog.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Links To Topics Discussed
Note: links to books are affiliate links
Fundamentals of Tree Ring Research by James Speer
The Fellowship of the Tree Rings RadioLab episode that Dr. Harley appeared on
North American Dendroecological Fieldweek

Thanks for Michelle Balderston for editing help this week

Support Us On Patreon!
Buy our Merch!

Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist site: https://brianholtzmusic.com

Discover the Jumpstart Nature Podcast - entertaining and immersive, it's the nature fix we all need.

Check past Nature's Archive episodes for amazing guests like Doug Tallamy, Elaine Ingham, and Rae Wynn-Grant, covering topics from bird migration to fungi to frogs and bats!

As you all know, I find wildfire to be fascinating. It’s complex, simultaneously necessary and at times devastating, and wildly misunderstood. And the landscape of fire is rapidly changing - literally and figuratively. So, I hope to continue to bring a variety of voices and perspectives on wildfire - including today.

Have you ever wondered what it is like to be on the fire lines with a wildfire crew? Or what it takes to join a crew? Or the differences between crews, such as engine crews, hand crews, and hot shot crews? And how do they actually manage active wildfires? And where does prescribed and cultural burning fit into the picture?

Today’s guest, Amanda Monthei, helps us get some answers. Amanda is a former wildland firefighter, having participated in a variety of crews, including a hot shot crew. She is now a writer, host of the Life with Fire podcast where she interviews a wide variety of people involved with wildfire, and she’s an occasional public information officer on wildfires.

In addition to her podcast, you can find Amanda at lwf_pod on twitter, lifewithfirepodcast on Facebook, and lifewithfirepod on instagram.

I hope you enjoy today’s episode - and be sure to check out the show notes on podcast.naturesarchive.com to see the video we referenced, and links to everything we discuss, including Amanda’s social media accounts!

FULL SHOW NOTES

Links to Topics Discussed
Life with Fire Podcast (Amanda's Podcast)
Good Fire Podcast
High Country News

Related Nature's Archive Podcasts
Justin Angle - On the Fireline
Rick Halsey - Wildfire Ecology of the Chaparral and the American West

Support Us On Patreon!
Buy our Merch!

Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist site: https://brianholtzmusic.com

Discover the Jumpstart Nature Podcast - entertaining and immersive, it's the nature fix we all need.

Check past Nature's Archive episodes for amazing guests like Doug Tallamy, Elaine Ingham, and Rae Wynn-Grant, covering topics from bird migration to fungi to frogs and bats!

Dr. Emma Greig is a behavioral ecologist who has been leading Project FeederWatch, a multi-decade community science effort led by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Birds Canada.

Today's discussion could be broadly characterized as "how to take care of the birds that visit your yard" - and you might be surprised at some of the recommendations.

Our discussion begins in Australia, where Dr. Greig did her dissertation. Her work studied the amazing behavior of the splendid fairywren, a small and colorful Australian bird, who literally sing in the shadows of a predator.

From there, we get into Project FeederWatch and the practice of bird feeding in general. Project FeederWatch has collected an immense dataset that reveals a lot about birds that visit feeders and people's yards in general. We discuss some of the findings, and how you can participate. It's easy!

It's a wide ranging discussion, including topics like - does feeding birds affect their migration routes or timing, or their geographic ranges? How to minimize pests getting into your feeders? Does widespread feeding birds impact populations or the composition of bird communities?

We also talk about best practices for feeding birds. Yes, we're taking on a responsibility of caring for wild animals, so there are several important things we need to do, such as paying attention to disease spread.

Dr. Greig gets into all of this and more. So if you feed birds or are considering feeding birds, this is an important episode to listen to.

Find Project FeederWatch on Twitter.

Check out Jumpstart Nature's podcast episode #2, "Plant Your Birdfeeder", for more from Dr. Greig and other experts on birds and their habitats.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Links To Topics Discussed

• FeederWatch Scientific Data
• Killing with kindness: Does widespread generalised provisioning of wildlife help or hinder biodiversity conservation efforts? - scientific paper by Jack Shutt and Alex Lees
• Preventing Window Strikes
• Project FeederWatch - Begins on November 1!

Support Us On Patreon!
Buy our Merch!

Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist site: https://brianholtzmusic.com

Discover the Jumpstart Nature Podcast - entertaining and immersive, it's the nature fix we all need.

Check past Nature's Archive episodes for amazing guests like Doug Tallamy, Elaine Ingham, and Rae Wynn-Grant, covering topics from bird migration to fungi to frogs and bats!

Have you heard of El Niño? Some people call it the single biggest influence on winter weather in North America. But what is it, and how does it work? And we're in an El Niño event this year, and it's going to affect our weather (and ecology!)

There is always much confusion about El Niño, what it is, why it occurs, and how it might alter our weather in the coming seasons.

Today's episode looks at El Niño, which is one part of the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. Consider this a primer - an accessible look at some of the mechanisms and impacts of El Niño, and how and why it can impact weather from India to California and beyond. And we also include a few ecological tidbits here and there.

In order to give El Niño its due, we also cover some of the basics of how oceans influence weather.

I tried hard to pack a lot of information into 50 minutes, along with a lot of analogies to help reinforce some of the points. Let me know how I did! And of course, these are very complex systems, so there is much that I couldn't cover.

Looking ahead, we will have an expert climatologist later this year, so this episode will serve as good background for some of that conversation. I also have interviews with a dendrochronologist (tree ring expert!), a wildfire episode with an ex-firefighter, and an episode on nocturnal animals. So be sure to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite app to ensure you don't miss future releases.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Links To Topics Discussed
Daniel Swain - Weather West, YouTube Office Hours
Jet Steam Basics
Jet Stream Alignment in ENSO Scenarios
National Weather Service CPC ENSO Report (PDF)
Rossby Waves

Support Us On Patreon!
Buy our Merch!

Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist site: https://brianholtzmusic.com

Discover the Jumpstart Nature Podcast - entertaining and immersive, it's the nature fix we all need.

Check past Nature's Archive episodes for amazing guests like Doug Tallamy, Elaine Ingham, and Rae Wynn-Grant, covering topics from bird migration to fungi to frogs and bats!

Subscribe to the Jumpstart Nature Podcast!

I started Nature’s Archive podcast in an effort to understand the stories of people making a difference for the environment. I needed to be inspired, wanted to learn how they did it, and share that inspiration and knowledge with anyone willing to listen.

While we haven’t strayed too far from those initial aspirations, I do have many more topic-centric episodes than I did at the start.

So today’s episode is a “back to my roots” episode. My guest is Leslie Inman, the founder of the wildly popular Pollinator Friendly Yards group on Facebook. With 184,000 members, it is perhaps the top spot for people to discuss sustainable personal landscaping. And even if you are not on Facebook, it’s pretty likely you’ve seen her images and infographics. 

Leslie’s story is an amazing example of how a little curiosity can be converted into a hugely impactful movement. Today, we discuss not only how the group formed, but the lessons that she has learned along the way. This includes how to “reach” people who may be skeptical about inviting insects to their yards, how to make it easy to get started, and more.

Oh, and Leslie also has two books - Your Yard is Nature and The Butterfly Egg and the Little Tree.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Links To Topics Discussed

• Pollinator Friendly Yards
• Dave Goulson
• Doug Tallamy & Homegrown National Park (TikTok)
• Doug Tallamy appeared on Nature's Archive Podcast Episode #26
• Leslie’s Books - Your Yard is Nature and The Butterfly Egg and the Little Tree
• Mary Reynolds, We Are The Ark
• Nancy Lawson, The Humane Gardener [Book]
• Travis Longcore (light pollution ecologist)
• Wild Ones - Wild Ones promotes environmentally friendly, sound landscaping to preserve biodiversity through the preservation, restoration, and establishment of native plant communities

Support Us On Patreon!
Buy our Merch!

Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist site: https://brianholtzmusic.com

Discover the Jumpstart Nature Podcast - entertaining and immersive, it's the nature fix we all need.

Check past Nature's Archive episodes for amazing guests like Doug Tallamy, Elaine Ingham, and Rae Wynn-Grant, covering topics from bird migration to fungi to frogs and bats!

Subscribe to the Jumpstart Nature Podcast!

Ever wondered how scientists unravel the ecological mysteries of bygone eras, long before systematic record-keeping? Believe it or not, one part of the answer is in pirate journals.

And no, I'm not joking.

Today, I have the privilege of hosting Dr. Loren McClenachan, an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and History, and a Canada Research Chair in Ocean History and Sustainability at the University of Victoria. Throughout her career, Dr. McClenachan has been delving deep into historical marine ecology, unearthing ingenious ways to examine past ecosystems.

Our focus today? The intriguing concept of shifting baseline syndrome, a topic that we've only grazed the surface of in previous Nature's Archive conversations. In 2009, Dr. McClenachan authored a pivotal paper examining the dwindling sizes of recreational trophy fish off the Florida Keys. This study unveiled what seasoned anglers had long grasped—the once-plentiful colossal fish had become elusive.

Shifting Baseline Syndrome arises when your first interaction with an environment establishes your baseline—a perceived "natural" or "normal" state. Yet, this baseline could markedly differ from your grandparents'. And here's where the surprise sets in: the implications span conservation and society alike.

Dr. McClenachan helps explain these implications through a variety of eye-opening examples. And yes, you'll even discover how pirates play a part in this narrative.

FULL SHOW NOTES

People, Papers, and Organizations
3 billion birds lost
All of Dr. McClenachan’s publications
Anecdotes and the Shifting Baseline Syndrome of Fisheries (Pauly)
Daniel Pauly’s TED Talk
Documenting Loss of Large Trophy Fish from the Florida Keys with Historical Photographs (McClenachan)
Dr. McClenachan's Website
Ecology. Globalization, roving bandits, and marine resources
University of Victoria – history website; environmental studies website

Books and Podcasts
Nature’s Archive #57: Allen Fish – Raptor Migration from Hawk Hill

Support Us On Patreon!
Buy our Merch!

Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist site: https://brianholtzmusic.com

Discover the Jumpstart Nature Podcast - entertaining and immersive, it's the nature fix we all need.

Check past Nature's Archive episodes for amazing guests like Doug Tallamy, Elaine Ingham, and Rae Wynn-Grant, covering topics from bird migration to fungi to frogs and bats!