When your pet is sick, you bring it to the vet. But when the animal is wild, the vet must come to it. This is what my next guest here on The Snakeman's Lair does on a daily basis- everyone give a warm welcome to Sharon Mulindi DVM!

Sharon is a wildlife vet- yes, wild animals get sick too (or shot, or snared, or...) and a simple clinic won't cut it if you have to treat lions or giraffes. Literally, I must say, since Sharon and her colleagues live and work in nature reserves and unprotected areas alike in her native Kenya. In our conversation, Sharon told me all about how one becomes a wildlife vet, her daily routine at work, and the main challenges she faces trying to navigate between unruly animals and even less cooperative people. And yet, she is always on the call to treat any animal in need. To listen to her story, all you have to do is tune in and join us in The Snakeman's Lair!

Sometimes science and conservation take a toll on one's wellbeing, especially if you have to take up that burden all by yourself. However, sometimes it helps when you can share the good and bad sides of it all with someone you can always count on- say, for example, your brother. This is the reality of Sergio and Héctor Avila, two kickass biologists and/or activists hailing from northern Mexico. In this episode, they will tell us all about their shared experience growing up in nature and how they forged their own path while remaining as close as ever. Jaguars, rattlesnakes, sustainable agriculture, decolonization and Indigenous perspectives... We could have gone on and on for hours, but this will still suffice. All you have to do is click and join us in The Snakeman's Lair!

Soundtrack: Desert Blues North Africa (Carlos Chagas) from Jamendo

With snakebite claiming tens of thousands of live worldwide every year, research on new treatments and preventive measures is more urgent than ever. A seldom explored angle is snakebite diagnostics- that is, identifying which snake species bit a patient in the hospital so that the right treatment can be administered before it's too late. This is where my friend Dr. Cecilie Knudsen and her colleagues at the Technical University of Denmark come in, having developed a groundbreaking new approach to diagnose snakebites correctly. In this interview, Cecilie will tell us all about her unusual experience in both academia industry and the first pilot trials of the new diagnostic tool she co-designed in Brazil. I already knew she is a pleasure to listen to, and I'm sure you will vouch for it too after you finish this episode. All you have to do is join us in The Snakeman's Lair!

Soundtrack: Desert Blues North Africa (Carlos Chagas) from Jamendo

Paleoartist Hodari Nundu puts his creativity and talent for drawing in service of paleontology by creating portraits of extinct wildlife and their ecology based on available fossil evidence. Scientific artists like Hodari are crucial for paleontology because their renderings are the only way we can have a visual representation of long gone animals. To learn all about the routine aspects of Hodari's work, his take on some major debates in paleontology, and his vision for the future of conservation, listen to episode 3 of The Snakeman's Lair!

Soundtrack: Desert Blues North Africa (Carlos Chagas) from Jamendo

In this episode, The Snakeman's Lair opens its doors to wildlife biologist and conservationist Vasundhara "Tanvi" Krishnani, who is currently pursuing a joint PhD between her native India and Australia. Throughout her life, Tanvi has always followed her own path- from the thickest jungles to the highest peaks- and faced the ugliest aspects of human-wildlife conflict. Giving poachers a second chance at life, having the courage to refrain from pointing fingers, filming the rarest carnivore of the Himalayas (no, not the snow leopard) for the first time ever- you can find all this and much more in Tanvi's sensational recount. Time to click and enter the Lair.

Soundtrack: Desert Blues North Africa (Carlos Chagas) from Jamendo

For the first episode of this brand new edition, The Snakeman's Lair welcomes a truly exceptional guest in Prof. Emily Taylor, a world-leading expert in the behavioral ecology of reptiles. Join me and Emily as she recounts her love at first sight with herpetology as a college student, the universe of knowledge that we are just beginning to explore in the field of snake behavior, and the progress towards social justice in the natural sciences.

Soundtrack: Desert Blues North Africa (Carlos Chagas) from Jamendo