Internships in the science and conservation field have for too long failed to reach the full diversity of young people. To address that inequity, the WCS Education Department—based at the Bronx Zoo and led by Karen Tingley—recently launched a new internship program designed to proactively help more young people get a head start on a conservation career. Nat Moss spoke with Karen for WCS Wild Audio to learn more.

Science is at the heart of effective conservation. It factors into everything WCS does at its global field sites and its New York City-based zoos and aquarium to better understand wildlife and wild places. But translating that knowledge into policy and action requires creative engagement with the public and lawmakers. Executive Vice President for Public Affairs John Calvelli oversees that effort in the U.S. and recently discussed with Wild Audio why it’s so important.

Any discussion of climate change must consider the role of peatlands. These water-soaked ecosystems comprised of decaying mosses and other plant matter cover a mere 3 percent of the earth’s surface yet store more carbon than all of the world’s forests. But a debate in Canada now pits the mining of minerals essential to renewable energy against protection of critical peatlands. To learn more, WCS Wild Audio checked in with Lorna Harris, a scientist and the program lead for WCS Canada’s national program for Forests, Peatlands, and Climate Change.

When the International Union for Conservation of Nature, or IUCN, recently reported that wild tiger numbers had increased by 40 percent since 2010, WCS Tiger Species Coordinator Dale Miquelle wasn’t surprised. He was one of several scientists who contributed to the report. WCS Wild Audio’s Nat Moss recently caught up with him to find out what’s making the difference in tiger conservation today.

This November scientists, policymakers, and advocates from across the globe will gather in Panama for the next meeting of the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). WCS Executive Director for Shark and Ray Conservation Luke Warwick has his eye on a proposal to list the entire family of requiem sharks for protection. WCS Wild Audio recently sat down with him to understand the urgency and strategy behind that goal.

Whether it's drones recording video in previously inaccessible areas, artificial intelligence sorting through thousands of camera trap images, or microphones in the ocean recording whale sounds to determine which species are present, technology is transforming the practice of conservation today. To find out how WCS is using technology to up its conservation game, Nat Moss checked in with Jonathan Palmer and Danielle LaBruna from WCS's Conservation Technology team.

WCS Thailand’s Manoon Pliosungnoen describes a unique fencing structure that has been successfully deployed to deter elephants from raiding local farmers’ cropland adjacent to Thailand’s Kaeng Krachan National Park. Since the fencing went up, the number of human-elephant conflict incidents has fallen from more than 400 in 2005 to about 40 incidents in 2020. WCS's Nat Moss has the story.

Since the onset of the COVID pandemic, we’ve developed strategies to confront the crisis where we live—expanding supplies of protective equipment and following guidelines to avoid catching the virus. But as the pandemic continues, WCS Executive Director for Health Chris Walzer and WCS Vice President for International Policy Susan Lieberman say we now need to focus on reducing pathogen spillover at the source. Wild Audio’s Nat Moss spoke to them for this story.

After serving as the Bronx Zoo’s Curator of Herpetology for 11 years, Don Boyer retired this year. Before he left, WCS Wild Audio’s Nat Moss toured the Bronx Zoo’s Turtle Propagation Center with Don to discuss some of the highlights of his inspiring career and the Bronx Zoo’s efforts to breed highly threatened turtle species and return them to the wild.

Emily Darling directs WCS's global coral reef conservation program. Working with WCS programs in roughly a dozen countries, she thinks a lot about how to save these sensitive ecosystems—most importantly from climate change. Wild Audio’s Nat Moss checked in with her to learn more about the recent bleaching event on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and what it suggests about the larger goal of reef conservation.