We're taking a break from WCS Wild Audio this week to share a new podcast, "Wild World with Scott Solomon," hosted by field biologist and science communicator Scott Solomon. The show explores the natural wonders of our planet through the voices of the people who explore, study, and protect them.

In today’s episode, you’ll join Scott as he speaks with WCS's own Dr Boris Arevalo, who is working to protect the spectacular scarlet macaw in his home country of Belize. Dr Arevalo's efforts to study this beautiful bird and reintroduce hand-reared chicks back into the wild have contributed to a resurgence in scarlet macaw populations in the region.

If you like what you hear, follow "Wild World with Scott Solomon" on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. We’ll be back next week with a new episode of WCS Wild Audio.

https://www.wildworldshow.com/

Madidi National Park, in northeastern Bolivia, boasts a jaw-dropping concentration of some of the richest biodiversity on the planet. The vast landscape ranges from the Amazon River basin up nearly 6,000 meters to the peaks of the Andes.

A comprehensive WCS survey has documented thousands of plants and animals, some new to science, that are informing conservation in the region. Wild Audio spoke to WCS Bolivia’s Rob Wallace to learn more.

The Critically Endangered Cross River gorilla is the rarest and most elusive of Africa’s four subspecies of gorilla. Found exclusively in the densely forested jungles between Nigeria and Cameroon, it is thought that there are as few as 300 animals left in the wild.

But despite the persistent threats of habitat loss, gene fragmentation, and poaching, there is hope, says WCS Nigeria Director of Cross River Landscapes, Inaoyom Imong.

Across the globe, climate change is reshaping land and seascapes. In the Arctic, melting sea ice is opening up shipping traffic into and out of the region. The increasingly noisy underwater environment created by these commercial vessels now threatens marine mammals that rely on sound for communication, food, and safety. WCS Canada’s Bill Halliday and Steve Insley have been studying this growing problem and spoke to WCS Wild Audio for this report.

This week we bring you an encore episode from our archive. 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.

The Arctic is currently warming four times faster than the rest of the planet. Drastic changes are happening. We still don’t know all the different ways this is impacting local wildlife. WCS Wild Audio spoke with Tom Glass of the University of Montana and Martin Robards from WCS about what they’ve learned about how one unheralded species—the wolverine—is adapting to a changing climate.

In 2016, thirteen of the world’s leading nature conservation organizations launched an ambitious new Key Biodiversity Areas partnership to identify sites that are important for the persistence of biodiversity. With the 15th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity taking place in Montreal, WCS Wild Audio checked in with Peter Soroye of WCS Canada to learn how the initiative is going in his country.

After two years of delay due to the COVID pandemic, the long-awaited 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity is upon us. As we look to the start of the meeting in Montreal, Canada, WCS Wild Audio spoke with Sue Lieberman, Justina Ray, and Alfred DeGemmis to find out what it all means and gain some insights into what to expect.

WCS Wild Audio launches its second season in conversation with Mariana Varese, the Peru-based director of WCS’s Amazon Landscapes program. Mariana describes a new initiative, “Together for Conservation,” that seeks to conserve biodiversity while preventing environmental crime in the Amazon. The project brings Indigenous Peoples and local communities together with journalists, private companies, and civil society groups to develop conservation solutions that can be expanded or replicated across the Amazon.

Thanks for joining us for Season One of WCS Wild Audio. We'll be back on November 29th with new stories from the Wildlife Conservation Society’s field sites, zoos and aquarium, and conservation partners. In the meantime, check out some of the highlights of our conversations with WCS staff from across the world working to protect wildlife and wild places.