Wild World with Scott Solomon

Before signing off on our first season, we wanted to share a little more of the conversation Scott had with nature and wildlife photographer Tui De Roy.

Tui has lived in the Galapagos Islands since her family moved there in 1955 when she was just 2 years old. Her unique perspective as a local and as a photographer has given her both a keen eye for detail and the opportunity to observe how the islands and its wildlife have changed over the last half century.

Scott asked Tui what she thinks about the future of Galapagos, and how what she sees in Galapagos might be relevant for wild places throughout the world.

You can hear the rest of Scott's conversation with Tui in Episode 3 - Experiencing Galapagos with Tui De Roy and Lee Ehmke.

Learn more about Tui and see some of her outstanding photography at https://www.galapagosconsultant.com/

This season of Wild World was produced by 3WireCreative.

If you’d like a T-shirt, poster, or coffee mug with the Wild World logo, check out the Wild World merch shop run by Alltheus.com: https://alltheus.com/collections/wild-world/SSolomon+Wild-World

Join us next season as we explore even more of our wild world!

We’re stepping away from our regular podcast this week to bring you an episode from our friends at WCS Wild Audio—a podcast of the Wildlife Conservation Society. WCS Wild Audio brings you the latest news and newsmakers from WCS’s global field sites and its five wildlife parks in New York City, including the Bronx Zoo and the New York Aquarium.

In today’s episode, Wild Audio’s Hannah Kaplan talks to Inaoyom Imong, Director of Cross River Landscapes for the WCS Nigeria program. The Cross River gorilla is one of the most elusive and critically endangered subspecies of gorilla in the world. 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 Imong.

We hope you enjoy the episode. If you like what you hear, follow “WCS Wild Audio" on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app. And tell them we sent you!

WCS Wild Audio: https://www.wcs.org/wcs-wild-audio

Antarctica is famous for gigantic ice sheets and charismatic animals, but Antarctica is also one of the best places to search for meteorites– rocks that have traveled through space and survived passing through Earth’s atmosphere. 

Mini Wadhwa is a planetary scientist who studies meteorites to learn about the formation of our universe and what conditions are like in other parts of our solar system. She is the Director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University and the Principal Scientist for the Mars Sample Return Mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Dr. Wadhwa discusses what it’s like to work in Antarctica, an accident that nearly killed her while on a field expedition, and why representation matters as a woman of color in science.

Learn more about Mini Wadhwa at https://search.asu.edu/profile/957644

Watch her TEDx talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iukJJ2u0vlo 

McMurdo Antarctic Research Station: https://www.nsf.gov/geo/opp/support/mcmurdo.jsp

This episode of Wild World was produced with support from: 

Lindblad Expeditions: https://www.expeditions.com    

The Rice University Traveling Owls: https://alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls 

Mentioned in this episode:

Lindblad Expeditions

Antarctica 2023-25

Lindblad Expeditions

Lindblad Expeditions

We can learn a lot by exploring the edges of the biosphere, where conditions can just barely support even the most hardy organisms. And by venturing beyond the biosphere– by leaving Earth and traveling into space– we can really test the limits of what our bodies are capable of. 

Scott Parazynski is a former NASA astronaut who has flown on five missions to space and completed seven spacewalks. He is also an emergency medical doctor who has climbed some of the highest mountains on Earth, including Everest, a scuba diver, pilot, rock climber, and luge athlete. 

Scott describes what it’s like to live and work in space, his journey toward becoming an astronaut, and what being in space and other extreme environments has taught him about Earth and about the limits of the human body.

To learn more about Scott Parazynski, check out his book “The Sky Below” and his website:  https://parazynski.com/

You can learn more about space science and exploration at https://www.nasa.gov/

Mentioned in this episode:

Lindblad Expeditions

The Rice Alumni Traveling Owls program offers exciting intellectual itineraries to destinations across the globe. Traveling Owls trips serve as a catalyst for lifelong learning and strengthen bonds between Rice University alumni and friends. You don’t have to be a Rice alum to participate in Traveling Owls programs. Visit alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls to see a list of upcoming trips.

Rice Traveling Owls

Lindblad Expeditions

Around the world, wildlife is in decline. We know that animals play important roles in their environments, but it’s often difficult to know how exactly the natural world would change if any particular type of wildlife no longer existed. 

In this episode, Scott speaks with Dr. Haldre Rogers, an ecologist working on the island of Guam, where invasive snakes have eliminated nearly all of the island’s native birds. By comparing the forests on Guam with forests on nearby islands that still have birds, Dr. Rogers’ work is helping reveal the importance of birds in the Mariana Islands and elsewhere. 

Dr. Rogers is also an avid rugby player who helped establish Guam’s first female rugby team. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Tech University. 

Learn more about Haldre Rogers’ research at https://www.haldre.org

To see photos and hear records of the calls of the native forest birds of Guam and the Mariana Islands, visit: https://www.guampedia.com/a-native-forest-birds-of-guam

This episode of Wild World was produced by 3WireCreative.

Mentioned in this episode:

Lindblad Expeditions

The Rice Alumni Traveling Owls program offers exciting intellectual itineraries to destinations across the globe. Traveling Owls trips serve as a catalyst for lifelong learning and strengthen bonds between Rice University alumni and friends. You don’t have to be a Rice alum to participate in Traveling Owls programs. Visit alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls to see a list of upcoming trips.

Rice Traveling Owls

Lindblad Expeditions

Brazil is one of the most biologically diverse nations on Earth. In the center of Brazil, between the Amazon Rainforest and the Atlantic Coast Rainforest is an ecosystem found nowhere else on Earth– a savanna known as the Cerrado. The Brazilian Cerrado is home to more than 11,000 species of plants, 800 species of birds, and 200 species of mammals, and an unknown number of insects. Yet, much of the biological diversity of the cerrado is hidden underground.

In this episode, Scott speaks with his former research advisor Dr. Ted Schultz, Curator of Entomology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Dr. Schultz describes his lifelong fascination with ants, particularly a group of ants that live in the Cerrado and engage in a form of agriculture by cultivating fungi deep underground. To study these fascinating ants– which have been living as farmers for 66 million years– Scott and Ted share stories of their expeditions to the Brazilian Cerrado. 

But finding the ants is only half the battle. To learn about their underground farming practices, they have to dig deep pits while carefully tracing the ant’s narrow tunnels– all in the sweltering, tropical heat. But, with much of the Cerrado being lost to agriculture and urban development, it’s a race against time to learn about these species before they disappear. 

Smithsonian Ant Lab website: https://naturalhistory.si.edu/research/entomology/collections-overview/hymenoptera/antlab 

More about the Brazilian cerrado: www.worldwildlife.org/places/cerrado

Follow Wild World on social media: @wildworldshow 

This episode of Wild World was produced by 3WireCreative

Mentioned in this episode:

Lindblad Expeditions

The Rice Alumni Traveling Owls program offers exciting intellectual itineraries to destinations across the globe. Traveling Owls trips serve as a catalyst for lifelong learning and strengthen bonds between Rice University alumni and friends. You don’t have to be a Rice alum to participate in Traveling Owls programs. Visit alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls to see a list of upcoming trips.

Rice Traveling Owls

Lindblad Expeditions

Corals– tiny animals that form structures so large they can be seen from space– provide food and habitat for a quarter of all marine life. Half a billion people worldwide depend on coral reef ecosystems for their food and livelihood. Yet, corals worldwide are facing unprecedented threats.

Marine ecologist Dr. Adrienne Correa is studying corals in the waters around the South Pacific island of Moorea. Through her research, she hopes to better understand how corals form symbiotic relationships with algae and other microscopic organisms that affect their survival. 

Scott speaks with Dr. Correa during her research expedition to this remote South Pacific Island, where she witnessed incredible natural phenomena and gained new insights into corals and their symbiotic partners.

Correa Lab: owlnet.rice.edu/~ac53/

 @adriennescorrea and @correalab

Gump Research Station: moorea.berkeley.edu. 

This episode of Wild World was produced by 3Wire Creative with support from Lindblad Expeditions and the Rice Alumni Traveling Owls. Visit alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls or expeditions.com to get more information about their trips to the South Pacific and other destinations and to book your cabin for the experience of a lifetime.

https://wild-world.captivate.fm/traveling-owls

Mentioned in this episode:

Next week we travel to Brazil to find ants!

Lindblad Expeditions

The Rice Alumni Traveling Owls program offers exciting intellectual itineraries to destinations across the globe. Traveling Owls trips serve as a catalyst for lifelong learning and strengthen bonds between Rice University alumni and friends. You don’t have to be a Rice alum to participate in Traveling Owls programs. Visit alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls to see a list of upcoming trips.

Rice Traveling Owls

Lindblad Expeditions

The Galapagos Islands are one of the few places where visitors can get a glimpse of what the world was like before humans existed. The unique wildlife, active volcanoes, and rich undersea world has made them a haven for ecotourism. In this episode, we get two very different perspectives on what it’s like to experience the Galapagos Islands.

First, Scott speaks with nature photographer Tui De Roy, who has spent a lifetime in Galapagos. Her family moved to the island of Santa Cruz in 1955 when she was just two years old. As a child, she picked up a camera and began photographing the animals she grew up with. What began as a hobby blossomed into a career that has taken her around the world, and yet the Galapagos remain her home as well as one of her favorite subjects. Tui’s perspective as a lifelong resident of the Galapagos Islands adds a personal touch to her photos that allow us to briefly glimpse this magical place the way she does.

Next, we get a behind-the-scenes sneak preview of the Houston Zoo’s new Galapagos Islands exhibit from Houston Zoo President and CEO Lee Ehmke. The exhibit, which is scheduled to open to the public on April 7, 2023, will be the only one of its kind in the world. Scott and Lee tour the exhibit and then sit down to discuss how the exhibit was designed, what visitors will experience, and why encounters with animals like those found in the Galapagos Islands are often so profoundly impactful.

Tui De Roy’s websites: http://www.galapagosconsultant.com & https://www.tuideroy.com  

Tui De Roy’s latest books: “A Pocket Guide to Birds of Galápagos” and “A Lifetime in Galápagos” are available from Princeton University Press. 

The Houston Zoo’s Galapagos Islands exhibit opens on April 7, 2023. 

The Houston Zoo: https://www.houstonzoo.org 

For more information about efforts to protect and restore the Galapagos Islands, visit The Galapagos Conservancy’s website: https://www.galapagos.org 

This episode of Wild World was produced with support from: 

Lindblad Expeditions: https://www.expeditions.com    

The Rice University Traveling Owls: https://alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls 

Mentioned in this episode:

Next week we travel to Mo'orea!

Lindblad Expeditions

Lindblad Expeditions

Lindblad Expeditions

The Rice Alumni Traveling Owls program offers exciting intellectual itineraries to destinations across the globe. Traveling Owls trips serve as a catalyst for lifelong learning and strengthen bonds between Rice University alumni and friends. You don’t have to be a Rice alum to participate in Traveling Owls programs. Visit alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls to see a list of upcoming trips.

Rice Traveling Owls

Madagascar is home to species found nowhere else on Earth, yet the island was once home to an even richer array of species that mysteriously disappeared thousands of years ago.

To find out what caused the extinction of these magnificent species like giant lemurs, archeologist and artist Dr. Fabio Amador joined a daring SCUBA diving expedition into a network of flooded caves.

Dr. Amador's use of sophisticated imaging technology-- the same used by NASA to explore the surface of Mars-- helped to document the team's remarkable discovery: a treasure trove of fossil bones that suggest humans may have contributed to the demise of Madagascar's megafauna.

Dr. Fabio Amador: https://www.atelierdffoto.com/-fabio-esteban 

Twitter: @rude_rebel Instagram: @fabioesteban 

CNN article about the cave diving expedition with video:

https://www.cnn.com/2015/03/19/africa/underwater-fossil-lemur-graveyard-madagascar/index.html 

National Geographic article “Graveyard of Giant Lemurs Discovered Underwater in Madagascar”

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/150217-lemur-cave-madagascar-graveyard

More on the extinction of Madagascar’s megafauna: https://theconversation.com/last-of-the-giants-what-killed-off-madagascars-megafauna-a-thousand-years-ago-112672

Madagascar Cave Diving Association: https://www.madacaves.com/

Mentioned in this episode:

Next week we travel to the Galapagos!

Lindblad Expeditions

The Rice Alumni Traveling Owls program offers exciting intellectual itineraries to destinations across the globe. Traveling Owls trips serve as a catalyst for lifelong learning and strengthen bonds between Rice University alumni and friends. You don’t have to be a Rice alum to participate in Traveling Owls programs. Visit alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls to see a list of upcoming trips.

Rice Traveling Owls

Scarlet macaws are icons of the tropical rainforests of Central and South America. But in the Central American country of Belize, scarlet macaws are disappearing as poachers steal their chicks for the international pet trade.

Scott Solomon speaks with Dr. Boris Arevalo, a biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, who is working to protect these spectacular birds by any means possible, including camping at the base of the trees where they nest and rearing chicks until they're large enough to be safe from poachers. A native Belizean, Dr. Arevalo became a conservation biologist after learning about the threats facing the species he grew up with, including scarlet macaws, and noticing how few of the researchers working in the rainforests near his home were from Belize.

Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Arevalo and his team, poaching rates have plummeted and every chick that the team has reared over the last six years has been successfully reintroduced into the wild.

This episode of Wild World features music from Belizean musical group The Garifuna Collective: https://www.garifunacollective.com/ 

Wildlife Conservation Society - Belize

https://belize.wcs.org   

Friends for Conservation and Development, a Belizean NGO working to manage and protect Belize’s Chiquibul Forest

https://www.fcdbelize.org 

More about Belize’s scarlet macaws:

https://belizebirdconservancy.org/scarlet-macaw-project

Mentioned in this episode:

Lindblad Expeditions

Lindblad Expeditions

The Rice Alumni Traveling Owls program offers exciting intellectual itineraries to destinations across the globe. Traveling Owls trips serve as a catalyst for lifelong learning and strengthen bonds between Rice University alumni and friends. You don’t have to be a Rice alum to participate in Traveling Owls programs. Visit alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls to see a list of upcoming trips.

Rice Traveling Owls

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