Naturalist Mark Fraser shares his enthusiasm for wildlife and reveals simple things you can do to help wildlife in your own backyard. He takes "The WildLife" host Laurel Neme on a "virtual tour" of New England forests to meet local "residents" from fishers to coywolves to salamanders and songbirds.
This episode of "The WildLife" originally aired on The Radiator, WOMM-LP, 105.9 FM in Burlington, Vermont on January 31, 2011 and was reposted on October 3, 2011.
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Megan Parker, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Working Dogs for Conservation, reveals the secrets of using detection dogs for wildlife conservation. She tells "The WildLife" host Laurel Neme how she trains dogs to detect animals, plants and their seed and scat. Frequently, the dogs uncover what wildlife biologists can't easily see or find, and they do it in a more efficient and non-intrusive way, meaning without baiting, luring, trapping, handling or radio-collaring the animals. She also tells stories of the dogs in action, and shows how her dogs have sniffed out dwindling populations of cheetahs in Kenya, assisted with population surveys of endangered snow leopards in eastern Russia, and uncovered invasive cannibal snails in Hawaii. This episode of The WildLife originally aired on WOMM-LP, The Radiator, 105.9 FM in Burlington, Vermont on January 3, 2011 and was reposted on September 26, 2011.
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Wildlife filmmaker Carol Foster reveals her secrets for filming wildlife in a manner that captures natural actions in a manner that does not disturb the animals. She tells "The WildLife" host Laurel Neme, about the special jungle studio that she and her filmmaker husband, Richard Foster, have constructed in the Belize which allows them to film wild behavior that would not otherwise be possible. For instance, they've captured on film a baby cantil viper wriggling the green tip of its tail over its head to attract and capture frogs. They've also filmed flower mites hitchhiking on the nostrils of a hummingbird.
This episode of "The WildLife" originally aired on The Radiator, WOMM-LP, 105.9 FM in Burlington, Vermont on April 18, 2011. It was reposted on September 19, 2011.
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Posted in illegal trade, wildlife, wildlife trade, law enforcement, hunting, pet trade, animal, bear, biology, wildlife biology, law, wildlife law, veterinary, wildlife health, markets, ecotourism, wildlife research, endangered species, poaching, mammal, wildlife management, behavior, zoo on Sep 11th, 2011 No Comments »
Anna Bachmann, Director of Conservation for Nature Iraq, and Hana Ahmed Raza, their mammal specialist, discuss wildlife and nature in Iraq. They tell "The WildLife" host Laurel Neme, how, after 35 years of wars and sanctions, Iraq's environment is in dire need of care and attention. In order to rebuild the country's natural foundation, more information is needed, and Nature Iraq aims to fill some of those gaps. This episode originally aired on March 28, 2011 and was reposted on September 12, 2011.
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Posted in illegal trade, wildlife, wildlife trade, law enforcement, animal, biology, wildlife biology, law, wildlife law, veterinary, wildlife health, wildlife farming, markets, Asia, Vietnam, wildlife research, endangered species, bushmeat, poaching, mammal, Laos, wildlife management, traditional medicine on Aug 15th, 2011 No Comments »
IUCN program officer Emma Brooks discusses illegal wildlife trade in Vietnam and her research on how commercial farming of a traded species, like porcupines, affects both the species and the trade. She tells “The WildLife” host Laurel Neme how most animals in Vietnam’s wildlife trade end up on the plates of wealthy restaurant patrons. In Vietnam and elsewhere, commercial wildlife farming, meaning the breeding of wild species for legal sale, is often promoted to supply demand while preventing overhunting in the wild. However, in a study on the conservation impact of commercial wildlife farming of porcupines in Vietnam published in August 2010 in Biological Conservation, IUCN program officer Emma Brooks concluded that commercial porcupine farming is instead having the opposite effect.
Emma Brooks has been involved with numerous conservation projects around the world, from biodiversity surveys in Mozambique to Giant River Otter counts in Bolivia. She first became interested in wildlife trade issues during her MSc at the University of East Anglia, UK. Her research in the trade in porcupines formed her dissertation topic, for which she spent three months collecting data and interviewing locals in northern Viet Nam. Emma now works for the IUCN, as part of the Global Species Programme based in Cambridge, UK. Her work includes assessing the extinction risk of species from around the world for inclusion on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, as well as using the information gathered to analyze species richness, major species and habitat threats, and important areas for biodiversity. The importance of species, ecosystems and services to human livelihoods and wellbeing is increasingly being recognized, and she works in a number of areas to provide the information to support decisions for the protection of species and livelihoods. This episode of “The WildLife” was posted on August 15, 2011.
The WildLife is a show that explores the mysteries of the animal world through interviews with scientists, authors and other wildlife investigators. It airs every Monday from 1-2 pm EST on The Radiator, WOMM-LP, 105.9 FM in Burlington, Vermont.
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Sharon Levy, author of Once and Future Giants, discusses what Ice Age extinctions teach us to help today’s megafauna, like elephants and bears, avoid the same fate. She tells “The WildLife” host Laurel Neme that North America was home to a menagerie of massive mammals, like mammoths, mastodons, camels, giant beavers, sloths and lions, until about 13,000 years ago, when the first humans reached the Americas. She notes that today’s large mammals face an intensified replay of that great die-off, and that these large animals need to be able to move in times when they need to adapt to a changing climate.
Sharon Levy is the author Once and Future Giants: What Ice Age extinctions Tell Us About the Fate of Earth's Largest Animals. For the past nineteen years, she’s covered environmental issues of all kinds, including the ecology of top predators, bioengineered mosquitoes, and archaeological evidence of ancient human impacts on wildlife and fisheries. She is a contributing editor at OnEarth magazine, and writes regularly for National Wildlife, BioScience, Audubon and the New Scientist. Her work has also appeared in Natural History, Nature, Wildlife Conservation, High Country News and Discovery Channel Online. This episode of “The WildLife” was posted on August 1, 2011.
The WildLife is a show that explores the mysteries of the animal world through interviews with scientists, authors and other wildlife investigators. It airs every Monday from 1-2 pm EST on The Radiator, WOMM-LP, 105.9 FM in Burlington, Vermont.
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Posted in wildlife, law enforcement, animal, law, wildlife sanctuary, elephant, wildlife health, tourism, Thailand, Asia, mammal, wildlife rehabilitation, animal behavior on Jul 26th, 2011 No Comments »
John Roberts, Director of the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation, discusses domestic Asian elephants in Thailand. He tells “The WildLife” host Laurel Neme about the life of domestic Asian elephants in the Golden Triangle and talks about the innovative approach being taken by a relatively new elephant camp at Anantara luxury Resort in northern Thailand that aims both to help these animals and to help their owners improve their way of life. John Roberts is Director of the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation and Director of Elephants for Anantara Golden Triangle Resorts and Four Seasons Tented Camp. He is a trustee of the English Registered Charity the International Trust for Nature Conservation (www.itnc.org) and acts as Director of the Thai registered Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation (www.helpingelephants.org). He has also contributed articles to publications as diverse as Bird Conservation Nepal and Land Rover Monthly. He’s also director of elephants for the elephant camps at Anantara and Four Seasons Tented Camp, which have gained worldwide television and press coverage and together with the Foundation provide more than twenty-five elephants, their mahouts and the mahouts’ families with a living. This episode of “The WildLife” originally aired on The Radiator, WOMM-LP, 105.9 FM in Burlington, Vermont on April 19, 2010 and was rebroadcast on July 25, 2011.
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Posted in wildlife, animal, wildlife sanctuary, wildlife health, ape, bird, fish, mammal, wildlife rehabilitation, behavior, animal behavior, animal emotion on Jul 11th, 2011 No Comments »
Jennifer Holland, senior writer for National Geographic magazine, talks about her new book, Unlikely Friendships. She tells “The WildLife” host Laurel Neme heartwarming tales of animals who bond in the most unexpected ways. While many of these interspecies relationships provide comfort, that’s not always the case. For instance, you’ll hear about a troublesome pygmy goat who teaches his friend, a pet hippo to escape their enclosure. Other times the stories are of predators who become friends with their prey—like the lionness who mothered a series of oryx, or the leopard in India who would slip into a village every night to sleep with a calf.
Jennifer Holland is a senior writer for National Geographic magazine. After finishing her bachelor’s degree in English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1991, Jennifer worked as a coordinator and writer for a scientific magazine called the Journal of NIH Research and wrote freelance articles for Destination Discovery, The Learning Channel Monthly, and Discovery Channel Online. She returned to school and completed her Master of Science in Sustainable Development and Conservation Biology in 1998 at the University of Maryland-College Park and then spent two years as a researcher at National Geographic Television before moving to the editorial department at National Geographic Magazine. There, a decade later, she remains with the magazine as a senior staff writer with a focus on science and natural history. At National Geographic, she’s focused on subjects such as amphibian declines, pollinator conservation, the state of the Great Barrier Reef, the geology and beauty of Hawaiian volcanoes, microscopic life under the Arctic ice, and the medicinal properties of reptile venom. In her role as a writer and reporter she has traveled to a dozen countries and has risked it all—flying in zero gravity over the Gulf of Mexico, scuba diving with tiger sharks, climbing the tallest tree in Costa Rica, and camping out with bushmen in the forests of Papua New Guinea. Her book, Unlikely Friendships: 47 Remarkable Stores from the Animal Kingdom, was published by Workman in July 2011. This episode of “The WildLife” aired on The Radiator, WOMM-LP, 105.9 FM in Burlington, Vermont on July 11, 2011.
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Posted in illegal trade, wildlife, wildlife trade, law enforcement, hunting, pet trade, animal, biology, wildlife biology, law, wildlife sanctuary, veterinary, markets, howler monkey, poaching, mammal, wildlife management, wildlife rehabilitation, animal behavior, Belize, Central America on Jun 27th, 2011 No Comments »
Robin Brockett, former director of the Wildlife Care Center in Belize, talks about howler monkeys in Belize. She tells “The WildLife” host Laurel Neme how her research into their diet and habits has helped her with rehabilitate howler monkeys captured as pets for release back into the wild.
Howler monkeys are the loudest land animal in the world. They’re known for their loud, guttural, barking howls, which can be heard over three miles away. But did you know that they smell like steeped black tea? Or that they are picky eaters? While howler monkeys in Belize will eat 75 different species of leaves, they’re very particular about the age of the leaves. There are only a few types of leaves they’ll eat year-round. For example, (ficus) fig leaves appear the same all year long but sometimes the howlers will avoid it. That’s because these leaves have a high latex content, and at some point it becomes less palatable and less digestible.
Robin Brockett spent 16 years in Belize first researching howler monkeys in the wild and then spearheading the rehabilitation of confiscated pets back into the wild. Her work led to establishment of the Wildlife Care Center of Belize in 1999, where she served as director for over a decade. Over that time, Robin has nursed and released over 30 howler monkeys back into the wild. Before moving to Belize, Robin Brockett was a primate keeper at Zoo Atlanta for three years where she became involved in behavioral research. Prior to that, Robin spent three years at the Bronx Zoo in both the bird and mammal departments and also time in zookeeper positions at the Franklin Park Children's Zoo and the New England Science Center. She’s currently Assistant Bird Curator with the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans. She still works with the Belize government on issues related to the pet trade. This episode of “The WildLife” aired on The Radiator, WOMM-LP, 105.9 FM in Burlington, Vermont on June 27, 2011.
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Posted in illegal trade, wildlife, law enforcement, wildlife crime, pet trade, animal, bear, biology, wildlife biology, wildlife sanctuary, palm oil, Malaysia, wildlife research, endangered species, poaching, mammal, wildlife management, wildlife rehabilitation, behavior on May 30th, 2011 No Comments »
Siew Te Wong, a Malaysian wildlife biologist and sun bear expert, divulges some interesting characteristics of this rare Southeast Asian bear and how they fit into the ecosystem. He tells “The WildLife” host Laurel Neme how he became one of the first to study sun bears, which are the smallest of the bear species and also the least known. Did you know that sun bears consider beetle larvae one of their tastiest treats? When they eat them, the animals close their eyes and savor the experience, similar to humans relishing the yummiest of chocolates. Siew Te Wong also talks about his adventures researching the species, threats to these rare bears, his rescue efforts, and what people can do to help. For the last 13 years, Wong has been studying and working on the ecological conservation of the sun bear. He is one of the few Malaysian wildlife biologists trained in a western country. He did both his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science at the University of Montana in Missoula, and is continuing for his doctorate degree there. His pioneering studies of sun bear ecology in the Borneo rainforest revealed the elusive life history of the sun bear in the dense jungle. Wong’s research has taken him to the most threatened wildlife habitat on Earth, where field work is exceedingly difficult. While rapid habitat destruction from unsustainable logging practices, the conversion of the sun bear’s habitat into palm oil plantations and uncontrolled poaching activities paint a bleak picture for the future of the sun bear, Wong is determined to help the present situation of sun bears in Southeast Asia. Wong is the CEO of the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, which he founded in 2008. He was also a fellow of the Flying Elephants Foundation, which awards individuals from a broad range of disciplines in the arts and sciences who have demonstrated singular creativity, passion, integrity and leadership and whose work inspires a reverence for the natural world. Wong is also the former co-chair of the Sun Bear Expert Team, under the IUCN/Species Survival Commission’s Bear Specialist Group and a current member of three IUCN/SSC Specialist Groups. This episode of “The WildLife” originally aired on The Radiator, WOMM-LP, 105.9 FM in Burlington, Vermont on May 17, 2010 and was rebroadcast on May 30, 2011.
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