Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
What does it take to save a species on the edge?
From the iconic television show, Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, comes Back From the Brink, a podcast celebrating the most remarkable comeback stories in the natural world. We meet endangered species that were nearly lost –– some down to their last dozen or hundred –– and learn how they found their way back. Each episode goes deep on a single species and the scientists, conservationists, and unexpected heroes at the forefront of environmental conservation who fought to save them.
About the Hosts:
As a wildlife ecologist, Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant has expertise in uncovering how human activity influences carnivore behavior and ecology. Dr. Wynn-Grant is a recipient of the prestigious Gracie Award, which focuses on women who are making positive change and who further the discussion of what a fulfilling career in media looks like. Honored for her work on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom Protecting the Wild, Dr. Wynn-Grant continues to inspire with her passion for wildlife conservation and storytelling.
Peter Gros is a veteran wildlife expert and educator. As the co-host of the Emmy® nominated series, Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom Protecting the Wild, and narrator of the Back from the Brink podcast, Gros shares conservation success stories and brings a message of hope to motivate audiences to take action in protecting wildlife and their habitats. Gros joined the original Wild Kingdom team in 1985, co-hosting alongside Jim Fowler on the classic series and Mutual of Omaha’s Spirit of Adventure.He has nearly 30 years of field experience with captive wildlife, establishing breeding programs for endangered animals and rehabilitation programs for birds of prey. As a USDA licensed exhibition exhibitor and animal educator, Gros has shared his experiences across the U.S. through the Wild Kingdom Kids Summit, talk show appearances and lectures. He also serves on the board of directors of the Suisun Marsh Natural History Association and is a trustee for the Cheetah Conservation Fund.
About Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom:
Since its network television premiere in 1963, Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom has been one of the most loved and respected wildlife programs in television history. The Daytime Emmy® nominated Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom Protecting the Wild, now airing weekends on NBC’s “The More You Know” time block, celebrates stories of conservation success, including the great work of caring, compassionate experts and how they are making a positive impact on the Wild Kingdom. For more information about Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, visit www.wildkingdom.com
8d5eeaf0-9a82-11f1-bf8d-43bb59733871
(warm rustic music)
- [Narrator] The Mexican
gray wolf, the lobo,
was systematically hunted
and poisoned out of
existence by the government.
As ranching spread across the Southwest,
wolves were branded as
a threat to livestock.
And by the early 1900s,
killing them had become
the official policy.
Bounties, traps, and poison
carcasses laid across the range.
By the 1970s, only seven
wolves were left in the wild.
Today, we're looking at
a very different story.
- To think about seven
wolves being where we began
and to think about where we are now,
Mexican wolves have come
back from the brink.
- Our guest today is Bailey Cadena,
AZA's co-vice program lead
for the SAFE Mexican Wolf Program,
and part of the Coexistence
Conservation Team
at the Cincinnati Zoo.
Today, we'll learn how a species
that was down to just a handful of wolves
clawed its way back,
and why its recovery
depends as much on people
as it does on the animals themselves.
(upbeat adventurous music)
Welcome to "Back From the Brink"
from "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom."
I am Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant.
- [Narrator] Each
episode, we're going deep
on a single species,
one that went to the
very edge of disappearing
and on the fight to bring it back.
- To tell the story of
how I became involved
in the Mexican Gray Wolf Program,
I have to zoom out just a little
bit to share that my teams
and our zoo's approach to conservation
really is supporting communities
that live alongside wildlife.
When we think about wildlife,
I think it's really important
to know that where there's
wildlife, there are people,
and people often are the heroes
of the story within conservation.
And through my work
wearing one of my two
hats at Cincinnati Zoo,
I was brought into SAFE
Mexican Wolf Program.
This program, it's been
absolutely exceptional.
And going back to those zookeepers
and animal care staff
that are vital to the work that zoos do,
they're also vital to this story.
Why I was brought in is we
wanted to expand the reach
and the impact that zoos
could play in this story
forever and ever, but we also
were ready to expand into
how can we support communities
living alongside wolves as zoos?
And so that's kind of
where I started to come in,
and I am now AZA's SAFE Mexican
Wolf co-vice program lead.
- Like, three snaps for you
because that is a long title,
but a very revered one.
You know, you're right.
I do know a lot about the SAFE
program for Mexican wolves.
I do know a lot about what's going on
with Mexican wolves in the US right now,
but that's because I was
able to like join the project
that you worked on for a
couple of days to film it
for "Mutual of Omaha's Wild
Kingdom: Protecting the Wild."
I think that probably if anyone was asked
to like close their eyes
and visualize a wolf,
they would be able to.
But can you describe to us like
what is a Mexican gray wolf?
What does it look like?
Where does it live?
Like, what is kind of the
biology and ecology in general,
general about this species?
(transition whooshes)
- So the Mexican gray wolf is the smallest
and most genetically distinct subspecies
of the gray wolf.
They historically were
found in the Southwest US
and throughout northern Mexico,
and that remains true today
due to these recovery efforts.
Today, they are found
in the US states of Arizona and New Mexico
and the Mexican states
of Chihuahua and Durango.
- You know, as typical
with lots of wild animals,
particularly in North America,
at one point they were abundant.
And so tell me about the trajectory
from when they were abundant
to, you know, a couple decades ago.
Like, what happened? What
drove their population decline?
- So by the 1970s,
settlers had expanded west
into the area of the historic
range of Mexican wolves.
And with them, they
brought their livestock
in abundant numbers.
And there was a culture of
dominating the landscape,
and the livestock that were brought in
were brought in such
abundant numbers so rapidly
that the populations of the hoofstock,
the herbivores that
were there before then,
didn't have a chance to really adapt,
and they started decreasing pretty rapidly
due to competition.
And as a result of that,
wolves, among other predators,
were predating on folks' livestock.
And essentially a whole
anti-predator campaign
that I'm sure hit on the
bears that you love as well.
- Oh, yeah. Mountain
lions, bears and wolves.
- Mountain lions, yeah, was initiated,
and eventually they were
extirpated in the United States,
and there was only of tens
left in northern Mexico.
- Oh, I didn't realize.
They were gone completely
from the wild in the US.
- Yeah.
- Wow.
And just a dozen or, you know,
like a very small number left
in Mexico as far as we know.
- Mm-hmm.
- This is important
because for a lot of species
that we are discussing here
on "Back From the Brink,"
you know, maybe we got
down to a couple thousand,
you know, sometimes a few hundred,
but to know that they
were gone in this country,
that really, I mean, that really hits.
(transition whooshes)
- [Narrator] You've probably
heard the name Marlin Perkins.
He was the original host
of "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom,"
but he was more than a face on television.
In 1971, he and his wife Carol
founded the Wild Canid
Survival and Research Center
in Eureka, Missouri.
They started with a single
enclosure and just five wolves.
(transition whooshes)
- Five wolves were found
in the wild in Durango,
and there were a few others
that were in professional
care at the time.
And those wolves were transported
to the Endangered Wolf Center,
which has direct ties to
the work that "Wild Kingdom"
and then "Back From the
Brink" is involved in.
- Absolutely. Yeah.
I mean, we can spend a minute
talking about the Endangered Wolf Center
and was brought to life by Marlin Perkins,
who was the original host,
one of the original hosts
of "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom."
He really, I mean, he started the show.
His legacy is so important.
And he also was truly a
conservationist off camera.
So he had a place at the St. Louis Zoo.
He began the Endangered Wolf Center.
I mean, his legacy of
impact truly lives on,
and it's something that
makes me really proud
that he wasn't just a host.
He was walking the talk.
And so the five that
were taken from the wild
that might have been the last five
and they probably were facing, you know,
a pretty dire situation
were brought to St. Louis.
- Absolutely.
And so it feels as though our beginnings
and the beginnings of "Wild Kingdom,"
we just come from the same roots.
And I was lucky enough to visit
the Endangered Wolf Center
for the first time, interestingly
enough, just last week.
You can feel the magic of it,
and you can feel the way
in which Marlin and Carol Perkins' vision
of supporting the recovery
of the America's canids,
it still rings true today.
And that's where it all began.
- And so I imagine
that at least one of those
wolves brought in was female
because they were able
to provide protection for these wolves
so that they could do some breeding.
And this was decades ago.
And so throughout those decades, I mean,
like, what does the trajectory look like?
- There were no wolves on the landscape
for about 20 to 30 years as
this breeding effort began.
And this is where I like to say
zoos have been one of the heroes
of the story of Mexican
wolves, without a doubt.
Mexican wolves would not be
here if it were not for the zoos
that have been invested
in this species' recovery.
Through the breeding
efforts of these zoos,
the number went from
zero in the wild in 1998.
I'm gonna out my age
here. I was born in '97.
So in my lifetime,
we have gone from zero wolves in the wild.
In '98, the first were
reintroduced in the US,
and in 2011, the first
were introduced in Mexico.
And today we stand
at a minimum of 319 Mexican
wolves in Arizona, New Mexico,
and a minimum of 25 in Mexico.
We still have a long ways to
go, but what an amount of work
to be done over the last 30 years.
- I mean, I have to applaud that
because that is a short amount of time,
you know, for an animal
like this, wide-ranging.
You know, the birth rates are not,
you know, they're not rabbits. (chuckles)
They're not giving birth
every couple months,
an animal that faces a lot of threats
in its natural environment,
this is a huge feat
to have a number over 300
and hopefully growing.
(transition whooshes)
- [Narrator] Ecologists
call wolves keystone animals
in the same way the centerstone of an arch
holds every other stone in place.
A keystone, like the wolf,
holds the whole landscape together.
(transition whooshes)
- You know, a lot of folks
have this understanding
that there is a direct
impact on the environment
when we have an animal
like wolves in an ecosystem
or when we don't have it.
Has there been any discussion
or measurement or evidence
that those years when there were no wolves
that the ecosystem changed
or that it has changed
since they've returned?
- So I think the best-studied ecosystem,
and in response to this question
is obviously Yellowstone,
the Yellowstone wolves.
There's stories of rivers changing
and restoring their natural hydrology
as a result of wolves being back.
So flowing in the classic river bendy way
that we all know and are familiar with.
And when I first heard
that, I just was like,
"How could the presence of a
wolf impact a river flowing?"
And folks shared with me
that it was a result of
the presence of predators,
wolves made it so that the hoofstock,
the elk, et cetera, eating
grass had to move more.
And so they weren't overgrazing
in one area sedentarily
and then moving to another.
And that movement of those hooves,
think about those hooves on that soil
and really kneading in different grasses,
established natural hydrology.
And so that is, I think
we can take lessons.
Obviously the Southwest
US and northern Mexico
is a different ecosystem than Yellowstone,
but I think that undoubtedly
the presence of wolves
has helped restore some
of these components.
- You know, I am a bear biologist,
and so they're also a top predator.
You know, just the understanding
the trophic cascades,
like the food web, you know,
like these predators eat
animals that are herbivores,
the herbivores eat grass,
the grass grows in soil,
the soil impacts water systems.
So if we have no predators,
then we might have too many herbivores,
which means too much
grass is getting eaten.
There's not enough roots in the soil.
We face some erosion into the water,
and then we can, you know,
ideally reverse that.
(transition whooshes)
- [Narrator] The ecosystem
argument is clear,
but getting wolves back into the ecosystem
required a solution that
nobody had tried before,
and it started in a zoo nursery.
- So someone listening to
this podcast might think,
"Okay, the Mexican wolves were vulnerable
because they were being
extirpated in the wild.
So folks took them into human care
to keep them protected
and to breed them again,
and then they just brought those adults
that had been bred back to the wild."
But no, it is not necessarily adults
that were being relocated
back to the wild.
Can you tell me about how you all
use wolf pups to rewild?
- In the early years, it was those adults.
The packs had to be reestablished,
but once we had wolves on the landscape
that knew how to act like
wolves, that knew how to hunt,
that knew how to survive
and really thrive as much
as a wolf can, right,
the life of a wolf is very difficult.
We looked across the landscape,
and we really heard a few
needs across the landscape.
One is people living alongside wolves
want and need wolves that
act like wild wolves.
And two, we always want to be
doing everything that we can
to support the genetic health
of the population in the wild.
And the answer to these big questions
is actually quite adorable,
as you alluded to and got to experience.
I haven't yet got to experience
the magic that you did.
- Oh, it'll change you. (chuckles)
- I believe it. I believe it.
Essentially, we as a program
have breeding efforts every year.
So there are wolves paired
based on the best genetics,
and those mom and dad
have a litter of pups.
And through some magic
and a lot of expertise and coordination,
they're able to time the birth of pups
that are born in human care
with those that are born in wild dens.
And pups born in zoos that
are part of this program,
some of them are taken from
their moms in human care,
and they're put into wild dens.
And so I recently watched again
the episode of "Wild Kingdom,"
and I just remember,
Rae, you sharing, like,
"These pups will never know
that they were born in a zoo.
They will always know
themselves to be wild wolves."
- Because they're taken
when they're days old,
I mean, I think in my experience,
deliberately before their eyes open.
- Yeah.
There is so much that goes into the care
and ensuring that the pups
are well taken care of,
the moms are well taken care of,
the packs both in the wild and human care
are well taken care of.
And it just is this
absolutely beautiful answer
to a lot of very real parts of recovery.
- So these pups are adorable.
The moms are superheroes.
They accept these foster pups
and make them wild, grow them up wild,
which is just in and of itself
already just incredible.
And so I'm curious, like
what's the best-case scenario
like for now, for the future,
or even for a fostered
or wild Mexican wolf?
I mean, what does a healthy population
kind of look like on the ground?
Like, their specific pack structure,
like, you know, what is
even survival rate like?
Like, what are we kind of expecting
under the best-case scenario?
- So for wild wolves, what
you're really looking for
is a pack structure that's
you've got mom, you've got dad,
you have pups from a year or two before,
and then you have this year's pups.
So siblings helping raise siblings,
everybody playing together,
play hunting and whatnot.
And to me, success for this program
is not limited, or to the recovery effort,
is not limited to success with the wolves,
but it really also is the
recovery of a culture,
the recovery of humans living
alongside these wolves.
If you think about it,
if you became a rancher
in the late '70s in the Southwest US,
you learned how to ranch in
an ecosystem without wolves.
But if you were born around
the same time that I was,
as I shared earlier, you've
only known ranching with wolves.
So that's a generation
that has been able to culturally
recover in a sense, right?
The recovery story is
not limited to wolves.
It also includes communities
living alongside those wolves.
- Wow, that's a really cool way to put it
and to think about it, that
everyone's kind of changing
and growing together at the
same time in the same ecosystem.
- If anybody listening has
ever gotten the experience
of watching a wild pack run,
if you've seen parents
run with their puppies,
there's this absolutely raw
feeling that it evokes in me.
And I think that that is
recovery, the resilience.
There is not the state
that we will one day reach
and then everything will be perfect.
Coexistence is hard. It's ever-changing.
What works today won't work tomorrow.
What worked 20 years ago
might work in 20 years.
And really being committed
to the recovery effort of the wolves
and meeting the needs of
communities living with them,
that's the work.
That's recovery.
(warm rustic music)
- [Narrator] Bringing back a predator
means learning to live alongside one.
That's coexistence.
- Bailey, tell me some
anecdotes about coexistence,
like especially about like innovations
or, you know, just wacky things
that folks are doing that are
allowing them to live in the,
you know, shared ecosystems
with these Mexican wolves.
- One extraordinary team
that I love to talk about is Tonkawa.
They're an organization
that is responsible
for monitoring wolves
in Chihuahua, Mexico,
but they've really
taken it upon themselves
to be a community-driven organization.
They've seen that long-term
wolf recovery is not possible
if the ranchers that live alongside them
that keep these areas, this landscape,
suitable habitat for Mexican wolves,
these alpine desert areas
that has some of the hardest
ranching in the US and Mexico,
they keep it suitable
habitat for Mexican wolves.
And one of my favorite stories
is the idea of dog treats,
wolf-friendly dog treats.
- Okay. Say more about that.
Wolf-friendly dog treats.
Break it down for me.
- For ranching communities that
are living alongside wolves,
one of the ways that Tonkawa,
their team has helped unlock the value
of having wolves on this land,
sharing space with people,
is by asking those
communities, "How can we help?"
And what those communities have said is,
"We want some market analysis done.
How can we find a market
where we can sell our beef
at a higher price per unit cow?"
And Tonkawa was like, "All
right, let's figure that out."
And they were able to find a market
where ranchers can sell their beef
at three times the profit
that they were before.
And in doing so and having
this relationship with Tonkawa,
Tonkawa being present and
being very transparent
that they're there because
they love the wolves
and they were there to
support the communities,
those ranchers that have
had that value unlocked
of tripling the profit
for their unit of cow
have agreed to decrease the number of cows
that they have in their herd by half.
So that means less interaction potential
between wolves and livestock,
more regenerative ag practices.
To me, it sometimes just feels like magic,
the work that this team of four
has been able to do
alongside these ranchers.
And the dog treats will
allow for additional markets.
- I have to say, I got worried
'cause I thought you were gonna suggest
that the key to coexistence
is like giving the
wolves dog treats to eat.
But no, you're saying that-
- Absolutely not.
- dog treats are made of
ingredients from these ranches
that do wolf-friendly ranching,
and they can be sold with this tagline,
like, "Supports wildlife,
you know, choose this
brand over another brand
because we are contributing
to conservation."
And that is brilliant.
- I think so as well.
And thank you for distilling
it down in that way.
Sometimes the story of
coexistence can be so complex
the closer and closer you get to it
because there's so many
awesome components of it.
In this work,
when you are supporting
communities living with wildlife,
it feels like the opposite
of feeling like there's a
lack of hope in the world.
I come home from work
and day in and day out
hearing stories of success that feel like,
"How could they be hitting
success here and here and here?"
And I think it's important
for people to know
that this work is happening,
this community-led work is
happening, and it is hopeful,
and there are people doing
absolutely incredible work.
This is our 10th year of
population growth in the states.
It's also our 10th year of pup fostering.
And I believe that long term,
what the success looks like is not only
the appropriate amount of
Mexican wolves on the landscape,
but also the appropriate support
going to these communities.
- I think what's
interesting in conservation
is that like our goal is always
to put ourselves out of a job.
- Yes.
- You know?
But knowing that humans
have so much impact
on the viability of these species,
we may not put ourselves out of a job
even if the species recovers,
because there may likely just
be work that needs to be done
as societies change and landscapes
change and growth happens
just to make sure that
coexistence is still at the top.
- When we think about the life of the wolf
or these ecosystems that include people,
you've got your wolves, your livestock,
people, elk, rivers, all of these things.
Change is our greatest constant.
And I resonate deeply with what you shared
that we should constantly be trying
to work ourselves out of
a job in conservation.
And maybe with change
as our only constant,
we're working ourselves into a new job.
- Into a new job. Yeah.
- And that's changing,
changing and putting autonomy
in the hands of people
that should have decision-making power
to be able to do what they need
as Tonkawa is supporting ranchers and...
- Bailey, I have to thank
you so much for talking to us
about this awesome,
awesome, awesome animal
that I'm sure a lot of people
didn't even know was a
subspecies of the gray wolf
that we have here in North America.
Thank you for joining us
and for representing the
Cincinnati Zoo so well.
You know, again, shout-out
to the people who are working hands-on
with the animals under
human care at the zoo,
and shout-out to people like you
who are doing completely different work
that is still in service
to the overall conservation
efforts that the zoo has.
You're awesome. We'll
have you back anytime.
- Thank you so, so much.
Those of you who are
interested in learning more,
we have a new area for Mexican
wolves opening this fall.
So come see Fiona, come learn more
about the awesome work
involved in this program,
and then to see Mexican wolves
and hopefully a pack
running together yourselves.
(transition whooshes)
(warm rustic music)
- [Narrator] Seven wolves,
a single enclosure,
and people who refuse to give up.
Today, the lobo runs wild again
across the American Southwest,
and the work of bringing
it back is still going on.
(bright music)
- And it needs people in its corner.
Follow the show, leave us a review,
and send this one to someone
who needs to hear a good
comeback story right now.
I'm Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant,
and I'll see you next time
on "Back From the Brink"
from "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom."
- [Narrator] The "Back
From the Brink" podcast
is sponsored by "Mutual
of Omaha's Wild Kingdom,"
hosted by Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant,
narrated by Peter Gros.
Executive producers are Jen
Wulf and Jenny Van Soelen,
podcast production by Lower Street Media.