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
(gentle upbeat music)
- [Rae] There are about
a million known species
of insects on Earth.
Scientists think we've probably
found only a fifth of them.
They pollinate our crops.
They feed the birds,
the fish, the reptiles,
and most of the small mammals.
They are the tiny workers
holding entire ecosystems together.
This is Nebraska.
Most of the state is corn country,
but north of Lincoln, the
ground goes low and wet,
and the water that comes
up is saltier than the sea.
This is the home for the
Salt Creek tiger beetle,
the only home that it
has anywhere on Earth.
- When I was a young,
you know, animal trainer,
somebody came to me and said,
"Hey, Jeff, don't forget,
all of these animals
have little souls."
And that has always stuck with me.
- Our guest today is Jeff Ewelt,
also known as Jeff the Nature Guy,
and a familiar face on the
Wild Kingdom television show.
He's the chief zoological officer
at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium,
and he spent his entire career
going to bat for the underdogs.
Today, we'll learn all about a beetle
that most people have never even heard of,
and that has an entire
coalition of scientists, zoos,
and volunteers fighting for it.
(gentle upbeat music)
Welcome to "Back from the Brink"
from Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.
I'm Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant.
- [Narrator] Each episode,
we're going deep on a variety of species,
one that went to the very
edge of disappearing,
and on the fight to bring it back.
- Jeff, I am so happy to be here
with someone I consider
a friend and a colleague.
- That's kind, it's, you know,
always so great to see you
and the whole Mutual of Omaha team.
You guys are just always so welcoming,
and it's always just a pleasure.
So I'm happy to be here.
- Well, you're part of the family.
- [Jeff] Oh, that's so kind.
- And you and I, you know,
we've traveled together,
we've filmed together,
we've geeked out over animals together,
but, like, it's always been, you know,
warm, fuzzy, charismatic mammals.
But today, you are bringing
me something different today.
- I am, and I love it
because, listen, I have always
been an underdog person.
I love the underdogs of the animal world,
the animals that people either
don't wanna give the time
because they're AKA gross, or
they don't know about them.
And so today we are gonna talk
about the Salt Creek tiger beetle,
probably an animal,
although you probably have,
but most people have never heard about.
- I will say, not only did I not know
about the Salt Creek tiger beetle
until I started prepping for this,
but I can't even really tell you
about tiger beetles in general.
- Yeah.
- So that's why you're here.
- Yeah, you know,
and that's the amazing thing
about these tiger beetles
is it's believed about 3,000 species
of these insects.
(Rae gasps)
But what we're gonna talk
about is the Salt Creek one
because it's found only in
one place in the entire world,
and it's in Nebraska of all places.
How cool is that?
- So, like, start from the beginning.
For people who don't know
what we're talking about,
what is this beetle, and more importantly,
what does it look like?
- So if you've never seen
a Salt Creek tiger beetle-
- Which I have never seen one.
- Yeah, they're beautiful.
They are a metallic brown,
sometimes olive green.
They've got these blotches of
color that's on their body.
The underbody of them is
an iridescent green color.
And then that's where
the beautiful part happens.
- Okay.
- Then it gets a little creepy
because these really long
legs, they've got bulging eyes,
and they've got these jaws
that come out that look pretty menacing.
In fact, tiger beetles get the name
because they are very predatory.
And so they get that name
because they are very quick
at getting their prey.
- Okay, so not because they're like black
and orange stripes?
- No.
You would think because of the coloration,
but it's because of
their predatory action.
All that to say, when
you are out in the wild
and you see a tiger beetle,
they're gonna be about the
size of your thumbnail.
I mean,
so they're relatively small.
- Oh, small.
- They're tiny.
But when you see them for the first time,
you're not gonna notice how small you are.
You're gonna notice how fast they are.
Those long legs help carry them quickly
because they don't live very long once
they emerge out of the burrows.
We'll talk about that,
but they're incredible.
They're incredible little species.
And again, only found in this one area
north of Lincoln, Nebraska.
I just love that. It's so amazing.
(gentle upbeat music)
- [Narrator] A beetle that
is the size of a thumbnail
in one marsh in one state.
Jeff has been asked to
justify it more times
than he can count.
- You know, so the question I often get
when we talk about these
types of animals is why care?
Like, why do we care that
the Salt Creek tiger beetles
having issues in their habitat?
And we have to care
before a couple reasons.
One, I always like to push
back on that question,
why not, right?
You know, when I was a young,
you know, animal trainer,
somebody came to me and said,
"Hey, Jeff, don't forget,
all of these animals have little souls."
And that has always stuck with me,
that it doesn't matter if
it's a tiny little beetle
or it's a black bear or whatever it is,
it's got a soul, right?
Yeah. So that's always stuck with me.
And so I've always believed
we should save any species we can, right?
As the most intelligent species on Earth,
which sometimes is questionable,
humans, we need to do our part, right?
And we have the ability,
we have the technology,
we have the people that are
interested in doing that.
So let's do something, right?
So that's why I think we have to care
about the Salt Creek tiger beetle.
But if you wanna get technical about it,
they're also an indicator species.
Like a lot of the amphibians
that you've talked about over
the course of your career,
you know, this species is
so important to let us know
how the saline wetlands are
so important to us as humans.
And if the beetle dies out,
that could be the end of those wetlands.
And that could be a big deal
because it can affect flooding,
it can affect, you know, water quality,
it can affect so many different things.
So let's save this beetle because
it's an indicator species.
It helps us, right?
And I hate to always turn it around
that it doesn't have to help humans,
but let's be honest, that helps, right?
That helps the opportunity
to save these species.
- You know, this is
interesting because we,
as conservation professionals
and as nature lovers,
you know, even we are biased towards
or biased away from
insects and invertebrates.
And, you know, I remember being maybe in,
like, middle school or high school
and learning about scarabs, right?
So, like, learning about
ancient Egypt, I think,
and, you know, like,
scarabs are kind of a part
of the culture, and there's hieroglyphics.
And I learned that that's kind of,
you know, related to dung beetles.
And then I remember
becoming a conservationist
and understanding dung beetles really make
the world go round.
- Absolutely.
- I mean, we cannot
survive on this planet,
or the planet can't survive
without dung beetles.
- Yeah.
- But I'm imagining that
all kinds of beetles
are relatively misunderstood
or not understood yet,
like you're saying, are indicator species
or keystone species, are, you
know, making things happen.
And especially if the Salt
Creek tiger beetle is predatory,
probably what it's
eating needs to be eaten.
- Absolutely.
You know, and then that's exactly right.
And, you know, some of these prey species,
mosquito larvae, all that
stuff that's so important
that we have these animals
that help keep those populations
under control, right?
You know, reptiles are the same thing.
People are always scared of snakes,
but my gosh, if we didn't
have those reptiles eating
the mice and the rodent-
- Right.
Rodents would go
out of control.
- Absolutely.
You know, and with the
Hantavirus scare that was recent,
that brings all that to light,
that, you know, all of
this stuff works together.
And, you know, it may
be cheesy to talk about,
but that circle of life is
so real and so important.
And it does.
It starts with those smallest of the small
that need our attention.
- So okay, I really wanna
talk about the trajectory
that this tiger beetle has had.
But first, Jeff, I wanna understand why A,
you know so much about it,
and B, what is it about you
that draws you to these tiger beetles?
- So I have just recently
moved to Nebraska.
I've been at Omaha's Henry
Doorly Zoo and Aquarium
for about a year now.
And, you know, our conservation programs
at that organization, as you
well know, are incredible.
And the Salt Creek tiger beetle
has been one that the
zoo has been working on.
And again, because I've always
gravitated to the underdogs
of the animal world, vultures
are my favorite animal,
they always have been, I just
gravitated to this program
because I thought how amazing
that all of these people,
all of these entities, universities,
you know, nonprofit organizations,
all of these entities are coming together
to save this little tiny insect.
That's so inspiring to me.
And so I gravitated to
that for that reason
and just kind of absorbed
all I could in the last year.
And I've been so fortunate
to go on a release
of some of these larvae.
And it was an amazing,
humbling experience that,
you know, when you think,
okay, you're just putting
little larvae in the ground,
how cool can it be?
It blew me away.
- Oh my God.
- It was an amazing experience.
And then to be in this incredible habitat
of these saline wetlands,
which again, look otherworldly,
was an amazing experience.
So that's where my history comes from.
I did not grow up working
with these animals.
- Okay.
- It's just something that came to me
and I just, I fell in love with it.
- [Narrator] A narrow set of conditions
met in one place on Earth,
it's absolutely perfect for the beetle.
Bear, salted mud along the creek banks,
it is clear of plants and just
damp enough for tunneling.
There were once more
than 20,000 acres of it.
- So the Salt Creek tiger beetle
has had some trouble in its history.
I'm sure that there was, you know,
millions of years where
it was doing just fine.
And then what happened?
- Yeah.
Well, as always is the story,
humans got involved.
- Humans.
- I mean, you know, and as a human,
I'm throwing myself under the bus here.
We're part of the problem, right?
So yeah, Salt Creek tiger beetles,
because they are so tied
to that saline wetland,
as, you know, settling
happened and, you know,
the changing of rivers and creeks
and kind of channelization
of these waterways,
it drained a lot of those wetlands.
Building, obviously,
agriculture, all of these
things that have kind of,
you know, hurt some of
these natural landscapes.
- And I have to interrupt you.
What part of Nebraska has the wetlands?
- Yeah, so it was pretty
much overall of Nebraska
for the most part.
- Oh, really?
- But now it's really just honed
into that kind of north
of Lincoln, Nebraska.
So think of center, kind of south-central
of the state.
- Okay.
- You know, Nebraska's a pretty big state.
Kind of think of that center,
that central area there.
But these wetlands,
what I think is so neat
about them is they are salty.
And so there's still a
lot of misunderstanding
of why that is.
The theory and the understanding
is that most likely,
in the rocks underneath the soil,
there's a very high salt content.
Back in the ancient years,
many, many, many moons ago,
there was an ancient
seabed that was salty,
and those minerals kind
of settled into that rock
and became these kind of wetlands.
And what's so neat about it
is when you go out there,
I keep saying it, but it's otherworldly
because you're in the middle of Nebraska,
you wouldn't think of having
a salt marsh, essentially.
- At all.
- No.
And so you have these plants that are,
they have evolved to obviously
live within this area.
So when you walk there,
you're almost feeling like
you're walking next to the ocean.
It's bizarre.
Right in the middle of corn
country Nebraska, here they are.
Over many years,
obviously, those wetlands
just kind of got plowed over.
And unfortunately, as it always goes,
we realize as time goes
on, we made a mistake.
These wetlands really are important.
And so because of that, unfortunately,
meant the demise of these beetles.
- I guess we wanna have some
compassion because much of it
wasn't intentional.
- Sure.
- So folks in Nebraska said,
"This looks like a great
place for agriculture.
We can spark an agriculture economy here.
We can feed people.
Let's change the ecosystem
from wetland ecosystem
to agriculture ecosystem."
But that took away the habitat en masse.
- It did. Yeah.
You know, and absolutely...
I, you know, completely get it, right?
Like, you know, we have
to survive too, right?
So it's a dicey area.
The real dagger for this beetle, though,
is that it's so tied to
those saline wetlands
that they couldn't just
migrate to somewhere else.
This beetle, because it
evolved in this salt marsh,
can't just move on.
And so that's a big
problem for this animal.
And so thankfully, thanks to
some of these recovery efforts,
those wetlands are now being saved.
And so these beetles can once again start
the process of thriving, but
it's gonna take some time,
as all these conservation efforts do.
- Do you have a sense
for how bad it got, like,
in terms of population
size or extent or whatnot?
Do you kind of know,
like, at what point we as conservationists
and as society were quite worried
and at what point, you know,
recovery efforts began?
- So it started actually
back in the early 2000s.
I believe it was around 2005,
maybe a little earlier than that.
There was a pretty extensive study done
to try to figure out the population.
And when you're talking
about such a small insect,
that's a difficult thing to do, right?
How do you get out there
and make these counts,
especially when they're living most
of their life underground?
And so it was a difficult
process, but at that time,
they only counted about 150 adults.
Nothing-
- 150.
- [Jeff] 150, right?
- And I bet they looked everywhere.
- They did, absolutely.
And they canvased the habitats.
So about 150 adults.
The silver lining is that
that got the attention
of the federal government.
And at that point, they
were listed as endangered.
So once that happened,
that's when all of the
resources started coming in,
funding, resources to make
some of these projects happen,
partnerships, collaborations.
And that was really the start
of the recovery process of this animal.
(gentle upbeat music)
- [Narrator] Finding just 150 adults,
the Salt Creek tiger beetle
landed on the endangered
species list in 2005.
That's when the money arrived.
Habitat was set aside,
and a coalition came together
for the humble beetle,
a federal agency, a state
agency, a university,
a natural resources district,
and a city, and two zoos.
Together, they worked out
how to raise larvae in a lab,
and then they scaled it up.
- There's been efforts made.
Now we have maybe 300 in the wild,
but you just named a
number of organizations
who I imagine are bringing
some of these beetles in-house
to kind of propagate them.
Have you seen that?
- Yeah. And that's
happening, and it's amazing.
So basically, the way that it
works is that these beetles,
so their lifespan,
one of my favorite things about them
is their bizarre lifespan.
So they lay eggs.
Once they hatch their eggs, they lay eggs.
About 14 days later or
so, they will hatch,
and they will come out as a pupa, a larva,
and they will live in
this really narrow burrow.
So when we release these animals,
we use, like, a pencil
to create this burrow.
So think a pencil with, you know, down,
I don't know, maybe what, 10 inches.
They live in that burrow for
two years in this pupa stage,
this larva stage.
- Oh my gosh.
- And they're opportunistic.
So they wait for these animals to walk by,
and then they run up and
they grab these animals,
and that's how they eat.
After two years, they emerge as an adult,
and they live for about two weeks.
And all they do in that two
weeks is they find a female
or a male, they breed, and then they die.
So that lifespan is about
two years, but the only-
- And mostly underground.
- And mostly underground.
It's wild.
So in order to propagate these animals,
you, one, have to recreate that habitat
because they are so tied to
that salinity and that soil.
Number two is you gotta
essentially rear these things
for a couple years if
you wanna release adults,
which we have done.
But more often than not,
we release the larvae.
So we go out into these
salt, in these salt marshes,
we create those burrows,
we put these little larvae in these holes,
we cover it up,
and we just hope that they
survive those two years.
And I will never forget the
first release I went on,
I'm holding this little tiny
larva in my hand. I'm like-
- Which most people would not do.
- Exactly.
- Okay.
- But I was amazed this little tiny,
you know, worm-looking thing.
I'm like, hundreds of people
are here to watch this
and do this.
And it was just, it was
heartwarming to me, like, for real.
It really meant a lot to me.
And so there's a lot of
effort that goes into it.
And it's not just zoos, it's universities,
University of Nebraska,
Game and Parks in Nebraska,
US Fish and Wildlife.
They're all coming together
to make this happen.
And it's just amazing.
So much work goes into
it, so much expertise.
- You know, I feel like
for someone like you
who's seen this firsthand,
you know, folks gathering around larvae
that you're gonna put in the earth
and not see for two years,
like, it must be so easy
for you to access hope.
You know, for some conservationists,
it takes a lot for them to
pull that hope out of them,
but you actually are surrounded
by examples day in and day out
that can give you hope for the future.
- Yeah, that's exactly right.
And that hope is everything, right?
And, you know, there is
something about, you know,
packing a little larva into a hole,
walking away, and just believing
that larva's gonna survive.
And we know that that's
happening to a point
because the population,
although it's not huge,
it's rising, right?
So that hope is there.
And so you're right.
There is a point where, you know,
when you're working with
wildlife and you see firsthand
that maybe a conservation
program isn't happening
the way you want it to,
that's deflating, right?
But when you can walk away
and just in your mind
have a little bit of hope
that this is happening, it's
good for the soul, right?
And so that's what I do
like about this program
is that because we know those
numbers are slowly rising,
we know there is success out
there, that hope is everything.
- I have to say, Omaha's
Henry Doorly Zoo is special.
And one of the reasons
that I find it special
is that there is so much
behind-the-scenes work at the zoo
with the little guys, right?
I mean, the zoo has incredible exhibits
and habitats with these
amazing iconic species,
but I've seen the
laboratories in the back,
off-limits to the public, with, you know,
the Puerto Rican crested toad, you know,
like little animals that belong
in one part of the world only,
and there's only a few hundred of them.
You know, and you all are,
you know, hatching them from
eggs and growing them up
and giving them
strength-training exercises
and then shipping them
in FedEx across the,
you know, continent.
And then with this Salt
Creek tiger beetle,
I have to get that right.
- Yeah, it's tough.
- You know, you all are propagating larvae
and, you know, bringing them
back into these habitats.
To me, that is something that
everyone needs to know about,
that you can have an
amazing zoo experience
as a guest of the zoo,
but you should know
that behind the scenes,
there is very serious
scientific work going on.
- Yeah, amazing scientific work.
And I'm so honored to be part
of Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo.
It's an amazing facility.
And what I love so much about
it is exactly what you said,
is that our conservation efforts
do focus on the little guys.
I love how you put that because it's true.
It's not just about the big ones, right?
You know, the charismatic
animals that we all talk about,
because those little
guys need to love too.
You know, and I love and
I'm so proud of the work
that we do for that reason.
(audio whooshing)
- So, okay.
You have been out in
these marshes in Nebraska.
And my question is,
when it comes to those
ecosystems themselves,
right now, does it look
like there's opportunity
to restore some areas back
into a healthy salt marsh?
Or do you think the
effort is more to preserve
what salt marsh we have left?
- Yeah, I think a little
bit of both, honestly.
I think the preservation piece
is gonna be the easiest piece, right?
But you know, in the conservation
world, easy isn't how we-
- It's not easy.
- It's not easy, exactly.
But preservation is actively underway,
but so is restoration.
There's an amazing
organization in Nebraska
called the Saline Wetland
Conservation Partnership,
and they've saved over
2,000 acres of wetlands
and are actively restoring
some of these wetland areas as well.
So it's a little bit of both.
You know, and that's what I love,
especially now that there's
the endangered status
that we talked about.
There's all these government entities
and universities involved
that it's getting the
attention that it needs.
And so because of that,
I think the preservation
is gonna continue years and
years and years into the future,
which I mean, you got to love that, right?
I mean, that's what it's all about
to save all these animals.
It's amazing.
- Well, so Jeff, I mean,
this is like a bit meta,
but I mean, I can't help but think that
if it took a really long time
for folks to realize, like,
"Hey, there's this beetle that
is the size of your fingernail."
If that just kind of more
recently got discovered
or kind of got attention brought to it,
don't you think that
we've got a similar issue
in so many parts of America,
let alone the world?
I mean, should we all
just be laying around
in different ecosystems,
looking at the ground
to see what comes up, and then
counting how many there are?
What if there's, like, tons
of endemic species everywhere?
- I'm telling you, it's overwhelming,
right?
- Yeah.
- You know, people laugh, but
that's kind of weird stuff
that'll keep you up at night
when you're in this world-
- Yeah, people like us. Yeah.
- Exactly, you know, because
you're exactly right.
What are we missing?
You know, and as you
know, you're one of them,
being in the field and taking those counts
and just observing is amazing.
And I always love to say,
like, get out and observe.
Like, see what you see out there.
Even somebody that has
nothing to do with animals,
like, just get out in nature and observe,
and you don't know what you're gonna find.
We got to get out there.
We got to learn more.
And I'm always still amazed in this world
that there are still animals
we have not discovered.
And I'm not just talking
to these small beetles.
I mean, how can we not know
that a primate still exists?
It's wild to me, you
know, but I love that.
And I think, to your point,
being able to get out there,
get at nature, not just
scientists and conservationists,
but the everyday person,
let's get out there and let's observe.
And there's great tools
that you can even record
that stuff for the scientists
and the conservations.
- You're absolutely right.
You know, I love living in this era
where any person at
all, young to, you know,
130 years old, you know, can be activated
and empowered to support science
and drive conservation forward.
These days, anyone over a certain age
has a smartphone and there are apps
like iNaturalist is a
really well-known one.
So everyone, download iNaturalist,
where you can see anything and record it.
Any living thing, you open the app,
you take a picture of it,
and it records the location
that you saw it and what the species is.
And so if you do find some
interesting insect or reptile,
amphibian, I mean any
bird, whatever it is,
you are contributing to
scientific collection,
and the people who can take action
to say that species are able to say,
"Oh my gosh, like, that bird
was found in that place."
This gives us hope.
This gives us motivation to
do a study to protect it.
- Absolutely.
You know, the citizen science
these days is amazing,
and we couldn't do what we could do
without them, you know, without that.
And to be able to be somebody
that is just out in nature,
myself included, yourself included,
snap a picture of a bird that
you've never seen before,
put it on iNaturalist,
and then all of a sudden,
you find out that bird
hasn't been seen there
in 100 years-
- Right.
- What an amazing
experience for you, right?
You know, so I love stuff like that.
And you're right, citizen
science should be everywhere.
- I love stuff like that too.
And it kind of unifies so many of us,
you know, instead of saying
that person does conservation,
but not that person.
Actually, all of us
can be in this together
to, you know, improve the state
of the planet.
- So right.
- Jeff, it has been so
awesome talking to you.
I never thought I would have a big smile
on my face-
- I love it.
- After spending time
talking about a tiger beetle.
- Beetles. I know.
They're so cool.
- I am changed.
- I love that.
You know, and that's what it's all about.
And you know, in our world,
it's all about creating
that excitement, right?
I love changing people's minds.
Best part of the job.
- And you are doing
that every single day.
- I love it.
- Thank you so much, Jeff
Ewelt, for joining us-
- Pleasure.
- On "Back from the Brink."
(gentle upbeat music)
If this episode sparked something for you,
follow or subscribe.
Leave a review and send
it to the wildlife lover,
the Nebraskan, or the person in your life
who stops to look at bugs on the sidewalk
and gets left behind by the group,
or the friend who's all three.
I'm Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant,
and I'll see you next time.
(gentle upbeat music)
(audio whooshing)
- [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.
(gentle upbeat music)