Protect Species Podcast
This podcast is a production of the Global Center for Species Survival, which is a partnership between the Indianapolis Zoo and the International Union for Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission (IUCN SSC). We record all episodes at the Indianapolis Zoo in the Bedel Financial Media Studio, made possible by a generous gift from Elaine and Eric Bedel.
Protect Species Podcast
Big Good Wolf: Dispelling Myths and Misconceptions About These Top Dogs
Discover the truth behind the myths and misconceptions about wolves with our special guest, Regina Mossotti, Vice President of Animal Care at the Saint Louis Zoo. Regina brings her wealth of experience to our conversation, sharing insider stories from her work with red wolf and Mexican grey wolf recovery programs. She unveils the shy, curious nature of wolves, challenging the cultural fear fueled by their negative portrayal in popular media. Prepare to shift your perspective as we explore how these misunderstood creatures prefer to avoid human contact and play a vital role in maintaining balanced ecosystems.
Wolves can have a transformative impact on their surroundings, as exemplified by the reintroduction of gray wolves in Yellowstone National Park. We navigate the historical journey of wolf conservation, from the near eradication of wolves in the late 1800s and early 1900s to contemporary efforts focused on carnivore conservation across North America. Regina's insights emphasize the critical role wolves play in sustaining healthy animal and plant populations, highlighting the often-overlooked significance of these majestic creatures in preserving biodiversity within the United States.
Collaboration and innovation take center stage as we uncover initiatives that foster coexistence between humans and wolves. From the "Prey for the Pack" program in North Carolina to the revival of livestock guardian dogs, we explore creative strategies that transform community perceptions and encourage local support for wildlife conservation. Regina shares inspiring stories of collaboration among diverse stakeholders, illustrating the power of dialogue and cooperation in achieving conservation goals. Join us as we celebrate the passion and dedication driving the ongoing efforts to safeguard the future of wolves and their ecosystems.
Links:
Regina Mossotti
Saint Louis Zoo
Red Wolf Breeding Program
Endangered Wolf Center
USFWS Red Wolf Recovery Program
Prey for the Pack
They're abundant in fairy tales and blockbuster movies, but what about the wild? Today we're talking about wolves with Regina Mossotti, Vice President of Animal Care at the St Louis Zoo. I'm Moni Boom.
Speaker 2:And I'm Justin Berkoff. Welcome to the Protect Species Podcast, where we celebrate biodiversity and converse with conservationists.
Speaker 1:So, justin, your favorite blockbuster movie featuring a wolf, because I couldn't think of any. I don't.
Speaker 2:I mean Dance of the Wolves is a great one, but like that was a blockbuster when I was a child, so I just saw it as an adult.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's an amazing film that it is, and also, let's not discuss how old we were when we saw it.
Speaker 2:I mean, let's not. It's terrible. But yeah, today we're going to talk about wolves, particularly wolves in North America, and what we're doing collectively. Other wolves are available. We're going to talk with Regina today who works quite intimately with Red Wolf Recovery and Mexican Grey Wolf Recovery here in the United States. So we're excited to hear a little bit about those projects and how they're moving forward and what kind of the key components are.
Speaker 1:Which is exciting. I love talking about wolves, doggies.
Speaker 2:They're like dogs. I mean, that's where dogs came from. It's hard to see with bugs, but that's where they came from.
Speaker 1:Well's hard to see with bugs, but that's where they came from. Well, let's just talk about wolves.
Speaker 2:Wolves like dogs with normal size legs, length legs. Let's do that. Welcome, regina. So we're going to start with the easy question who are you, what do you do and how'd you end up where you're at? It's like three questions.
Speaker 3:I think it's a philosophical. Yeah, that's a deep question. Well, first, thank you guys for having me. Yes, I am Regina Massati. I am the vice president of animal care at the St Louis Zoo in Missouri and I also am the head of the AZA's Association of Zoos and Aquariums Red Wolf Safe Program and the Mexican Wolf Pup Foster Coordinator. So obviously love wolves.
Speaker 1:That helps, doesn't it, with your position. So, as mentioned in our introduction, there's no shortage of wolves in fiction. I tried to kind of name some and then I kind of literally only had about three. What's your take on wolves in fiction, regina?
Speaker 3:Oh my God, Good or bad, you hit the nail on the head. Think of what you've grown up with Little Red Riding Hood, three Little Pigs.
Speaker 1:I mean these ones popped into my head because actually where I'm from in Germany is just down the road from where the Brothers Grimm used to live, but I mean like in more popular fiction.
Speaker 3:I couldn't come up with a single wolf example apart from dancers with wolves, and that's a good wolf, and it's a good wolf. We've got a couple. We've got a couple in popular fiction now. Think of game of thrones with the dire wolves there's another good wolf.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, I did not watch that clearly, yeah um, I had to because everybody kept saying when I would say, hey, there's never good wolves and stuff, they're like, but, but games of thrones, you've got to watch it. So I did and then got hooked and loved it and watched every season. But, um, you know, even in modern day, you know, I I took my daughter, for example, when she um, just a few years ago, to go see frozen, and immediately when they got into the woods I don't know if anybody's gotten to see frozen, unfortunately with having kids, I've seen it about 622 times but you know, it was a scene where the main character, anna, was in the woods with Kristoff and the ominous music started and I'm like please, please, don't be wolves, please don't be wolves. And sure enough, they started getting chased by wolves and I was mad, like I wanted to walk out of the theater, but instead the social scientist and me decided to watch my five-year-old daughter sitting next to me to see how she reacted and she was scared. She was scared in that scene and it's small, goes, mommy, I had no idea how scary they were. And she goes and you work with them.
Speaker 3:I said, yeah, yeah, I said, but you know what that was? Those were just actors, they were just pretending wolves actually aren't like that in real life. And so she like we talked about it and she got through it and she's like, oh, okay, that makes sense. But how many kids have a wolf biologist as a mom who can like walk them through that to realize, hey, that's not what wolves are really like? So, yeah, I mean there's werewolf movies out there. How many commercials have we seen, with the recent one where the flu was disguised as a wolf? Right, they're constantly used in our culture to embody negative things, scary things, and that makes a big difference. On conservation, and a lot of people don't realize that there's that connection there. But man, if you fear something, you don't want to save it, and that's what we're trying to do with. Conservation is to save endangered species, so it's. It makes it just that much harder.
Speaker 1:So let's turn it around for the wolves. What are they really like? Let's myth bust, give the real picture. They're all like two socks in Dances with Wolves. Right, like adorable.
Speaker 3:One of my favorite scenes in a movie, especially the music, oh my God. Again, I'm not trying to sing.
Speaker 1:They're more like two socks right.
Speaker 3:They're more that shy, curious. You know they're curious from afar, from a distance, want nothing to do with people. You're lucky if you would ever see one, if you live in wolf country. I'm lucky enough to. I worked in the Yellowstone Wolf Project for a short time and I've worked in the wild with both red and Mexican wolves, so the three main conservation projects for wolf conservation that we have in the United States. And one of my jobs actually is to literally go into wolf dens, um to uh do pup fostering.
Speaker 3:And a lot of people will ask me my God, are you scared Because you're messing with their babies? Um, I don't see mom. They hear us coming from a far away cause they're hearing and their sense of smell is much better than ours, and they take off and they don't come back until we're gone. We get in and out of the den very quickly so we don't disturb them too much. But that's how scared of people wolves really are. It's a great example in my mind, because there's something that they really want to defend they care about their young. Same with yellowstone. We would have to go out to the elk or the bison that they just took down to feed their family and take biological samples from it, and that's a big job for a wolf pack. I mean, they're literally risking their lives to get dinner for their family. If they get kicked in the leg and they break a leg, they don't have health care in the wild. They don't have the ability to put their leg up and eat bonbons and watch soap operas until it heals. That's a life and death for them, and so when we approach those meals for them, you'd think they would sit there and defend it, but no, they are scared of people. So that's part of the myth I think that needs to be busted is that wolves are big and scary and like what you see on TV.
Speaker 3:But I would say the other myth is what they're really like, and one of the reasons I've fallen in love with wolves is because of what their family structure is like. Watching them, observing them, learning about them and from them, we've actually realized that their family structure is a lot like ours. You know they have a mom and dad. We call them the alphas, but really there's mom and dad, right, and they have young. They care for their young. They'll have another litter or two or three throughout their lives, and those first litters. The older ones help raise the next litters just like my sister babysat me and they learn from mom and dad how to take care of young so that when they go off and have their own families again, just like we do, they know how to care for, for their, their babies or offspring. And you get to watch their personalities develop and it's just, it's a lot of fun. They're, they're really cool species.
Speaker 1:They totally are. They're one of my favorites, I have to admit, and I now really want your job. So watch out, don't worry. The lack of experience is really kind of standing in my way here, but yeah.
Speaker 2:Badgers are close, but not that close We'll get you into the wolf world? I'm sure we can. So you mentioned predation and the fact that hunting isn't of itself a very dangerous undertaking for a pack, and we classify them as apex predators, so they're kind of top of the food chain, if we look at it in that classic sense. What are the roles that we find wolves playing in ecosystems and what do we see when we remove wolves out of these systems?
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, you hit another nail on the head. I love that you guys are loving and understanding what wolves are, which is really exciting, the fact that you know that they're a keystone species a lot of people don't realize that. And a keystone species what that term means is essentially that they're really important in holding an ecosystem together. So wolves are an example of a keystone species that without them, that structure that's there, that kind of helps keep everything balanced, is now gone. And we didn't know that. We actually didn't know that as a species, that that understanding of ecology and how things are all connected, that web of life is relatively a new science in the last 50 years or so. And wolves unfortunately, the eradication of wolves started much longer ago than that. The late 1800s, early 1900s is when it really ramped up, and the idea back then was if there were no wolves there would be more deer and elk. For me it would be essentially hunter's paradise. And Aldo Leopold, who wrote the Sand County Almanac, which is a beautiful book, if you haven't read it, has a really great excerpt in there. He was a wolf hunter originally. He had that same mindset that trigger itch of. Hey, you know, no, only good wolf is a dead wolf type mindset and over his career of working out in the wild and with wildlife he started to see, as these large carnivores like mountain lions and wolves and bears started to disappear, that the landscape changed, and not for the better. And it really changed his mindset to seeing things differently and understanding how to coexist and learn to live with wildlife. Because he saw those benefits and one of the best examples in modern science of that is Yellowstone.
Speaker 3:In 1995, the gray wolf, which is the largest subspecies of wolf that we have in the United States, was brought back. Scientists realized that, you know, the landscape had changed. They didn't really fully understand the impact that wolves had, but they knew that wolves should be there. But they hadn't been there for over 70 years because they essentially had been hunted to extinction in the early 1900s. And so in 1995, biologists worked on bringing gray wolves back and releasing them back into the park, which just alone in itself was a momentous situation and moment in conservation.
Speaker 3:But the coolest part about it is that several years later a plant biologist realized the impact that wolves were having on the ecosystem. He started to see different plants come back and in different areas than they had seen in decades and he couldn't figure out why. Of course his brain didn't go straight to wolves. It was like, hey, maybe it's climate change, maybe there's a disease that was going through, that's gone. Now what's going back?
Speaker 3:And he looked at his data and everything kept bringing back to 1995 as seeing that shift happening, and what he realized is that when wolves came back, the elk populations and deer populations that were there in Yellowstone had skyrocketed without the wolf there. And now that the wolf was back is they were bringing them down to a healthy carrying capacity. What that means is the ecosystem and the amount of plants that there are there can only sustain so many animals, so many elk, so many deer, and the wolves were bringing them back down to that level that the plants could sustain, because without them, the elk and deer were eating everything down to the dirt. When a tree would fall, no new trees would replace it. Well, those trees are habitat for songbirds and butterflies and along the riverbanks they protect estuaries for different fish and waterfowl that we hunt and love to eat. And we started to see those animals come back. And it was just this trickle-down effect and it was this great real-life scientific example of how keystone species can literally change an ecosystem.
Speaker 2:Yeah this impact that goes beyond just what you think of a singular species and it's as much as there's, as you mentioned, that top-down regulation of how many elk and deer are. So they're hunting down animals but they're also improving the genetic lines and the health of those populations and there's the cascading effect is that every single thing is impacted by this one animal. It's just absolutely incredible and we see it in other systems. And the term keystone species is used a lot in science and, I think, regularly is overused because it doesn't really fit that true definition of a species that has an impact that's beyond the scope of just what you would expect it to be.
Speaker 1:That was beautiful.
Speaker 2:he said Thank you, I know I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:This is what this admiring face is all about. It's like wow, very eloquent. Before we move on about wolf conservation, you mentioned also that there's other types of wolves, because I think whenever, at least when I hear the term wolf, I immediately go to the gray wolf, probably because I'm from Europe and's like the only one we have, but there's obviously other ones as well. Can you talk us through the wolves just really quickly, like wolf 101, in like two minutes, and don't worry, we're not going to time it.
Speaker 3:I know I got my clock, my stopwatch. There we go and start A new segment for the podcast.
Speaker 3:Speed talking, speed eco-talking. Yeah, you know there are. There are quite a few.
Speaker 3:Just in North America alone, we've got the gray wolf, which is that traditional beautiful big gray wolf that you're used to seeing in the Northwest, in the Northeast Yellowstone, idaho, washington, et cetera, minnesota. But we also have the American red wolf, which is a species that is solely native to the United States, and it's native to the southeastern United States from like Missouri, over to New York, down to Florida and over to Texas. And then the last one that we have here is the Mexican wolf, which is a very genetically distinct subspecies of the gray wolf that's native to the southwestern United States. And the Mexican wolf and the red wolf are the two most endangered wolves in the entire world. The red wolf's the most endangered, with less than 20 left in the wild, and the only place you can find them today is North Carolina. The Mexican wolf is faring slightly better, but there's only about 250 left, and you can mostly find them in Arizona and New Mexico. So it is, there's some big conservation needs out there for these wolf species moving forward.
Speaker 2:And we're definitely going to dive into that a bit more, but I think it's one of the things that we look at when we talk about carnivore conservation. You know, as somebody that grew up here in the States is, often we think about carnivore conservation as species that are found on a different continent. We often gravitate to things in Africa or in Southern Asia and we don't necessarily think about these large, charismatic predators that we have here in North America, that we've eradicated extremely effectively in a very literal and kind of dark sense and that, you know, people who want to move into conservation for predators don't necessarily think about our native ones.
Speaker 1:I mean to be quite honest same issue in Europe. Yeah, that's true, very much so Although the wolf and the bears are coming back.
Speaker 2:They are coming back with similar issues that we find here.
Speaker 2:And so, you know, when we talk about wolf recovery and reintroduction, conflict is something that comes up a lot and conflict is a term that's very charged and we're looking about, you know, how do we find people and places for people in wildlife to live on the landscape and coexist and so really looking, not necessarily framing it as what's the conflict, but how do we frame it so that we find ways that these, these species that were there, that are coming back, are coexisting with the people that are currently there. And so, what sort of what are the? You know, if you were going to make you do lists and speed that's going to be the theme for the day. If you were going to talk about, like, what are the first, the top three, like pieces of fact when we talk about wolf reintroduction, versus the top three like fiction items that, when we have these conversations about recovering wolves and specifically North America, what are the three kind of things that are like people assume, that are correct and that people assume that are deeply flawed.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a great question. First, people just need to know about them. A lot of people don't know about the red wolf or the Mexican wolf. They hear about wolves and they think about what's happening in Yellowstone and gray wolves. Um, but being able to know about them is one of them. And I say that because just in the way you just put that was perfect. We're literally telling other countries save your pandas, save your rhinos, save your you know, fill in the blank. And right here in in the United States, we have the most endangered wolf in the world and a lot of people don't even know that it exists, let alone that they need to save it. And for me, as an American, it's like man, that is a source of pride. I want to make sure that we don't have endangered species here. So getting the word out to one of them.
Speaker 3:But I think some of the other myths that a lot of people don't know about with wolves or misunderstand about them, besides the fact that they're not the big bad wolf that you see on TV, a lot of people think that they decimate your prey population. So I'm I'm a hunter, I grew up in a hunting family and you know, I I even have to deal with that myth with my own family of like hey, if we had wolves back here, wouldn't they? Wouldn't they decimate the deer population and that's not how it works. It's ecosystems are in balance and when the wolves come back they would bring the deer and elk to a healthy level, but they wouldn't decimate them, because if they decimated then they wouldn't have food and then they wouldn't be here. Then the deer would grow again. What they would do is help to reduce some of the disease that transmits to us or to our livestock, which I think would be beneficial.
Speaker 3:And then I think one of the other big myths that people think about with wolves is it's going to negatively affect me and now, and they're going to decimate my, my cattle. Wolves will take cattle, they will. And that is a big deal to those ranchers. And that is why it is up to us to help find ways to coexist, because most of those ranching families that are out there they're living on a very fine margin of profit and one loss can make a big, big difference in their livelihoods. However, it is very rare that they do take cattle. According to the USDA, it is less than like 0.1% of all losses of livestock have anything to do with wolves, so it's rare, but when it does happen it's a big deal, and so that's where we can come in and help support through coexistence methods.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that. I mean I think that sums up really nicely is that there's that opportunity and I think we see it in north america, we see it in other places where these large carnivores are extirpated or become locally extinct is that people stop understanding or having that appreciation for what it is to live along this wildlife, and it doesn't take very much time for that knowledge or that experience to disappear. And then you get a different response. It's not that, oh, they've always lived here. It's that fear response of oh, why are you bringing them back? We don't need them.
Speaker 2:And so I think we talk about reintroductions, we talk about conservation in general. It's a people-based problem and it's about community and making sure that the voices that need to be heard are heard but also are validated in their own experience. Because, like you said, the number of cattle lost to wolves in North America is very, very small and that's a great statistic. But for somebody who's living through that experience, that has lost the cattle, it is a huge experience and that if you're not raising livestock yourself, you can never really fully appreciate what that means. And so I think you know when we talk about it, it's often it's you know, it becomes very us versus them. As you know, the conservationists want these things. They don't care about what the livestock owners want. The livestock owners don't care about the wildlife.
Speaker 2:The truth is really in the middle is that we want to find a place where both of these systems are able to work and you know harmony is not the right word but are able to coexist with each other and work effectively, realizing that there's going to be some loss and that there's things that we can do to mitigate that loss. You know compensation schemes are something that happens. You know they're not perfect. We see it around the world that compensation isn't the best tool, especially if it's used as a standalone. Is that if we're able to encourage behavior change around how animals are managed, how you take care of your livestock, where you have them calve and all of those things, and then realize that if there is loss and you're doing all the things that are supposed to make that not happen, that compensation is a tool in that space? Agreed, when we start looking at how we do these reintroductions here, what are the pieces that you think really need to happen before we even start having the conversation about recovery?
Speaker 3:need to happen before we even start having the conversation about recovery. One of the number one that you just said is get rid of the fricking us versus them mindset. That has got to go. Um, there is no bad guy in this situation. It is. Everybody is working the best that they can and unfortunately that has been the mentality, especially for the last several decades. As we are, the environmental movement has moved forward as we've realized how important keeping our ecosystems healthy and clean is, and so you know and I've been able and lucky enough to work with a lot of ranchers and just seeing how kind these people are and that they are out on the landscape working for their families, just like we all are, to create a livelihood so that we can survive and do well in the world. Their families are just like our families, right? So it's not an us versus them, it is a we in this together type situation and some of the examples that I've seen that are very creative and thinking outside the box and how to change perceptions and be able to help, support folks that are living in recovery areas for endangered species, whether it's wolves or not, you know, being able to find that support and that communication and community building is important. But some of the examples that I think are really neat is one for the Red Wolf program. Right now they have the Prey for the Pack. Prey is P-R-E-Y Prey for the Pack and it's a program where they're working with local communities in the recovery area of North Carolina which are communities that really rely on hunting big time for subsistence as well as tourists come in and hunt on their land and being able to come into these areas that have been denuded you know the landscape is maybe old farmland it really isn't great for attracting turkey and quail and deer and helping to rebuild that ecosystem and that land for those landowners so that they can hunt on their property and actually attract game, while simultaneously providing game for wolves and hopefully building up the relationship with the Fish and Wildlife Service and understanding that, hey, if we can bring our landscape back and supply you with some things that you need, can you help us support Red Wolf Recovery. So it's being able to kind of change that mindset of who the service is and what they're doing on the landscape. So building that trust is really important doing on the landscape. So building that trust is really important.
Speaker 3:And then Mexican wolf worked with a program called pay for presence and the idea of that was and it is, it's still going on is that. Hey, because of these GPS collars, we know where wolves are going out in the wild and if they go on your land, we'll compensate you. If they go on your land and have puppies, we'll compensate you even more. If those puppies survive to have puppies, we'll compensate you even more. If those puppies survive to a year, we'll compensate you more. And then simultaneously, if you are over here doing coexistence techniques like having range riders or livestock guard dogs or flattery to scare away the wolves, you're not losing cattle we'll give you even more money and you're not losing cattle.
Speaker 3:So it's all these benefits to having wolves around. So it's changing those synapses from thinking wolves are a nuisance to wolves are actually a benefit. So it's trying to encourage good behavior and thinking about wolves in a completely different way and building up those relationships. So it's all about the people side of things. As you said, conservation is about the people. The animals know what to do. We can release wolves on the landscape and get those numbers back up and save them just from the biology side, relatively easy. It's the people side of it that makes it much more challenging.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that, I also. I just had a thought. It literally just fell out of my head. Oh, that's brilliant.
Speaker 3:It's because a wolf was running through your head and your mind, right?
Speaker 1:It was two socks being really cute again. That's what happened.
Speaker 2:I think also you went through the next three questions we had written down which is going to make this complicated.
Speaker 1:You essentially finished the podcast for us.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay, good Well, it's good talking to you guys, see ya.
Speaker 2:This podcast is a production of the Global Center for Speech Survival at the Indianapolis Zoo. We record all episodes in the Beatle Financial Media Studio, made possible by a generous gift from Elaine and Eric Beatle.
Speaker 1:What I was gonna, what I was gonna go and say is I do like the way that it's this switch from thinking about compensating for bad things, like loss that happened to you, to actually this good benefit stuff that you can bring in. And the other thing that I was thinking about was a lot of what happens in parts of Europe where wolves and bears are coming back is that all of these old breeds of guard dogs that were previously used are being brought back in like breeds that have essentially kind of more or less disappeared are now becoming the guardians of of your sheep or cattle again, which I think is super exciting. That's so cool especially as you love dogs, I love dogs.
Speaker 1:I just wanted to mention dogs. There you go well, no, and I. I think that's a really cool point, because you love dogs, I love dogs.
Speaker 3:I just wanted to mention dogs there you go Done it Well, no, and I think that's a really cool point that you brought up.
Speaker 3:I'm really glad you said that, because I think that's one of the things, too, that a lot of folks don't understand of why is there so much resistance? Well, when you haven't had to deal with a problem in generations, that's a lost art. Now that knowledge is gone, the fear is still there and passed down, but the knowledge of how to coexist and how to work with the landscape is gone. And so you've got folks. We know what cowboys are. They're they used to go with and be with the cattle all the time to help protect them, and once we didn't need that anymore, it was okay. You can let your cattle out for you know by itself, and it's fine because you don't have wolves and and feral dogs are actually a bigger issue and and mountain lions and other things out there that could injure those. So it's it's relearning how to be a cowboy.
Speaker 3:We call them range riders now, and livestock guard dogs are a really great example. That is something that's been used for thousands of years across the world to protect our livestock, and here in the US it's like this wait what we can do? What with dogs? How cool is that? Like, instead of having to hire a range rider, you can have a dog or you can have just one range rider and a dog and it saves you money versus having two range riders. That can help protect your livestock. And it's relearning those skill sets and bringing them back into the fold so that we can actually help protect wildlife. That's a big part of our mission. Now is how do we reteach those skills, and Justin's a great example. He literally did that on the landscape and helped with that with cheetahs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean it's interesting to bring that back.
Speaker 1:Interesting fact have really tiny heads, it's.
Speaker 2:Monty's favorite cheetah. Fact is they have really tiny heads and we cannot have a conversation anywhere without it being brought up when we mention the word cheetah.
Speaker 3:It's sort of my catchphrase, I think we call them streamlined they're streamlined.
Speaker 2:Yeah, monty's not going to use that, that's not going to happen. But I think you know to your point. I think it was interesting is yeah, it's, we'd look at. You know, we find in Europe, we find these livestock guardian dogs and it's something that's starting to catch on and grow again here in the States. But it's also things that we've taken to parts of the world where it wasn't historically done and they are deeply effective in huge ranges where you wouldn't expect it to be.
Speaker 2:You know, like the idea of this Turkish dog being used in, you know, a high desert in Southern Africa protecting, you know, small goats and small stock from leopards, cheetahs and lions. Like you're like I don't know about that. And then you meet an Anatolian shepherd and he weighs 160 pounds and comes up to your waist. You're like I don't know about that. And then you meet an Anatolian shepherd and he weighs 160 pounds and comes up to your waist. You're like, oh, that kind of makes sense. And you know those little skills.
Speaker 2:But I was at this conference last year that was all about coexistence. It happened in Colorado and a lot of the research that was being presented it's called Pathways, if anyone's curious was about coexistence with predators and because it was taking place in the United States, it was mostly US centric and that wasn't a lot of my experience when it came to conflict and conflict mitigation with predators, but it was like they're talking about how effective range riders are, they're talking about how effective dogs are and how you know if you can sink the calving season and then you pull your animals in the calve close to you know a barn or a corral and it's it's incredible to have all of these people who are prestigious, prestigious academics and you know PhDs talking about this stuff is like we've done this before, like this is not new information is like and you don't need a PhD to understand this. But, as you said, it's like it's this lost art and those skillsets haven't been passed down in the same way that the that the emotive part of it, has been, and so we're having to relearn this experience that two, three generations removed. They're like yeah, of course that makes sense. Why are you asking me this stupid question?
Speaker 1:I say that to you a lot, John.
Speaker 3:I think one of the cool things too with that that pathways is a great example of just coming together and sharing information right Like being able to have those resources available, I think is huge. But I actually love the creativity of coexistence. I think there's some really fun ones that have been out there that have been effective. I remember one of my favorite ones is one of the ranchers that we worked with in Washington, um, with their sheep, where they had had some tools that they were using and they were working and then the wolves were smart and figured it out after a while, Right, Because they were just using the same tool over again. So they're like, okay, we got to come up with something else. And they're like, okay, we know that wolves are scared of everything, so what can we do? That's scary. And they ended up getting one of those. Oh, do you know when you like to see a used car?
Speaker 3:sales lot and it's got those like people that are blowing in the wind. To be quite honest, they scare me as well.
Speaker 1:I'm scared of those things.
Speaker 3:So they got those and they put them like around their sheep corrals and sure enough, man, those worked. And I was like brilliant, that cost you like 20 bucks.
Speaker 2:And now those wolves are not coming anywhere near how the sheep felt about that yeah, I know that apparently they said the sheep were fine.
Speaker 3:Um, they desensitized them to him, which is great, but like and it's not will those be effective forever? But no, they added another tool to their toolbox and now they can start rotating things so that different generations of wolves haven't seen it constantly, right, so it's, it's just. I love that creativity of thinking outside the box, of how we can work with nature.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. It's just management, really, isn't it? It's like just trying to figure out solutions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that problem solving, you know, that kind of ingenuity side of it is like what can you do to outthink this animal as opposed to outcompete this animal? I feel if the question is, what can you do to scare an animal, that's scared of everything.
Speaker 1:You should be really fine, shouldn't you? I mean, I have a dog that's scared of everything.
Speaker 2:So I feel I have a dog that's scared of everything Also, true, yeah, so earlier on we talked about your involvement with wolves, your some research, and then you mentioned red wolf recovery and being a big part of that. So the US wildlife service released an updated red wolf recovery plan earlier this year. Um, I'm a nerd and I read it. I thought it was great. Um, but because you were a big part of it, you know, can you give us some insight into how this plan has built upon the original plan that's been modified a bit, and what sort of things that are contained in that you find to be truly exciting, as we continue to try to recover the species that we've had a fair amount of success recovering and then a huge drop-off and we're now at this population that we're at now, that's, you know. You said less than 20, which is a terrifyingly small number.
Speaker 3:And also terrifyingly small number.
Speaker 2:And then the lead-in question to kind of where we also want to go after that is how does the in-situ, so the free-ranging wild populations, relate to the ex-situ or the managed populations here in the United States? And how do those two things work in concert with each other towards recovery.
Speaker 3:So that was like six questions at once. I'm going to go through that. Yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:I know I'm like that was like a gazillion questions all at once.
Speaker 3:I got like that was like a zillion questions all at once.
Speaker 1:I got you, though I got you, justin, you're good.
Speaker 3:Synopsis. First Synopsis of the recovery plan.
Speaker 1:In two minutes.
Speaker 3:Two minutes. Yeah, I'm not timing this one, okay.
Speaker 2:We won't either.
Speaker 3:No. Well, a little history on the Red Wolf Project first, for folks who don't know.
Speaker 2:So it was actually.
Speaker 3:It predated yellowstone. It was the first reintroduction of a large carnivore in human history that had been extirpated extirpated meaning hunted from a landscape and um, in the 60s and 70s fish and wildlife service realized that this was an endangered species. They needed to act quickly. They went out and captured the very few remaining red wolves that were on the landscape, brought them into human care at zoological institutions in the US and started a breeding program, breeding them to eventually release them back onto the landscape Again. Nobody had ever done this first of its kind and they were successful with breeding them. And in 1987, they found an area in North Carolina where red wolves used to be native to but again had been hunted to extinction, and released them there 1987, just put that in perspective, yellowstone was 1995. So Yellowstone project did a lot of what they did based on what they learned in the Red Wolf Project and I say that because I'm very proud of the Red Wolf Project for breaking down barriers and conservation. And again a lot of innovative, creative conservation went into the Red Wolf Program and is still going into the Red wolf program. And so they released the wolves and for decades it was actually a very successful program. The wolves were breeding, they were having puppies. They were staying away from people. Coyotes moved into the area, and one of the risks with red wolves is that when they cannot find another red wolf to breed with, they may breed with a coyote they don't want to. But when you can't find another red wolf to breed with, they may breed with a coyote they don't want to. But when you can't find another red wolf and the only thing you see is a coyote, it starts to look a little sexy and they might consider breeding with it. But we don't want that because we don't want them to become hybrids. And so it was a grand experiment to see what would happen. And when the numbers got up high enough for red wolves, they didn't breed with coyotes, they killed them and kicked them out of their territory, as they had done for millennia. So it was working, and we got up to about 150 red wolves in the wild in North Carolina 12,.
Speaker 3:A well-meaning lawsuit went into effect that wanted to stop all hunting of coyotes in the area, because some red wolves were accidentally getting hunted as well, and they were hunting these coyotes at night, and it's hard enough to tell a 70 pound red wolf from a 25 pound coyote in the daytime, because they're similar color coats, but at night it's next to impossible. And so we were losing some of our critically endangered red wolves and the judge stopped the hunting. But he didn't just stop it at night, he stopped the hunting during the day too, and it really threw up the local community into a very frustrated state because they're like, hey, this is our land, we want to be able to to manage it the way that we need to and we want to be able to hunt coyotes. And a disinformation campaign ensued, um, that really riled the local community up against red wolves and it really hurt the program. Um program was put on hold for a little bit while the Fish and Wildlife Service did an evaluation of the program and in that time and in that time, um, red Wolves were getting hit by cars. We weren't um doing the management that we needed to to protect them. We had Red Wolves getting shot, um, and we got down to the numbers that we're we're at today, um, so it's, it was seeing a program that was really successful and working and it really accentuated and highlighted that people have to be part of the solution for conservation. They have to be communicated with. They have to be part of it. We need to be transparent everywhere we're going. We need to share the story of what we're doing so that people know and they're brought on that journey. And so now today we're less than 20 and the Fish and Wildlife Service is working on revamping the recovery efforts for the red wolf, and one of the efforts with that is to redo the recovery plan.
Speaker 3:A recovery plan is essentially a broad guide to how we're going to save an endangered species. Whether it's a butterfly, a wolf, a salamander, doesn't matter. It's a recovery plan is to help save an endangered species. And the red wolf recovery plan was just completed, as Justin said, in 2023. And what's exciting about it is that not only is it looking at how can we improve, how can we improve what we're doing in North Carolina and working on that recovery effort of that red wolf population, but can we bring in two additional new red wolf populations somewhere in the southeastern United States so we can help grow the resiliency of this tiny population critically endangered species.
Speaker 3:And what was neat about how the Fish and Wildlife Service approached this recovery plan is it was a team of 50 people. That's not normal for recovery plans. Usually they're a team of like five to 10 at most, but the service really wanted to bring in all of the voices that have a role in recovering whether it's local community members, different state agencies, our Native American partners, the zoological partners, as well as geneticists and scientists and others that can help with this, and it was a really thoughtful approach to how to create a recovery plan that can be successful and impactful. So I'm really excited about this program, and the next step moving forward is to actually implement it and develop a strategy of how to implement it. So that's where we are in the process right now.
Speaker 2:Excellent, yeah, monty's looking at are in the process right now. Excellent, yeah, monty's looking at me like I had more to this. No, I think it's phenomenal and it really excellent it was. It was definitive.
Speaker 3:We're going to end there, can you guys hear me? Yes, no-transcript.
Speaker 1:No, I was going to go and bring that up later, but yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that's fine. That was super interesting and I've got a new podcast episode idea about just let's talk about conservation planning and how it's done.
Speaker 2:We should do that.
Speaker 3:That would be really good, wouldn't it? Because?
Speaker 1:that's precisely it. It that would be really good, wouldn't it? Because that's precisely it. It's like we need to bring people in to kind of share their perspectives on our plans as well, otherwise they're not going to be successful. According to the script here, it says you're just a short drive away in St Louis. Now I, with my European sensibilities, would like to kind of challenge that. It's not such a short drive. In Europe a short drive is 20 minutes. But there we go. Can you talk us a little bit about the zoo's involvement in wolf conservation?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I am at the St Louis Zoo, which is only a few hours away not 20 minutes, but a few hours away from Indianapolis Zoo. The St Louis Zoo has actually been involved in wolf conservation in a very unique way for a long time. They helped start the gamete bio banking for Mexican wolves and gametes are just the egg and the sperm that we produce and being able to bank semen or sperm and and for female wolves that are past reproduction but might still have some eggs or oocytes in their ovaries, they're able to collect them, harvest them and freeze them so that we can use them in the future. And the reason that's important is when you're talking about critically endangered species. Genetics and making sure you have really diverse genetics is important to keeping the population healthy.
Speaker 3:When we talk about inbreeding like fathers and daughters or cousins inbreeding we know that that leads to effects with the offspring that can be not good.
Speaker 3:They can not survive, they can have a low immune response and other side effects that aren't great.
Speaker 3:And we want to make sure we have a healthy and diverse population as much as we possibly can, and the St Louis Zoo has been doing that, and so successfully that just a few years ago they were able to develop a technique to actually use that frozen sperm and produce a puppy, and it was neat because it was from a male. The sperm was from a male that had never been able to reproduce, so they were able to save those genetics and bring them back into the population. It was very exciting and now we are diving into actually housing wolves. We just built seven red wolf habitats on a piece of property that the St Louis Zoo owns. It's about 45 minutes from our campus, it's actually closed to the public, People don't go visit and it's specifically designed to be able to help raise red wolves that can succeed when released out into the wild. So lots of different things that we're doing and I'm really excited to be part of the program here at the St Louis Zoo in terms of wolf conservation.
Speaker 1:That is super exciting. I like bringing the individual back into the population that wasn't able to reproduce. That's really cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, reproductive-assisted technology is just. What it's starting to do is phenomenal, and we're just starting to scratch the surface with some of the technologies that are coming out, and so being able to bring back founders into a population or new genetics from animals that have been dead for 10, 15, 20 years is just it sounds like science fiction in some ways. So we have kind of two big questions we like to ask people, partially because they're fun and partially because it's, you know, part of the idea behind this is you mentioned earlier cross fostering, in the sense that you're going into wolf dens and introducing pups into wild wolf dens. What is your like, what is the mechanics behind that and what is like a most memorable story when it comes to cross fostering?
Speaker 3:Yeah, uh. So fostering, pup fostering is a really neat program and you know I I've I talked a lot in this program of why. One of the reasons that I love conservation and science is I love the creativity behind it and I think fostering pup fostering is a really beautiful example of the creativity that we need in conservation. So the red wolf program developed fostering and what it is is it's taking. Once we got wolf numbers up in the wilds of north carolina to a decent number where they were starting to have pups of their own out in the landscape, what they decided might work and they tried it and it did was, hey, instead of releasing adults that were born at zoos because it works to release adults it's just more challenging and it's harder logistically to move them, you know, from a zoo, say, in St Louis all the way to North Carolina to release an adult. It's hard on them, they're scared you release them and they're naive for those first couple of months where they learn where they are and how to do things. But again, it works. It's just challenging. But instead a scientist learning and watching wolves realized how caring and nurturing they were, said what if we take pups born in zoos and sneak them into wild wolf dens and let the wild parents raise them, who already know how to hunt. Stay away from people who have a territory established, and whoever the first scientist to do that was was incredibly brave. I love it. And they did it. They took pups born at a zoo and they snuck them into a wild den and so you've got these other pups that were the wild born ones. They took the captive ones and they took dirt from the den and they made the pups pee in each other and all smell like each other and they stuck them back in the den really quick and, sure enough, mom came back and took care of all of the puppies and the reason for that is she's got those hormones surging in those first few weeks of having a litter. Just like we do, we have the hormones that help us bond with our babies, help us feed them, and she's got that same thing going on. So she's like, oh, puppies, all right, they're mine, I'm going to take care of them. And she raised them as her own and the fostering program was born and it's tough. It's a tough program to do. The stars, the moon, the sun, everything has to align because we're fostering puppies that have to be born within just a few days of each other. We have to be able to find them in the wild to be able to foster into, and we have to do this all before the pups are 14 days old. So it's a very, very quick turnaround to be able to make it all happen. And this program has worked because you got the Fish and Wildlife Service and the zoological institutions who are working so closely together, partnering and collaborating and communicating well, and you've got a team on the ground of Fish and Wildlife Service who care deeply for these animals and really want to see these programs succeed, willing to work hard and put in those hours to try and find these dens. And it works. And so that's. That's the fostering program in a nutshell.
Speaker 3:My favorite memory from fostering was I was able to take a wolf down, um, several years ago. Um, it was a pup. He was, I think, 10 days old at the time, so tiny eyes, closed, ears, closed, the size of a potato Could fit in your hand, just adorable. And we were able. His name was Max and we were able to find the wild den. This was Mexican wolves. Now I was working on the Mexican wolf program for their fostering effort and we snuck them into a wild den in Arizona and I actually came back to help Fish and wildlife service about six no, 10 months after that. It was about 10 months after we did the fostering effort and they were doing their annual population survey of Mexican wolves to see how the populations were doing for this critically endangered species. And when they do that they will actually dart some of the adult wolves that are in the wild to put collars on them so they can track them and learn more about them. And when they do that, they will actually dart some of the adult wolves that are in the wild to put collars on them so they can track them and learn more about them. And those collars can help keep them safe and also can help with programs like the pup fostering program, help you find the dens.
Speaker 3:And one of the wolves that they caught, they brought in, didn't have a collar on it and I knew it was a long shot, but I was like, oh, it'd be so cool if it was one of the pups that we fostered into the wild, um, and but really didn't, didn't expect that to happen. And sure enough it was, it was max, and so I just it was. It was one of those moments where I cried, the biologists cry, everybody cried Cause we were so happy just to see that it was in the early days of the pup fostering program. So it was one of the very first ones that we'd seen grow up and be successful out in the field. And just seeing this big, beautiful, handsome wolf in front of me doing what wolves do, staying away from people, staying away from cattle, he had already, at like 11 months old, had already found a girlfriend, which is very young for a wolf to find a girlfriend.
Speaker 1:So look at him out in the landscape being at Casanova.
Speaker 3:You know he was just doing all the right things and it was just. It was a very I was very proud in that moment of just the entire team and the work that they put into this program.
Speaker 1:That's. That's an awesome story. I love that. I also love how you mentioned yet again how important all these partnerships and working together, how that is so important for conservation. And also for my next question, which is a little bit unrelated but it leads into a very, very popular segment of this podcast how do you weigh wolves?
Speaker 3:How do you weigh wolves? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we like to ask people very carefully.
Speaker 3:That's a good answer to be quite honest.
Speaker 2:Steve Amstrup had the same answer.
Speaker 3:So the way that we, the way that we manage them in human care, is we we try not to sedate them when we don't have to, but we also can't train them. So like a tiger, you can train to come in step on a scale and get their weight, because they're not going back into the wild so you can build that relationship with them and train them. But with with red wolves and mexican wolves, you, we can't habituate them to people in any way. We don't want them to see us as a positive, because if they go out into the wild and they see a person, they think, oh, look at, there's somebody, you know a person and they're positive. They could walk up to that person and get shot right. So we want to make sure the wolves are protected and keep that natural shyness. So in human care what we do is in their large habitats that they have, we form a human wall and wherever we are, the wolves are at the opposite end of that wall because they're scared and they want to stay away from us. We run them into a small holding area. It's maybe 10 by 10. And when they're in a small holding area, it's maybe 10 by 10. And when they're in that small holding area. What they do is they cower in the corner. They think, oh my God, if I can just hide, they won't see me and they'll leave me alone.
Speaker 3:And we're able to hold them down very quickly with what are called a Y-pull. That Y-pull, we give them a vaccine they need their vaccines just like anybody else and make sure they stay safe. And then we're able to put a muzzle on them and then put them in a crate, and then we set that crate on top of a scale and that's how we get their weight. And this is maybe takes about five minutes and it is a little bit nerve wracking for that wolf, right, they don't want to be around people, but it's that idea of once a year, they remember why they don't like people.
Speaker 3:It's like taking your kid to the doctor the first time. First time they're like sure I'll go to the doctor. And then, after they get that first vaccine, they're like dear God, mom, I never want to go to that doctor again. Um, and so it's. It's the same thing with the wolves, as we want to remind around them. So it's five minutes of making sure they get their health check, but doing it in a way that reminds them that they don't want to be around people, and so that way, when they're released, they stay safe.
Speaker 1:Excellent. That's not the story that I expected to hear, but I love it Every single moment of it.
Speaker 2:So we're going to do one last question for you, and I think you kind of touched on it with your story about Max but what gives you hope for wolf conservation, and particularly in the United States, since that's where you're deeply involved with it?
Speaker 3:People, people give me hope and I know they can also be a big challenge. But I think one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in conservation is what I've gotten to see on this wolf project. It is people coming together from all walks of life, willing to listen to each other, work together, partner with each other, all for the benefit of another species, another life. And I have met some of the most amazing, passionate, driven people in this project. I've seen moments where I've worked with ranchers and seen them come to the table willing to have conversations. I've seen environmentalists willing to come to the table and have conversations. And that's where it starts is just being able to talk to each other, learn from each other, work with each other, and then those partnerships and collaborations grow. And that is the epitome of the Red Wolf and Mexican Wolf program is just that collaboration, and every single time I see it I get re-inspired, reinvigorated and ready to go.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's a great answer and I think we will actually end there instead of pretending to.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. I think that's a very good way to end. We wish you all the best with those two programs and that it's turning out really well for Max and the other wolves.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you guys for having me too. I think anytime we get to talk about wolves, it's a great day, so I appreciate you being willing to have me on and that transferred as well.
Speaker 1:I think the listeners will know that you love talking about wolves.
Speaker 2:I'm impressed we got it only in an hour.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the two-minute questions. Man, I tried.
Speaker 2:I mean you did a valiant effort and we commend you for it.
Speaker 1:Don't forget to subscribe to the Protect Species podcast to ensure you're the first to know when new episodes are available, and please follow us on social media. We're on Facebook, instagram and X. Also, if you like what you hear, we'd love if you left us a review, which apparently makes us more popular. That's all I ever wanted and also, obviously, helps people find us.
