National Wildlife Week

Alex Re

Hello, welcome to on wildlife. I'm your host, Alex Re on this podcast, we bring the wild to you, we take you on a journey into the life of a different animal every week. And I guarantee you, you're gonna come out of here knowing more about your favorite animal than you did before. This episode is an extra special one, because it's National Wildlife week. And you're going to hear about not one, not two, but three different animals. And these animals may seem a little strange, but they're all native to North America. Luckily, we have a special guest who's got a lot of awesome information about them. Our guest this week is David miza giusti, who's a naturalist with the National Wildlife Federation. So let's get ready to talk about some of the weirdest animals native to North America.

National Wildlife week has been celebrated for over 80 years. And its main focus is to spark a love for our Earth's wildlife in everyone, and in turn, making people care about some of our most vulnerable species. And as you know, this just so happens to be the goal of my podcast as well, which is why I'm so excited to be helping the National Wildlife Federation celebrate this year. As a kid, I would spend a lot of my time flipping over rocks in my backyard, looking for something new and cool to find like a salamander, an insect or a weird looking worm. Not to say I don't still do that now, but probably a little less because I have other responsibilities. But this really started my love for animals and all the weird and amazing things that nature has to offer. Unfortunately, we're losing a lot of it because of our own actions, which is why National Wildlife week is so important to me. And normally I do a little intro on the animal that I talk about with my guests. But this time, I wanted to leave it as a complete surprise. And you don't want to miss this interview. Now, you may recognize our guest today, because David has been on multiple talk shows like Conan and the Wendy Williams show, as well as other TV series, giving people a real life look at so many amazing creatures. As I said earlier, he's a naturalist for the National Wildlife Federation. And he's got a lifelong passion for animals. Not to mention he has an extensive knowledge of the animal kingdom. So now let's get into the interesting world of American wildlife after the break.

This week on notable figures in science, I want to recognize Rachel Carson, she was a marine biologist who was well known for her environmental activism and writing. She was a writer for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, educating people about marine wildlife and geography. And she was really ahead of her time when it came to environmental issues, as she was writing about the impacts of human activity on the environment in the 50s, and 60s. But one of the things that she's most well known for is advocating against the use of harmful pesticides that the United States was using, like DDT. She knew that it was harming wildlife and wanted other people to know about it, too. She was one of the best nature writers of her time. And if you want to learn more about Rachel Carson, or this series, check out on wildlife.org.

Okay, we're back. I hope you liked my interview with David. Hi, David, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. I can't wait to hear about all these weird animals that you're going to talk about. How are you doing?

David Mizejewski

I'm doing really well. I'm excited. I'm excited to be here. It's National Wildlife week. And I am a lifelong nature geek. And so getting to just chat with you about some of these really interesting species that we have here in America is like the highlight of my day. So Oh,

Alex Re

I'm totally with you. I can't wait. I really can't. So first, before we get into those animals, can you just tell me a little bit about yourself and how you became interested in animals?

David Mizejewski

Absolutely, yeah. So um, like I just said, I'm a lifelong nature geek. I grew up I was one of those kids that spent all my time running around in the woods and catching frogs and climbing trees and, you know, driving my poor parents crazy coming home covered in mud and Poison Ivy and everything. And, you know, ever since I was a kid, I knew I wanted to do something with my life that had to do with animals or nature, and so did a bunch of stuff. As a kid I was a junior naturalist and eventually went to school and got a degree in human and natural ecology and sort of launched my career as a naturalist which if people don't know, a naturalist is pretty much just somebody who has a deep knowledge of nature. They have Animals, the plants that the natural cycles of everything, but it's also a communicator. And so my job as a naturalist is really to share all of my knowledge and get it out to the world and hopefully inspire everybody out there to care a little bit more about our fellow species on the planet and get involved in conservation. And so about 21 years ago, I came to the National Wildlife Federation. And the National Wildlife Federation is one of the oldest and largest conservation groups here in in the US. We've been around since 1936. Some of you might have grown up reading Ranger Rick magazine, that's the National Wildlife Federation. And when and we do all sorts of conservation work, we do a lot of policy work fighting for, you know, good legislation that is going to keep our wildlife and our air and our water resources clean. But we also do a lot of work in communities and helping people get connected to nature. And you know, a lot of youth oriented stuff. So I mentioned the Ranger direct magazine, and we've got eco schools, programs and all sorts of stuff in between. So there's lots of different ways that, you know, everybody out there can get involved with the National Wildlife Federation, depending on what your interests are. So, so that's what we are. That's a little bit about me, and, and, you know, this week, we're celebrating wildlife, the unique and strange wildlife of North America.

Alex Re

Yeah, that's so awesome. And let's get into that. So you're going to talk to me about three different animals today. So the first animal is the red wolf. What makes them different from the gray wolf that most of us know about?

David Mizejewski

So Red Wolves are the second species of wolf that we have in in North America and I kind of think of them a little bit of as like the Jan Brady of the of the animal world, because they're completely overshadowed by their their sort of more well known, you know, sibling, which is the gray wolf. Now, you know, when when you think of wolves, you're thinking of the gray wolf, you know, these kind of Shaggy, gray, brown, maybe white if it's the Arctic Wolf, that howls and lives in big packs, and, you know, hunts, bison and elk, and things like that. And the red wolf is, is a completely different species. So there's lots of different subspecies of gray wolf, right, again, the Arctic Wolf, and all that kind of stuff. But the red wolf is the species of wolf that historically was found in sort of the southeastern United States. And it's kind of a sad story. And this is one of the reasons why it's interesting and unique, and that most people don't even know about it, because we human beings wiped them out. For the most part, you know, we have a long history in the world, but in this country of having kind of like historical anti predator programs, where in the old days, we used to think of predators as bad because they killed you know, he kind of really anthropomorphized the animal behavior, and judged it the way that we would judge humans who go out and kill therefore they're bad, we should get rid of them. Nowadays, we have a much better understanding of the ecological importance of predators. So a lot of that sentiments still exists. But every year, we get a little bit more aware of why we should be protecting predators and restoring them to the landscape. So Red Wolves, like many other predators are hunted out, there are bounties on them, we altered a lot of their habitat, we cut down all the forests, we got rid of other prey. And so they gradually declined. And by the 1980s, there was only one small population of Red Wolves left in the wild down in Louisiana. Oh, wow. And so you know, imagine that imagine there just being you know, several dozen individuals have an entire species left on the planet in these, these really dense, wooded areas down in Louisiana. And so the decision was made by conservationists, and you know, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, that really the only way to save this species was to take a radical action, and that radical action was going out, and essentially trapping all of the individual animals that that were remaining, and bringing them into captivity, so that they could with the help of the zoo community, who has a lot of expertise in captive breeding of wildlife, and that kind of thing, to start a captive breeding program to see if we could bolster the numbers. And, you know, make sure that we had a healthy genetic population of this species. And so, to unpack that part of it a little bit, you know, one of the threats when when a when a species gets down to such low numbers, is inbreeding. Yeah. And you lose the genetic diversity within that population and within that species, and that can cause all sorts of problems and you know, sort of negative characteristics kind of build up in the population and disease and things like that and just makes them weaker overall. And so also, what was happening with the red wolf those last Red Wolves was that they were starting to integrate with coyotes which are you know, cousin and other wild kids. Species very closely related so they can interbreed. And so the Red Wolves were basically beginning to be, you know, to be interbreeding themselves into extinction. Because there's way more coyotes and the coyotes were starting to interbreed, and more and more of the quote unquote, Red Wolves have more and more coyote genetics in them. And so ultimately, if that process played out, you know, by now there might not be any Red Wolves left, there might be coyotes with some red wolf heritage, but and they would be extinct. So in the 80s, all of those remaining wild, Red Wolves were captured. And you know, that testing was done on them to figure out which individuals were kind of the the actual Red Wolves and they weren't hybrids. And those individuals were put into the captive breeding program, then today, I don't know the exact number off the top of my head, how many exist in the captive population, but, you know, there, there's a good number of Red Wolves, again, being cared for and managed and the captive breeding programs and zoos across America. But they there's one wild population that was has been reintroduced from these, the captive bred population, and that is in the alligator national wildlife refuge in North Carolina. So as I mentioned, Red Wolves historically, were found all across the southeastern states. So even though the the the last population in the wild was found in Louisiana, the descendants of them that were bred in captivity were released in North Carolina, because that was where we had some really great habitat, lots of space for them. And so today, there is a wild breeding population of Red Wolves. That's so awesome. And interesting, that kind of shows you that it's not really ever too late if

Alex Re

we want to help some animals, because there are a lot of animals like the red Wolf, that are struggling right now.

David Mizejewski

That's absolutely right. And I'm glad you brought that up too. Because, you know, really, we do know how to protect and restore wildlife. And we have a lot of great examples of it, particularly with game species, you know, species that, you know, sort of have a commercial value, because of, you know, hunting and fishing. And, you know, a lot of our game species almost disappeared as well, you know, in the last century, because we didn't have regulated manage science based, you know, hunting and fishing programs, which we have today. And so, you know, the biologists have figured out, you know, like we can, we can continue to hunt and fish certain species, as long as we do it the right way, and their populations can be very healthy. And that's the case with, again, a lot of, you know, deer and elk, and a lot of these, you know, game species, but with a non game species, we haven't devoted oftentimes as much attention, or, frankly, funding. And, you know, one of the big things that the National Wildlife Federation is talking about right now is, is a piece of legislation called the recovering America's wildlife act. And the whole design of this is, is to provide a little bit of additional funding from existing funding sources, so like not new taxes, or anything like that, that's to be focused on some of these non game species, and to use the same tactics and techniques to conserve and restore them that we've had success with, with the game species. And, and devote a little bit more funding to these non game species so that we can have those same successes. So again, conservation works, people just have to support it. And they have to, you know, we have to have politicians that support it. And so if anybody wants to find out more about that you can just google recovering America's wildlife act. And there's lots more information on

Alex Re

it. Yeah, absolutely. And that kind of just shows you how important education is for environmentalism. Because if we can help people understand how we're doing this and understand the policies that we're trying to make, we can kind of

David Mizejewski

have less pushback and and really get to work helping these animals. Absolutely. And the red Wolf, by the way, still needs our help, they are still listed under another piece of important wildlife legislation, the Endangered Species Act as critically endangered. And currently, there's only around 10 individuals in that wild population. Oh, and they face a lot of problems because a lot of people still don't like wolves. And there's a lot of people that are happy to you know, sort of go out and the unfortunate phrase is shoot, shovel and shut up. There's still a lot of myths about wolves being dangerous to people, or, you know, that they're just going to go out and ravenously kill all of your pets and your livestock. And, you know, there can be sometimes conflicts with predators. And there we get we have good ways Win Win solutions to those. And so again, it's just about trying to educate people as much as possible to dispel these myths get public support, and our state affiliate down in North Carolina. The North Carolina Wildlife Federation is doing great work on that. And so if you're in North Carolina and listening, definitely check out North Carolina Wildlife Federation and see if you can support their efforts because There is we can we can have a world where, you know, we have people but we also have healthy red wolf populations. It's just our choice.

Alex Re

Yeah, and I would like to live in that world where we can coexist. So the next animal that we're going to talk about is the javelina. I hope I'm pronouncing that right but they're actually it's heavily Anna Oh, have Alina. Yep,

David Mizejewski

the J is the H sound. It's a it's a Spanish word, I believe means Javelin, that we would say in English, you know, sort of like a small spear. And these are such cool apples have Alina are also known as collared peccaries. And pecker E's are a group of animals that if you were to just look at them, you would say that they're pigs, they've got the same kind of snout as a pig, they're about the same size as pigs, you know, like wild boars and other wild pigs are, they're kind of Shaggy and brown. And, you know, you think that they were pigs, but this is the thing that's crazy about them is that they're not pigs, packers are a completely different group of animals. And, and so, you know, it's one of those things where it's almost like, convert convergent evolution is the actual term for it, where two different groups of animals end up looking or behaving in a very similar way, even though they're not really directly related. And so, some of the differences between the peccaries which again, have aleena as a kind of peccary, there's a bunch of different species, and the pigs are that will, number one pigs are found in and evolved in what we call the old world. So, you know, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the the packers are found only in the new world. So the Americas, North America and South America. And interestingly, the as I was researching this, this is a little fun fact, I didn't know, naturalist we learn every every day as well. And that it looks like the the pecker is actually also evolved in the old world. And they were one of the groups of animals that sort of migrated into the the Americas over like the Bering Land bridge. So, you know, a lot of different animals that we think of as sort of being from one part of the world today or another actually started out elsewhere. You know, we used to have lions and llama or and camels, and zebra and Cheetah here in North America. And so it's kind of interesting. But anyway, the peccaries really became established and diversified in the Americas and they're mostly today found in sort of Central and South America. But the Halina is a species that ranges as far north as the United States. Now, you're not going to find them in you know, in Maine or in you know, in North Dakota or in Florida. But if you live in the desert southwest if you live in certain parts of Arizona, or New Mexico or West Texas, you know what I have Alina is because they're common there. And in fact, they're kind of like backyard wildlife. So if you are a desert Southwestern, you know, person, you're probably listening and being like, yeah, yeah, this there's nothing great or special about Halina. In fact, they can kind of be pests in the garden because they get into they route around and everything. But, but going back to the differences between the packers and the pigs, that are found in different parts of the world, but they actually are very different. They have a different digestive tract internally, they have a different number of toes, their teeth are different. The pigs have curved tucks tusks, and the packers are have aleena have straight tusks. And again, that's where the name have Alina comes from, because it's kind of like a spear. A straight spear. In the the the the peccaries there years are kind of backward facing against their body, whereas the pigs have ears that kind of stick up and face forward. pigs have curly tails, the Packers have a straight tail, it's almost non existent. It's kind of like a hamster tail, you almost can't even see it. And so they're just even though they look the same, and most people do think of them as pigs, they're not pigs at all. So if you want to be cool, you know, it's the whole phrase peccary, not pig when it comes to the havoline but they're just really neat animals I think and you know, the I was saying like, if in the desert southwest, they they can live in like our neighborhoods, and they will sometimes show up in in yards there. You know, it's kind of like a squirrel except they weigh 50 pounds and they had giant tusks that can impale you and but the the message with that is with all wildlife that kind of share our our space, our neighborhoods and our towns, even our cities. If you follow the golden rule, and the golden rule is just if you don't ever try to pet or touch or pick up or feed a wild animal, your chances of being bitten or scratched or kicked or impaled on a Tusk are pretty much zero. So you know, we'd have a Lena if Do you live in an area where they're common, don't feed them, don't let them get into your trash, and let them do their their natural business, you do want to watch out with your dogs, because one of the natural predators of the havoline, or coyote, and the havoline, to do live in family groups and sort of herds. And they can be very territorial and defensive if, especially if there's babies present. And so sometimes, you know, if they see a dog and the dog is barking at them, or chasing them, they'll turn around and go on the offensive. So you know, that's something to think about. But for the most part, if you leave them alone, they're going to be just fine. And for everybody else, all across the country. Look, look this animal up, because they are just really, really neat and interesting, and probably something that you had no idea lived in America.

Alex Re

Yeah, absolutely, you should really look them up because they look like they kind of have fangs almost, which is really kind of creepy to see on a peccary or a pig looking animal. So yeah, definitely look that up. And it's it's really important to know that most animals, they don't go out hunting for people, they're usually afraid of people. And if we mind our own business, they will probably mind their own business.

David Mizejewski

I appreciate you saying that, because that is absolutely true. And, you know, most wildlife, you know, sort of conflict situations, frankly, arise because people do stupid things. Now, they again, they tried to go out and pet the bison. They tried to get the selfie, you know, with whatever animal it is. And even worse, you know, people are going out there, you know, trying to feed alligators and whatever. That's when people get into trouble. You know, when people try to mess with a rattlesnake, that's when people get bitten by rattlesnakes, these animals do not come after us. You know. And so again, if you it's a golden rule, leave them alone. Let them be wild. If you see them, enjoy it. Enjoy this amazing wildlife video viewing opportunity that you just got, but give them their space, don't approach them. And almost always, if you just do that, then there's not going to be any issue with any kind of wild animal so

Alex Re

yeah, absolutely. And so for this next animal, if you felt like have Alina was an interesting name. We're going to talk about these animals called hell benders, which they're all there another name for them is the snot otter. So can you talk a little bit about about what kind of animal that might be?

David Mizejewski

Yeah, so we're shifting out of the the mammal world you know, the first two animals the red Wolf and the heavily never collared peccary. They're mammals, right? So you're sorry. They're a little bit more familiar and likeable, I think, to us, because we're mammals too. But this animal is a completely different category of animal. It's actually an amphibian. And, you know, I think most people know about frogs and toads and know that those animals are amphibians. But the other big group of amphibians that we have in North America are the salamanders and salamanders. You know, they're kind of they their lizard like, although lizards are completely separate. They're reptiles. Totally different, right? But they've got you know, four legs and a long tail and a long body for the most part. And, you know, lots of different salamander species, some of them live on the land. And a lot of times, you know, usually they're found in kind of moist environments, and Vivian's like to have a moist skin and so they live in woodlands and they live under fallen logs and rocks where it stays nice and moist. Then there are a good number of aquatic species, you know, species. You know, newts are kind of salamander that live in freshwater ecosystems. And interestingly, something that again, a lot of people probably don't know, is that globally, the southeastern United States, particularly in sort of the mountainous regions, the Smoky Mountains and the Appalachians and the Ozarks, is a global hotspot for amphibian, specifically salamander biodiversity, meaning that we have an incredible diversity of all these different species of salamanders right here in America. You know, we think of the tropical rainforests and the African savanna, as these places where it's, that's where all the wildlife abundance is. But for some groups of animals, it's right in our own backyards. So getting back to hellbenders hellbenders, are a kind of aquatic salamander species that are found, again, in those in those ecosystems that I just talked about that sort of the, the sort of, eastern part of the country down sort of that, that that met the mountainous regions. You know, they extend as far north as like, say, New York State, and then, you know, follow down again to the broader Appalachian Mountain chain, and go into sort of the kind of the western part of the southeast, into, you know, sort of Missouri and those states and so, there's two different subspecies of them, but they're pretty big, they can get to be almost a foot long. So that's pretty big for a salamander in North America Anyway, there is a giant salamander that is found in Japan that looks very similar and is like the size of a German Shepherd. Oh, hellbenders don't get that big. But they are so freaky looking. Okay, so they live in these freshwater streams. So pretty fast moving water. And because they're so big if they, you know, they could easily get swept away by the current. So their bodies are evolved to be pretty flat. So if you looked at a hell bender head on, I mean, it's pretty flat, you know, they're only, you know, maybe an inch or two big in thickness body thickness, and then again, 10 or 12 inches long, so they're pretty flat, and that just makes them streamlined underwater. And where they live, they don't live up in the water column, they live on the floor on the base of the stream bed, which in the streams with fast moving water. If they're healthy, they're their bottoms are kind of gravelly and Rocky. And so the hell benders flat body shape also helps them kind of get into all the crevices between the rocks on the stream bed, and that's kind of where they hang out. And where they hunt. They're completely predatory. So they're eating things like crayfish, and fish and aquatic invertebrates, but pretty much they'll eat anything that moves that they can catch that they can fit down their mouth, kind of like me during the pandemic.

But all amphibians are like that, you know, they're there. They're all carnivorous, if you will, they eat other animals and their visual hunters, right. So something moves in front of them. And their first instinct is to just snap out and try to gobble it down. And if it's small enough to fit down their throat, they eat it. And so how benders are no different in that regard. But but the one of the other things that makes them so freaky looking in addition to their size, and in addition to their kind of flat shape is that, Well, two things really. And they have to do with their skin. So their skin itself looks like a stone, they're really camouflaged. If you were to look at a hell Bender, through the water, you know, sitting on the stream, that of the rocks, like they're almost invisible, they're like super camouflage, if you remember that old movie predator, where they kind of morphed and look like their background, I mean, almost that that good, right. And so they're really hard to spot. And their skin has all of these very strange kind of folds that honestly it makes me think of like a creature out of like Star Wars or something. It looks like something that isn't real that was come up with by some some artists that was fantasizing about these, you know, crazy alien creatures. They've got all these weird little, you know, skin flaps all over them. And what that does, those skin flaps actually have a purpose, in addition to making them look very strange. And that's, it helps them breathe. So again, these are these are aquatic animals. amphibians have lungs, you know, they don't you know that, well, they start out with gills. And then when they're when they hatch out of their egg, you know, think about the life cycle of a frog, they started out as a tadpole, with gills, and then they gradually absorbed the gills and their tail, and they grow legs and they grow lungs, and they can breathe air. salamanders did the same. So the hellbenders breathe air. But they don't necessarily have to come up to the surface to get their oxygen, they can absorb it right out of the water through their skin. And this is a trait that a lot of amphibians have, they absorb gases and liquids right through their skin. And those skin flaps make more surface area out around the body of the hellbender. So that they're more able to absorb, you know, the right amount of oxygen out of the water, so they don't have to go up to the surface to breathe. So that's kind of kind of awesome. And I will note too, that this that skin absorption ability is one of the reasons why amphibians are in real trouble. So globally, amphibians are disappearing faster than any other group of vertebrate wildlife that we know of some, I think it's like 1/3 of all amphibian species are listed as endangered. And one of the reasons is that they're just very sensitive to environmental degradation, and particularly pollution, air pollution and water pollution, because they absorb all that stuff right into their skin. And so they tend to be affected first, and they start disappearing and the hell benders no exception. So as cool as they are, they're in real trouble. They're disappearing throughout their range. And in some places are listed as endangered. And it's because we polluted all the streams. So we have put, you know, sort of chemicals in the water, we've cut down the trees around them which keep the water nice and cool for the amphibians. And, and the another big problem is siltation. So this is like when we get cut down all the vegetation, we dig things up and soil gets into the water and it settles into the the rocky bottoms of the streams, which essentially destroys all the hiding places and habitat that the hellbender needs. It's where they hide, it's where they hunt and it's also where They lay their eggs. And so if you get a lot of sediment built into that, as you know, kind of run off from farm fields or from construction projects, you know, if you don't protect these streams, and keep the vegetation around it, which helps filter all that stuff out, then it can actually degrade the health enter habitat. So a lot of the work that's going on right now to protect the health vendors focused on, you know, protecting those water resources. So again, the Clean Water Act, and then local level stuff, I just, you know, making sure we have good regulations on construction and agriculture so that we can keep those water sources clean.

Alex Re

Yeah, that's really important. And it's really, it's also important to note that these animals are very well adapted to their environments. And when those environments change, that's when that becomes a really big issue. And animals can't really many animals can't really adapt to changes the way that we do. Like, if it gets too cold, then we just put a coat on. That's not really how the animal kingdom works. So it's really important that we're working to help these these salamanders.

David Mizejewski

That's absolutely right. And you know what, there are a lot of animals that can adapt, like we do, right. And you know, what those animals are? cockroaches, rats, pigeons, right? We don't need more of right. And you know that, by the way, I don't want to give any, you know, any negativity to any any groups of animals. And if you think about it, those groups of animals are kind of fascinating, because they, they themselves are unique, right in that unlike most other species on this planet, they have figured out how to thrive in the situation that we human beings have created on the planet, whereas most species can't do that to your point. And ultimately, many of these species are going to go extinct. I mean, we really aren't a wildlife crisis on this planet, we've got globally over a million species at risk of extinction. And right here in North America, this is something that most people don't know 1/3 of our wildlife, right, increased risk of extinction in just the coming decades. There's 12,000 species in North America, that had been identified by biologists and wildlife managers in need of conservation help, that are not listed as endangered yet. Well, and so like, there's a lot of species and like we talked about a little bit earlier, we can save the species, we just have to make it a point and a priority. And we can do it with again, existing funds, we just got to focus on it. And people need to show their support for it. And if we do that, we can save the hell vendor, we can bring the red wolf back to a much wider swath of unsold habitat than just this one spot in North Carolina. You know, and we can continue to enjoy the have Alina, and you know, they have a Lena are not declining, they're not in trouble. That's actually, you know, they're, they're kind of in good shape. But, you know, like, even conservation helps us keep these common species common, you know, it benefits even species that aren't in trouble right now. And so anyway, that's what you know, National Wildlife week is all about for us. It's really something at the National Wildlife Federation that we do every year, just to get people jazzed up about animals. You know, I mean, most of us love animals to begin with. This is a week where we can really focus on them celebrate them. And of course, our theme this year, is these kind of unique, strange, weird wildlife.

Alex Re

And why do you think learning about these animals is important to their conservation?

David Mizejewski

Well, you know, there's that old saying that you only protect what you love, and you only love what you know. And so one of our missions at the National Wildlife Federation is to help people learn about and know about these really cool animals, because if you know something about them, then it you're going to have a chance of caring about them. And that's when people are going to take action. And so really all begins with just sharing information, and sharing facts and knowledge. And in doing so people learn a little bit more. And I think they can appreciate how cool these species are and why they deserve to be around, and why it's so important to get involved in conservation efforts. And I'm hoping that folks that are listening are going to look up some of these animals, and they're going to look up the National Wildlife Federation, and join up. I mean, there's so many different ways that people can get involved. You know, we talked a little bit about supporting our, our legislative efforts, you know, maybe you're not into the policy and the politics and all of that. So that, you know, follow us on our social media sites, or over all the social media sites, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you know, that kind of thing and signal booster messages. That's a great way to get involved. You can get a subscription to Ranger Rick magazine for your kids or your nieces or nephews or whomever that supports our work all of those subscriptions, go right back into funding our work so that I can come on shows like like yours and talk about all this. So it's really all connected. There's lots of different ways to get involved. And, in fact, we do have a pledge that we're hoping everyone will take off on our national wildlife week website, which is National Wildlife week. And wF dot o RG. And if folks go there again, you can just also put that into your search engine National Wildlife week and it'll come up. And we're just asking folks to take a simple pledge, you know, no strings attached. But if you do it, it's it'll add your voice to what hopefully will be millions by the end of the week of people saying we care about wildlife. We love wildlife. They're so cool. They're so weird. They're so strange. They belong in this planet. And we're going to help the National Wildlife Federation make sure that we have a future where these animals get to continue to exist.

Alex Re

That's so awesome. I'm going to take that pledge. And I really encourage all of you guys who are listening right now to take it. And where can we find more information about the National Wildlife Federation in general?

David Mizejewski

Well, just head to our website, it's a little bit of a shorter URL. It's just n w f as a National Wildlife Federation, NW F dot o RG. And the National Wildlife week info is all posted right on our homepage there too. So. So yeah, I encourage folks to do that. And I appreciate you, you getting the word out and helping us spread the word about how awesome wildlife are. Absolutely.

Alex Re

David, thank you so much for coming onto the show, I learned so much. And I really hope everybody who listens is inspired to enact some kind of change. That was such a cool interview, David taught me about three animals that I really didn't know a lot about at all. And I hope you learned a few things about them too. These animals are amazing. And some of them like the red wolf really need our help. If you care about preserving all animals around the world, I urge you all please go take the pledge to protect wildlife. Remember that website is National Wildlife week.nwf.org I already filled it out and it only takes a few clicks. Thank you so much for coming on this adventure with me as we explored the world of weird American wildlife. You can find the sources that we used for this podcast and links to organizations that we reference at on wildlife.org. You can also email us with any questions at on wildlife dot podcast@gmail.com and you can follow us on Instagram at en underscore wildlife and on Tick Tock at on wildlife. Don't forget to tune in next Wednesday for another awesome episode. And that's on wildlife.

Jess Avellino

You've been listening to on wildlife with Alex re brought to you every Wednesday.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai