Modern wildlife conservation in a turbulent world | Wesley Larson | TEDxVienna

As we lose wild species at an unprecedented rate, we must take action to preserve our critically important wildlife. Wesley's career as a wildlife biologist has led him everywhere from the high arctic of Alaska to the deserts of Africa, and he's seen firsthand many of the threats facing wildlife. There are many challenges to wildlife conservation, but the incredible efforts of biologists to conserve threatened species can give us hope.

As a wildlife biologist, his focus has been on bear species and he has primarily worked with polar and black bears for the past 8 years. During that time Wes also has been able to assist on a number of other wildlife conservation efforts for species such as African wild dogs, American alligators, golden eagles, spotted eagle rays, northern elephant seals, American kestrels, etc. His work has taken him everywhere from the Arctic to Africa, and he believes that wildlife conservation is not only essential for the preservation of the world's animals, but also for the continuation of the human spirit.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

So I want to you take into a place
where humans really aren't supposed to be:

the inside of an occupied bear den.

(Laughter)

Now, bears elicit a certain
fear response in most people,

and that's something
that we're supposed to have.

Hundreds of thousands of years
of concurrent evolution with bears

have taught us that they
and other predators

are animals to be avoided.

So, my friend Corey Arnold
took this photo with National Geographic,

and you can't see my face,

but I promise you
there's a look of terror on it.

I wasn't happy to be
in there with this bear,

and he wasn't happy
to have me in there with him there.

This particular bear needed
a new battery in his GPS collar.

So, for me to do that,

(Laughter)

I had to get within a couple
of meters of the bear,

where I have a pole
that has a syringe on it,

and inject him with that.

So in the US we have a saying:
"Don't poke a sleeping bear,"

and that's literally
what I was in there to do.

(Laughter)

Luckily for me, everything
went fairly smoothly.

I was able to change out the battery,

and more fortunately,
I was able to leave the den in one piece.

So, a lot of wildlife biologists
do have stories like these,

whether they're working
with dangerous animals

or they're working in conditions
that can be really hazardous -

bone-breaking arctic cold
or searing desert heat.

It can be a really challenging profession.

And on top of those challenges,

you also have to deal
with this kind of tedious stuff

of writing papers and reports
and research, and crunching data.

To get through those kind of things,

there's something critical
that wildlife biologists need,

and that's passion.

Passion is what helps us
through those experiences,

and it's also what helps us fight a battle

that's really becoming
incredibly lopsided.

So, I grew up in Montana,

which was a wonderful place
for an animal lover to grow up,

surrounded by different wildlife.

And in particular, there is
a pond system near my home,

where my brothers and I would go,

and we'd catch frogs
and turtles and snakes,

and look for all sorts
of different animals.

In particular,

there's one species of frog,
the northern leopard frog,

that was really plentiful,

and in a given summer,
we'd see thousands of these frogs.

And then over a matter
of just a few years,

I went from seeing thousands
of leopard frogs to absolutely none.

And as a little boy,

that kind of being witness
to a local extinction like that

was really hard for me.

This was an animal
that had brought me a lot of joy

and taught me a lot
about the natural world,

and suddenly it was gone.

And I think in my mind,

extinction was something
that was really relegated to dinosaurs,

and seeing it happen
to an animal that I loved

really created a paradigm shift for me.

And I realized that nature isn't infinite

and it's something
that we do need to protect.

So, fast-forward.

I'm in my 30s.

That's that same bear,

after we managed to get him out
and change his collar.

I've worked with bears
for about eight years,

and then I've also been able
to host a little show with Great Big Story

called "Mission Wild."

And during that time,

I've been able to see
a lot of different wildlife biologists

and the species they work with,

and really see the ins and outs
of wildlife conservation.

And I want to take you guys

through a few of the things
that I've learned.

So, we're going to start
with the pangolin,

so not penguin - "pan-go-lin."

It looks like a Pokemon,
but it's an animal,

I promise you.

(Laughter)

They're really cute.

They live throughout
Southeast Asia and in Africa,

and their main distinguishing feature

is this armor of scales
that are made of keratin,

and when the pangolin feels threatened,
it rolls into a ball,

and even the largest predators
aren't able to break that defense,

so it's really effective,

and it's made them
so they have no natural predators.

But unfortunately,
those very same scales

are worth more than the price of gold
on the black market

for their use in traditional medicines
in both China and Southeast Asia.

And you know, setting aside
the importance of culture and tradition,

there simply aren't enough pangolins
to fulfill that demand,

and they're being killed
by the hundreds of thousands.

Hundreds of tons of pangolins
are killed every year to fill this need.

And there's a really
haunting image by Paul Hilton,

who is a wildlife conservationist
and photographer,

and it shows thousands of dead pangolins

that have been discarded
after having their scales removed.

So, this is a huge problem.

They joined tigers
and elephants and rhinos

as species that are being pushed
to the brink of extinction

through the illegal wildlife trade.

And we don't know
how many pangolins are out there,

so we could see the loss of this species
in the next 10 years even.

So there's a lot of things
that are being done for pangolins.

One of the groups that I was able
to work with a little bit

is the African Pangolin Working Group,

and they have a really unique way
of assessing the supply of pangolins

while we're kind of waiting for hopefully
a cultural shift in the demand.

So what they do is they set up stings,

where they pose as buyers
for pangolin scales -

well actually, for live pangolins -

and they arrange a meet with poachers.

When those poachers show up,
they're promptly arrested,

and they face some
pretty serious jail sentences,

sometimes over 10 years.

The pangolin is then confiscated,
and it's taken to a hospital.

Now, often these pangolins
go through some pretty intense torture

while they're in the care
of those poachers,

and so they have to recover from both
physical and psychological trauma,

and that can take some time.

They also have to learn
how to be a wild pangolin again.

And so I was able to go
on a little walk with this pangolin,

who was in that process,

and he was learning
how to find termites and ants again.

And once he completes that process -

I believe he's still going through it -

he'll be released back in the wild,

and the biologist with the African
Pangolin Working Group

will continue to monitor his situation.

They're actually learning a lot
about pangolin natural behavior

through this process.

And most importantly, they're setting
a precedent for the poachers

and for the criminal
organizations behind them:

that people really do care

and that pangolins aren't something
that they can continue to take

without consequence.

They're also educating a lot of people

about an animal that not
too many people know about.

Okay, moving on to an animal
that I've been able to work with a lot -

polar bears.

Polar bears are an incredibly
charismatic animal.

We've all heard about them.

But they unfortunately find themselves

in the crosshairs
of the global climate crisis.

Polar bears are sea ice obligates.

This means that they rely
on the sea ice for everything;

most importantly, they use it
as a platform for hunting seals.

Without the sea ice,
they simply can't catch seals,

and they're forced
to wait on land and fast

and wait for the sea ice to refreeze.

So those fasting periods
are getting longer and longer,

and with it, the polar bears
are getting more malnourished,

and malnourished bears

means that they're having
reduced cub litter sizes, fewer cubs,

and we're even starting to see
die-offs in adults.

Some of the world's leading
polar bear biologists

think that there's the possibility

we lose the species
in the next hundred years

if things don't change.

So that's saying, like, my grandkids

might grow up in a world
without polar bears,

which is really devastating.

Luckily, there are some things
that are being done for polar bears.

While we're kind of tackling
this huge climate crisis,

there are certain problems

that are affecting
populations of polar bears

that we can work on.

And I was able to work
on one of those projects

both with Brigham Young University
and Polar Bears International,

where we were looking at ways
that we could protect polar bears

that decide to den and raise their cubs

near oil industry.

So, that project took place
in northern Alaska,

which if you've never
been to northern Alaska,

it's a really hard place to work.

I've seen temperatures
of -55 degrees Celsius.

With the windchill,
it gets a lot colder than that.

I've gotten frostbite
on most of my fingers,

and once I even froze my eyeball
completely solid.

Lost my eyesight.

Had to, like, frantically
put my palm on my eye

and wait for it to thaw out,

and luckily it did, and twitch
for like two months after that,

which was super annoying,

but I got my eyesight back.

Thankfully, you know,
I was able to work, though,

in a really incredible environment:

I got to see the northern
lights multiple times,

I got to see incredible wildlife
like these musk oxen or this arctic fox,

and of course, I got
to work with polar bears.

Our project specifically
was looking at ways

that we could both create
and enforce rules

for polar bears that decide
to den near oil industry.

And those rules were put in place

to help the oil industry give these bears
the space that they needed

so that they had the best possible chance
of raising their cubs to adulthood.

So this is a bear that decided to den
right next to some industry stuff;

and we shut everything down,
gave her the space she needed,

and she raised this cub and was able
to take it out on the sea ice.

So now we're going to talk a little bit
about African Wild Dogs,

another animal
that I was able to work with.

They're a wild species of dog,

they live throughout Sub-Saharan Africa,

and they're pack hunters.

They're incredibly good at it.

They're not just pack hunters,

but every animal in that pack

has a dynamic role
and they all fill it super well.

These wild dogs -

they're also called "painted dogs" -

they have success
in about 80% of their hunts.

So, for comparison,

lion prides will have success
in about 30% of their hunts.

So they're incredibly
successful predators,

which unfortunately puts them

at direct odds with another
successful predator,

which is us.

Competition for game,
livestock depredations, habitat loss

and disease transference
from domestic dogs

has led to huge declines
in wild dog populations.

The range used to extend
throughout Africa,

and now they're confined
to a few strongholds,

and we have less than
6,000 wild dogs left in the world.

They're critically endangered.

Now, again, I was able
to work with a group

that's doing some really interesting
and fascinating wild dog research.

And what they're doing

is they're taking dogs
from these strongholds,

where they're doing really well.

They'll take females from one
and males from another,

and then they combine them

and put them in a place
where they historically existed

to form a new pack.

And it's a wild dog
range-expansion project.

Now, it's not as simple

as simply taking them
from one place and another place

and putting them together
and hoping that they're friends.

If you did that, they literally
would kill each other

as soon as they came out of the sedation.

So, they have a really fascinating method

for making sure
that pack gets established.

And what they do -

you'll have to watch that Mission Wild
show I told you guys about

to see the whole process -

but what they do

is they take each female
and they take each male

and they physically rub them together,

and I've got to do this.

When they're sedated,

you're rubbing them together,

and you're putting
their spit on each other,

and you're just making sure

they smell as much as they possibly can
like the other dogs.

That way, when they wake up,

they recognize, or they see these dogs
that they don't necessarily recognize,

but they can smell them on themselves

and they think, "Okay,
maybe this is a friend.

I guess I won't kill it."

(Laughter) (Applause)

You laugh, but it really does work,

and this Endangered Wildlife Trust group

and my friend Cole,

who's working on this project,

have seen some great success
with their range expansion project.

So, this begs the question why.

You know, why should we
care about wildlife?

It's 2019.

We're all emotionally exhausted.

We all only have
so much emotional bandwidth.

So why wildlife, you know?

Why support biologists
that are crawling into bear dens

and freezing body parts
they didn't know they could freeze?

Why care about an animal

you just learned existed
five minutes ago?

So I think there's
multiple answers to that.

But I think, you know,
you have the ecology

where each and every animal
occupies a role in its ecosystem,

and when you take that animal
out of that role,

it can really create huge effects
that we don't necessarily understand

until that animal's gone.

But I think even more importantly
is how animals affect us as people

and how they're important
to the human condition.

You know, there's wild spaces
that are endlessly important to us

because they teach us a lot
about the complexities of life and joy,

and those wild spaces
just aren't wild anymore

when you remove their inhabitants.

I was lucky enough
to grow up in bear country,

and some of the wildest places I've been

were homes to really
big populations of bears.

When you're hiking around bear country,

you have to really pay attention
to your surroundings;

and because of that,
all your senses are heightened

and, you know, your smell's heightened,

the colors are brighter,
the air is crisper,

and it really puts you
in touch with nature

in a way that you can't normally get.

I really can only get those feelings

in places that are home
to these wild populations of animals.

It's something that really
connects you to the natural world,

and it's endlessly important.

And I think we've failed
as the most intelligent beings on Earth

if we let these species disappear,

and I think, you know,
we're forfeiting up something

that evolution has taken
millions of years to create,

and to me that's like losing
the most precious works of our literature.

But luckily, there really is still
so much more to preserve and protect,

and you don't have to be
a wildlife biologist to do it.

So I have a few tips for people

that can help you
in this fight to save wildlife.

So one of them is just to think
about the way that you spend your money.

Try to do your research,

and don't contribute to these companies

that are contributing
to these kind of problems:

wildlife trafficking,
habitat loss, climate change.

Do your best to avoid
giving those companies your money,

and then they'll see
where your priorities lie,

and they'll try and meet those desires.

Next, and I think
probably most importantly,

is we need to elect politicians
that care about the health of our planet.

And, you know, we have
politicians in place

that might not understand
the crisis that we've created

or care to understand it,

and we need to replace them

with politicians that know
and understand the science.

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause continues)

Finally, I think getting out into nature
and kind of reforging those contacts,

reforging that emotional
connection to nature,

is really important.

If you live in the city, go to a park.

If you can get to a national park, go.

If you can get to the wilderness, go.

And when you reforge that connection,

you'll start to care about it naturally,

and you'll naturally
make the decisions to protect it.

And my job would be
impossibly depressing without hope,

but by seeing people like yourselves here,

educating yourselves,

it gives me hope
for the future of wildlife

and for the future of humanity.

Thank you.

(Applause)