WEBVTT

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

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the inside of an occupied bear den.

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(Laughter)

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

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

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Hundreds of thousands of years
of concurrent evolution with bears

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have taught us that they
and other predators

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are animals to be avoided.

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

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and you can't see my face,

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

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

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

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

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So, for me to do that,

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(Laughter)

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

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

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and inject him with that.

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

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

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(Laughter)

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Luckily for me, everything
went fairly smoothly.

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I was able to change out the battery,

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

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

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whether they're working
with dangerous animals

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

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bone-breaking arctic cold
or searing desert heat.

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It can be a really challenging profession.

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And on top of those challenges,

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you also have to deal
with this kind of tedious stuff

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

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To get through those kind of things,

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there's something critical
that wildlife biologists need,

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and that's passion.

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Passion is what helps us
through those experiences,

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and it's also what helps us fight a battle

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that's really becoming
incredibly lopsided.

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So, I grew up in Montana,

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

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surrounded by different wildlife.

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

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where my brothers and I would go,

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and we'd catch frogs
and turtles and snakes,

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and look for all sorts
of different animals.

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In particular,

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

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that was really plentiful,

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

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And then over a matter
of just a few years,

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

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And as a little boy,

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that kind of being witness
to a local extinction like that

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was really hard for me.

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

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and taught me a lot
about the natural world,

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and suddenly it was gone.

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And I think in my mind,

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extinction was something
that was really relegated to dinosaurs,

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and seeing it happen
to an animal that I loved

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really created a paradigm shift for me.

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And I realized that nature isn't infinite

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

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So, fast-forward.

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I'm in my 30s.

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That's that same bear,

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

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I've worked with bears
for about eight years,

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

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called "Mission Wild."

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And during that time,

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

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and the species they work with,

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and really see the ins and outs
of wildlife conservation.

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And I want to take you guys

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

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

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

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

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I promise you.

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(Laughter)

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They're really cute.

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They live throughout
Southeast Asia and in Africa,

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and their main distinguishing feature

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is this armor of scales
that are made of keratin,

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

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

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so it's really effective,

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

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But unfortunately,
those very same scales

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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who is a wildlife conservationist
and photographer,

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and it shows thousands of dead pangolins

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that have been discarded
after having their scales removed.

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So, this is a huge problem.

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They joined tigers
and elephants and rhinos

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as species that are being pushed
to the brink of extinction

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through the illegal wildlife trade.

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

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

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

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

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is the African Pangolin Working Group,

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

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

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So what they do is they set up stings,

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where they pose as buyers
for pangolin scales -

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well actually, for live pangolins -

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and they arrange a meet with poachers.

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

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and they face some
pretty serious jail sentences,

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sometimes over 10 years.

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

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Now, often these pangolins
go through some pretty intense torture

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while they're in the care
of those poachers,

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

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and that can take some time.

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

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

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who was in that process,

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

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And once he completes that process -

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I believe he's still going through it -

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he'll be released back in the wild,

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and the biologist with the African
Pangolin Working Group

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will continue to monitor his situation.

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They're actually learning a lot
about pangolin natural behavior

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through this process.

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

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and for the criminal
organizations behind them:

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that people really do care

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

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without consequence.

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They're also educating a lot of people

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about an animal that not
too many people know about.

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

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polar bears.

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Polar bears are an incredibly
charismatic animal.

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We've all heard about them.

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But they unfortunately find themselves

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in the crosshairs
of the global climate crisis.

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Polar bears are sea ice obligates.

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

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

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

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and they're forced
to wait on land and fast

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and wait for the sea ice to refreeze.

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So those fasting periods
are getting longer and longer,

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

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and malnourished bears

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

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

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Some of the world's leading
polar bear biologists

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think that there's the possibility

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we lose the species
in the next hundred years

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if things don't change.

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So that's saying, like, my grandkids

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might grow up in a world
without polar bears,

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which is really devastating.

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

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

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there are certain problems

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that are affecting
populations of polar bears

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that we can work on.

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And I was able to work
on one of those projects

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both with Brigham Young University
and Polar Bears International,

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

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that decide to den and raise their cubs

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near oil industry.

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So, that project took place
in northern Alaska,

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which if you've never
been to northern Alaska,

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it's a really hard place to work.

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I've seen temperatures
of -55 degrees Celsius.

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

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I've gotten frostbite
on most of my fingers,

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and once I even froze my eyeball
completely solid.

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Lost my eyesight.

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

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and wait for it to thaw out,

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

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which was super annoying,

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but I got my eyesight back.

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

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in a really incredible environment:

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I got to see the northern
lights multiple times,

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

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

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Our project specifically
was looking at ways

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that we could both create
and enforce rules

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for polar bears that decide
to den near oil industry.

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And those rules were put in place

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

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

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

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

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

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

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another animal
that I was able to work with.

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They're a wild species of dog,

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they live throughout Sub-Saharan Africa,

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and they're pack hunters.

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They're incredibly good at it.

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They're not just pack hunters,

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but every animal in that pack

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

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These wild dogs -

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they're also called "painted dogs" -

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they have success
in about 80% of their hunts.

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So, for comparison,

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

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So they're incredibly
successful predators,

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which unfortunately puts them

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at direct odds with another
successful predator,

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which is us.

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Competition for game,
livestock depredations, habitat loss

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and disease transference
from domestic dogs

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has led to huge declines
in wild dog populations.

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The range used to extend
throughout Africa,

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and now they're confined
to a few strongholds,

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

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They're critically endangered.

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

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

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And what they're doing

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is they're taking dogs
from these strongholds,

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where they're doing really well.

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

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and then they combine them

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and put them in a place
where they historically existed

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to form a new pack.

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

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Now, it's not as simple

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as simply taking them
from one place and another place

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

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If you did that, they literally
would kill each other

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as soon as they came out of the sedation.

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So, they have a really fascinating method

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for making sure
that pack gets established.

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And what they do -

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

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to see the whole process -

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but what they do

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is they take each female
and they take each male

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and they physically rub them together,

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and I've got to do this.

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When they're sedated,

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you're rubbing them together,

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and you're putting
their spit on each other,

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and you're just making sure

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

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That way, when they wake up,

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

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but they can smell them on themselves

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

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I guess I won't kill it."

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(Laughter) (Applause)

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You laugh, but it really does work,

00:11:55.962 --> 00:11:58.529
and this Endangered Wildlife Trust group

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and my friend Cole,

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who's working on this project,

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have seen some great success
with their range expansion project.

00:12:06.042 --> 00:12:08.544
So, this begs the question why.

00:12:08.544 --> 00:12:10.595
You know, why should we
care about wildlife?

00:12:10.595 --> 00:12:12.158
It's 2019.

00:12:12.158 --> 00:12:13.890
We're all emotionally exhausted.

00:12:13.890 --> 00:12:16.691
We all only have
so much emotional bandwidth.

00:12:16.691 --> 00:12:18.307
So why wildlife, you know?

00:12:18.307 --> 00:12:21.856
Why support biologists
that are crawling into bear dens

00:12:21.856 --> 00:12:24.772
and freezing body parts
they didn't know they could freeze?

00:12:24.772 --> 00:12:26.638
Why care about an animal

00:12:26.638 --> 00:12:29.435
you just learned existed
five minutes ago?

00:12:29.435 --> 00:12:32.486
So I think there's
multiple answers to that.

00:12:32.486 --> 00:12:35.070
But I think, you know,
you have the ecology

00:12:35.070 --> 00:12:39.169
where each and every animal
occupies a role in its ecosystem,

00:12:39.609 --> 00:12:41.862
and when you take that animal
out of that role,

00:12:42.152 --> 00:12:45.438
it can really create huge effects
that we don't necessarily understand

00:12:45.438 --> 00:12:47.285
until that animal's gone.

00:12:47.735 --> 00:12:51.205
But I think even more importantly
is how animals affect us as people

00:12:51.205 --> 00:12:53.639
and how they're important
to the human condition.

00:12:55.672 --> 00:13:00.344
You know, there's wild spaces
that are endlessly important to us

00:13:00.581 --> 00:13:04.023
because they teach us a lot
about the complexities of life and joy,

00:13:04.023 --> 00:13:06.522
and those wild spaces
just aren't wild anymore

00:13:06.522 --> 00:13:09.224
when you remove their inhabitants.

00:13:09.704 --> 00:13:12.485
I was lucky enough
to grow up in bear country,

00:13:12.485 --> 00:13:14.797
and some of the wildest places I've been

00:13:14.797 --> 00:13:17.824
were homes to really
big populations of bears.

00:13:18.080 --> 00:13:19.936
When you're hiking around bear country,

00:13:19.936 --> 00:13:22.755
you have to really pay attention
to your surroundings;

00:13:22.755 --> 00:13:26.328
and because of that,
all your senses are heightened

00:13:26.328 --> 00:13:28.943
and, you know, your smell's heightened,

00:13:28.943 --> 00:13:31.860
the colors are brighter,
the air is crisper,

00:13:31.860 --> 00:13:34.205
and it really puts you
in touch with nature

00:13:34.205 --> 00:13:36.395
in a way that you can't normally get.

00:13:36.395 --> 00:13:38.111
I really can only get those feelings

00:13:38.111 --> 00:13:40.978
in places that are home
to these wild populations of animals.

00:13:40.978 --> 00:13:43.837
It's something that really
connects you to the natural world,

00:13:43.837 --> 00:13:45.344
and it's endlessly important.

00:13:45.344 --> 00:13:48.608
And I think we've failed
as the most intelligent beings on Earth

00:13:48.608 --> 00:13:51.862
if we let these species disappear,

00:13:52.122 --> 00:13:56.387
and I think, you know,
we're forfeiting up something

00:13:56.387 --> 00:13:59.253
that evolution has taken
millions of years to create,

00:13:59.253 --> 00:14:03.142
and to me that's like losing
the most precious works of our literature.

00:14:03.492 --> 00:14:07.475
But luckily, there really is still
so much more to preserve and protect,

00:14:07.475 --> 00:14:10.044
and you don't have to be
a wildlife biologist to do it.

00:14:10.044 --> 00:14:11.817
So I have a few tips for people

00:14:11.817 --> 00:14:15.236
that can help you
in this fight to save wildlife.

00:14:15.236 --> 00:14:18.622
So one of them is just to think
about the way that you spend your money.

00:14:19.115 --> 00:14:20.649
Try to do your research,

00:14:20.649 --> 00:14:22.684
and don't contribute to these companies

00:14:22.684 --> 00:14:25.022
that are contributing
to these kind of problems:

00:14:25.022 --> 00:14:28.085
wildlife trafficking,
habitat loss, climate change.

00:14:28.085 --> 00:14:31.478
Do your best to avoid
giving those companies your money,

00:14:31.478 --> 00:14:33.761
and then they'll see
where your priorities lie,

00:14:33.761 --> 00:14:36.477
and they'll try and meet those desires.

00:14:36.477 --> 00:14:39.076
Next, and I think
probably most importantly,

00:14:39.076 --> 00:14:43.309
is we need to elect politicians
that care about the health of our planet.

00:14:44.019 --> 00:14:46.578
And, you know, we have
politicians in place

00:14:46.578 --> 00:14:49.284
that might not understand
the crisis that we've created

00:14:49.284 --> 00:14:50.961
or care to understand it,

00:14:50.961 --> 00:14:52.253
and we need to replace them

00:14:52.253 --> 00:14:55.163
with politicians that know
and understand the science.

00:14:55.163 --> 00:14:56.380
(Applause)

00:14:56.380 --> 00:14:57.545
Thank you.

00:14:57.545 --> 00:15:00.667
(Applause continues)

00:15:06.877 --> 00:15:11.989
Finally, I think getting out into nature
and kind of reforging those contacts,

00:15:11.989 --> 00:15:14.235
reforging that emotional
connection to nature,

00:15:14.235 --> 00:15:16.030
is really important.

00:15:16.030 --> 00:15:17.844
If you live in the city, go to a park.

00:15:17.844 --> 00:15:19.671
If you can get to a national park, go.

00:15:19.701 --> 00:15:21.654
If you can get to the wilderness, go.

00:15:21.654 --> 00:15:23.618
And when you reforge that connection,

00:15:23.618 --> 00:15:25.632
you'll start to care about it naturally,

00:15:25.632 --> 00:15:28.483
and you'll naturally
make the decisions to protect it.

00:15:28.483 --> 00:15:31.062
And my job would be
impossibly depressing without hope,

00:15:31.062 --> 00:15:33.062
but by seeing people like yourselves here,

00:15:33.062 --> 00:15:34.162
educating yourselves,

00:15:34.162 --> 00:15:36.163
it gives me hope
for the future of wildlife

00:15:36.163 --> 00:15:37.728
and for the future of humanity.

00:15:37.728 --> 00:15:38.984
Thank you.

00:15:38.984 --> 00:15:42.376
(Applause)