Jeffrey Reed: Cry Wolf: Decoding the Language of the Wild
“I sit in the camp that is going to defend wildlife, and I will live and die in that space. Even though what I see is in the West, wolves have a bad reputation. It's still there…" -Jeffrey Reed What if we could understand wolves? How they communicate, what they might be saying? Jeffrey Reed, is a computational linguist, naturalist, and technologist who’s doing just that—using artificial intelligence to decode the wild. Jeff is the founder of the Cry Wolf Project, a groundbreaking bio acoustic study capturing hundreds of thousands of hours of wolf vocalization across the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. From howls and chorus howls to teeth clacking and whines, Jeff's work is uncovering the complex ways wolves and many other animals communicate with one another. His company, Grizzly Systems, is creating cutting edge tools to help people and wildlife share the land more peacefully and intelligently. This conversation is about wolves, language, the future of wild soundscapes, and how technology might help us become better neighbors to the beings that we've long misunderstood. LINKS: https://www.thecrywolfproject.com/ How individuals can donate to Yellowstone National Park's Wolf Project via this link: https://www.thecrywolfproject.com/donate Grizzly System's conservation technology: https://www.grizcam.com Jeff's forthcoming (2026) book on wolf communication, via this link: https://www.thelanguagesoflife.com/excerpt Jeff's TED Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/jeffrey_t_reed_can_ai_help_us_speak_with_wolves Jeff's social presence: https://www.facebook.com/jefftreed, https://www.instagram.com/thecrywolfproject, https://www.linkedin.com/in/jefftreed, and https://www.youtube.com/@crywolfproject
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Trevor Ritland: The Golden Toad
I think you could probably go back and track the stages of grief, probably that is what I went through. But I think if you do it right, you end up at acceptance. And that's where I ended up. And that's not to say that I've fully accepted the idea that the golden toad is extinct. Personally, I do still hold out hope that it could still be out there in those forests." - Trevor Ritland This conversation is with Trevor Ritland, who—along with his twin brother Kyle—authored The Golden Toad. The book chronicles their remarkable journey into Costa Rica’s cloud forest, once home to hundreds of brilliant golden toads that would emerge for just a few weeks each year—until, one day, they vanished without a trace. What began as a search for a lost species soon became something much more profound: a confrontation with ecological grief, a meditation on hope, and a powerful call to protect the natural world while we still can. Links: SpeciesUnite.com Kyle and Trevor: https://kyleandtrevor.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adventureterm/ Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/222249677-the-golden-toad Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Toad-Ecological-Mystery-Species/dp/163576996
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Reuven Bank and Andrew Kim: When the Ocean Lost Its Stars
"72 juveniles is 28% of the current population of sunflower stars under human care in California. More than a quarter of them are at our facility. If you had asked us that question about a year and a half ago. The answer would be zero at our facility, and the answer across California would be six total." - Andrew Kim In 2013, one of the largest marine disease outbreaks on record, sea star wasting syndrome swept through echinoderm populations, laying waste to sunflower stars across their historic range. Once common in California, sunflower stars are now functionally extinct there. This devastating population crash is one of the leading drivers of the 96% decline in kelp forest cover in Northern California in the last decade, as sunflower stars are no longer prowling rocky reefs and scaring purple urchins, who graze on kelp. Sunflower Star Laboratory was founded by a group of concerned citizens who watched California's kelp disappear before their eyes and were inspired to take action. This conversation is with Reuven Bank and Andrew Kim from Sunflower Star Laboratory, where they are actively growing sunflower stars with the aim to bring the stars and the kelp forests back to the ocean.
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Delcianna Winders: The Beginning of the End of Animal Testing
“We don't actually know how many animals we're testing on in this country, because most of them are not protected by any laws. There's not even a requirement that you track their numbers.” – Delcianna Winders Today, I have the pleasure of sharing some genuinely promising news. For decades, the FDA and NIH have required or relied on animal testing as the gold standard for drug development and biomedical research. But that's beginning to change. Both agencies have just announced significant steps to reduce animal testing—moves that could mark a turning point in how science is done. The FDA is beginning to phase out animal testing requirements for certain new drug applications, starting with monoclonal antibody therapies, and is pushing forward the use of more ethical, human-relevant technologies—like organ-on-a-chip systems and advanced computer modeling. At the same time, the NIH is prioritizing human-based approaches and creating a new office dedicated to accelerating the development and adoption of these new methods across biomedical research. To help us understand what all of this means, what led to these changes, and what still needs to happen, I’m joined by Delci Winders, director of the Animal Law and Policy Institute at Vermont Law and Graduate School. Delci is one of the leading voices at the intersection of law, science, and animal protection—and she’s here to walk us through this historic shift.
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Jeff Kerr: Our First Amendment Right to Receive Communications (from Monkeys)
"It is a scientific fact that these macaques, like all other primates, including humans, are communicating. They communicate in much the same way we do - facial expressions, vocalizations, body postures, those kinds of things." - Jeff Kerr Jeff Kerr is PETA foundations Chief Legal Officer. I asked him to come on the show to talk about one of PETA’s current lawsuits against the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Nathional Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). PETA is arguing that the monkeys being tested on in a government run facility are capable of communication (or “are communicating”). And that we have a constitutional right under the First Amendment to receive their communications. This could be a game changer in allowing us to see what’s really going on in labs that are funded by taxpayer money, and which have so far been censored from public view. PETA’s lawsuit follows years of NIH’s attempts to deny Freedom of Information requests banning PETA executives from its campus and illegally censoring animal advocates’ speech on NIH’s public social media pages. Through the lawsuit, PETA is seeking a live audio-visual feed to see and hear real-time communications from the macaques who have been kept isolated, used in fear experiments, and had posts cemented into their heads. Anthropologists and other scientists have studied macaque and other primate communications for decades and know that the monkeys communicate effectively and intentionally through lip smacking, fear grimaces, body language, and various cries and sounds—all of which constitute speech under the law. Primatologists can analyze that speech on a deeper level to share their stories with the world.
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