Wild Connection
74 episodes - English - Latest episode: 28 days ago - ★★★★★ - 7 ratingsI study animal behavior and I’ve had a bird’s eye view on how reconnecting with nature helps us live better lives. #WildConnection is a fun, engaging, and informative podcast hosted by me, Dr. Jennifer Verdolin, aka Dr Jen. No subject is off limits. You can expect a splash of humor and passionate conversations about humans, other animals, and how we are all connected. Episodes are released on Sundays. #WildConnectionPodcast is hosted by Podbean and available wherever you get your podcasts. Host: Jennifer Verdolin Twitter and Instagram @RealDrJen Get in touch and tell me what you want to hear more about [email protected]
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Episodes
Truth Lies and Consequences with Lee McIntyre
October 03, 2021 15:39 - 1 hour - 104 MBI don’t know if you’ve noticed but there is a lot going on in the world and a lot of misinformation being spread. This past week YouTube committed to removing anything containing anti vaccine misinformation. That includes anything related to vaccines causing autism, which they don’t, cancer, which they don't, microchips, which they don’t have, and so on. In an unprecedented step they also committed to terminating the accounts of anti-vaccine influencers that spread this type of false informa...
For the Love of K9s with John-Tyler Binfet
September 26, 2021 15:52 - 52 minutes - 72.2 MBHi Everyone and welcome back to Wild Connection: The Podcast. This week’s episode is pretty special because we are talking about how service animals not only improve well-being but sometimes they save our lives by the love, kindness, compassion, and attentiveness they give us. One thing that came up in the episode that I have not spoken about is the loss of my support, my family, my beloved companion, best friend, my joy and my breath for 18 years, Senor Antonio Buttones. I’m not ready to t...
What‘s All the Phallus About?
September 19, 2021 15:56 - 38 minutes - 52.8 MBHi Everyone! Welcome back. We’ve been on a bit of a break here at Wild Connection: The Podcast but we are back and this is the start of Season 2. And to kick things off we are talking penises, personality, and well maybe even penises with personality. This week's guest guiding us through these fascinating topics is Associate Professor J Matt Hoch of Nova Southeastern University. I was recently in Iceland, a place I love for the nature, the people, and the cultural history. When in Iceland...
Subterranean: Fracking and its consequences with Colin Jerolmack
July 18, 2021 20:41 - 1 hour - 96.4 MBHi everyone and welcome to another great episode of Wild Connection: The Podcast. We were off for two weeks working on a few projects so more on that in the coming weeks. This week I talk with Colin Jerolmack, Associate Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at NYU about his book Up To Heaven And Down To Hell: Fracking Freedom And Community In An American Town I recorded this before the monster heat wave that hit the pacific NW and British Columbia. Why is this relevant? Methane i...
Optimistic Conservation with Craig Bruce
June 27, 2021 21:35 - 1 hour - 102 MBWelcome back everyone for another great episode of Wild Connection the Podcast. One of the many reasons I love doing this podcast is getting to highlight some of the people I have known or worked with in the area of conservation. I have been so fortunate to connect with some incredible people over the years and my guest this week, international wildlife conservation expert Craig Bruce, is one of them. As you will hear Craig has dedicated his life to conservation, sustainable utilization, and...
The Way of the Booby
June 20, 2021 16:25 - 1 hour - 90.5 MBHappy Father’s Day Everyone and this week’s episode features one of the great dads that co-parents with mom. The Nazca Booby. I am talk to Dr. Dave Anderson, a biologist and professor at Wake forest University about these incredible birds, what they teach us about parenting, stress, and how we change the ways we cope after trauma. We also learn how important dads are to the success of a Nazca booby family. And not just in boobies, but also in albatrosses. His work, along with that of sever...
A JEDI's Heart with Dr. Thomas RaShad Easley (a.k.a. RaShad Eas)
June 13, 2021 22:13 - 1 hour - 119 MBWelcome back everyone and this episode is really special. A few years ago I had the honor and privilege of meeting Dr. Thomas Rashad Easley aka RaShad Eas. He is a certified diversity consultant and the Assistant Dean of Community and Inclusion at the Yale School of the Environment but he is so much more. He’s also a passionate human being, a former campus pastor, a scientist, a forester, an author, a musician,and a fierce not holding back, I am here kind of man. And luckily for me, my frien...
Song of the Cicada
June 06, 2021 18:42 - 1 hour - 91.3 MBWelcome back everyone. This is episode 17 and this week I’ve got a special guest who is going to talk about something happening right now. You say cicada I say cicada and Dr Floyd Shockley says cover your ears because it's going to be LOUD. Right here in the United States, primarily along the eastern seaboard it was a magical time beginning around mid-May. Brood 10 was emerging and this only happens for this group every 17 years. That means this generation was laid in 2004! The next gener...
The Lost Locust
May 30, 2021 22:56 - 58 minutes - 80.9 MBWelcome back to Wild Connection: The Podcast. I’m your host Dr. Jen and this week I am back with Dr. Jeffrey Lockwood, Prof of Natural Sciences and Humanities at the University of Wyoming. He’s also a librettist and This week we are talking all about locusts. From the Pharaohs of Egypt to the cattle farmers of the present, locusts have a pretty bad reputation. We’re talking a plague of biblical proportion and its happening right now. If you want to eat some locusts here is a good recipe: ...
Conscripted: Our unholy alliance with insects featuring author Dr. Jeffrey Lockwood
May 23, 2021 14:53 - 1 hour - 85.4 MBToday's episode is all about insects and is a theme for the next 3 weeks. I discovered Dr. Jeff Lockwood, a Professor of Natural Science and the Humanities at the university of Wyoming, when I was doing research for episode 9, Love is a Battlefield, I came across his work sharing how insects have been used as weapons in human warfare. That stopped me in my tracks and I knew I had to dig deeper. After much digging and reading it was clear that I needed two episodes to cover this special topic...
What's On Your Mind? Exploring cognition and consciousness in other animals with Dr. Kristy Biolsi
May 16, 2021 18:52 - 1 hour - 93.4 MBToday's episode tackles a BIG question: What is cognition and consciousness and do other species have it? That's not all though, my guest Dr. Kristy Biolsi, Associate Professor of Psychology at St. Francis College (@SFCNY) in Brooklyn Heights NY and co-founder and Director of the Center for the Study of Pinniped Ecology and Cognition (C-SPEC) talks to us about what she's discovering about the cognitive abilities of seals as well as why seals are back in New York City waterways. During th...
Eruptions: Volcanoes and Society
May 09, 2021 17:22 - 1 hour - 98.9 MBThis week its all about volcanoes. And not just about eruptions, of which there have been two significant ones recently. There is so much interesting history surrounding how people cope and live around such a potentially dangerous natural phenomenon and the societal factors that shape who is impacted, who recovers and who doesn’t when there is an eruption. To tell us about all of that is a brilliant scientist, Dr. Jazmin Scarlett. You can keep up with all the amazing work Dr. Jazmin Scarle...
Muddy Waters: Humans and Elephants Part II
May 02, 2021 21:16 - 1 hour - 119 MBWelcome back everyone. This week is Part 2 of my interview with geographer Dr. Jacob Shell. He specializes in human transportation networks that rely on animals. His book, Giants of the Monsoon forest: Living and Working with Elephants, is a thought provoking read. If you haven’t heard part one, please do listen as that’s where we talk about the history of humans using elephants, talk about why Asian elephants are still used while African elephants are not, and where he describes how new el...
Muddy Waters: Humans and Elephants
April 25, 2021 19:52 - 49 minutes - 68 MBHi everyone. This week is Part I of a 2 part interview I had with Dr. Jacob Shell is a geographer that specializes in transportation networks and the interface between humans and other animals when it comes to getting around. We talk about one of his books, Giants of the Monsoon Forest: Living and Working with Elephants. His work and this book really examines so many aspects of how connected we all are that we just couldn’t cover it all in one podcast. When we consider how we use other speci...
Persons of the Forest
April 21, 2021 14:13 - 1 hour - 107 MBIt is Earth Day tomorrow April 22, so this episode is coming out a little late. As a celebration of Earth Day, my guest Dr. Gary Shapiro and I talk about orangutans, the not for profit that he co-founded with his wife, and how becoming aware and researching the nuances of the difficult ecological problems we are facing is something we should all commit to this Earth Day 2021. To learn more about the organization, Orang Utan Republic visit their website at https://www.orangutanrepublik....
Love is a Battlefield
April 11, 2021 21:12 - 39 minutes - 54.7 MBToday I am talking about insects, their weapons, how they are used in love and war, and how some scientists curious about why insects have elaborate weaponry use a bit of creativity to get some answers. One of those scientists, Dr. Zach Emberts is my guest today. He studies animal behavior and the evolution of anima weapons with a focus on insects. Dr. Emberts is a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the Unive...
If the Bite Fits
April 04, 2021 21:45 - 1 hour - 95.8 MBIn this episode I talk with Dr. Adam- Hartstone-Rose whose bustling functional morphology and comparative anatomy lab at NCSU is not just giving us insights into the relationship between jaws and diet but is a place of mentoring for the next generation of scientists. If you are digging the show subscribe and share it so others can enjoy it too. You can follow the show on Itunes, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Also follow the show on Twitter: @WildConnectPod You can also...
Ecological Grief- A Conversation with Nathaniel Popkin
March 14, 2021 20:27 - 1 hour - 107 MBThis episode is about our relationship to nature, how no matter how passionately you care about the planet you are complicit in its destruction by merely existing, and what, in face of calamity can we actually do about it? Nathaniel Popkin, novelist, essayist, editor, documentary writer, and critic has released a new book called To Reach the Spring: From Complicity to Consciousness in the Age of the Eco-Crisis brings to the forefront all of these aspects. In our conversation we talk abo...
Butterflies: The Pandas of the Sky
March 07, 2021 20:33 - 56 minutes - 77.3 MBThis episode is all about butterflies, or the pandas of the sky. Check out this cool art I had my friend and artist extraordinaire, Kry Hookuh create. You can check out her work at kryshookuhdoodles.com and follow her on Instagram @kryhookuh With the release of two new papers looking at what is happening to butterflies as a consequence of climate change, Katy Prudic, Assistant Professor of Data and Citizen Science in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of A...
Look Who's Talking
February 28, 2021 20:15 - 1 hour - 87.8 MBThis week's episode explores what we know about language, cognition and emotional intelligence in other animals. I talk with Con Slobodhcikoff, CEO of Zoolingua and author of Chasing Dr. Doolittle: Learning the Language of Animals. You can find out more about Dr. Con at his website https://www.conslobodchikoff.com and you can order a copy of his thoughtful and provocative book here. He is at the forefront of utilizing new technology like artificial intelligence to decode the language of ot...
An Ape's Ethic- A Conversation With Gregory Tague
February 21, 2021 17:02 - 1 hour - 104 MBWelcome to the fourth episode of Wild Connection The Podcast. In this episode I share a little about how I came to even study animal behavior, some of my early experiences with great apes, and talk with literary scholar Gregory Tague about what he calls an ape ethic. I got my start as a volunteer for the Center for Great Apes (https://www.centerforgreatapes.org), a sanctuary dedicated to providing a safe haven of life long care for chimpanzees and orangutans in need of a home. They are alw...
The Animal Pocket Guide to Dating
February 14, 2021 17:59 - 19 minutes - 26.7 MBHappy Valentine's Day! While other animals celebrate their unions more than once a year we humans have taken the single anniversary, single holiday, and otherwise infrequent approach. Our dating lives are filled with challenges and the same is true for other species. Like so many other species, we have to figure out how to date and mate successfully. As hard as that is, talking about it seems even more challenging. This is where other species can help. You just might find that discussing da...
WayTo Light Up A Room
February 07, 2021 18:39 - 39 minutes - 54.4 MBThis episode is about bioluminescence, why animals have it, the recent discovery that loads of mammals might just glow, and how the idea for one human invention was sparked by a creature that glows. When the story broke recently that Tasmansian devils are bioluminescent they joined the ranks of the platypus, the puffin, and quite a few other species. I knew it was time to get to the bottom of why so many animals are unexpectedly glowing. To help I was lucky enough to talk to Dr. Kenny Travou...
My What Big Eye Sockets You Have
January 31, 2021 17:00 - 52 minutes - 71.5 MBTo start off the very first season I was able to snag an interview with Dr. Julie Meachen, vertebrate paleontologist specializing in Ice Age carnivores who is an Associate Professor of Anatomy at Des Moines University. Her and her collaborators have been in the news a lot lately. We’ll also get to talk about all the exciting discoveries she and her collaborators are making a little later in the episode. You can follow her on Instagram @sabercatwoman and @DesMoinesUniv A chance discovery ...