How Does Wolf Conservation Become Ecosystem Conservation?

In this episode, Regina Mossotti, VP of Animal Care at the St. Louis Zoo, shares behind-the-scenes insights into wolf conservation; highlighting how science, partnerships, and bold strategies like pup fostering are making a real difference. You'll discover how the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone transformed entire ecosystems, from regulating deer and elk populations to restoring plant life, and even boosting fish and bird populations, all through the lens of ecological balance. Regina dives into the fascinating science behind "umbrella species," explaining why protecting wolves benefits the entire food web and humanity alike.

Join us for a compelling look at species revival, showing how bold science, heartfelt collaboration, and your voice can help safeguard the wild wonders of North America and beyond. Conservation isn't just for scientists and zoos; it's a collective effort—and your support makes a difference.

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Links mentioned in this episode:
Regina's TED Talk (via YouTube)
St. Louis Zoo
AZA SAFE Programs
USFWS Red Wolf Recovery Program
USFWS Mexican Wolf Recovery Program 

Find Rick here:
ZoologyRick.com

Rick on social media:
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Podcast Music: Positive Carefree Folk Pop
Artist: Burgberg
Used with Full Music Standard Lic.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We talk about other countries saving their rhinos or their pandas, but yet in our own backyard, we have this incredibly endangered species. And they were the few that were remaining in the wild were actually captured by trappers from U.S. Fish Wildlife Service and brought into zoos.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

I'm Rick Schwartz, educator, public speaker, and all-around curious guy. Over the years, my curiosity and experiences, along with the many people I have worked with, revealed to me we all have a desire to feel connected to the natural world. You're listening to Animals, Nature, and You, a podcast that explores a connection between animals, nature, and humans. A podcast that celebrates learning more, following our curiosity, and reconnecting with the natural world. Welcome to another episode of Animals, Nature and You. This particular episode is interesting because we have talked to people in conservation before, whether they're working in the zoo environment or whether they're out there in the field doing the work. We have talked to naturalists who are discovering more about their local wildlife and habitats. We've talked to people to learn about how we can participate in planting native plants or taking care of the environment we live in or supporting other environments and ecosystems through donations, through education, whatever it might be. This particular conversation today will be talked to someone who's doing conservation from a zoo, but has also done conservation out in the field and everything in between. And I want you to pay close attention to this little nugget right here. I want you to ask yourself can having predators in a habitat make for better waterways and safer drinking water for everybody? Because the answer is going to come up here. The other thing I want to ask you too, we've talked about a lot of different animals here on this podcast already. We'll be talking about a lot more. We know about giant pandas being endangered at one point now, just threatened, not endangered. We know about rhinos and what's going on with them, the challenges they face, how they're different species. There's down to maybe a hundred left of one, maybe a couple thousand of another. We've talked about pangolins and being trafficked and the challenges they face. Did you know there is a mammal right here in North America, in the United States, that is just as equally, if not more so endangered as the species I just mentioned? That's going to come up in this conversation as well. There are so many great things coming up in this conversation, from innovative conservation techniques to our own critically endangered mammal right here in the U.S. that may or may not be what you're thinking, and everything else in between. I'm really looking forward to inviting Regina on, but let me just quickly go over her bio so you have an idea of what we're getting into and who we're talking to. Regina Masati began her conservation career at the St. Louis Zoo as a research intern and then joined the team at the Endangered Wolf Center as a wolf keeper. After receiving her Master of Science and Zoology, researching cheetah mating behavior in collaboration with the research team at the St. Louis Zoo, she worked as a field biologist, researching carnivores, from wolf behavior in the wild as part of the Yellowstone Wolf Project to working with the University of California Santa Cruz catching and collaring mountain lions in the wilds of California. Now, Regina went back to the Endangered Wolf Center in 2011, where she took on the role of director of animal care and conservation. In 2023, Regina joined the world-renowned St. Louis Zoo as vice president of animal care. And with that, there is a lot more that you do, Regina, and I'm sure we'll get into it in the conversation. But for now, I just want to say welcome and thank you so much for taking the time to be a guest here on Animals, Nature, and You.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Well, I'm happy to be here. Anytime I get to talk about wolves, man, that's a happy place for me. And sharing all the work that we're doing on behalf of the Conservation Efforts Forum is it's a great conversation to have.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

And there's so much going on and so much that you're doing. I initially want to definitely lean into the fascinating work that's being done with wolves and the way puppies are introduced in the wild and all of that. I want all those details. But before we get there, I do know a lot of my audience are made up of aspiring zoo people, conservation people, naturalists, etc. Their hearts are in that space of wanting to help out and do stuff. Or there are also people that are listening that already have a career or job somewhere, but are thinking about maybe doing other work closer, uh more aligned with conservation. So your role, your position, big and important at the St. Louis Zoo, a very good zoo that's doing amazing work. How did you get there? What was your your sort of origin story into this? And then we'll get into the wolves and everything else.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Okay. Well, I always hate talking about myself. First, before I do that, I actually just want to say to anybody that's listening, we need more people in the conservation animal care field. So, you know, go after that dream. Be tenacious. So, how I started, you know, I I think I probably started like a lot of folks who love nature. You know, I was I was lucky enough to visit zoo's St. Louis Zoo. I'm actually from St. Louis and found my love here. But my parents also were really good about taking me out into nature, whether it was fishing or camping. And I really I fell in love with animals through that process. Um, you know, both of those experiences. And it never left me. You know, I I when I knew I was going into college, I knew I wanted to do something with animals. And um, my parents tried to talk me out a couple of times. Uh, and I, and I just it it stuck. It was definitely in my heart. And so I got my undergraduate in environmental science from Hawaii Pacific University. And after that, I worked in the field doing internships for uh a couple of years to try and figure out what I really wanted to work on because there's so many different ways that you can help with conservation from actually directly doing field work and monitoring animals out in the wild to working at zoos and helping with conservation efforts through there, through doing research to marketing to storytelling to what you do, Rick, and being able to share the stories of the animals and the conservation efforts. And so I wanted to hone in on what I wanted to do. And I really ended up finding that I loved working in zoological setting because I saw the impact that zoos can have on conservation. And so I went that direction and um worked in that field for a little bit and then ended up getting my master's from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale in zoology and really honing in on learning about animal behavior and understanding how they work and how we can help them. And then I went out and worked in the field again for a little while, literally in the field. I I spent a short time in the Yellowstone Wolf Project. I worked for the University of California, Santa Cruz, studying mountain lions in the wild because I wanted to have a really good balance of science and wild behavior to bring back to the zoo setting. And I started my PhD at Oregon State University and a position came open at the Endangered Wolf Center in St. Louis, this tiny but mighty institution that I was lucky enough to work with when I was younger. And I knew it was a once-in-a-lifetime position, and I decided to throw fate, you know, let fate help decide me where I was going to go, and I applied for it. And if I got it, great. Um, if I didn't, I'd finish my PhD. But I got the position of director of animal care and conservation there and worked in that field in that with that institution for over 10 years. I worked there about 12 years, solely focusing on wolf conservation. And the reason I wanted to do that is because I saw wolves as this amazing umbrella species, meaning if we could save them, save their habitat, the effect they have on making ecosystems healthier, I could have a really big impact with just one species. And in addition to that, I saw how misunderstood they were, um, which I know we'll talk about in a little bit. And so I really um wanted to focus on helping them. And it is something that I have loved doing, and it it got me to where I am today. And um, about three years ago, I ended up accepting the position of vice president of animal care at the St. Louis Zoo. And because I wanted to grow that impact in conservation, and I have not been disappointed since. St. Louis Zoo is doing incredible things for conservation, um, not only you know locally and nationally, but also globally. And we're also impacting the three million guests that we get that visit us, you know, being able to spark that passion of loving animals and understanding them, that conservation side of the world and and opening up that um that world to our guests is is really important. And I've loved it here.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

So that's a great story in the sense of, you know, every every person I have on, and and through my career of 30 years of working with people and animals, everyone has their unique story. There are some similarities sometimes, but I love always hearing that origin story for everybody because somewhere in there, someone's gonna hear the story and recognize a bit for themselves, or they see a path forward that. Oh, I didn't think you could do that. I didn't realize that was an option. So that's that's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. And I do want to acknowledge, too, Lotta Wolf and Apex Predator, like with the mountain lion and everything else in there, which is awesome because just a real quick what it's 2015. I was in Kenya, got to hang out with the Wassa Lions, the whole idea of the community-led conservation where people who used to hunt these lions are now hunting them to find them and say here they are, and they're doing GPS work and trying to get them to come back in the sambaro area. I saw that model. I was like, oh, if we could do that with our wolves and our mountain lions. And I know there are like the Yellowstone wolves and there, there's small pockets here and there where there are so many people trying to let wolves have at least a foothold somewhere. Let's jump into the work you're doing, the work you've been doing and the the collaborations with all these partners in the in the work with wolves here in North America. Because for me, as someone who has traveled a lot, I recognize that our wildlife is just as exotic and beautiful and amazing and important as those from other parts of the world that I think a lot of us North Americans take for granted what we have right here. So let's jump into it. Talk to me about the wolves and wolf conservation.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Well, first I love that you have that mindset because it's so true. I'm sure you saw this when you're in Africa. When you go over there, they're like, oh, that's just a zebra. And of course, everybody else's like, oh my God, there's a zebra. Um, and we have millions of visitors coming to the U.S. every year, to Yosemite, to Yellowstone, to other national parks and areas to see our wildlife. And it's just that reminder of how special the animals are that we have here. So yeah, you know, wolves in the U.S. are in a really tough situation. We used to have millions of wolves in the lower 48 states. Um we had gray wolves, we had Mexican wolves, we had red wolves. And unfortunately, today we're down to uh a few thousand uh gray wolves in some of our northern range. Now that's we're working on it and it's growing over the last decade or so, but uh, we hunted them to extinction. And the reason for that is we didn't really understand how connected everything in nature was. And we saw over time, we felt like there were some parts of nature that were competition for us. Um, if we wanted to have livestock, if we wanted to plant um crops, um, it could be carnivores going after our livestock, it could be deer going after our crops, whatever it is, fill in the blank. And what we've discovered over the last hundred years or so is how ecosystems really truly are connected and how having one piece or part of that ecosystem removed messes up everything. And wolves are a perfect example of that. One of the my favorite books is called Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold. And he's exactly what you just described with the lions. He was somebody who, in the 1910s, 1920s, was hired by the government to actually eradicate wolves. And he realized through his experience of doing that that he was doing something that actually was harming the environment. He saw in areas that once wolves were removed, deer and elk populations skyrocketed and they ate everything down to the dirt. And that made birds disappear, that made um plants disappear that were really important for us, for our livestock, um, and so on. So it was a really, it was one of the first examples of understanding how carnivores are important. And you speed that up into the 1960s and 70s as we learned more and more about ecology and the US government, who used to be actually paying people bounties to get rid of some of these animals, now realize, oh, oh no, we need to fix we need to fix what we've broken. We need to bring those animals back. We actually need that balance to keep not only those ecosystems healthy, but us healthy too. And so with the rise of understanding our environment, um, the Endangered Species Act was created, as well as other laws like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act to help us make sure that our ecosystem stayed healthy. Through the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other partners started to work on conservation for endangered species. And luckily, the wolf was one of them. The first wolf that was ever saved with the concept of let's bring back a large carnivore that was gone from the ecosystem is actually the American red wolf. What's crazy about this is a lot of people don't even know the American red wolf exists, but it's it is the most endangered mammal, pretty much in the world, land mammal, I should say, in the world. There's only about 20 to 30 left in the wild. And they are solely native to the United States. I mean, this is our wolf. You know, we talk about other countries saving their rhinos or their pandas, but yet in our own backyard, we have this incredibly endangered species. And they were um the few that were remaining in the wild were actually captured by trappers from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and brought into zoos with the sole purpose of let's breed them so we can get the population up and reintroduce them back into the wild so we don't lose them. So they don't become just a footnote in a history book somewhere. And in 1987, they released the first Red Wolves into North Carolina. Red Wolves used to be native to the southeastern United States, and it was a program that was working really well for a long time. And it actually they learned so much in that program, it led to the Yellowstone introduction of Gray Wolf. Oh, okay, um, in 1995, and then the Mexican wolf reintroductions into New Mexico and Arizona in 1998. So that's a very brief uh history. The Mexican wolf was a very similar situation to red wolves, where they went out and trapped the very few remaining wolves that were left in the wild, brought them into zoos to breed them and release them. And when I say few remaining, both of these species, the red wolf and the Mexican wolf, had less than 20 individuals left in the wild. They were about as close to extinction as you could get. And it just shows the power of if you want to save something, if you want to make a difference, you really can.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

It reminds me, you know, mentioning the red wolves coming, bringing them into zoos, reminded me of the we know very well, at least here on the West Coast, about the California Condor story, you know, and how there were less than 20 or around 20 something in the population in the 80s. Now there's around 500 in the wild, or no, 500 in the population with about half of them flying in the wild, a little more than half now with some hatchings that happened the last couple of years. But the point being is that we see that glaring red light of extinction right on the horizon. We're able to bring them in. Zoos step up, putting in their knowledge of how to care for animals and then the reintroduction process and understanding how to do that appropriately and properly. I did not know that the Yellowstone reintroduction was also then based on the success and work done for the red wolf. But I want to go back first before we get too far along. The red wolf, as you said, not too many people know about it. One of the most endangered land mammals on the planet. How are they doing? What are some of the challenges? If someone wants to learn more about that specific species, what are what is what's going on with them from your perspective and your experience? And then how can people learn more, maybe get involved?

SPEAKER_01 16:23

So what's interesting is this is a program that was completely innovative. I mean, the different things that the biologists did over time to help save the species and learn about how to do a large carnivore introduction. Um it took a lot of courage. It took a lot of innovation and thoughtfulness and collaboration. And it was a program, you know, as I mentioned, it started in 1987, and the population was they it was doing what it needed to do. You know, the wolves that were released from zoos were hunting deer and raccoons and possums and nutria and they were hunting wild animals. They were staying away from people because wolves are actually very shy, despite what you see on little Red Riding Hood and three little pigs, and all the unfortunate Hollywood dramatizations of wolves. Um, in real life, wolves are actually really shy and run away from people. And um, we were seeing that with the red wolves, and they were breeding and having families, um, which is what we wanted to see. You know, you have your mom and dad alpha wolves that would have pups and and were raising them to be really amazing wild wolves. And it was working. The biology part of it was working really well. And in in 2012 or so, we got up to our peak of about 150 red wolves in the wild. And I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but when you went from zero, no red wolves left on the landscape, to 150. Um, and also being the first kind introduction of its kind, knowing that you're learning lessons along the way, it was pretty incredible and epic that we got up to 150. Unfortunately, around that same time frame and in around 2012, the Red Wolf program hit a Snafu. A pretty big challenge. Snafu's not the right word, it was a very big challenge. Where in North Carolina, which is where the reintroduction programs started, the five counties that Red Wolves were being introduced into actually started to allow nighttime hunting of coyotes. And coyotes are only about 25 pounds, red wolves are about 70 pounds, and it's hard enough to tell the difference between those two during the daytime, but at nighttime it's next to impossible. And so a lot of critically endangered red wolves were were getting shot and killed. And so some very well-meaning um NGOs, nonprofits um that wanted to help protect the Red Wolves sued the state to stop the nighttime hunting of coyotes. And um it worked. The judge stopped the nighttime hunting, but also the daytime hunting. And this led to very big frustrations in the the counties that they weren't able to control the coyote populations on private property that they needed to and did not want big government coming in and telling them what to do on their property. And the Red Wolf kind of became a symbol for that and a big source of frustration for some landowners. And unfortunately, a very big misinformation campaign made a very negative impact on red wolf conservation. You know, folks, um, a few handful of folks sharing that, you know, things that weren't accurate. Wolves are dangerous. Um, wolves are actually just hybrids, red wolves are just hybrids with coyotes, which they're not, neither of those things. And why it worked is because we were so focused on the biology. Um we need to, we fully admit now, and the we is the conservation world and community, that we could have done a better job of bringing in the local community and partnering better with them and sharing information more so that they were very knowledgeable about what was going on, so that the misinformation campaign wouldn't have been able to have the impact it did. And it's just for me, it was it's a big lesson of conservation can never be one-sided. It has to be a multi-pronged approach. You have to be able to do the reintroductions and the protections. You have to bring in the local community and the stakeholders in those areas so that they're true partners in the conservation. You have to be able to do research to understand the animals so that you can make really good decisions about um how to move forward with management and and recovery efforts, et cetera. And um, so that situation led to almost kind of a 10-year um hiatus and lull in some of the conservation efforts. I would not 10 years, I would say it's more maybe five to six years, where Fish and Wild Service took a pause on the recovery effort to really evaluate the program. And um, they did an internal evaluation and an external evaluation that took a lot of time. And so during that time, they didn't do releases, they didn't do a lot of the land management, wildlife management that they had done in the past. And the population dropped dramatically through being hit by cars, through poaching, being shot. And we weren't doing the management to help kind of lift that that very vulnerable, very brand new conservation population up to where it needed to be because we couldn't. And I'm really proud of the U.S. Fish Wild Service because uh through all of that research, they talked to everybody landowners, local community uh members, scientists, um, zoological officials, state agencies, um, different federal partners, um, and really evaluated how to if this program could survive and how to make it better. And what they came away with after all that research was not only does this program absolutely have the ability to save the American Red Wolf. It has the ability to do it well and to be a beacon for other endangered species programs of how we can really do it in a way that's lasting. And so they have been working on over the last decade really improving processes, bringing in new partners, and they the Fish Wild Service just drafted with a new recovery team a brand new recovery plan for the American Red Wolf that was just released about two years ago. And we're moving forward in a really positive direction. We've done adult releases, we've done PUP fostering. We're creating, again, the we here is the Fish Wild Service, the SAFE program, which I can talk about what that is in a second, the conservation community on the ground. We are a we, we're a team. And so you always hear me say we because we're working on this as true partners, trying to figure out how do we can bring all of our strengths and experience together to make a bigger impact. And there's so many different ways that we're doing it. And that's that's a whole nother three-hour program that I could talk about, but I'll take a pause there.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Fair enough. Fair enough. What you just described, what the Red Wolf program has gone through, is something that I've touched on with other guests about the importance of community conservation or community-minded conservation. And although it is tragic what happened in the sense of loss of population, a negative campaign against them, what an excellent lesson that has been learned that allows us to reevaluate, okay, we we do get as science-minded and zoological and ecological-minded people, very focused on the science and the biology. And we know it's there and we understand it, we know it's right, it's the right thing to do, so let's go do it. But there's that component. What about the the communities that are living in and amongst and around or near the species, whether it's a predator or not? And and so what a what a wonderful lesson to go, okay, wait a minute. Let's reevaluate this and and have the partners all come together and do that. It is unfortunate that the population dropped back down and the hunting happened, whether on purpose or on accident, depending upon the situation, of course. But yay for the lesson and hopefully moving forward. So was this implemented, the community concept, the idea of working with and and communicating better to the regional area humans? Uh was that applied then to the Yellowstone Project at that point, or was it sort of layered in the sense that the Yellowstone Project started, but then we learned that lesson?

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Laired. So Red Wolf started in 1987 and this issue kind of came to a head for Red Wolf in in 2012. Um the gray wolf was released in 1995 and has a different journey. Um, you know, it's it's a very different scenario because those animals are being released on a huge national park, one of the biggest in the world. And the tough component of that is as the wolf population, the gray wolf population in Yellowstone grew, um, they started to go outside the park. As much as we wish they did, wolves can't see lines on a map. They don't understand that they have a specific area to go to. And so that program has had to work with the local surrounding counties and and landowners outside of Yellowstone to be able to find ways to live with wolves. Um, and you've got some incredible ranchers and landowners doing, again, I I keep using this term, but it's it's true, it's groundbreaking, it's it's innovative because this is all new. You know, if you think about 30 years when we're talking about conservation and and living with wildlife and learning different ways of living, that's not a long time to try different things and and see what works and see what doesn't. And we have ranchers out there who are trying to find ways to help allow fill-in-the-blank animal, not just wolves. It could be mountain lines, it could be bears, it could be uh bison, it can be um elk. Um, how we can allow those animals the ability to thrive and live and and nature the way that they have for millennia, but also be able to have our our livelihoods, you know, be able to uh thrive as well. And they're putting into practice things like range riders, which in my opinion is just a new age fancy way of saying cowboys. Um, you know, bringing back range riders to be able to travel with uh herds to make sure they're protected, or using livestock guard dogs for different types of livestock. Livestock guard dogs are exactly what they sound like. Everybody thinks wolves are big giant animals, but they're really only around 100 and 120 pounds, and livestock guard dogs are around 150. And wolves, as I mentioned earlier, are kind of big scaredy cats. And so you have this big giant dog barking at a wolf pack, it will scare them away because it's not worth it for a wolf to get injured when it's trying to catch dinner. Um, because unfortunately, the wild is a hard place. And, you know, we break a leg, we get to put it in a cast and put it up on the couch and watch soap operas and eat bonbons while it's healing. But a wolf in the wild, you break a leg or a jaw, that's it for you. And so they're gonna go after the sick and the weak uh deer or elk. They're not gonna go after their big, strong buck because they know it's dangerous for them. And so that same concept applies to livestock. If you see a uh range rider on a big horse or you see um dogs outside, it's gonna scare wolves away. And so there's really those are just a few examples of some tools that we're bringing back that had kind of become a lost art on the on the landscape because we had eradicated a lot of wildlife. And so as we're bringing it back, we're bringing back some of those tools that we've been using for a long time to find ways to coexist.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

And that's so important too. It's that coexistence, it's that finding ways that work. Sometimes it's not you absolutely have to stop doing what you've been doing, just change direction a little bit, a slight pivot, a little bit of variance, and and you have that opportunity to see how that works and impacts the wildlife appropriately and safely. I do want to ask, I've got so many questions. So um, I think it was probably about 10 or 11 years ago. I remember reading something regarding the argument for why wolves belong in Yellowstone and the impact it had on other things, like, and I think the example used was fishing. And and I am trying to pull back from my memory on this, so please either confirm this as correct or let me know what is correct. But it was saying essentially that with the wolves in place, it kept the elk more alert and in place as well. They weren't hanging out and eating all of the, I think it was willows or some sort of small tree that would grow near creeks and rivers, and which they had mowed down essentially. And unfortunately, that direct sun then in the shallow waters made it so the fish fryer, the baby fish, could not survive. The water temperature was a bit too warm and it wasn't shaded, so they weren't protected. And so that we saw a drop in the fish population. That when the wolves came back, kept keeping the elk in check and the deer in check, the plant life and the tree life around the creeks and rivers was growing appropriately, and the baby fish had safe harbor, and suddenly the fish population had increased as well. The waterways became healthier because of the line that the basically just you could draw the line straight back to the wolf population. Is that a correct memory on my part, or is there more to it than that?

SPEAKER_01 29:43

Man, you could be a wolf biologist. That was perfect. Um, and that whole concept is when I when I talk about an umbrella species, that's that's exactly it, right? So just by bringing wolves back and and allowing other large carnivores, bears and mountain lions to start thriving and coming back in that area, you actually saw two things happen. One was the population of deer and elk. Before we eradicated wolves from Yellowstone in the early 1900s, wolves kept those animals in check. They kept them in balance. And what I mean by that is they kept elk and deer numbers at a number that the plants could sustain. When we hunted the last wolf out of Yellowstone in the early 1900s, we saw elk and deer skyrocket. And so the population increased. So obviously they're eating more. But one of the other things that happened is they're the elk's behavior changed. When there's predators, carnivores around, what elk will do is they'll eat a little bit and they'll move on. They'll eat a little bit and move on because they can't sit in one place for too long or they'll become sitting ducks, right? So essentially, when you're talking about plants, that's pruning. Without carnivores there, they got pretty lazy. And so they would literally eat the plants down to the dirt. And so no new plants could could come back. And as aspen and willow and some of the other plants that you mentioned would drop seeds, the elk would eat the saplings before they could even grow. So not only did they kill the living ones, they didn't allow them to rebound. And what we saw is that when wolves came back, they brought those elk numbers. They didn't make them decline. They didn't decimate them, they just brought them back to that normal level that they should be at. To folks who had lived in that area for a long time, it probably felt like a decline because you think about it, we were over 70 plus years without wolves in Yellowstone. So generations grew up seeing all of these elk and deer. When those elk came back to a healthy level, you saw those plants come back. And you mentioned one species with fish is a great example. And as somebody, me, who loves fishing, that was very exciting to be able to see some of those endangered species of trout and uh and other um species of fish come back. But we also saw waterfowl come back. We saw ground nesting birds that needed um some of that cover to be able to protect their nest come back. We saw um songbirds that use the berries and the fruit out of those bushes and um different plants come back. I mean, we saw insects that are really important for pollinating crops and and other wild plants come back. Like the impact cannot be overstated of what having an intact ecosystem can do for wildlife. But again, I also mentioned what it can do for us. Those plants clean the river. They clean the water that we drink, they clean the air that we breathe. Having wolves and having um bring those elk populations down to a healthy level helps reduce disease in those elk populations. I think that's really important to be able to know that wolves are actually making those populations healthier. That disease also now doesn't come to us. It doesn't come to our livestock. So this is where I get like crazy excited about just the impact of what healthy ecosystems can do on our world, on our planet. So, and and wolves, I think, are the best poster child for what that impact can be.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

And it's right here in our backyard. Yeah, right. I mean, it's that's what I love about it too, is it's so much of our conversations in wildlife education and uh conservation education. We talk about the broader scope of what's happening with chimpanzees in Africa or uh wildcats in Asia or any of that. And I think so much of what we have right here in North America sometimes, because like you said, we've generations of growing up with it, it's just every day, it's whatever. We don't think about that. These numbers are actually very off balance because we grew up with them being off balance, so that seems like a normal. So I appreciate you painting that picture and and reinforcing what I remember vaguely remember reading 10, 11, 12 years ago. Because I yeah, yeah, you know, the birds also, right? And then you think about the insect species and everything and then the the cleaning of the water because of the plants there and all of that, yeah, because of the wolf, because of an apex predator coming back into place, striking that balance all the way down the rest of the food chain and and throughout the food web, essentially, which then of course benefits us. That is that's so cool. I love that. So, with that, bringing the wolves back into their native habitats, whether we're talking red wolf, gray wolf, Mexican wolf, there's I think it was your TED talk, or I remember seeing somewhere you describing another thing I had heard about, but I want to hear it from you in detail, especially from my audience, where I think we might be accustomed to, again, using the California Condor as an example, where we hatch the chicks, uh, we let the parents rear them. They're they're reared in an offsite area away from the public. They're never shown how there's any connection between humans and their life. Then they're put into an exchange sort of introduction habitat on the hillside out in the wild with mentor birds, and then eventually they're they're out free in the wild as an adult or young adult bird. But with the wolf projects, somehow you guys have figured out, and you guys, you and your partners, let's take a puppy born in a zoo and give it to a wild wolf, and it works. It does. It's that's gotta be mind-blowing for somebody on the outside of our world understanding the process. So walk us through the process of how and why this works.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

Yeah. So the technique you're talking about is called pup fostering. So when we first reintroduced Mexican wolves and red wolves back into the landscape, we released adult animals because that's what we had. And there was no, there were no packs on the landscape. So we had to work with adults and and releasing adults absolutely works. Um, but it comes with some challenges, meaning, just like you described with the condors, we have to keep these animals off site so they don't get used to people. Because again, wolves naturally have uh grown up shy away from people, wanting to run away from people. And we want to make sure we keep that natural behavior so that they stay safe out in the wild. They don't walk up to the wrong person and get shot, unfortunately. So we want them to have that natural experience. We want them to be able to understand that deer is their diet and they should, you know, eat a deer carcass. So we feed them deer that have been hit by cars that we're able to save and get them some practice. Um, but it's still hard to transplant an adult wolf into the wild and say, okay, B, be wild now, you know. But those instincts are there and they do it and they figure out how to hunt and they figure out how to raise a family and they do all the right things. But watching wolves and seeing their behavior and how incredibly nurturing and caring and family-oriented they are. Um, the Red Wolf program actually uh created this, the foster efforts. And I said in my TED talk, and I'll say it again because I can't overstate it. The first biologist who said, you know what we should do? What if it would be easier to take puppies born in zoos and sneak them into a wild litter that was just born so that wild parents can raise them and teach them all those skills, how to hunt, how to stay away from people, um, how to defend a territory, all that kind of stuff. Maybe we could do that. I mean, that took so much courage. And it took creativity and science is such a creative field, and I love it. And um, conservation, especially, because we have to think outside the box on how we're gonna save these animals. And so the reason that original um scientists had that epiphany is because when you study and watch wolves, they have such a tight-knit family. Their families very much mimic ours. They have mom and dad, who you'll hear called the alpha, but really alpha just means mom and dad. The old mindset was that the alpha ate first and they were the strongest and blah, blah, blah. But we have seen over studying them for decades now that actually the alphas are just mom and dad, just like our parents. And yeah, they run the roof sometimes, right? Just like our parents, you know, teach us and tell us what to do and all those things. But they're really, you know, their mindset, if you could get yourself into the mindset of a wolf watching their behavior, is how do I make sure my family is strong? How do I make sure my kiddos have the skills that they need to be able to go start their own packs, their own family someday? Um, again, from protecting their family to um getting their family dinner, um, making sure they're well fed and healthy, making sure that they um are safe and stay from away from other wolf packs or from mountain lions or from people. So those parents are teaching their kiddos all of those skill sets. And watching them raise their young, you can see what the moms, those intense maternal instincts they have, and especially those those first couple of weeks, they have hormones that are just flowing through them, just like we do when we give birth to a baby of just like really bonding with those puppies and taking care of them. And what we're able to do now is we can still release adult wolves, but if there happens to be a litter in the wild that matches up with the exact timing of a litter in human care and zoological facilities, we can actually take just a handful of puppies from that mom. So she keeps some of her litter and we take a few and we sneak them into wild wolf dens for two reasons. One is because those parents can help raise those puppies really well and help them succeed in the wild. But two, the biggest reason is when you're talking about just a handful of animals left in the wild, genetic health becomes a huge priority. We want to make sure that there's genetic diversity in these tiny vulnerable populations of whatever endangered species it is, because genetic diversity helps make sure that those populations are healthy, that their puppies were offspring can survive so that they're they don't have diseases. Um just like with humans, if we inbreed, we can have negative effects of that inbreeding. And we want to make sure that doesn't happen in the wild. So by sneaking puppies that are born in zoos that have more or different genetics than what's in the wild, more diversity, I should say, we can actually make that wild population healthier and it can actually do what it needs to do and help save that species by surviving and thriving. And so I'll pause there, but that's essentially kind of the goal of what pop fostering is. And we've we've taken it now, the lessons learned from the Red Wolf program who started this, and we now are using it for Mexican wolves. Um, again, another critically endangered population. And it's it's making such a huge difference and being able to help save these incredible wolf um species in the wild.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

And what a great way to diversify the genetics, in the sense of, like you said, early on in certain areas, you had to put adults out there because there just weren't any. But I the way I see it too, by being able to sneak these pups in, because mom's already in that state of, I'm I'm a mom, I got to care for these pups. And it just it works as far as she just accepts them and says, okay, I'll raise these two, or you know, also. What a safe way, as far as like in my head, I'm like, you try to introduce other adults into a space now where there are other wolves, you potentially could have conflict. Yes, you potentially could have an injury happen while they try to settle out who's in charge and who's got what territory, which means now that animal can't hunt. As you mentioned earlier, a broken leg, a broken jaw could be detrimental. So it's gonna require more human uh intervention then to get that wolf back out to heal it, to try and you know so challenging and and so much potential for loss to either individual. Whereas bringing these pups in, they're being raised in that environment. Mom's gonna do a better job raising a wild wolf than any human can do. So, and then you've you've got that automatic genetic diversity just injected right into the system with minimal challenges. That is so brilliant. That is so brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

And it gives us another tool in the toolbox, right? So we we know adults work and we can release adults where there are no other wolves, but to your point, when you start growing that population, infiltrating that area that already has wolves and growing that genetic health is just it, it's an incredibly important tool and it's working.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. That is so cool. So very cool. So, how long has this pup fostering process been going on for? And is it being used in all populations or just a couple of them right now?

SPEAKER_01 42:36

Right now it's it's used in the red wolf population and the Mexican wolf population. So I actually manage um, I'm the uh pup foster coordinator for the Mexican wolf safe program. And you heard me mention SAFE earlier. Safe stands for saving animals from extinction. It is a program in um AZA Association of Zoos and Aquariums facilities, zoological facilities, that focuses on conservation efforts of different species. And the Mexican Wolf Safe Program. I love that my title is PUP foster coordinator. I never thought when I started out this that that would be a title I would ever have, but um is to help work with the U.S. Fish and Wild Service and the state agencies, which is New Mexico and Arizona, who are awesome partners to work with, and coordinate pups that are born in human careers at uh human care at different zoos. So it could be Brookfield Zoo, it could be the Endangered Wolf Center, it could be um Wolf Conservation Center in New York, other institutions that are part of the SAFE program. If they happen to have a pair that has a litter that's born at the same time, I help coordinate with the Fish Wild Service. Okay, we've got fill in the blank six puppies on the ground in St. Louis. We can take two of them and sneak them into a wild um pack that was just uh had a litter out in Arizona that the biologists on the ground there are monitoring from afar. And we figure out how to fly them there. We figure out, um, how many, you know, we we need to take, how many litter or how many pups are in the litter um in both sides. And it's just an intense process that is I can't even count all the partners in my head. Like there's just a ton of partners that work on it simultaneously and make it happen within a short amount of time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

The timing's got to be really important on that.

SPEAKER_01 44:20

Oh, it's so intense, so intense. One of my former colleagues I worked with, he said uh it's more about astronomy than biology at that point, because the stars, the moon, the sun, the plant all the planets, everything has to align just right because we foster pups before they're 14 days or younger, but we need enough time when they're just born to be able to plan everything that's going because we don't know when they're going to be born. Right. We know gestation is about 60, 63 days for a wolf. So about two months, we know roughly when they've bred in in zoos. We don't know any of that information for the wild. We just can tell based on the GPS collars that the wild wolves wear when they've denned. Because wolves don't stay in one place for very long except for a few reasons. One is denning, which they only breed one time a year. So that means they only have pups one time a year, which is an April and May timeframe. Or they just caught dinner and they'll stay with you know one pack will stay on an elk carcass for a week, you know, or so and they'll stay around that area. So we know if we've seen them staying in one place and it's April and May, the good chances that they probably just had a litter. So the wildlife biologists in the field in Arizona, New Mexico are sharing data with us. We're sharing data with them. As soon as they match up, we say okay it's go time. And we're usually fostering the pups between seven to fourteen days of age. So all of this happens very quickly and we had to find a flight. We have to find a crew to take them down and we have to be able to find the den in the wild. When we get to the den in the wild this is the part that people are so fascinated about because they're like wait you're you're approaching a wild wolf den. How do you do that safely? I'm just going to keep reiterating and I feel bad if wolves ever actually heard me talking about them they'd be like dude stop telling people that we're scaredy cats.

SPEAKER_00 46:10

Like stop embarrassing us.

SPEAKER_01 46:12

It's embarrassing but they really are when we walk up to a wild wolf den we're making noise we we're our bags are making noise we're saying hey we're close those mom wolves hear us coming way before we even see the den they have such good um hearing they take off they they they get out of dodge and part of that is a they don't want to draw attention to the den but also part of it is we know they know how dangerous humans are and so they take off because of that our job is to be in and out of that den very quickly because we want mom to come back and take care of them. So we find the den, we look for signs for it. As soon as we find it we take the pups that we brought with us from the zoo and we actually make them smell like the pups that are in the wild den by having the puppies urinate on each other. I know that sounds gross but it helps make them smell like like the wild puppies we take dirt from the den and rub it on them. Anything that was on the zoo born pups we kind of take them and gently rub them together so that they all smell the same and we put them back in the den and we get out. We do all of that within usually probably like 20 minutes or so. It's very, very fast. We take genetic swabs from all of the puppies both the zoo born and the wildborn we also put little mini microchips in them just like your daughter cat would have at home so that when those those puppies grow into adults and if we ever have hands on them again we can tell if they survived or not. It's one of the ways we can tell if they survived or not. And as soon as we get out the wildlife biologists are actually tracking that collar that's on mom and on the pack to see if they come back to that den. And we've had incredible success rate. And not only we've had incredible success rate, we now having done this with Mexican wolves for 10 years, we can actually see over that timeframe some of those pups that are fostered into the wild growing up becoming their own alphas may having their own babies in the wild and some of them have actually been fostered into. So they've actually been able to carry on that legacy and that tradition of of raising fostered pups themselves. And it's so important because that means that it's working. They're getting their genetics out into the wild and helping that population be healthier.

SPEAKER_00 48:21

That's so cool. That's the fact that now it's gone on long enough you see that multi-generational foster foster that's so cool. I just love it. I love how innovative that is because people if you don't understand the need for the scent to be the same amongst the babies and yes to the outside world having the puppies pee on each other and get dirt on them sounds kind of gross but that that is how they get their scent and that's what mom's going to recognize or go, wait a minute, this is foreign. It's not part of my family. And the fact that you guys get in and out in 20 minutes, the fact that there's a timing of when the the babies are born at the zoo versus born in the wild and and coordinating all that it is truly phenomenal work. And again I want to reiterate what you said earlier on it's partnerships, it's collaborations, it's multi when you say we, it is not just zoos. It's the state, it's the federal government, it's all of these entities coming together and these entities are made up of people who care, who want to put in this effort, who see the value in making this kind of impact. And I it gives me so much hope when I start thinking about it that way, that it's not just an organization. It's a group of people in that organization. It's not just a a state department it is a group of people that have chosen this as their line of work who are going to go out in the mud and dirt, crawl into a den and deliver these pups. It's just there's so many people doing so much great work and I really love to hear these stories and I I can't thank you enough for sharing these stories with me because I'm excited but also with my audience. So thank you so much. This is it's been an amazing conversation. Is there anything we haven't touched on that you feel would be important or of value for my audience to hear about or know more about or is it just let's start talking about websites and places they can go to look things up.

SPEAKER_01 50:14

Well I think you actually touched on something earlier with folks wanting to get in the field and and how they can make an impact but I will say it doesn't matter if you want to be in this field or not you know some people don't want to be hiking in the woods at 7,000 feet elevation over rough terrain to do stuff even though it's it's really cool. There are so many different ways that people can help and they just don't I think a lot of people don't realize it we need to bring back wildlife and wild places and you can start that in your own backyard by planting native plants right that brings back pollinators and hummingbirds and and um songbirds but you can also make an impact by if you follow um the state agencies Arizona New Mexico North Carolina and others that are working on conservation efforts not just for wolves but for anything be a voice of support for them because you just hit the nail on the head of these are people working on this. They are good, amazing passionate kind people and conservation is really hard and they desperately need cheerleaders and they deserve cheerleaders. What they are doing is so hard and it is so tough and and we're trying different things and making mistakes and learning new things and and making a positive impact. And I think being able to go and support those folks and write them letters or write nice comments and posts that the states post they read them. They really do they they follow and they read them and and it makes a big impact there. And I would say the last one especially in the cynical day and age when it comes to politics I will tell you firsthand I just got back from DC actually politicians listen to their constituents if you want conservation to happen you need to tell your fill in the blank senator, congressman, state, federal they will listen to you and if they see this is important to you and it's something that's going to make an impact for their community, they'll pay attention and they'll put effort into it. So be a voice don't feel like your voice isn't heard because I know for a fact it is I've seen it firsthand and it makes a difference. So those are some of the things I think people can do to help support as well as go and visit your local zoos. Look for you know zoos that are working on conservation efforts and support them. Zoos are on the front lines of conservation literally the second biggest contributor to conservation worldwide and um they need your support too you know so I there's there's a lot. There's a lot people can do and and you we are all part of the solution.

SPEAKER_00 52:41

Absolutely and I appreciate you bringing up the politics too because I think right now in our as you said for sort of cynical age due to just the nature of the way things have gone, we are more apt to go and point to what's wrong but then not take the next step to reinforce what's right.

SPEAKER_01 52:57

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 52:58

And and I just think that's just the nature of how things have kind of been whipped up and I I love that you were my you are reminding us by what you said that it's also you can speak up and point to what's positive, point to what you want, not saying you shouldn't point out what's wrong or you don't like, but add to take it to the next level and take a positive action to reinforce those that are doing the work still and let your leadership whatever it might look like in your area know that that's that's important and we need these things. So I thank you for that very much. Is there anywhere I'll put in the show notes the link to your TED talk uh is there anything else that you would like me to make sure or you'd want to mention where people can find out more information about either about you or the St. Louis Zoo or the conservation work for the different species of wolves?

SPEAKER_01 53:46

Yeah I I would say there's a couple of different places that would be great to check out of course you know I'm biased at the St. Louis Zoo you can always check out St.LewZoo.org you're allowed to be biased for your own zoo but um the AZA's safe program is a great resource for just some of the conservation work that zoos are doing on behalf of endangered species. So uh AZA.org is a great resource. Um Fish of Wildlife Service um has great websites for red wolves for Mexican wolves that um are updated often. They have great Facebook pages and other social media accounts that you can follow as well just to see, get up to date on what's happening in the wild. So those are great resources as well but there's a lot of information out there and I highly recommend making sure that you you're learning it and and um educating yourself and and being a voice.

SPEAKER_00 54:38

Great advice. I appreciate you taking the time today and and sitting here and talking about this. I think I say this a lot I know my audience will be like Rick you say this all the time but it's true. There's so much to cover I can't imagine that I won't have you back on again to discuss more details about wolf conservation and future things that are going to be happening. I mean by all means if anything big is coming up or happening reach out to me let me know I'd love to have you back on again because the work you do and you and the work you do with your partners is just beyond fascinating to me and I I think it just needs to be shouted from the mountaintop. So again thank you so much for taking the time to be here today.

SPEAKER_01 55:14

Well thank you for having me it was an honor.

SPEAKER_00 55:16

And of course thank you dear listeners I greatly appreciate you joining me here on this Curious Odyssey we call Animals Nature and you. And I'm not gonna lie to you I learned so much throughout this conversation with Regina but especially loved the concept of the idea of hey let's place pups in the wild with moms who have pups of the same age so they can be wild raised. I just I love that how it diversifies genetics and how it basically makes it much easier for us to help populate that population. If you learned anything interesting or you think this is something that somebody you know might be fascinated by also, I dare you to copy right now the link to this episode and share it with them. Whether you drop it into a group chat or send it directly to somebody, this episode is one where I think a lot of people will have those aha moments where there's learning about how endangered the red wolf our own native species in the United States, how terribly endangered they really are and how programs like this are helping and also to the innovation, the thoughtfulness in how we need to work with people more in the space of conservation. So many great topics covered in this I really want you to share this and let other people have the opportunity to learn from what Regina shared. And of course if there's anything she shared you want to learn more on I'll have all the links down in the show notes like I have mentioned before. Speaking of links in the show notes new feature that just came out a couple weeks ago fan mail. If you want to reach out whether it's a show idea, have another question or anything else, feel free to click on that send fan mail link that's the very first link at the very top of the show notes, anywhere you're listening to this podcast. Sorry, not available if you're watching on YouTube. But all the other links are down there. My website zoologyrick.com all my social media the links that Regina mentioned will be down there as well. So with that we're gonna wrap it up with a last reminder don't forget to hit subscribe or follow wherever you're listening or watching because I don't want you to miss the upcoming episodes. Every Tuesday are 10 minute Tuesdays short little snippets where it's just a solo episode talking about a species or a fun fact that came up in one of our discussions and every Thursday it's an interview like today. Awesome people doing awesome work and you get to learn all about it. All right let's wrap this up have a good one everybody