All right, everybody. this is Ellen Weatherford.

I'm here as usual with just the zoo of us.

And this week, we have a new friend that we're talking to.

This is Travis Kurtz.

Say hi, Travis.

Hi, everybody.

I'm really excited to talk to you.

I'm really excited to talk about our animal friend this week.

So before we get into our animal, let's talk about Travis. What kind of

background, what got you into studying salamanders? So I was born and raised out here in the

Pacific Northwest and spent a lot of time when I was just a kid, you know, walking around in the forest

and ponds and looking for

larval amphibians or eggs or, you know, finding salamanders under rocks. So that was just kind of

always a passion when I was young. And I loved some of those zoo guys like, you know, Jeff Corwin

or Jack Hanna or Steve Irwin,

but I never really thought that that was a viable career pathway. So when, you know,

I went to college, I thought I would go with a more sensible degree and decided to get a degree in business.

But about two years in, I was getting a little bored with that.

Just, you know, no shade to people who follow that pathway and get a business degree or whatever.

But I just wasn't super passionate about it.

So I decided to tack on an environmental

studies degree as well, you know, move a little closer to things that I really, really care

...