You're listening to The Great Simplification with Nate Higgins.

That's me.

On this show, we try to explore and simplify what's happening with energy, the economy, the environment, and our society.

Together with scientists, experts, and leaders, this show is about understanding the bird's

eye view of how everything fits together, where we go from here and what we can do about

it as a society and as individuals.

Herardo Sabios is a well-known ecologist and conservationist working on animal population ecology.

He is world-renowned for his influential work on global patterns of distribution of diversity

and extinction risk invertebrates.

Herardo and I have a wide-ranging discussion about animal populations,

the sixth mass extinction, his new project called Creatures United, and how we can better

care about and protect Earth's remaining biodiversity. This conversation got kind of intense

at times. Well, because the subject matter is

so important, what's happening is so tragic and is so little regarded in our national discourse.

I hope you listen and learn from my conversation with Professor Herardo Sabios, and

perhaps it will change how you think about the natural world in some small way.

Okay, my friend, we have a lot to talk about.

You have written numerous books and are a very heavily cited ecologist.

Your books range from mammals of Mexico to the annihilation of nature.

And we're going to talk a lot about this.

But first I would ask you, how did you first get interested

personally in studying animals and animal populations?

...