Highs, Lows and Lowland Gorillas

Going Wild with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant

WNET

Science, Pets & Animals, Nature, Kids & Family, Natural Sciences

4.9 • 636 Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2022

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

*Content warning: this episode briefly mentions the topic of suicide.* From the kitchen floor to the remote jungles of the Congo, Rae grapples with divorce and single-motherhood on an international trip to study lowland gorillas. For the last episode of season 2, Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant talks about a career-changing opportunity to track down one of the most elusive creatures in Central Africa — lowland gorillas. But when things don’t go as planned, Rae ends up uncovering something else that changes the trajectory of her life. Since this is the last episode for this season, we want to thank all of our guests for sharing their amazing wild stories. And you, our dedicated listeners, for coming back for season 2. We’re so glad to have you on this journey with us! What would you like to see in the third season? Let us know at [email protected]. Thanks for listening! If you want to support us, you can follow “Going Wild” on your favorite podcast-listening app. While you’re there, please leave us a review - it really helps. You can also get updates and bonus content by following me, Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, and PBS Nature on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook. And you can catch new episodes of Nature Wednesdays at 8/7c on PBS, pbs.org/nature and the PBS Video app. This episode of “Going Wild” was hosted by me, Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant. Production by Caroline Hadilaksono, Danielle Broza, Nathan Tobey, and Great Feeling Studios. Editing by Rachel Aronoff and Jakob Lewis. Sound design by Cariad Harmon. Danielle Broza is the Digital Lead and Fred Kaufman is the Executive Producer for Nature. Art for this podcast was created by Arianna Bollers and Karen Brazell. Special thanks to Amanda Schmidt, Blanche Robertson, Jayne Lisi, Chelsey Saatkamp, and Karen Ho. NATURE is an award-winning series created by The WNET Group and made possible by all of you. Funding for this podcast was provided by grants from the Anderson Family Fund, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and PBS. Views and opinions expressed during the podcast are those of the individuals expressing them and do not necessarily reflect those of THIRTEEN Productions LLC/The WNET Group.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I had never in my life considered that anything would ever be too much for me.
0:09.0	We were going to be dealing with, my goodness, like spiders and snakes and gorillas and elephants, you know, like the elements.
0:26.8	And I remember there was like a little bit of panic that set in with me where I thought to myself,
0:32.3	oh my gosh, are they going to think I'm a fraud?
0:38.3	And I found a little paper bag, like a lunch bag.
0:42.5	And I did the classic thing where I, like, put my mouth into the lunch bag and used it to, like, catch my breath.
0:51.2	And telling myself, you know, you've got to do this.
1:00.6	I'm Dr. Ray Wynne Grant, and this is a different kind of nature show,
1:05.2	a podcast all about the human drama of saving animals.
1:09.8	This season, I want to share my story.
1:13.3	But I also want to introduce you to the other amazing wildlife scientists out there.
1:19.1	Some of my friends who study hyenas, work with lizards, and even track sharks.
1:25.2	The animals we study are great, but who we are as people and how that affects
1:30.3	our work is just as interesting. And we're going to talk all about it. This is going wild.
1:42.3	This was the very beginning of 2019, and I had finished my postdoc.
1:48.9	I was several months into a research fellowship studying grizzly bears in Montana.
1:53.5	And on the side, I was also an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, and I was teaching principles of ecology to graduate students.
2:05.7	And so while I was with Johns Hopkins, I pitched an idea to teach a field course to the graduate students.
2:13.2	So it's kind of like, you know, a glorified field trip where we go somewhere in the world and I'd be able to teach wildlife ecology, you know, outside of the classroom.
2:24.3	I was in search of stability in my career and also like to demonstrate how valuable I was.
2:33.5	Being an adjunct faculty member is not a secure position. But if I was
2:38.4	teaching like the most popular field course, then, you know, I would be in really good shape.
	...

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