I had never, and I really mean never, heard of a single scientist who had gone to do field work in any capacity who by themselves brought a toddler along with them.

I remember thinking this is either going to be the most triumphant, life-changing adventure ever,

or it's going to be a complete disaster.

And I could just lose it all.

Toddlers and big carnivores don't exactly mix well.

I'm Dr. Ray Wynne Grant, and this is a different kind of nature show, a podcast all about the human drama of saving animals.

This season, I want to share my story.

But I also want to introduce you to the other amazing wildlife scientists out there. Some of my friends who study hyenas, work with lizards,

and even track sharks. The animals we study are great, but who we are as people and how that affects our work is just as interesting.

And we're going to talk all about it.

This is going wild.

So this was the summer of 2017. I had a really cool job at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. And although it was an amazing job at a really reputable institution, it was just a temporary job because it was funded by a grant and the grant was only for a few years.

Something that was always on my mind was like, where am I going to work? You know, like, where am I going to

really land as a scientist? And also at that point in my career, I really wanted more. I had really been building up to what I thought was a dream career, where I was traveling the world and going to all these amazing places, looking for wild animals and trying to do the work to save them. And I wanted to make sure I could continue being that bad research scientists

and not just, you know, someone who works at a museum

with the stuffed animals and the taxidermied animals.

And so for a while it seemed totally possible for me to continue that research life that I had been doing for years.

But then I became a wife and a mother.

Oh. Oh.

I feel like there's this thing that I used to hear. Marriage doesn't change a relationship

that much. Having kids is what really changes a relationship. And that might not be the case for everybody,

but I can say that was definitely the case for me.

...