Latest / Back From the Brink, from Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom / Saving the Rarest Beetle in America with Jeff Ewelt

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Saving the Rarest Beetle in America with Jeff Ewelt · Back From the Brink, from Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom

• 0:00
  (gentle upbeat music)
• 0:02
  - [Rae] There are about a million known species
• 0:05
  of insects on Earth.
• 0:07
  Scientists think we've probably found only a fifth of them.
• 0:11
  They pollinate our crops.
• 0:12
  They feed the birds, the fish, the reptiles,
• 0:14
  and most of the small mammals.
• 0:17
  They are the tiny workers
• 0:18
  holding entire ecosystems together.
• 0:21
  This is Nebraska.
• 0:23
  Most of the state is corn country,
• 0:26
  but north of Lincoln, the ground goes low and wet,
• 0:30
  and the water that comes up is saltier than the sea.
• 0:34
  This is the home for the Salt Creek tiger beetle,
• 0:37
  the only home that it has anywhere on Earth.
• 0:42
  - When I was a young, you know, animal trainer,
• 0:44
  somebody came to me and said,
• 0:45
  "Hey, Jeff, don't forget, all of these animals
• 0:47
  have little souls."
• 0:48
  And that has always stuck with me.
• 0:50
  - Our guest today is Jeff Ewelt,
• 0:52
  also known as Jeff the Nature Guy,
• 0:55
  and a familiar face on the Wild Kingdom television show.
• 0:59
  He's the chief zoological officer
• 1:01
  at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium,
• 1:04
  and he spent his entire career
• 1:07
  going to bat for the underdogs.
• 1:09
  Today, we'll learn all about a beetle
• 1:12
  that most people have never even heard of,
• 1:15
  and that has an entire coalition of scientists, zoos,
• 1:18
  and volunteers fighting for it.
• 1:20
  (gentle upbeat music)
• 1:23
  Welcome to "Back from the Brink"
• 1:25
  from Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.
• 1:27
  I'm Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant.
• 1:30
  - [Narrator] Each episode,
• 1:30
  we're going deep on a variety of species,
• 1:33
  one that went to the very edge of disappearing,
• 1:35
  and on the fight to bring it back.
• 1:38
  - Jeff, I am so happy to be here
• 1:41
  with someone I consider a friend and a colleague.
• 1:44
  - That's kind, it's, you know, always so great to see you
• 1:46
  and the whole Mutual of Omaha team.
• 1:47
  You guys are just always so welcoming,
• 1:49
  and it's always just a pleasure.
• 1:50
  So I'm happy to be here.
• 1:51
  - Well, you're part of the family.
• 1:52
  - [Jeff] Oh, that's so kind.
• 1:53
  - And you and I, you know, we've traveled together,
• 1:57
  we've filmed together,
• 1:58
  we've geeked out over animals together,
• 2:01
  but, like, it's always been, you know,
• 2:04
  warm, fuzzy, charismatic mammals.
• 2:08
  But today, you are bringing me something different today.
• 2:10
  - I am, and I love it
• 2:12
  because, listen, I have always been an underdog person.
• 2:15
  I love the underdogs of the animal world,
• 2:17
  the animals that people either don't wanna give the time
• 2:19
  because they're AKA gross, or they don't know about them.
• 2:23
  And so today we are gonna talk
• 2:25
  about the Salt Creek tiger beetle,
• 2:28
  probably an animal, although you probably have,
• 2:30
  but most people have never heard about.
• 2:32
  - I will say, not only did I not know
• 2:33
  about the Salt Creek tiger beetle
• 2:35
  until I started prepping for this,
• 2:38
  but I can't even really tell you
• 2:40
  about tiger beetles in general.
• 2:42
  - Yeah. - So that's why you're here.
• 2:44
  - Yeah, you know,
• 2:45
  and that's the amazing thing about these tiger beetles
• 2:47
  is it's believed about 3,000 species
• 2:50
  of these insects. (Rae gasps)
• 2:52
  But what we're gonna talk about is the Salt Creek one
• 2:54
  because it's found only in one place in the entire world,
• 2:58
  and it's in Nebraska of all places.
• 3:00
  How cool is that?
• 3:01
  - So, like, start from the beginning.
• 3:03
  For people who don't know what we're talking about,
• 3:05
  what is this beetle, and more importantly,
• 3:08
  what does it look like?
• 3:09
  - So if you've never seen a Salt Creek tiger beetle-
• 3:12
  - Which I have never seen one.
• 3:13
  - Yeah, they're beautiful.
• 3:14
  They are a metallic brown, sometimes olive green.
• 3:17
  They've got these blotches of color that's on their body.
• 3:21
  The underbody of them is an iridescent green color.
• 3:24
  And then that's where
• 3:25
  the beautiful part happens. - Okay.
• 3:27
  - Then it gets a little creepy
• 3:28
  because these really long legs, they've got bulging eyes,
• 3:32
  and they've got these jaws
• 3:33
  that come out that look pretty menacing.
• 3:36
  In fact, tiger beetles get the name
• 3:38
  because they are very predatory.
• 3:40
  And so they get that name
• 3:41
  because they are very quick at getting their prey.
• 3:44
  - Okay, so not because they're like black
• 3:47
  and orange stripes? - No.
• 3:47
  You would think because of the coloration,
• 3:49
  but it's because of their predatory action.
• 3:51
  All that to say, when you are out in the wild
• 3:53
  and you see a tiger beetle,
• 3:55
  they're gonna be about the size of your thumbnail.
• 3:56
  I mean,
• 3:57
  so they're relatively small. - Oh, small.
• 3:58
  - They're tiny.
• 3:59
  But when you see them for the first time,
• 4:01
  you're not gonna notice how small you are.
• 4:02
  You're gonna notice how fast they are.
• 4:04
  Those long legs help carry them quickly
• 4:07
  because they don't live very long once
• 4:08
  they emerge out of the burrows.
• 4:09
  We'll talk about that, but they're incredible.
• 4:12
  They're incredible little species.
• 4:14
  And again, only found in this one area
• 4:16
  north of Lincoln, Nebraska.
• 4:18
  I just love that. It's so amazing.
• 4:20
  (gentle upbeat music)
• 4:21
  - [Narrator] A beetle that is the size of a thumbnail
• 4:23
  in one marsh in one state.
• 4:26
  Jeff has been asked to justify it more times
• 4:28
  than he can count.
• 4:30
  - You know, so the question I often get
• 4:32
  when we talk about these types of animals is why care?
• 4:35
  Like, why do we care that the Salt Creek tiger beetles
• 4:38
  having issues in their habitat?
• 4:41
  And we have to care before a couple reasons.
• 4:42
  One, I always like to push back on that question,
• 4:45
  why not, right?
• 4:46
  You know, when I was a young, you know, animal trainer,
• 4:50
  somebody came to me and said,
• 4:51
  "Hey, Jeff, don't forget,
• 4:52
  all of these animals have little souls."
• 4:54
  And that has always stuck with me,
• 4:56
  that it doesn't matter if it's a tiny little beetle
• 4:59
  or it's a black bear or whatever it is,
• 5:01
  it's got a soul, right?
• 5:02
  Yeah. So that's always stuck with me.
• 5:03
  And so I've always believed
• 5:05
  we should save any species we can, right?
• 5:07
  As the most intelligent species on Earth,
• 5:09
  which sometimes is questionable,
• 5:11
  humans, we need to do our part, right?
• 5:13
  And we have the ability, we have the technology,
• 5:16
  we have the people that are interested in doing that.
• 5:20
  So let's do something, right?
• 5:21
  So that's why I think we have to care
• 5:23
  about the Salt Creek tiger beetle.
• 5:25
  But if you wanna get technical about it,
• 5:27
  they're also an indicator species.
• 5:29
  Like a lot of the amphibians
• 5:30
  that you've talked about over the course of your career,
• 5:33
  you know, this species is so important to let us know
• 5:36
  how the saline wetlands are so important to us as humans.
• 5:40
  And if the beetle dies out,
• 5:42
  that could be the end of those wetlands.
• 5:43
  And that could be a big deal
• 5:45
  because it can affect flooding,
• 5:47
  it can affect, you know, water quality,
• 5:49
  it can affect so many different things.
• 5:51
  So let's save this beetle because it's an indicator species.
• 5:54
  It helps us, right?
• 5:55
  And I hate to always turn it around
• 5:57
  that it doesn't have to help humans,
• 5:59
  but let's be honest, that helps, right?
• 6:01
  That helps the opportunity to save these species.
• 6:04
  - You know, this is interesting because we,
• 6:08
  as conservation professionals and as nature lovers,
• 6:12
  you know, even we are biased towards
• 6:15
  or biased away from insects and invertebrates.
• 6:18
  And, you know, I remember being maybe in,
• 6:22
  like, middle school or high school
• 6:23
  and learning about scarabs, right?
• 6:26
  So, like, learning about ancient Egypt, I think,
• 6:28
  and, you know, like, scarabs are kind of a part
• 6:30
  of the culture, and there's hieroglyphics.
• 6:32
  And I learned that that's kind of,
• 6:34
  you know, related to dung beetles.
• 6:36
  And then I remember becoming a conservationist
• 6:38
  and understanding dung beetles really make
• 6:40
  the world go round. - Absolutely.
• 6:41
  - I mean, we cannot survive on this planet,
• 6:44
  or the planet can't survive
• 6:45
  without dung beetles. - Yeah.
• 6:46
  - But I'm imagining that all kinds of beetles
• 6:49
  are relatively misunderstood or not understood yet,
• 6:53
  like you're saying, are indicator species
• 6:55
  or keystone species, are, you know, making things happen.
• 6:59
  And especially if the Salt Creek tiger beetle is predatory,
• 7:04
  probably what it's eating needs to be eaten.
• 7:07
  - Absolutely.
• 7:07
  You know, and then that's exactly right.
• 7:09
  And, you know, some of these prey species,
• 7:11
  mosquito larvae, all that stuff that's so important
• 7:13
  that we have these animals
• 7:14
  that help keep those populations under control, right?
• 7:17
  You know, reptiles are the same thing.
• 7:19
  People are always scared of snakes,
• 7:20
  but my gosh, if we didn't have those reptiles eating
• 7:23
  the mice and the rodent- - Right.
• 7:24
  Rodents would go
• 7:25
  out of control. - Absolutely.
• 7:26
  You know, and with the Hantavirus scare that was recent,
• 7:29
  that brings all that to light,
• 7:31
  that, you know, all of this stuff works together.
• 7:33
  And, you know, it may be cheesy to talk about,
• 7:35
  but that circle of life is so real and so important.
• 7:40
  And it does.
• 7:41
  It starts with those smallest of the small
• 7:43
  that need our attention.
• 7:44
  - So okay, I really wanna talk about the trajectory
• 7:47
  that this tiger beetle has had.
• 7:49
  But first, Jeff, I wanna understand why A,
• 7:53
  you know so much about it,
• 7:55
  and B, what is it about you
• 7:58
  that draws you to these tiger beetles?
• 8:00
  - So I have just recently moved to Nebraska.
• 8:02
  I've been at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium
• 8:05
  for about a year now.
• 8:06
  And, you know, our conservation programs
• 8:08
  at that organization, as you well know, are incredible.
• 8:10
  And the Salt Creek tiger beetle
• 8:11
  has been one that the zoo has been working on.
• 8:14
  And again, because I've always gravitated to the underdogs
• 8:17
  of the animal world, vultures are my favorite animal,
• 8:19
  they always have been, I just gravitated to this program
• 8:22
  because I thought how amazing that all of these people,
• 8:26
  all of these entities, universities,
• 8:28
  you know, nonprofit organizations,
• 8:30
  all of these entities are coming together
• 8:32
  to save this little tiny insect.
• 8:35
  That's so inspiring to me.
• 8:37
  And so I gravitated to that for that reason
• 8:39
  and just kind of absorbed all I could in the last year.
• 8:43
  And I've been so fortunate to go on a release
• 8:45
  of some of these larvae.
• 8:47
  And it was an amazing, humbling experience that,
• 8:51
  you know, when you think,
• 8:52
  okay, you're just putting little larvae in the ground,
• 8:54
  how cool can it be?
• 8:56
  It blew me away. - Oh my God.
• 8:57
  - It was an amazing experience.
• 8:59
  And then to be in this incredible habitat
• 9:02
  of these saline wetlands,
• 9:03
  which again, look otherworldly, was an amazing experience.
• 9:07
  So that's where my history comes from.
• 9:09
  I did not grow up working
• 9:10
  with these animals. - Okay.
• 9:12
  - It's just something that came to me
• 9:14
  and I just, I fell in love with it.
• 9:16
  - [Narrator] A narrow set of conditions
• 9:18
  met in one place on Earth,
• 9:19
  it's absolutely perfect for the beetle.
• 9:22
  Bear, salted mud along the creek banks,
• 9:24
  it is clear of plants and just damp enough for tunneling.
• 9:28
  There were once more than 20,000 acres of it.
• 9:33
  - So the Salt Creek tiger beetle
• 9:36
  has had some trouble in its history.
• 9:38
  I'm sure that there was, you know,
• 9:40
  millions of years where it was doing just fine.
• 9:44
  And then what happened? - Yeah.
• 9:46
  Well, as always is the story,
• 9:48
  humans got involved. - Humans.
• 9:50
  - I mean, you know, and as a human,
• 9:52
  I'm throwing myself under the bus here.
• 9:53
  We're part of the problem, right?
• 9:55
  So yeah, Salt Creek tiger beetles,
• 9:57
  because they are so tied to that saline wetland,
• 10:00
  as, you know, settling happened and, you know,
• 10:05
  the changing of rivers and creeks
• 10:07
  and kind of channelization of these waterways,
• 10:10
  it drained a lot of those wetlands.
• 10:12
  Building, obviously,
• 10:14
  agriculture, all of these things that have kind of,
• 10:16
  you know, hurt some of these natural landscapes.
• 10:19
  - And I have to interrupt you.
• 10:20
  What part of Nebraska has the wetlands?
• 10:23
  - Yeah, so it was pretty much overall of Nebraska
• 10:26
  for the most part. - Oh, really?
• 10:27
  - But now it's really just honed
• 10:29
  into that kind of north of Lincoln, Nebraska.
• 10:31
  So think of center, kind of south-central
• 10:34
  of the state. - Okay.
• 10:36
  - You know, Nebraska's a pretty big state.
• 10:37
  Kind of think of that center, that central area there.
• 10:39
  But these wetlands,
• 10:41
  what I think is so neat about them is they are salty.
• 10:45
  And so there's still a lot of misunderstanding
• 10:47
  of why that is.
• 10:49
  The theory and the understanding is that most likely,
• 10:53
  in the rocks underneath the soil,
• 10:56
  there's a very high salt content.
• 10:58
  Back in the ancient years, many, many, many moons ago,
• 11:01
  there was an ancient seabed that was salty,
• 11:04
  and those minerals kind of settled into that rock
• 11:06
  and became these kind of wetlands.
• 11:08
  And what's so neat about it is when you go out there,
• 11:10
  I keep saying it, but it's otherworldly
• 11:12
  because you're in the middle of Nebraska,
• 11:14
  you wouldn't think of having a salt marsh, essentially.
• 11:17
  - At all. - No.
• 11:18
  And so you have these plants that are,
• 11:21
  they have evolved to obviously live within this area.
• 11:25
  So when you walk there,
• 11:26
  you're almost feeling like you're walking next to the ocean.
• 11:29
  It's bizarre.
• 11:30
  Right in the middle of corn country Nebraska, here they are.
• 11:34
  Over many years,
• 11:35
  obviously, those wetlands just kind of got plowed over.
• 11:38
  And unfortunately, as it always goes,
• 11:40
  we realize as time goes on, we made a mistake.
• 11:44
  These wetlands really are important.
• 11:45
  And so because of that, unfortunately,
• 11:48
  meant the demise of these beetles.
• 11:50
  - I guess we wanna have some compassion because much of it
• 11:53
  wasn't intentional. - Sure.
• 11:56
  - So folks in Nebraska said,
• 11:58
  "This looks like a great place for agriculture.
• 12:00
  We can spark an agriculture economy here.
• 12:03
  We can feed people.
• 12:05
  Let's change the ecosystem from wetland ecosystem
• 12:09
  to agriculture ecosystem."
• 12:11
  But that took away the habitat en masse.
• 12:14
  - It did. Yeah.
• 12:15
  You know, and absolutely...
• 12:16
  I, you know, completely get it, right?
• 12:18
  Like, you know, we have to survive too, right?
• 12:20
  So it's a dicey area.
• 12:24
  The real dagger for this beetle, though,
• 12:26
  is that it's so tied to those saline wetlands
• 12:30
  that they couldn't just migrate to somewhere else.
• 12:33
  This beetle, because it evolved in this salt marsh,
• 12:37
  can't just move on.
• 12:39
  And so that's a big problem for this animal.
• 12:41
  And so thankfully, thanks to some of these recovery efforts,
• 12:45
  those wetlands are now being saved.
• 12:46
  And so these beetles can once again start
• 12:49
  the process of thriving, but it's gonna take some time,
• 12:52
  as all these conservation efforts do.
• 12:53
  - Do you have a sense for how bad it got, like,
• 12:57
  in terms of population size or extent or whatnot?
• 13:00
  Do you kind of know,
• 13:02
  like, at what point we as conservationists
• 13:05
  and as society were quite worried
• 13:07
  and at what point, you know, recovery efforts began?
• 13:11
  - So it started actually back in the early 2000s.
• 13:13
  I believe it was around 2005,
• 13:16
  maybe a little earlier than that.
• 13:17
  There was a pretty extensive study done
• 13:18
  to try to figure out the population.
• 13:20
  And when you're talking about such a small insect,
• 13:23
  that's a difficult thing to do, right?
• 13:24
  How do you get out there and make these counts,
• 13:27
  especially when they're living most
• 13:28
  of their life underground?
• 13:29
  And so it was a difficult process, but at that time,
• 13:31
  they only counted about 150 adults.
• 13:34
  Nothing- - 150.
• 13:36
  - [Jeff] 150, right?
• 13:37
  - And I bet they looked everywhere.
• 13:39
  - They did, absolutely.
• 13:41
  And they canvased the habitats.
• 13:43
  So about 150 adults.
• 13:44
  The silver lining is that that got the attention
• 13:47
  of the federal government.
• 13:48
  And at that point, they were listed as endangered.
• 13:51
  So once that happened,
• 13:52
  that's when all of the resources started coming in,
• 13:55
  funding, resources to make some of these projects happen,
• 13:58
  partnerships, collaborations.
• 14:00
  And that was really the start
• 14:02
  of the recovery process of this animal.
• 14:04
  (gentle upbeat music)
• 14:05
  - [Narrator] Finding just 150 adults,
• 14:07
  the Salt Creek tiger beetle
• 14:09
  landed on the endangered species list in 2005.
• 14:13
  That's when the money arrived.
• 14:15
  Habitat was set aside,
• 14:16
  and a coalition came together for the humble beetle,
• 14:19
  a federal agency, a state agency, a university,
• 14:24
  a natural resources district, and a city, and two zoos.
• 14:28
  Together, they worked out how to raise larvae in a lab,
• 14:31
  and then they scaled it up.
• 14:34
  - There's been efforts made.
• 14:35
  Now we have maybe 300 in the wild,
• 14:38
  but you just named a number of organizations
• 14:41
  who I imagine are bringing some of these beetles in-house
• 14:45
  to kind of propagate them.
• 14:46
  Have you seen that?
• 14:47
  - Yeah. And that's happening, and it's amazing.
• 14:49
  So basically, the way that it works is that these beetles,
• 14:52
  so their lifespan,
• 14:53
  one of my favorite things about them
• 14:54
  is their bizarre lifespan.
• 14:56
  So they lay eggs.
• 14:57
  Once they hatch their eggs, they lay eggs.
• 14:59
  About 14 days later or so, they will hatch,
• 15:02
  and they will come out as a pupa, a larva,
• 15:05
  and they will live in this really narrow burrow.
• 15:07
  So when we release these animals,
• 15:09
  we use, like, a pencil to create this burrow.
• 15:12
  So think a pencil with, you know, down,
• 15:14
  I don't know, maybe what, 10 inches.
• 15:16
  They live in that burrow for two years in this pupa stage,
• 15:20
  this larva stage. - Oh my gosh.
• 15:21
  - And they're opportunistic.
• 15:22
  So they wait for these animals to walk by,
• 15:25
  and then they run up and they grab these animals,
• 15:27
  and that's how they eat.
• 15:28
  After two years, they emerge as an adult,
• 15:31
  and they live for about two weeks.
• 15:33
  And all they do in that two weeks is they find a female
• 15:36
  or a male, they breed, and then they die.
• 15:38
  So that lifespan is about two years, but the only-
• 15:42
  - And mostly underground. - And mostly underground.
• 15:44
  It's wild.
• 15:45
  So in order to propagate these animals,
• 15:48
  you, one, have to recreate that habitat
• 15:50
  because they are so tied to that salinity and that soil.
• 15:53
  Number two is you gotta essentially rear these things
• 15:57
  for a couple years if you wanna release adults,
• 15:59
  which we have done.
• 16:00
  But more often than not, we release the larvae.
• 16:03
  So we go out into these salt, in these salt marshes,
• 16:06
  we create those burrows,
• 16:07
  we put these little larvae in these holes,
• 16:09
  we cover it up,
• 16:10
  and we just hope that they survive those two years.
• 16:13
  And I will never forget the first release I went on,
• 16:16
  I'm holding this little tiny larva in my hand. I'm like-
• 16:19
  - Which most people would not do.
• 16:20
  - Exactly. - Okay.
• 16:22
  - But I was amazed this little tiny,
• 16:24
  you know, worm-looking thing.
• 16:26
  I'm like, hundreds of people are here to watch this
• 16:29
  and do this.
• 16:30
  And it was just, it was heartwarming to me, like, for real.
• 16:33
  It really meant a lot to me.
• 16:35
  And so there's a lot of effort that goes into it.
• 16:37
  And it's not just zoos, it's universities,
• 16:40
  University of Nebraska, Game and Parks in Nebraska,
• 16:44
  US Fish and Wildlife.
• 16:45
  They're all coming together to make this happen.
• 16:47
  And it's just amazing.
• 16:49
  So much work goes into it, so much expertise.
• 16:51
  - You know, I feel like for someone like you
• 16:53
  who's seen this firsthand,
• 16:55
  you know, folks gathering around larvae
• 16:57
  that you're gonna put in the earth
• 16:59
  and not see for two years,
• 17:00
  like, it must be so easy for you to access hope.
• 17:05
  You know, for some conservationists,
• 17:06
  it takes a lot for them to pull that hope out of them,
• 17:10
  but you actually are surrounded
• 17:11
  by examples day in and day out
• 17:14
  that can give you hope for the future.
• 17:16
  - Yeah, that's exactly right.
• 17:17
  And that hope is everything, right?
• 17:18
  And, you know, there is something about, you know,
• 17:21
  packing a little larva into a hole,
• 17:22
  walking away, and just believing that larva's gonna survive.
• 17:27
  And we know that that's happening to a point
• 17:29
  because the population,
• 17:30
  although it's not huge, it's rising, right?
• 17:32
  So that hope is there.
• 17:34
  And so you're right.
• 17:35
  There is a point where, you know,
• 17:37
  when you're working with wildlife and you see firsthand
• 17:40
  that maybe a conservation program isn't happening
• 17:43
  the way you want it to, that's deflating, right?
• 17:45
  But when you can walk away
• 17:46
  and just in your mind have a little bit of hope
• 17:49
  that this is happening, it's good for the soul, right?
• 17:52
  And so that's what I do like about this program
• 17:54
  is that because we know those numbers are slowly rising,
• 17:57
  we know there is success out there, that hope is everything.
• 18:01
  - I have to say, Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo is special.
• 18:06
  And one of the reasons that I find it special
• 18:08
  is that there is so much behind-the-scenes work at the zoo
• 18:13
  with the little guys, right?
• 18:14
  I mean, the zoo has incredible exhibits
• 18:17
  and habitats with these amazing iconic species,
• 18:21
  but I've seen the laboratories in the back,
• 18:24
  off-limits to the public, with, you know,
• 18:27
  the Puerto Rican crested toad, you know,
• 18:29
  like little animals that belong
• 18:32
  in one part of the world only,
• 18:34
  and there's only a few hundred of them.
• 18:36
  You know, and you all are,
• 18:38
  you know, hatching them from eggs and growing them up
• 18:41
  and giving them strength-training exercises
• 18:43
  and then shipping them in FedEx across the,
• 18:46
  you know, continent.
• 18:47
  And then with this Salt Creek tiger beetle,
• 18:52
  I have to get that right. - Yeah, it's tough.
• 18:53
  - You know, you all are propagating larvae
• 18:57
  and, you know, bringing them back into these habitats.
• 19:00
  To me, that is something that everyone needs to know about,
• 19:04
  that you can have an amazing zoo experience
• 19:07
  as a guest of the zoo,
• 19:09
  but you should know that behind the scenes,
• 19:11
  there is very serious scientific work going on.
• 19:14
  - Yeah, amazing scientific work.
• 19:15
  And I'm so honored to be part of Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo.
• 19:18
  It's an amazing facility.
• 19:20
  And what I love so much about it is exactly what you said,
• 19:23
  is that our conservation efforts
• 19:25
  do focus on the little guys.
• 19:27
  I love how you put that because it's true.
• 19:29
  It's not just about the big ones, right?
• 19:32
  You know, the charismatic animals that we all talk about,
• 19:35
  because those little guys need to love too.
• 19:37
  You know, and I love and I'm so proud of the work
• 19:39
  that we do for that reason.
• 19:41
  (audio whooshing)
• 19:42
  - So, okay.
• 19:43
  You have been out in these marshes in Nebraska.
• 19:47
  And my question is,
• 19:48
  when it comes to those ecosystems themselves,
• 19:51
  right now, does it look like there's opportunity
• 19:54
  to restore some areas back into a healthy salt marsh?
• 20:01
  Or do you think the effort is more to preserve
• 20:03
  what salt marsh we have left?
• 20:05
  - Yeah, I think a little bit of both, honestly.
• 20:07
  I think the preservation piece
• 20:08
  is gonna be the easiest piece, right?
• 20:10
  But you know, in the conservation world, easy isn't how we-
• 20:13
  - It's not easy. - It's not easy, exactly.
• 20:15
  But preservation is actively underway,
• 20:17
  but so is restoration.
• 20:19
  There's an amazing organization in Nebraska
• 20:22
  called the Saline Wetland Conservation Partnership,
• 20:25
  and they've saved over 2,000 acres of wetlands
• 20:28
  and are actively restoring
• 20:30
  some of these wetland areas as well.
• 20:32
  So it's a little bit of both.
• 20:33
  You know, and that's what I love,
• 20:35
  especially now that there's the endangered status
• 20:37
  that we talked about.
• 20:38
  There's all these government entities
• 20:40
  and universities involved
• 20:41
  that it's getting the attention that it needs.
• 20:43
  And so because of that, I think the preservation
• 20:46
  is gonna continue years and years and years into the future,
• 20:49
  which I mean, you got to love that, right?
• 20:51
  I mean, that's what it's all about
• 20:53
  to save all these animals.
• 20:54
  It's amazing.
• 20:55
  - Well, so Jeff, I mean, this is like a bit meta,
• 20:59
  but I mean, I can't help but think that
• 21:03
  if it took a really long time for folks to realize, like,
• 21:07
  "Hey, there's this beetle that
• 21:08
  is the size of your fingernail."
• 21:11
  If that just kind of more recently got discovered
• 21:15
  or kind of got attention brought to it,
• 21:17
  don't you think that we've got a similar issue
• 21:20
  in so many parts of America, let alone the world?
• 21:23
  I mean, should we all just be laying around
• 21:26
  in different ecosystems, looking at the ground
• 21:28
  to see what comes up, and then counting how many there are?
• 21:30
  What if there's, like, tons of endemic species everywhere?
• 21:34
  - I'm telling you, it's overwhelming,
• 21:36
  right? - Yeah.
• 21:37
  - You know, people laugh, but that's kind of weird stuff
• 21:40
  that'll keep you up at night
• 21:41
  when you're in this world- - Yeah, people like us. Yeah.
• 21:43
  - Exactly, you know, because you're exactly right.
• 21:45
  What are we missing?
• 21:46
  You know, and as you know, you're one of them,
• 21:48
  being in the field and taking those counts
• 21:51
  and just observing is amazing.
• 21:54
  And I always love to say, like, get out and observe.
• 21:58
  Like, see what you see out there.
• 21:59
  Even somebody that has nothing to do with animals,
• 22:03
  like, just get out in nature and observe,
• 22:05
  and you don't know what you're gonna find.
• 22:07
  We got to get out there. We got to learn more.
• 22:09
  And I'm always still amazed in this world
• 22:12
  that there are still animals we have not discovered.
• 22:14
  And I'm not just talking to these small beetles.
• 22:16
  I mean, how can we not know that a primate still exists?
• 22:20
  It's wild to me, you know, but I love that.
• 22:22
  And I think, to your point, being able to get out there,
• 22:25
  get at nature, not just scientists and conservationists,
• 22:29
  but the everyday person,
• 22:30
  let's get out there and let's observe.
• 22:32
  And there's great tools that you can even record
• 22:35
  that stuff for the scientists and the conservations.
• 22:37
  - You're absolutely right.
• 22:38
  You know, I love living in this era
• 22:41
  where any person at all, young to, you know,
• 22:45
  130 years old, you know, can be activated
• 22:49
  and empowered to support science
• 22:52
  and drive conservation forward.
• 22:54
  These days, anyone over a certain age
• 22:56
  has a smartphone and there are apps
• 22:59
  like iNaturalist is a really well-known one.
• 23:02
  So everyone, download iNaturalist,
• 23:05
  where you can see anything and record it.
• 23:07
  Any living thing, you open the app,
• 23:09
  you take a picture of it,
• 23:10
  and it records the location
• 23:13
  that you saw it and what the species is.
• 23:15
  And so if you do find some interesting insect or reptile,
• 23:20
  amphibian, I mean any bird, whatever it is,
• 23:22
  you are contributing to scientific collection,
• 23:26
  and the people who can take action
• 23:28
  to say that species are able to say,
• 23:29
  "Oh my gosh, like, that bird was found in that place."
• 23:33
  This gives us hope.
• 23:34
  This gives us motivation to do a study to protect it.
• 23:37
  - Absolutely.
• 23:38
  You know, the citizen science these days is amazing,
• 23:41
  and we couldn't do what we could do
• 23:43
  without them, you know, without that.
• 23:45
  And to be able to be somebody that is just out in nature,
• 23:49
  myself included, yourself included,
• 23:51
  snap a picture of a bird that you've never seen before,
• 23:52
  put it on iNaturalist, and then all of a sudden,
• 23:55
  you find out that bird hasn't been seen there
• 23:57
  in 100 years- - Right.
• 23:58
  - What an amazing experience for you, right?
• 24:02
  You know, so I love stuff like that.
• 24:04
  And you're right, citizen science should be everywhere.
• 24:06
  - I love stuff like that too.
• 24:08
  And it kind of unifies so many of us,
• 24:12
  you know, instead of saying that person does conservation,
• 24:15
  but not that person.
• 24:16
  Actually, all of us can be in this together
• 24:19
  to, you know, improve the state
• 24:21
  of the planet. - So right.
• 24:23
  - Jeff, it has been so awesome talking to you.
• 24:26
  I never thought I would have a big smile
• 24:28
  on my face- - I love it.
• 24:29
  - After spending time talking about a tiger beetle.
• 24:31
  - Beetles. I know.
• 24:32
  They're so cool.
• 24:33
  - I am changed. - I love that.
• 24:36
  You know, and that's what it's all about.
• 24:37
  And you know, in our world,
• 24:39
  it's all about creating that excitement, right?
• 24:42
  I love changing people's minds.
• 24:44
  Best part of the job.
• 24:45
  - And you are doing
• 24:46
  that every single day. - I love it.
• 24:46
  - Thank you so much, Jeff Ewelt, for joining us-
• 24:49
  - Pleasure. - On "Back from the Brink."
• 24:51
  (gentle upbeat music)
• 24:52
  If this episode sparked something for you,
• 24:54
  follow or subscribe.
• 24:55
  Leave a review and send it to the wildlife lover,
• 24:59
  the Nebraskan, or the person in your life
• 25:01
  who stops to look at bugs on the sidewalk
• 25:03
  and gets left behind by the group,
• 25:05
  or the friend who's all three.
• 25:07
  I'm Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, and I'll see you next time.
• 25:10
  (gentle upbeat music) (audio whooshing)
• 25:11
  - [Narrator] The "Back from the Brink" podcast
• 25:12
  is sponsored by Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom,
• 25:16
  hosted by Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant.
• 25:19
  Narrated by Peter Gros.
• 25:21
  Executive producers are Jen Wulf and Jenny Van Soelen.
• 25:25
  Podcast production by Lower Street Media.
• 25:28
  (gentle upbeat music)