Ex Situ Conservation
Conservation Biology
Class Meetings
Dates: 2026-11-16T16:00:00, 2026-11-18T16:00:00
Assigned Background
The Role of Zoos and Aquariums in a Changing World
Journal: Annual Review of Animal Biosciences
Year: 2023
DOI: 10.1146/annurev-animal-050622-104306
URL: https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-animal-050622-104306
Citekey: miranda_etal_2023a
Open in Zotero: miranda_etal_2023a.pdf
Miranda R, Escribano N, Casas M, Pino-del-Carpio A, Villarroya A. The Role of Zoos and Aquariums in a Changing World. Annual Review of Animal Biosciences. 2023;11:287-306. doi:10.1146/annurev-animal-050622-104306
Zoos and aquariums have evolved significantly. From their origins as enclosures for the mere entertainment of the public, these institutions have undertaken new functions responding to the biodiversity crisis and social demands. Modern zoos and aquariums have the opportunity to educate people, contribute to species conservation, and produce animal-related research. However, there is increasing criticism toward the outcomes of their actions and the holding of species in their facilities. This review offers an integrated analysis of the state of knowledge about the role that zoos and aquariums play today. It describes their performance regarding their conservation, education, and research functions, highlighting general patterns and offering future perspectives. It identifies some challenges common to all these institutions, concluding that the way they keep up with the ever-growing social and environmental expectations will be decisive hereafter.
PDF Copy
Optional Material (Dive Deeper)
Readings
Ch 16 Ex Situ Conservation
Textbook: Conservation Biology (see details below)
Chapter: 16 (Approaches to Conservation)
Sections Assigned: 16.1, 16.2 (Ex Situ Conservation)
Days Covered: BIOL4120_W12D2
Text: Conservation Biology by
Edition: 2nd (2025-01-17)
ISBN: 9780197667033 (textbook)
The Role of Zoos and Aquariums in a Changing World
Journal: Annual Review of Animal Biosciences
Year: 2023
DOI: 10.1146/annurev-animal-050622-104306
URL: https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-animal-050622-104306
Citekey: miranda_etal_2023a
Open in Zotero: miranda_etal_2023a.pdf
Miranda R, Escribano N, Casas M, Pino-del-Carpio A, Villarroya A. The Role of Zoos and Aquariums in a Changing World. Annual Review of Animal Biosciences. 2023;11:287-306. doi:10.1146/annurev-animal-050622-104306
Zoos and aquariums have evolved significantly. From their origins as enclosures for the mere entertainment of the public, these institutions have undertaken new functions responding to the biodiversity crisis and social demands. Modern zoos and aquariums have the opportunity to educate people, contribute to species conservation, and produce animal-related research. However, there is increasing criticism toward the outcomes of their actions and the holding of species in their facilities. This review offers an integrated analysis of the state of knowledge about the role that zoos and aquariums play today. It describes their performance regarding their conservation, education, and research functions, highlighting general patterns and offering future perspectives. It identifies some challenges common to all these institutions, concluding that the way they keep up with the ever-growing social and environmental expectations will be decisive hereafter.
PDF Copy
Ex situ breeding programs benefit from science-based cooperative management
Journal: Zoo Biology
Year: 2023
DOI: 10.1002/zoo.21700
URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/zoo.21700
Citekey: putnam_etal_2023
Open in Zotero: putnam_etal_2023.pdf
Putnam AS, Ferrie GM, Ivy JA. Ex situ breeding programs benefit from science-based cooperative management. Zoo Biology. 2023;42(1):5-16. doi:10.1002/zoo.21700
Science-based management confers a variety of benefits to wildlife populations that are cooperatively managed by zoos and aquariums, including those managed through the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Briefly, when management strategies are successful, they result in reproductively robust populations that better retain genetic diversity and limit inbreeding than unmanaged populations. Although the benefits of demographic and genetic management have been well documented throughout both the scientific and popular literature, it has also been established that the majority of managed populations in zoos and aquariums are not meeting the minimum criteria believed to convey long-term biological viability. For most of these populations, an inability to meet viability criteria is not an inherent failure of how cooperative management is implemented. Furthermore, in recent years, we have perceived that the need to meet specific viability goals sometimes has obscured the benefits that these populations receive from rigorous, science-based management. To better clarify the conversation surrounding population viability in zoos and aquariums, we seek to decouple viability measures and how they predict population persistence from the benefits conferred to populations through science-based management. A primary goal of population management is to facilitate the persistence of priority species for longer than would be expected if no such management were implemented. Although current viability measures and future projections of viability are important tools for assessing the likelihood of population persistence, they are not indicators of which populations may most benefit from science-based management. Here, we review the history and purpose of applying science-based management to zoo and aquarium populations, describe measures of population viability and caution against confusing those measures of viability with population management goals or long-term population sustainability, and clearly articulate the benefits conferred to zoo and aquarium populations by science-based management.
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Video Clips
Search ongoing for extinct Tasmanian tiger amid efforts to revive species 60 Minutes
60 Minutes, 04 16, 2024
Video (13:19)
Description
Thylacines — marsupials known as Tasmanian tigers — were declared extinct decades ago, but efforts to find one in the wild are thriving. Scientists are also working to bring back the species.
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Transcript
Intro
0:04 · there’s The Lochness Monster in Scotland and in the Himalayas there’s the yeti the Abominable Snowman in Tasmania a teardrop of an island under the eye of the Australian Mainland there’s the thyine a creature that brings out folklore and folks armed with grainy images convinced they’ve seen the thing but unlike other mythical creatures the thyine or Tasmanian tiger actually indisputably existed an apex predator
0:32 · the size of a small wolf roam the island as recently as last century which gives hope to so many obsessives dreamers and True Believers looking for the Tasmanian tiger in the bush and as you’ll see in the lab this is a story that says as much about human nature as it does nature nature further proof that even in the face of Science and logic passion survives in the wild just fine the story will continue in a
The Tasmanian Tiger
1:03 · moment you’ve been doing this how many years now I’ve been doing this for over 30 years and every day is in adventure all right here we go getting there wasn’t easy but Adrien richo Richardson a retired military man turned self-declared tiger Seeker retraced his steps tramping around the dense Outback of Tasmania on January January 28th 2017 12:45 p.m. he heard
1:34 · the sound and then all of a sudden was this a mighty H like this I was Gob smacked the hairs on my arm and my neck stood on end and as that call finished another one come from the other side of the forestry track another how like that what that one sound like exactly like richo craned his neck but saw no
2:02 · creature still he’s sure of what it was a Tasmanian tiger the whole environment went quiet for about a minute there was unbelievable feeling I just can’t explain it yeah you’re still emotional talking about this look I’ve got to remember that call for the time I di and then I had to try and prove to
2:24 · others of what I’ve heard when he returned to his home in Hobart tasmania’s capital he didn’t go down to the pub to share his account no he took to his desk and stayed up writing a detailed report flush with 22 footnotes what my passion is it’s the thyine I know it’s there and this only reinforced your faith oh without a doubt one slight
2:49 · hitch one crimp on the Barbie as it were the creature richo described so vividly and breathlessly it was declared extinct almost 40 years ago thought you know maybe it’s a dingo may maybe it’s a wolf in Tasmania we do not have anything
3:06 · remotely like it we do not even have wild dogs in any form the only feral thing we have around here is deer or cats I don’t think deers are making that noise you just made no sir they did not the Tasmanian Tiger roam these parts for thousands of years more wolf than tiger it was is a marsupio weighing about 55
More wolf than tiger
3:28 · lb the Tas tiger easily distinguished by his straight unjointed tail it was also a carnivore that prayed on Farmer sheep recalling the fate of the wolf of the American West around the same time the local government paid out bounties to Hunters presenting carcasses by the mid 1930s the tazzy tiger population had dwindled to one captive at hobart’s bis
3:52 · Zoo where it died in 1936 with the required 50 years elapsing without a confirmed sighting the tiger was put on the extinct list in 1986 yet putting the Mania in Tasmania the search became a national Obsession and the Tasmanian Tiger not the Tasmanian devil became a sort of local mascot its image adorns tasmania’s coat
4:15 · of arms and government buildings here’s the Island’s current license plate at local watering holes the regulars put down their tazzy Tiger Beer long enough to tell you they’ve seen the animal or know someone who has I stood there and held the torch on it for 40 seconds I Reon when Nick money was a full-time Hobart biologist it felt to him to investigate the various Tasmanian tiger accounts now in retirement he’s
4:43 · the Island’s unofficial Arbiter I know several people who’ve got clusters of cameras in very remote areas um serviced remotely by setlight and who um go and check on the cameras with their own helicopter um all sorts of things they moved Way Beyond the guy with binoculars saying I think I may have seen something oh absolutely he can’t help notice no one ever quite captures a clear image still reported
5:13 · sightings come by the thousands have you ever gotten a report or ever looked into something that gave you a little pause yes um sometimes people are dead accurate with the times the places the distances and
5:30 · they’re very good naturalists often don’t exaggerate like they take their skills very seriously and it’s very hard to say to those people um I don’t think you saw a thylene for the devoted Army of seekers the investment isn’t just one of Hope and time each year richo spends um more than he cares to admit dollars on trail cam batteries alone how much money have you sunk into this excession sir I wouldn’t like to speculate and
5:59 · please don’t tell my wife make it our secret that’s our secret she often asks and I go don’t get your head ony I stop that one can I stop that one can you redo that one again in the bush we met another Enthusiast Chris rayberg who flies down from Mainland Australia and approaches the search in the manner of a CSI detective apart from the cameras I GA you’ve been scouring for
6:30 · fur even poo yeah everything so scats Footprints is a big one um and I I found a a series of 18 19 individual steps in a track line that are an excellent match for tazy Tiger not only are they an excellent match the quality of the prince is pristine scats keep an eye out check it out you know what’s the animal been eating um yeah and calls if you hear them there are even tracking collectives richo was part of the booth Richardson tiger team thank you for joining us on what we believe is a
7:03 · historic day which made worldwide news in 2017 after calling a press conference to announce a sighting but when they provided this image as proof Nick money assessed it as a chance but not an official confirmation what is the middle ground you can be right you can be lying or or you can have an illusion and there’s all sorts of ways that memory can be um um affected by time I’ve had
7:31 · lots of talks with psychiatrists and detectives trying to figure out this you really often have to make a choice a personal call in the end to essentially tell them they’re they’re wrong and their mind is deceiving them oh you can’t tell them that because you don’t know essentially if you weren’t there you don’t know richo and all the other Seekers won’t have to wait long they won’t even have to go into the bush if a group of tech investors and biologists deliver on their goal Andrew pass counts
The quest
7:58 · himself among the tazzy tiger transfixed he comes to the quest though armed not with binoculars but a microscope in his tiger lab Envision that day when you’re you’re not just wearing another P yeah 100% I think about it all the time what it would be like to be in that landscape and just to see one walking past in the bush an actual one rather than a crappy photograph tell us exactly what you’re doing we can’t magically bring the Tasmanian Tiger back we have to start
8:27 · with a living cell and then end engineer our phocine back into existence so the way you do that is you find the closest living relative to your animal that has gone extinct and for us that is a small mass of P species called the fat tiled dut a developmental biologist at the University of Melbourne pascus raised $15 million for a de Extinction project
8:49 · that recalls Jurassic Park in partnership with American company colossal biosciences which counts wait for it Leonardo DiCaprio Paris Hilton and even the CIA among its backers he’s adamant he’ll replicate the Genome of a dard a mouse like marsupial and turn it into a much larger tazzy tiger we’ll let him explain we examine all of its DNA We
9:15 · compare that to the DNA of your extinct species the Tasmanian tiger and we look at everywhere that those two genomes or those two uh piles of DNA if you like are different and once you’ve identified those differences it’s just a matter of them going in and making all of those edits to turn your fatile dard genome or
9:35 · cell into a phocine cell and you’re saying that dunard that little little field mouse marsupial duner is closer than say the Tasmanian devil but that little dut is a ferocious carnivore even though it’s very very small and it’s a very good surrogate for us to be able to do all of this editing in a native of Minnesota Chris Helgen is director of the Australian Museum Research Institute in Sydney he understands the push to De extinct the tazzy tiger this is one of my favorite mammals really and I love
The skeptic
10:07 · all mammals I am a mammal Guy this is a special special animal he took us upstairs to his lab to show us why so this is Tasmanian tiger of the 19th century see the stripes see the thick tail see this gaping mouth with the sharp teeth what do you make of this de
10:28 · Extinction effort with respect to the Tasmanian Tiger you know I would be the first person to line up to see this animal if it could be somehow brought back from Extinction that said Helgen is the skeptic gently explaining that wishing tazzy Tigers were running rampant doesn’t overcome science the idea that you could actually tweak the DNA of this mouthsize animal into making
10:54 · this apex predator of Australia yeah it stretches imagination in many different ways this is an Impossible Project we all love optimism we all love Innovation what they’re saying is we’re going to modify the Genome of a dart to create a genetically
11:12 · modified Dart that might look a bit more like a thine maybe we’ll be able to tweak it genetically and it gets a bit bigger maybe we’ll be able to tweak it genetically and it has some stripes on it but there’s about a thousand one steps in between H has thought about the source of the current tazzy tiger passion and wonders how much of it is driven by remorse it’s a special symbol about Australia and about what we’ve lost we’ve had a lot of extinctions here in the last 100 200 years 30 mammals
11:45 · alone so in the United States only one or two mammal species have disappeared entirely so why are people taking this seriously and why are people investing so much in this so many people have the dream if we could just get this animal back maybe it would help us think different about Extinction or the guilt that we might feel of having removed such a special animal from the planet whether you know they imagine it might be still hiding in Tasmania or in a lab to be reborn there’s this Burning hope
12:19 · richo reckons that if his countrymen in the DNA sequencing Labs can resurrect a tazzy tiger good on them but regardless he’ll continue coming here Faith unshaken he’s certain this animal most famous for being extinct is not extinct at all if someone accused you of
12:39 · being obsessed would you please guilty oh sir I’ll put my hand up to that your honor I am guilty you’re a Tasmanian tiger obsessive I am indeed it’s been my love why is that why have you continued to search so so long for this I just know it’s there I do I in my own heart I know it’s there and if it isn’t there
13:01 · well we say what’s the harm in searching coming to the Planet Sub basement Bush bashing this gorgeous terrain there are worse ways and places to spend your days
Should zoos exist BBC Ideas
BBC Ideas, 10 27, 2022
Video (6:28)
Description
Are zoos a great way to teach people about nature and save species from extinction? Or a cruel way of using animals for entertainment?
Made by Daniel Nils Roberts, in partnership with the Open University.
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Transcript
History of zoos
0:00 · Zoos have changed out of all recognition.
0:03 · There are quite a lot of different species around the planet, which we wouldn’t have today if it wasn’t for zoos.
0:08 · What do you think an ideal zoo would look like?
0:11 · Closed.
0:17 · All through history, we’ve seen royal families, powerful people, emperors, have collections of animals.
0:24 · The king who was a good hunter was probably a good warrior, probably protect his people.
0:28 · Killing a lion or a bear was a big deal, but bringing back a live one showed even more power.
0:33 · Virtually all the history of zoos is about human control of nature.
0:38 · And it was a way of showing off.
0:39 · Queen Charlotte, her gift to everybody that she liked was to give them a kangaroo.
0:46 · And eventually we get the first modern zoo opening in London in 1828.
0:52 · To be able to suddenly see a giraffe for the first time, probably it was absolutely bonkers.
Animal welfare evolution
1:01 · There wasn’t really an appreciation of animals needing certain things to have a good life.
1:07 · So you would see them in barren boxes, effectively, just as you would see a specimen in a natural history museum.
1:13 · JON COE: The story was, here’s an object divorced from habitat, divorced from evolution.
1:18 · His name is, by the way, knucklehead.
1:21 · Knucklehead?!
1:22 · Well, as a rule, tapirs are rather stupid and unintelligent.
1:25 · Animals were thought of as basically automatons just responding in a reflexive manner, with no feelings of pain or any kind of emotional depth.
1:33 · But that’s really shifted.
1:36 · Now there’s much more of an understanding that we really need to look at their own type of intelligence and how they live in their world.
1:50 · The schoolchildren that come here to the wildlife park, all of them go away learning the messages that we know for sure are going to make a true difference to the animals back out into the wild.
Conservation and education
2:03 · The biggest threat to wildlife comes from people, and most people live in cities.
2:08 · So zoos are very important because they provide an educational opportunity for people to learn about what the impacts of their daily activities are in far away places.
2:19 · JON COE: The zoo, by becoming a public attraction, if it’s done properly, it seems to me like a pretty good idea. The animals have a good life.
2:27 · People enjoy it. They learn something.
2:30 · Hopefully they get involved in conservation.
2:32 · JON MINION: Pretty much all good zoos throughout the world are participators, or they help to support and fund a whole host of in-situ conservation programmes.
2:44 · And if it wasn’t for those programmes, the world would be looking very different right now.
2:59 · Zoo populations of animals are insurance populations.
Limitations and ethics
3:03 · Certain species, due to what’s going on on the planet at the moment, the only way that we can stop them from going extinct will be to bring them into captivity.
3:12 · As we learn to adapt to things like climate change, we are going to see an increasing role for zoos.
3:22 · You can visit zoos all over the world that are just awful.
3:25 · You know, they’re as bad as they were in the 1920s.
3:29 · ROBERT YOUNG: In the US they don’t have very strict animal welfare laws.
3:32 · People can have animals in their back garden and call it a zoo.
3:35 · There are more pet tigers in the US than there are tigers in the wild.
3:39 · The legislation doesn’t permit that kind of thing here in the UK, but you can get bad zoos anywhere.
3:51 · Those are all signs that they’re missing out on some important aspect of how they live in the wild.
3:57 · The complexity of providing a good life for some of these animals, it’s actually really, really difficult.
The future of wildlife
4:09 · There is some evidence that people will know more facts about a particular animal, for example, but follow up studies to see if they’ve actually changed their behaviour to benefit conservation, there’s not much evidence to suggest that is happening.
4:24 · The official statistics show that 4% of revenue goes back into conservation.
4:29 · I mean, that’s minimal. That’s very small.
4:31 · And what do you find in zoos?
4:34 · Big cats and elephants and zebra and things that don’t get released back into the wild.
4:37 · So if you want to save the condor, then you can have an in situ conservation programme that’s based in the country where they come from.
4:48 · Most five year olds are experts in dinosaurs.
4:51 · They’ve never met one or seen one.
4:53 · The fascination’s there, and I think the same can be harnessed with animals.
4:57 · There’s many other technologies that are being developed these days, like awesome CGI, awesome robotics.
5:04 · I think the future holds something really cool in the sense of learning about animals without the detriment of keeping them in captivity.
5:11 · Virtual reality with wildlife encounters is really coming on.
5:16 · Taking a virtual walk through a herd of elephants in the Serengeti, I think, is going to be possible pretty soon.
5:25 · Do you think zoos should exist?
5:28 · It’s kind of strange that we transport all of these animals from far from home and keep them locked up where you should see what nature has to offer on your doorstep.
5:38 · Wildlife documentary, virtual reality - none of these things have the same positive emotional impact that a zoo has.
5:46 · 10% of the global population visit zoos every year.
5:50 · People from all walks of life and all social classes.
5:52 · So, I think, without zoos, we’d lose a massive opportunity to keep people being interested in the wild environment.
6:02 · How can we create a world where we don’t need zoos?
Conclusion and call to action
6:04 · What I’m hoping is that we can design super sustainable cities so that you don’t need to go to a place to see animals.
6:13 · They’re all around you.
We Let Beavers Transform an Old Farm
Planet Wild, 07 15, 2026
Video (13:58)
Description
We’re turning an abandoned fish farm into a beaver paradise
🌱 Join us to rewild the planet: https://planetwild.com/join/m41
Beavers are nature’s ultimate engineers. By building dams, digging canals and keeping water in the landscape, they can turn dry land into thriving wetlands full of biodiversity.
They were nearly wiped out but against all odds, they’ve made an incredible comeback.
Our partner Rewilding Oder Delta is helping secure that return. That’s why we teamed up with them for our 41st mission, and purchased a 20-hectare abandoned fish farm in Poland to turn into a natural beaver paradise.
People in the video:
Markus Gilles co-founded Planet Wild in 2023 and is leading the organization as Co-CEO.
Frauke Bennett is on the board of Rewilding Oder Delta e.V. and heads the department “Nature for the People”.
Make sure to follow Rewilding Oder Delta:
IG: https://www.instagram.com/rewildingoderdelta/
Website: https://rewilding-oder-delta.com/
Make sure to follow Rewilding Oder Delta’s Polish partner Fundacja dla Klimatu i Bioróżnorodności:
Website: https://www.fdkib.com/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@fdkib
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FDKIB/about
Chapters
0:00 The Great Beaver Comeback
1:14 How beavers transform ecosystems
2:20 Meet our partner
3:01 Our new land for beavers
3:50 The history of beavers
6:45 Our support: Part 1
7:07 How beaver engineering works
11:11 How beavers cause conflict
11:48 Our support: Part 2
13:04 A new relationship with beavers
What is Planet Wild?
We’re a global community of people who care deeply about nature and want to help our planet bounce back – one mission at a time.
EVERY MONTH, we work with wildlife pioneers worldwide to
🦁 bring back endangered species
🌊 support oceans and aquatic life
🌳 revive forests and rewild landscapes
EVERY MEMBER can decide how their money is spent, connect with us on our Discord, and collect unique badges for each mission they support.
EVERY MISSION is documented in videos like this. 100% transparency.
EVERYONE can join. The bigger the community grows, the bigger these missions will get!
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Transcript
The Great Beaver Comeback
0:00 · What if there was a surprisingly simple way to more than double biodiversity, boost water quality, and prevent catastrophic floods and droughts?
0:09 · Right now, a movement is taking shape to bring back long-lost ecosystems in record time using the power of beavers. And we thought, “Well, that looks like fun. Let’s try it ourselves.” This place we’re standing at, it used to be a giant fish farm until very recently. And now it’s abandoned and doing absolutely nothing for nature.
0:29 · But that’s going to change big time because the Planet Wild community is buying this entire dried-out piece of land and turning it into a massive beaver playground. A beaver population has already been spotted nearby, and if everything goes to plan, they will transform this barren wasteland into a thriving ecosystem much, much faster than any human construction crew ever could.
0:55 · Join me on a fascinating journey to learn all about nature’s number one ecosystem engineers, the crazy comeback story they’ve had after near extinction, and how they will turn all of this into this. We are Planet Wild. Welcome to Mission 41. (charming music) Everything you see here around me was created by one creature.
How beavers transform ecosystems
1:20 · (upbeat music) Introducing even a single beaver into a landscape creates an explosion of biodiversity far more than what we see with any other living thing. (upbeat music) And that’s simply because they bring water into the landscape, turning dry land into a mosaic of deep ponds, complex canals, and shallow wetlands. These are perfect breeding grounds for fish and amphibians. The wooden dams and the still water attract millions of insects, providing a feast for all kinds of birds.
1:58 · The abundance of water and diverse vegetation also attracts larger mammals like elk, deer, martens, and even wolves. All of this makes beaver wetlands pretty much impossible to replicate artificially.
2:11 · What beavers do can help restore our landscape much better than we can do with our engineering.
2:19 · This is Frauke.
Meet our partner
2:21 · She’s worked alongside beavers for the last 17 years, and she’s part of our friends at Rewilding Oder Delta who are doing pioneering work to bring back Europe’s most iconic wildlife species, including lynx, sea eagles, elk, and even the European bison. But now it’s the beavers’ time. Three years ago, together with their Polish partner, they purchased a piece of land to turn it into a nature reserve and restore its lost wetland.
2:48 · The plan: create a protected area and then simply step back and let the local beavers take the reins. And as I got to see firsthand on my exploration with Frauke, the plan actually worked. But now we have our eyes on a new piece of land just a few miles away that desperately needs a makeover. A long time ago, this was a natural marshland.
Our new land for beavers
3:11 · Then, like with so many wetlands, it was completely drained to be used for agriculture. Years later, the opposite happened. This concrete lock was installed, damming up the drainage water to create a gigantic artificial pond with millions of farmed fish where chemicals, growth hormones, and fish food polluted the water. After all of this, the land is in a pretty bad state, but that’s going to change soon.
3:37 · The beavers are already taking a curious look at this area. I am very sure they already made some plans, what they can do there.
The history of beavers
3:50 · The fact that we even have beavers living here is an absolute miracle. Just 70 years ago, beavers were considered functionally extinct in the wild here in Poland. Today, the population here has grown to over 100,000 individuals, making it one of the largest beaver populations in all of Europe. But this is still a tiny number compared to the hundreds of millions. Yes, hundreds of millions of beavers that used to cover almost the entire northern hemisphere.
4:21 · Just imagine that world for a second. It looked something like this. In fact, studies have shown that the presence of beavers in an area can triple the biodiversity there. And yet we came this close at wiping them out completely. And it was all because of this. In the 1600s, it became super fashionable across Europe to wear hats and coats made from beaver fur. Which style you chose actually said a lot about your status in society.
4:49 · What’s even weirder, beavers produce a vanilla-smelling scent from a gland right next to their butt that people turned into perfume and ice cream. I promise I’m not making this up. And sadly, for these reasons, demand for beavers absolutely skyrocketed. Once the European beaver population was depleted, the fur industry expanded to North America. And over the course of around 200 years, 99.9% of the world’s beavers were hunted and killed.
5:21 · And at the turn of the last century, only 1,200 individuals remained in Europe. The impact on nature was catastrophic. Without beavers and their dams, that complex biodiverse landscape was drained away and with it all the life that depended on it. But there is hope, because in recent decades, beavers have made a remarkable comeback, and it’s largely thanks to some unconventional projects.
5:50 · In 1948, conservationists in Idaho packed 76 beavers into wooden crates, strapped them into World War II parachutes, and literally air-dropped them into the wilderness to restore the wetlands. And the crazy plan actually worked. In Scotland, beavers were completely extinct until a few of them mysteriously appeared in the wild. Nobody’s entirely sure if these beavers were illegally released or if they escaped from captivity, but today, nearly all Scottish beavers are descendants from this guerrilla population.
6:23 · All over Europe, beavers have bounced back in one way or the other from those 1,200 individuals to over 1.5 million. And yet wetlands are still disappearing way faster than beavers can rebuild them. So every piece of land that we can give back to them is a win for nature as a whole. (lively music) That’s why the Planet Wild community is helping to purchase 20 hectares of degraded land and turning it into a gigantic beaver playground.
Our support: Part 1
6:55 · And the best part, we don’t actually have to do anything because the beavers know much better than us how to do it.
7:02 · But how are they actually doing it?
7:05 · Let’s take a look. (playful music) It all starts with the surrounding trees. Beavers love to eat the inner bark of tree branches, but instead of learning to climb up, beavers decided to bring the trees down to them. Using their self-sharpening iron-enforced teeth, they can fell a tree in a single night, strategically cutting the trunk so the tree falls into the water where it can easily be cut up and transported.
How beaver engineering works
7:33 · And because beavers only eat a small portion of the tree, there’s a lot of building material left to create this: dams. And they are really good at them. In Canada, they’ve built a dam twice the length of the Hoover Dam. Just chew on that for a moment. I mean, look at this dam right here. It’s fairly new, and its construction is absolutely remarkable. Like with any good construction site, beavers follow a clear plan.
8:01 · First, they search for a perfect location to maximise the dam’s impact, choosing narrow streams in flat valleys so that even a small dam will flood a large area. Then they start digging big logs into the riverbed and anchor them with rocks to build a foundation. This then gets layered with branches, mud, and leaves to create a sturdy wall. Beavers actually monitor the sound of the water as an indicator of how well the dam stops water flow.
8:31 · If they still hear running water, they must keep building until it’s done. All of this is absolutely fascinating, but one question remains.
8:40 · Why?
8:42 · Why go through all of that work just to flood a valley?
8:46 · Well, take a look at this mediaeval castle. It’s not just protected by strong walls, but by moats of water. Beaver dams create exactly such moats to protect them from wolves and other predators. And right in the middle of it sits the beaver’s lodge like a castle.
9:04 · In German, we actually call them beaver castle, Biberburg, and there is one right over there. (peppy music) The German name really is on point as this thing is built with a multi-room layout and mud-plastered walls that are impenetrable to predators. Beavers enter through a secret tunnel that opens into a lower wet chamber for shedding water. In my anthropomorphizing mind, that’s where they take off their rubber boots and hang their raincoats.
9:35 · From here, they retreat to a dry upper living area where the family sleeps and stays warm, including, wait for it, a built-in ventilation shaft that acts like a chimney. In winter, you can even see steam rising out from the top because their body temperature and the decomposition of the organic walls act like a central heating system while the water below is used as an in-house fridge to keep the food fresh during winter.
10:01 · If they see something that they really like, they dig it up and they transport it closer to their mound, sometimes even in front of the mound, and they stick it into the soil there. So they have their little garden around their beaver mounds.
10:19 · By the way, if you ever encounter a beaver or a beaver lodge in the wild, absolutely don’t approach it. These are wild animals that should be left alone. The only reason why we could get so close was because we were on location with an expert, making sure we would not disturb them. Okay, back to the video. (playful music) We’re back at the fish farm, and we are already seeing the first signs of beaver activity.
10:45 · You can see right here that they have started damming up the old lock again.
10:49 · What did I say?
10:50 · No human construction crew needed. It’s incredible to see how quickly things are happening already. Just a few weeks ago, all of this was just brown. With the beavers coming back and raising the water levels, it’s already turning green again.
11:05 · Seeing how effectively beavers are restoring landscapes, we were asking ourselves, why isn’t this being done much more?
How beavers cause conflict
11:13 · Well, it turns out beavers are a bit too good at claiming land.
11:18 · Beavers are causing problems.
11:20 · Beavers. - Beavers.
11:21 · Beaver…
11:22 · Is causing quite a few problems.
11:24 · As beaver populations expand, they can clash with local communities, blocking drainage ditches, flooding agricultural fields, and chewing down trees that we prefer kept standing. Often this doesn’t go down too well. So if we want beavers to survive, we have to actively help humans to live alongside them. Luckily, Frauke has a plan for that too. We’re going to broker a peace between beavers and humans by planting 9,000 willow trees.
Our support: Part 2
11:53 · Willows are a preferred snack of beavers, distracting them from old-growth trees. They never fully eat them, instead leaving small stumps that quickly sprout again, providing an ongoing food source. In fact, the number of willows will naturally grow over time. On top of that, we’re helping locals to protect their property by providing them with non-toxic anti-bite glue, low voltage electric fencing, and these wire cages to protect valuable trees.
12:21 · In the long run, our 20 hectares of land will positively impact about 400 hectares of surrounding land by hydrating the forest ecosystem, preventing wildfires, filtering the water, and creating a vital stepping stone habitat from the smallest to the biggest species.
12:39 · For me, personal, it’s always joy.
12:45 · It fills me immediately with joy when I see beavers being there, doing what beavers do, and I can fully trust them that they do everything for a good reason. (inspiring music) For centuries, our relationship with beavers was defined by hunting and conflict. But looking at this project, you can see what happens when we finally decide to become their allies. By allowing beavers to return, we aren’t just saving a species. We are letting them save our landscapes.
A new relationship with beavers
13:24 · And if you want to become part of projects like this, join Planet Wild as a backer. Every month we go on a mission to bring back endangered species, clean up our oceans, and rewild entire landscapes. And it’s all community funded. As a backer, you’re directly supporting people at the front lines of nature protection. And you can see your own impact here on our channel. There’s a QR code over here and a link down in the description.
13:50 · See you all again next month, over and out. (chiming music)
Why This Unusual Pattern May Save the Rainforests
PBS Terra, 09 12, 2024
Video (9:34)
Description
Check out In the Margins on @pbsorigins : https://youtu.be/Y1cJCowMz9M?feature=shared
Check out Roots of Resistance on @pbsorigins : https://youtu.be/rUCrmh58GrU?si=b6HPENjsnEKYPrzK
The Choco region in northwest Ecuador is hosting a groundbreaking experiment to try and help it’s rainforests recover from rampant deforestation. A multinational team is planting small “tree islands” to attract natural seed dispersers. It’s an innovative approach that we’ll take a close look at, from above and within.
Hosted by Joe Hanson from Be Smart, Overview uses stunning 4k drone footage to reveal the natural and human made marvels shaping our planet–from a 10,000-foot view–literally.
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Transcript
0:05 · (light music) Hidden along the equator lies a rainforest like no other.
0:13 · The Choco is a kaleidoscope of life.
0:17 · An enchanting home to an astonishing array of species many found nowhere else on Earth.
0:24 · But like most of Earth’s tropical rainforests, The Choco is under threat.
0:29 · Widespread deforestation for agriculture, logging, and human settlements has pushed this incredible ecosystem to the brink of disappearing.
0:37 · But, there is hope, thanks to these.
0:41 · These are tree islands, small patches of trees replanted within larger deforested areas.
0:47 · Scientists think this groundbreaking idea could change the world’s forest recovery efforts by allowing the forest to regrow itself thanks to one surprising ingredient, animal poop.
1:06 · (gentle music) Here in Ecuador, the Choco Rainforest covers approximately 7,000 square kilometers, nearly one and a half times the size of Grand Canyon National Park.
1:18 · Separated from the Amazon by the towering Andes, The Choco is a world unto itself.
1:25 · It’s also one of the wettest places on Earth.
1:29 · Some spots receiving upwards of 400 inches of rain per year.
1:35 · It’s also one of the world’s most biologically diverse places.
1:39 · A home for over 800 species of birds, 140 species of mammals, and 9,000 species of plants.
1:50 · Here, inside a 100-meter square, you can find nearly as many tree species as in all of Europe.
1:58 · Rainforests like The Choco are critical for preserving Earth’s biodiversity.
2:10 · These are some of the determined researchers on a mission to save this remarkable ecosystem.
2:20 · (Leighton speaking in foreign language) - They contain more than half of all of the species in the world, even though they occupy a relatively small proportion of the Earth’s land surface.
2:29 · There’s new species being discovered in tropical rainforests every year, including here in Northwestern Ecuador.
2:35 · Every year, an area of tropical forest gets cut down that’s about the size of Lake Michigan.
2:43 · (orchestral music) - The Choco is considered one of the most threatened ecoregions in the world.
2:48 · In Ecuador, only about 2% of the original forest cover remains.
2:54 · As more and more of it is converted to palm oil plantations, countless species of plants and animals are at risk of extinction.
3:09 · (Fernando speaking in foreign language) Fernando is now fighting to restore his native lands.
3:29 · (Fernando speaking in foreign language) But saving a rainforest is not an easy task.
3:34 · Although scientists know what a healthy tropical forest looks like, they still know very little about how to regrow them.
3:54 · (Fernando speaking in foreign language) (light music) At this point, maybe you’re thinking, why not just plant trees?
3:58 · One new tree to replace every old one?
4:01 · Well, the cost, for starters.
4:03 · Additionally, many traditional replanting efforts have focused on replanting only a small number of tree species.
4:10 · But this allows only a few fast growing species to dominate the regrown forest, and it really fails to recreate the complex diversity of species in natural rainforests, which can contain upwards of 400 tree species in an area the size of a Manhattan city block.
4:29 · Regrowing a forest by only replanting a few species is like trying to paint a Picasso with only primary colors.
4:39 · But here, scientists are trying something new, an idea that harnesses the power of nature itself.
4:47 · Instead of planting rows of seedlings in a large scale plantation, the researchers are creating small, strategic patches filled with a diverse mix of native trees.
4:58 · They hope that over time these empty spaces will be filled by the same natural processes that keep healthy rainforests lush and diverse.
5:08 · [Leighton] The idea is that these small patches of trees will kickstart a natural regeneration process.
5:13 · [Joe] And here’s where things get interesting, because the team’s secret weapon is poop. (bright music) The trees planted in these islands produce fruit. In a healthy rainforest, animals act as nature’s gardeners. As creatures like howler monkeys and toucans feast on that fruit, their droppings disperse seeds far and wide, planting new forest with every trip to the bathroom. Up to 80% of tree species rely on birds and mammals to spread their seeds in this way.
5:46 · When a patch of rainforest falls, it’s these animal gardeners that hold the key to bringing it back to life. Eating fruits, carrying the seeds far and wide, and ultimately, planting the forest of tomorrow.
6:00 · One of the big questions is, what are the best kinds of trees to plant?
6:05 · How many of them do you need to plant and what kinds of spatial configurations?
6:09 · [Joe] The scientists are betting that by planting trees with mouthwatering fruits, they’ll attract a bunch of hungry critters like monkeys, birds, and bats to help this forest regrow itself. Who knew that the key to saving the rainforest could be as simple as a well-stocked fruit buffet. To test the idea, researchers pack half of their plots with trees that produce a bounty of animal attracting fruit, while the other half offer fewer delicious treats.
6:42 · At the same time, we’re also monitoring animal populations to identify what bird species are coming and visiting plots. (Fernando speaking in foreign language) [Leighton] We’d like to be able to connect the dots between what animals are present and what seeds they’re bringing into the restoration plots.
7:12 · [Joe] The project has captured the imagination of the local community.
7:17 · [Leighton] A lot of the success that FCAT has enjoyed is due to the tight bonds that they have with the local communities that are here. (Fernando speaking in foreign language) [Joe] The experiment is still young, but the team is already seeing promising signs. (Fernando speaking in foreign language) (light music) If it works, this approach could revolutionize reforestation efforts not just in The Choco, but in threatened rainforests worldwide.
8:08 · Ecological restoration is not a silver bullet.
8:12 · It’s not the solution to all of our environmental problems. In order to prevent mass extinction, we have to stop destroying intact habitats. And restoration can’t do that. But restoration is part of the solution as well. Ecological restoration allows us to build back some of the habitat that’s been lost.
8:29 · [Joe] Only time will tell if their tree islands will take root. But in the battle to save our rainforests, every seed of hope matters, and in The Choco, those seeds are starting to sprout. Hey guys, we’re out here working on the next episode of Overview. But before you go, if you’re a fan of history, we want to tell you about two new series over on PBS Origins.
8:55 · Roots of Resistance is a series which shows how history is often made through defiance. And In the Margins explores the kind of lesser-known stories that they maybe don’t teach you in school. We’re gonna put a link to their latest episodes down below. We hope you consider subscribing too. It helps all of us over at PBS.
Films
Rebuilding The Herd Rewilding The Future
Episode 8/13/2026 of Conservation Works (Season 2026) - Released: 2026-08-13 - Duration: 00:27:27
Description
Explore Nebraska’s bighorn sheep comeback, Zoo Schools’ Earth Day event, the beauty of Scotts Bluff.
Transcript
Vanishing Act
Episode 6 of Human Footprint (Season 2) - Released: 2025-07-30 - Duration: 00:55:39
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Description
Shane meets species on the brink of oblivion, and the people who won’t let them slip away.
Transcript
(“Ready or Not” by Fugees plays) (Shane) The story of our planet is a tale of equal and opposite forces: Life… (female singer) Ready or not, here I come (Shane) …and death.
We’ve never known one without the other.
(female singer) And take it slowly Ready or not (Shane) From the first primordial cell, to the loftiest tree, to beasts we’ve never known, each species walks its own path… …but they all end in the same place.
(female singer) Ready or not (Shane) Extinction is Mother Nature’s way of pruning the Tree of Life.
(female singer) Ready or not (Shane) And she is a tireless arborist.
Ninety-nine percent of all the species that ever existed no longer do.
(female singer) I play my enemies like a game of chess (thunder, explosions) (Shane) Of Earth’s eight million living species, one has become a force of nature in its own right.
And, ironically, we humans– the only species that can fathom extinction– are driving it faster than any other species in our planet’s history.
What fate awaits the Tree of Life in the Age of Humans?
And can we change course before putting our future in peril?
Welcome to the age of humans, where one species can change everything, and what we do reveals who we truly are.
This is Human Footprint.
(serene music) For most of our history, the world was a pretty scary place.
Colossal predators hunted massive herbivores.
And we were definitely on the menu.
(roaring) Today, there aren’t many places where the land still pulses with the ancient rhythms of giants.
(animals grunting) Where you’re grateful for the safety of a safari vehicle.
People travel thousands of miles to experience Africa’s megafauna, yet these iconic animals are dwarfed by the titans that roamed North America in the not-so-distant past.
(“To Live & Die in L.A.” by Tupac Shakur plays) (engine revving) The sprawl of L.A. feels a world apart from the Serengeti… (Tupac) It never rains in Southern To live and die in L.A. (Shane) But if you want to meet the giants that once ruled this continent, this is the place to do it.
(chorus) To live and die in L.A. (vocalizing) (Emily) This is my favorite critter here.
This is a giant ground sloth.
(Shane) Yeah, what makes this your favorite?
(Emily) It’s a sloth and it was giant.
(laughter) (Shane) Need you say more?
(bicycle bell rings) Meet paleontologist Emily Lindsey.
Her commute through L.A.’s urban jungle helps her connect with the present… (relaxing music) …but when she gets to the La Brea Tar Pits, her thoughts turn to the ancient world.
(Emily) This is called a short-faced bear.
(Shane) The idea that there was an animal this large is deeply disturbing to me.
How much bigger is this than, like, a polar bear?
(Emily) A lot.
(laughter) (Shane) Today, La Brea is almost as iconic as Disneyland or Hollywood, drawing visitors from around the world.
But at the start of the 20th century, people flocked here for another reason.
(Emily) The L.A. basin is the richest oil basin of its size in the world.
In the early 20th century, we were producing about a quarter of the world’s oil.
(Shane) In those days, Rancho La Brea was a rich source of the densest form of crude oil: asphalt.
(Emily) They were digging it up and shipping it up to San Francisco, where it was being used to pave the roads.
(Shane) In some places, finding asphalt didn’t even require digging.
(Emily) And because the other thing we have a lot of in L.A. is earthquakes, there are places where these fissures occur in the ground.
(Shane) Here, the asphalt seeps up to the surface in shallow, sticky pools.
Before long, miners noticed bones– a lot of them.
They assumed the bones belonged to cattle from the ranch they were digging on until a traveling geologist took a closer look.
(Emily) And he was like, “That’s not a cow bone.”
It was the saber of the saber-toothed cat.
Exactly what part of the cow do you think this came from?
(laughing) (Emily) Over time, plants, animals, big, small, get stuck in there.
(Shane) At La Brea, the miners had stumbled onto the world’s largest deposit of Pleistocene fossils– an entire ecosystem sealed in an asphalt time capsule.
Soon, a new kind of excavation was underway.
(Emily) In about two and a half years, they collected about a million fossils.
Whoa.
(rhythmic music) Is, like, this density, like, normal for the pits?
(Emily) Yeah, it’s just bone on bone, on bone, on bone, on bone.
It makes them really challenging to excavate.
So, imagine playing, pick-up sticks.
But every stick is, like, a different size and shape and also fragile and also priceless.
And then, somebody has dumped a bunch of cement on top of it.
(Shane) In the last century, scientists have excavated over five million fossils here, representing 40,000 years of ecological history.
(Emily) This is our dire wolf wall.
So, there’s 400 skulls of dire wolves on this wall.
That represents maybe 10% of the dire wolves that we’ve discovered so far at the tar pits.
(serene music) (Shane) Thousands of apex predators died in the pits, along with the massive herbivores they hunted.
Then, suddenly, mysteriously… the megafauna stopped getting stuck.
(Emily) Through intensive radiocarbon dating, we were able to figure out exactly when they stopped getting stuck, which is a proxy for when they stopped being on the landscape.
So, these are the very last animals of their kind that we know of at La Brea, and in many cases, in all of North America.
This is the last dire wolf.
(Shane) Like, the last.
The last one that we know of.
(Shane) Wow.
(Emily) 13,000 years ago.
The last saber-toothed cat that we know of, 13,000 years ago.
This is a piece of the last American lion.
-13,000 years ago?
-Yeah.
13,000 years ago was a bad year.
So, what happened 13,000 years ago?
Gosh.
(Emily) So, this is a Columbian mammoth and these are one of the species here that we know overlapped with and interacted with the first humans in the Americas.
We find a lot of mammoth kill sites.
(Shane) It takes a brave person to point to one of these things and say, “You hungry?”
(Emily) Yeah.
(laughter) (Shane) Humans are brave.
We’re also smart, social, and skilled at making and using tools, which is why, in the late 1960s, paleontologist Paul Martin proposed an idea to explain these extinctions: the “overkill hypothesis.”
(dramatic drumming music) (Emily) We know that humans are perfectly capable of hunting species to extinction.
(Shane) Before the overkill hypothesis, experts attributed the loss of North American megafauna to the end of the last Ice Age.
But Martin questioned how these animals had survived so many previous warming periods, only to vanish when humans arrived.
Overkill had an intuitive appeal amidst the growing environmental movement.
It was easy to envision us hunting species to extinction.
(Emily) One of the counterarguments is, well, you know, these small bands of hunter gatherers couldn’t possibly have, like, driven all the mammoths to extinction.
(Shane) Megafauna kill sites do exist, but they’re rare.
And it’s not just species that ancient humans hunted that vanished, lots of other plants and animals disappeared in the same timeframe.
So, what really happened?
(Emily) The problem is that when you have two things happening at pretty much exactly the same time, you need a really high-resolution understanding.
(Shane) La Brea provides that high-def view of a long-gone ecosystem.
Emily and her team used radiocarbon dating to determine the precise timing of each species’ disappearance, then compared those dates with data gathered from lake-bottom sediment cores, which record climate and vegetation before and after the megafauna disappear.
(Emily) For about the 2,000 years leading up to that, we were going through some pretty substantial climate change.
(Shane) As the Ice Age ended and the ice sheets receded, the climate got warmer and drier.
(Emily) We have multiple mega-droughts that last decades at a time.
We see half of the tree species start to die off.
So, the landscape is becoming more open and drier.
Megafauna populations are decreasing, and then, about 13,200 years ago, something really remarkable happens.
Everything catches on fire.
(flames hissing) (Shane) How do they know this?
Because fire leaves behind charcoal.
So, the amount of charcoal in any layer of a sediment core is a good indication of how much fire was happening.
(Emily) The first 20,000 years of that core record, there’s, like, essentially no evidence of fire.
There’s very, very little charcoal in that record.
(Shane) But over time, more and more charcoal appears in the cores.
(Emily) And then we see an order of magnitude increase in the charcoal, right around 13,200 years ago.
(flames hissing) (Shane) For 400 years, fires engulfed California again and again, burning its forests into charcoal we would discover 13,000 years later.
(Emily) And when we come out of it, we are in a completely new ecosystem.
The large mammals are gone.
This is when we see the modern flora of coastal Southern California, the chaparral, which is an assemblage of fire-adapted species.
And humans are common on the landscape.
(Shane) So, what caused the fires?
(Emily) We don’t really get lightning here.
We don’t really have naturally occurring fire, and in fact, 97% of wildfires in Southern California today are caused by humans.
The most powerful tool that humans have ever invented is fire.
We use it to cook our food, we use it to keep warm, to have light in the dark.
So, humans are spreading in an ecosystem that is really prone to fire.
It’s ready to go, but there isn’t an ignition source until humans bring it into the ecosystem.
That is a plot twist I was not expecting.
It’s really shown me the degree to which humans can have really large-scale impacts on ecosystems, unanticipated impacts, especially when combined with climate change.
(flames hissing) (Shane) That combination sounds uncomfortably familiar today.
(haunting music) (Emily) Extinctions didn’t stop happening at the end of the Pleistocene.
Scientists usually define a mass extinction as 75% or more of all species going extinct.
Okay.
(Emily) And there have been five of these so far.
And the most recent one was 66 million years ago.
There’s a lot of discussion about whether the biodiversity crisis that we’re experiencing today will result in the sixth mass extinction.
(Shane) If it does, it’ll be the first mass extinction caused by a single species.
In the past 200 years, we’ve pushed more than 900 species over the brink–a rate up to a thousand times faster than the natural pace of extinction.
Nearly 50,000 other species are considered threatened by the IUCN.
And few animals are at greater risk today than the megafauna that survived the end of the Pleistocene.
(birds chirping) The story of one of those species starts where you’d least expect.
(serene music) With more than 650 species– many rare or endangered– the San Diego Zoo offers a window into our planet’s living diversity.
But behind the public exhibits, there’s another zoo with specimens found nowhere else.
(Marlys) So, these are our cryo tanks, this is where we keep the samples, living dividing cells from all of the 11,000 individuals and 1,300 species and subspecies, all in primarily three tanks.
(“Got ’Til It’s Gone” by Janet Jackson, Q-Tip, and Joni plays) (Shane) If the Frozen Zoo had a zookeeper, it would be Marlys Houck.
Her bespoke beaded wine glass charms keep her guests from mixing up their drinks.
(female singer) Don’t it always seem to go (Shane) And that attention to detail pays off at work, too.
(Marlys) So, in there is the liquid nitrogen.
Each one of these vials contains about one to three million living cells.
(Shane) Oh, wow.
Today, the Frozen Zoo is the largest, most diverse, and longest-running cryobank in the world.
But when it started in the 1970s, its ambitions felt like science fiction.
(Marlys) It was started by Dr. Kurt Benirschke in 1975.
He had the idea that because we had this new technology where you could grow cells from skin biopsies that we should do this and bank them because we don’t really know how technology will evolve in the future and what those cells could be used for.
(Shane) The samples here aren’t just on ice.
While many of the animals they came from are dead, the cells stored here are very alive.
(Marlys) If you just take a skin biopsy and throw it in the freezer, it will form ice crystals.
And the ice will pierce the cell membrane, destroy the cell, it will no longer be living.
So, we have to go through this process of adding a cryoprotectant.
It’s kind of like an antifreeze… and then they have to be frozen at -196 °C in liquid nitrogen.
And they’re just resting there without aging.
And then, when we pull them back out, they start growing and dividing again.
That’s incredible.
Marlys joined the Frozen Zoo because of her concern for one species in particular.
(Marlys) When I came, there were probably 60 northern white rhinos.
I never would have thought when I first came that I would be watching the extinction of one of the animals I was working with.
(Shane) But that’s exactly what happened.
So, this box is really special.
Maybe you can read what species?
(Shane) Northern white rhino.
(Marlys) Right, and these are not just any northern white rhino, they are Sudan, the last male of the species.
(downbeat music) Put that on… and then you can just go like that.
You are holding living cells of Sudan, the last male northern white rhino of the species.
What does that feel like?
Really intense, actually.
Wow.
(sighs) -Thank you.
-Yeah.
(Shane) His cells may still be alive, but Sudan, the rhino, died on the other side of the globe, with the whole world watching.
(Zach) I’ve been looking after these northern white rhinos for 16 years now.
I consider these rhinos as my second part of my family.
(“Guess Who’s Back” by Rakim plays) (male singer) Yeah (male singer 2) Once again, back is the incredible (male singer) It’s the return of the… (Shane) Meet Zach Mutai.
(male singer) Smashin’ hits, make it hard He started here as a fence builder, but soon became a ranger, and eventually, a caregiver to the last northern white rhinos.
(male singer 2) Incredible, the incredible (Shane) The day Sudan died, Zach was by his side.
(Zach) I spent, like, nine years taking care of Sudan until he passed away on 19th of March day of 2018.
(camera snaps) (melancholic music) (Shane sighs) That must have been a really intense experience.
Yeah…it was such a difficult day.
It was really sad.
Losing a rhino to me is more like losing one of my family members, and it was really such sad news by losing the last male of its kind.
It really shook the whole world.
(news anchor) The world’s last surviving male northern white rhino has died.
(dramatic music) (Shane) Ol Pejeta is one of the world’s most important wildlife conservancies.
Yet even here, under constant surveillance, rhinos aren’t always safe.
(clicking sound) At the turn of the 20th century, half a million rhinos roamed Africa and Asia.
But wars, habitat loss, and most of all, poaching for their horns caused catastrophic declines.
Driven by false beliefs of rhino horn’s healing powers and its luxury status, illegal markets have fueled a deadly trade.
Today, only 5% of rhinos that existed a century ago remain.
The last wild northern white rhinos were killed in the early 2000s.
In a desperate attempt to keep the species alive, conservationists transported the final captive individuals from a zoo in the Czech Republic to create a breeding program here.
Among them were Sudan and two females.
(Zach) So, this is Najin, uh, the mama, and her daughter Fatu is the other one.
And this is their friend, a southern white rhino.
-Okay.
-Yeah.
She’s a good friend and a trainer for them because these two, they were raised in captivity and they never know how to do all natural things like grazing, socializing, and all other natural activities.
Hi, good girl.
I know.
Have you ever feel and touch a rhino?
(Shane) No.
(Zach) You can just come closer to me, you can just feel.
(serene music) Kind of here, just.
It’s quite soft behind the ears but the rest part of the body is quite rough and thick skin.
(Shane) Yeah.
(Zach) Fatu, no.
I think I just fell in love.
(Zach) Fatu, good girl, Fatu.
(Shane) This is one of the most incredible experiences.
(Zach) Could you imagine that you are watching the last two of their kind?
(Shane) Yeah, that’s… (Zach) And they are being killed only for the two horns and nothing else.
(Shane) Yeah.
(Zach) We have got only the last two in the whole entire planet.
If anything happens and they are gone, there will be no more northern white rhinos species.
I’ve come to realize that extinction is something real, and we have just learned that we are the most dangerous creatures on this planet, yeah.
(rhino grunts) Man, this… this is intense.
And… you can’t help but look at these… just big, beautiful animals and just… like, what… what do we do?
How did we get here?
We are a hell of a conundrum as a species.
One hell of a conundrum.
Just like, we’ve had so many opportunities to correct our actions, like– (rhino farting repeatedly) (farting continues unabated) Wow.
That’s impressive.
(soulful music) Even if there were a male of their kind, Najin and Fatu aren’t healthy enough to have babies.
But that’s not stopping scientists from trying this species alive.
(Dr. Florence) Every experience I have is so surreal.
It’s so amazing to be working with such big animals.
So, you basically have the coolest job in the world.
(Dr. Florence) Mm-hmm.
(laughter) (Shane) As one of Ol Pejeta’s resident veterinarians, Dr. Florence Kang’ethe has a big job.
From health check-ups with the conservancy’s anti-poaching dogs, to wound care with a blind and very grumpy black rhino, her to-do list is long.
At the top of it is saving the northern white rhino.
(“If I Ruled the World” by Nas playing) (Dr. Florence) Today, I had to be here early to do stimulations.
So, that involves me injecting a hormone.
(Shane) Dr. Florence is part of a groundbreaking initiative that aims to bring baby northern white rhinos back into the world.
Using cryo-preserved sperm from deceased males, researchers fertilize eggs collected from the last females to create embryos, which they can implant into surrogate females of the closely related southern white rhino.
(Dr. Florence) It’s sad that we have come to that point where we have to do such efforts, but we’re quite hopeful that soon we shall be talking about a northern white rhino baby running around, yeah.
(Shane) If, for whatever reason, the northern white rhino were to go extinct without a baby coming to be, what will we have lost?
We would have lost the chance to redeem ourselves.
(soulful vocalizing) (Shane) The people fighting to save these rhinos embody humanity’s compassion for wild species, yet this species’ story also reveals our capacity and willingness to destroy them.
And while losing a rare species like the northern white rhino is a tragedy… …losing an abundant species can unravel the fabric of an ecosystem.
(percussive hip-hop music) (Sara) You always like it when you can’t get your arms all the way around it, right?
(assistant) I know, that’s a good sign.
(Sara) Beautiful.
(Shane) This is Sara Fern Fitzsimmons.
Her love of spreadsheets– used for everything from planning family weekends to tracking her hikes– is matched only by her passion for a tree whose ghost still haunts Eastern forests.
(Sara) The American Chestnut Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring the American chestnut back to its original range.
(serene music) (Shane) American chestnuts once numbered in the billions.
They sustained wildlife– from deer to turkey, and black bears to passenger pigeons– and they were the foundation for an entire subsistence culture in Appalachia (Sara) So, I grew up in southern West Virginia, and they called it a cradle-to-grave species because it could be used for cribs, coffins, and everything in between.
(Shane) But the American chestnut can’t do any of those things anymore.
The chestnut blight put an end to all that.
(Sara) The chestnut blight is a fungus.
Um, and it was brought over in the 1800s.
(Shane) The blight hitchhiked here on another chestnut species imported from Asia for landscaping.
And exactly what does the blight do to the tree?
(ripping sound) (Sara) The cambium tissue of a tree is its living layer; a fungal spore can get in, germinate in that tissue.
It completely strangles the tree by eating the tissue around it.
It’s pretty gruesome, actually.
(Shane) It sounds like a horror movie.
It really is.
(Shane) The fungus was discovered in 1904, and it spread fast.
(Sara) By 1950, pretty much the entire range from Maine to Georgia had become infected and all the big trees had–had succumbed.
(Shane) Today, the scale of that loss is hard to comprehend.
(Sara) It’s approximately 180 million acres.
And, in some locations, especially Southeastern Pennsylvania, some areas of Massachusetts and Virginia, it was as much as 50% of the forest.
(Shane) Today, some of those places are still covered in trees… but without the chestnut, it’s not the same forest.
No one alive remembers the forest that was.
Some of its parts remain, but the ecosystem is gone.
For the chestnut as a tree, it’s more complicated.
(Sara) So, the American chestnut is not technically extinct.
But, it’s functionally extinct.
There’s an estimated 400 million sprouts out there on the landscape.
(Shane) But Sara’s using the word “sprouts” in the same way that a zombie “sprouts” from its grave.
(Sara) So, this is a pretty classic oak-hickory forest type.
Back in the day, chestnuts would have covered this forest.
(Sara) Here’s a perfect example of an American chestnut that has died back and then is sending up these new re-sprouts.
(Shane) This definitely isn’t a normal sapling.
(Sara) So, the roots are probably older than the blight.
(Shane) Because chestnut blight doesn’t attack the roots.
(Sara) So, this is still original genetics from when the blight first swept through.
It’ll die back, it’ll re-sprout.
This will continue forever, I imagine.
(Shane) It’s like a very sickly phoenix that keeps rising.
(Sara) There you go.
I like that.
-Okay.
-Yeah.
(birds chirping) (Shane) This little tree– through a series of past lives, each cut tragically short– might have been here longer than the blight has.
(Shane) God, this is weird to look at.
The sprouts rarely get large enough to produce nuts because the blight is never far away.
(Sara) Even when the tree dies, the fungus is still around, just, you know, spewing spores into the, into the atmosphere.
(Shane) But that doesn’t mean the American chestnut is doomed.
Sara and her colleagues are trying to breed a better chestnut– one that can hold its own against the blight.
(Sara) You say, “Well, this tree looks really good, it has really good resistance.
This tree looks really good, it has good resistance.”
And then you have to put that together and see if you can build that up in the population.
(Shane) So, where can you find these genes for resistance?
One strategy is to look for the rare American chestnut that’s doing more than just sprouting and dying.
A new find in Central Pennsylvania might be the biggest chestnut tree in the state.
(Sara) There we go.
Ha ha!
Look at that.
That’s awesome.
So, these two are good and then that one’s, that one’s a dud.
(cameraman) That’s exciting.
It’s very exciting.
We grow the tree up, we take the fungus, we put it in the tree and we say, did it survive?
(Shane) It’s painstaking work, made possible by an army of volunteers.
(man) .3, Sara.
(Shane) Another source of potential blight-resistant genes are Chinese chestnut trees, which evolved with the fungus and are naturally resistant.
Scientists are hybridizing the two species, trying to breed trees that are mostly American, but have the disease resistance of the Chinese species.
Some chestnut researchers are even using genome editing, although the exact genetic causes of resistance are still mostly unknown.
(smooth bass music) The chestnut’s allies aren’t taking anything off the table.
(Sara) It’s not that it’s an American chestnut and it’s got, uh, you know, waving an American flag and has eagles flying over, you know, it’s not that which we are trying to, you know, restore into this tree.
It’s its ecological function.
Can it feed the insects?
Can it produce the nuts that all of our wildlife wants to eat?
(serene music) (Shane) Sara knows that American chestnuts won’t reclaim their former glory in her lifetime.
That kind of success could still be generations away.
But that doesn’t make her, or the chestnut’s other champions, any less devoted to the cause.
(Sara) In this world of instant gratification, I think having something that’s more of a slow movement, I think that that’s kind of refreshing.
(Shane) And it’s the least we can do for a species that’s fighting so hard to keep going.
(Shane) Are there any American chestnuts that existed before the blight that are still, like, adult trees now?
(Sara) We think we know of about four that survived the original pandemic.
Four?
Oh, God.
(Sara) It’s not, so, from an estimated four billion, I mean, those aren’t great odds.
(Shane) But one of those one-in-a-billion trees– surviving despite the fungus growing under its bark– stood alone in a farmer’s field, not far away.
What are we all here for, if not to serve a function?
So, to be functionally extinct, to be around but serve no function… somehow seems sadder to me than just being gone.
You think about forests that contained billions of these trees, and now this is one of a handful of this age.
I mean, yeah, one of four.
When chestnuts vanished from Eastern forests, a whole ecosystem was lost to human memory.
An interdependent web of life, built around a single “keystone” species.
For generations, humans have played a similar “keystone” role on the lands they call home.
But with Earth’s cultures disappearing as fast as its biodiversity… these fading connections leave some species in even greater peril.
(deckhand) To the right of that shiny spot.
Making giant splashing– look at that!
(Giles) Yeah, that’s whales.
Good eyes.
Okay.
Everybody hang on.
(Shane) This is Deborah Giles, or as most people know her, Giles.
She’s been studying orcas, also known as killer whales, for nearly 20 years.
But it’s her newest assistant who might just be the team’s MVP.
(dog barks) (Giles) She’s trying to orient to smell.
(Shane) Okay.
(Giles) And then, as we’re coming into the scent cone, she’ll move to the front of the bow, she’ll start maybe whining.
(Shane) Okay, but she’s basically your poop compass.
(Giles) She is our poop compass.
The tip of her nose is gonna point us at that smell.
(Shane) Okay.
(Giles) And then she’s working for playtime, that’s her reward, is playtime.
(Shane) Aww.
You heard that right.
The hero of Giles’s research is an Orca-poop-sniffing pooch named Eba.
(quirky music) (Giles) We go in and we collect the scat sample off the water.
(Shane) Whale poop can yield a smorgasbord of data with minimal disturbance.
DNA identifies the pooper, while other tests paint a detailed picture of the whale’s diet, hormones, and overall health.
Giles is monitoring these orcas, a distinct population known as the southern resident killer whales– because they’re in deep trouble.
(Giles) So, 70% of the females in this population who are getting pregnant are unable to bring their calves to term.
So, they’re miscarrying or the baby is born alive and dies right away, 70%.
How long is an orca pregnant before she gives birth?
Seventeen months.
(Shane) Wow.
Long time.
(grim music) (news anchor) A mother orca whose calf died after birth is still carrying her baby, 17 days later.
(Shane) The southern residents aren’t the only orcas in the Salish Sea, but they are the most endangered.
(Giles) By far the biggest problem is the lack of prey.
(Shane) Most orcas hunt other mammals, but the southern residents prefer fish.
(Giles) The fish eaters are dictated by what mom says, what grandmother says.
These are matriarchal societies.
(Shane) The southern residents are particularly reliant on Chinook or King salmon, which have declined by more than 90% in the last century.
Without the salmon, orca mothers are starving and many can’t carry their babies to term.
Despite legal protection, the population is still dwindling.
(melancholic music) When I visited, there were just 73 left.
(Ellie) We’re a perfect triangle.
We call orca Quahamitchdon.
So, us, Quahamitchdon, and salmon, we need all three to be able to survive.
(Shane) Quahamitchdon are more than neighbors.
(Ellie) We believe they’ve just put on their underwater regalia and they’ve become Quahamitchdon.
Hmm.
(Ellie) So, they are just members of our family.
(Shane) Ellie Kinley is a member of the Lummi Nation.
(mellow music) When she’s not working on a beautiful flower arrangement, you might find Ellie on her boat– fishing in waters that the Lummi, the orca, and the salmon all call home.
(Ellie) I just love the fact that there is no word for famine or starvation in our language, because we never starved.
(Ellie) A lot of our stories talk about all our creeks and rivers being so full of salmon, you could walk across their backs.
(Shane) Whoa.
(Ellie) We’ve always had plenty from the Salish Sea.
(solemn music) (Shane) But in the past century, dams, pollution, development, and overfishing have decimated the salmon runs, while many Lummi fishers have been displaced from their traditional fishing grounds.
And the Lummi’s underwater relatives faced another threat.
(news anchor) The so-called “killer whale” was the first of the whale family to be successfully kept in captivity.
(Shane) In the 1960s and ’70s, amusement parks and aquariums were stocking up, and the southern residents proved easy to catch.
At least 50 orcas, including babies, were captured for aquariums around the world.
A female named Tokitae was kept in a tiny tank at the Miami Seaquarium, mostly alone, for more than half a century.
For the Lummi, the story is painfully resonant.
(Ellie) The aquarium was the residential school.
She was taken there, and the savage was taken out of her.
She was taught to perform.
It’s the same thing our children went through.
(Shane) Like other indigenous children in the U.S. and Canada, Lummi children were often sent to boarding schools with the explicit goal of forced assimilation.
(teacher) Now, let’s pick up where we left off yesterday, with the English lesson.
(Shane) As Ellie sees it, the Lummi and their underwater family have both suffered the same trauma.
And it’s only by repairing that trauma and restoring their connection to the Salish Sea that both can thrive again.
(Ellie) Family takes care of family.
So, it’s our job to make the Salish Sea healthy enough to provide for us all again.
(Shane) That means rebuilding the legendary salmon runs that once sustained the orca and the Lummi.
(tranquil music) (Ellie) We’re still the biggest tribal fishing fleet in the nation, but we were once twice the size.
What you see is people that aren’t fishing.
There’s a lot of broken people.
-I know where home is.
-Mm-hm.
And when I get there, I know it.
I can just stand on the bow of my boat, and I just feel it.
There has never been a generation in my family that hasn’t fished.
(Shane) Mh-hm…never.
Yep.
(Shane) In the Salish Sea, a culture was born of this place and the creatures who share it.
The erosion of that culture puts species at risk just as surely as the loss of those species diminishes the culture.
Our ties to other life run deep.
It might be why extinction feels so wrong.
But look around, and it kinda feels like humans are just getting started.
Whether by ignorance, apathy, or greed, we don’t have any trouble ending another species’ journey.
Which is why, for some, preventing extinction just isn’t enough.
(Beth) We get drawings from kids every week of pictures of mammoths and dodos and thylacine.
Some of them are good, some of them are not.
(laughter) (Shane) This is Beth Shapiro.
She’s trying to put the pieces of lost ecosystems back together using biotechnology to undo extinction.
Beth is chief science officer of Colossal Biosciences, a startup that’s captivated the world with their goal of reviving extinct animals from ancient DNA.
Sound familiar?
(“Jurassic Park” soundtrack plays) (Beth) There’s no DNA in dinosaurs, we can’t do that.
(Shane) I’m never gonna get Jurassic Park?
-No, I’m sorry.
-Okay.
A flesh-and-blood T. rex is still firmly in the realm of sci-fi.
But Colossal is working on species that disappeared more recently.
(news reporter) At Colossal Biosciences in Dallas, the mission is clear.
(researcher) We are less than five years away from seeing mammoths back on the planet.
(Shane) When Beth wrote her first book in 2015, she was…ambivalent about de-extinction.
(Beth) I thought that… it’s a little far-fetched.
Probably too hard, probably too many technical, ethical, ecological hurdles that need to be overcome.
(Shane) But her perspective has evolved.
(Beth) As we make these advances, we are creating new tools that can be applied to stop extinctions from happening today.
(Shane) High on Colossal’s list is a species I got to know at the La Brea Tar Pits.
(wolf howling) In April 2025, Colossal announced the birth of three puppies, which they described as the first living dire wolves in 10,000 years.
They hailed the achievement as “the world’s first de-extinction.”
But a lot of scientists cried foul.
Were these really dire wolves?
(Beth) It is never going to be possible to bring back a species that is 100% identical in every way, genetically, physiologically, behaviorally, to a species that is extinct.
(Shane) In this case, the team created the so-called dire wolves by cloning cells from modern gray wolves, with DNA edited to give them dire wolf-like traits.
The goal isn’t so much to bring back lost species as it is to create new ones to do the same job.
(Beth) I think it’s about interactions in ecosystems, so, I don’t care what species is there that’s doing this really important role, as long as it’s there.
(Shane) Some of Colossal’s critics say, “Okay…then why dire wolves?”
Their Pleistocene ecosystem is long gone.
(wolf howling) But Beth points out that it’s big flashy species like the dire wolf that make this work possible.
(Beth) It is incredibly hard to raise money to do conservation work.
(Shane) Yet Colossal is doing exactly that.
(Beth) That is new money, tech money, that’s directly going to develop tools that we can use to stop species from becoming extinct, and that is really what I think an incredible benefit of the idea of de-extinction is.
It’s energizing.
(Shane) But not everyone is convinced that de-extinction is a goal worth chasing.
(phone ringing) (Christopher) If we bring them back, can we ensure that they stay alive this time?
There’s no good evidence that we can do that.
(“Born to Roll” by Masta Ace plays) (Shane) This is Christopher Preston.
When he isn’t prepping for mountain bike season, Christopher teaches environmental philosophy at the University of Montana.
He’s thought a lot about extinction and why it matters.
(Christopher) In some ways, what you’re losing when you lose a species is you– you’re losing a thread.
You’re losing a DNA thread that goes back in time over tens of millions of years, sometimes.
If you put an end to that continuous chain back into the past, you’ve lost something really that has philosophical value, and arguably, something that has moral value, too.
(Shane) Our species has proven all too capable of breaking those chains, but we can’t necessarily repair them.
(Christopher) To make restitution to a species, that thing has to be around, but it’s not around anymore.
So, what exactly are you making restitution to?
I don’t think we’re making things right again.
(Shane) But even skeptics understand why de-extinction has gotten so much attention.
(dark music) (Christopher) That word “extinction” has such a central place in the whole environmental discussion.
It’s the worst of all environmental sins, and we all know extinction is forever, right?
And so, if someone walks in the room and says, “Hey, extinction, it’s not forever,” we’re gonna look up, and we’re gonna get excited.
(moody music) (Shane) Will de-extinction become part of our conservation toolkit?
I honestly don’t know.
But what would it look like if it did?
What if someone really did bring back a mammoth?
African elephants are among the woolly mammoth’s closest living relatives.
And a big reason why they’re endangered is that they’re not so easy to live with.
Just ask folks in Kenya who have them as neighbors.
To me, they are good animals,1000 (Shane) David Mwiti has been farming on the edge of Kenya’s Lewa Wildlife Conservancy for 30 years.
(“Jamboree” by Naughty by Nature feat.
Zhané plays) (male singer) I want to see y’all who wanna plan with me Wave your hands across the land If we family Say hot damn (Shane) Most of his neighbors rely on their farms to make a living.
So, when elephants raid their fields, the results can be devastating.
(Shane) Whoa.
(Shane) And hungry elephants aren’t just destructive, they’re dangerous.
-Okay.
-Yeah.
(Shane) But everything’s different now.
(serene music) (Shane) Okay.
(Shane) This electrified fence keeps most elephants out of the village and out of harm’s way.
(Shane) Nearby, an elephant underpass prevents deadly vehicle collisions on the highway.
These huge infrastructure investments are part of a bigger strategy to make human-elephant coexistence possible.
(“Fight the Power” by Public Enemy plays) (male singer) Let’s get down to business Mental self defensive fitness (Shane) Meet John Pameri, head of general security at Lewa Conservancy.
The way John takes care of himself, you’d never know he’s been working here for 30 years.
As human and elephant populations have grown, managing conflict between the two has gotten more demanding.
(Shane) Some elephants cause more problems than others.
(elephant trumpeting) GPS collars allow the team to monitor the habitual troublemakers 24/7.
(Shane) Yeah.
(calm music) (speaking foreign language) That monitoring effort is just one part of a comprehensive security operation that John oversees.
(phone beeping) (Shane) When the call comes in, a human-wildlife conflict team deploys to defuse the situation before it escalates.
The ops room can also rapidly mobilize anti-poaching units.
But Lewa’s strategy isn’t just reactive, it’s proactive, too.
The Conservancy has spent decades building goodwill with the surrounding communities– digging wells, constructing schools, and creating good, reliable jobs, all funded by conservation.
(Shane) It’s been really successful, but also hugely expensive.
If the elephants were gone, do you think farmers, like, would they be upset about it?
Would they be happy about it?
(Shane) It all makes me think again about mammoths.
(deeply percussive music) If we brought them back, could we coexist with them?
-Mmm.
(Shane) Here in Kenya, people are keeping megafauna alive in a fast-changing world.
But it means doing things differently.
(Christopher) I think behavioral change is difficult.
If someone comes along and says, “Hey, I can fix that for you, and you don’t have to change a thing,” that is going to be very appealing.
(Shane) And that might be why de-extinction gets so much attention.
The same day Colossal made its “dire wolf” announcement, critics of the U.S.
Endangered Species Act claimed that de-extinction– not regulations that protect wildlife– could become the bedrock of species conservation.
Could the promise of a techno-fix for extinction change how we value our fellow species?
(Beth) It’s a good question, and I think it assumes both something beautiful about humanity, but also something that’s wrong.
And that is that most people value biodiversity now.
I think most people don’t value biodiversity or think about extinction, and I worry that that’s a problem.
(solemn music) (Shane) Beth might be right about a lot of folks, maybe even most.
But everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve met amazing people taking extraordinary measures to keep species from disappearing.
(Christopher) Humans, unlike other species, can choose to do differently.
If we can put empathy at the center of our world, I think that helps in human relations and it helps in our relationships with the natural world.
So, let’s choose to do something differently.
(Shane) We’re living in a new age of extinction, one crafted by our own hands.
It might be the first time one species has snuffed out so many others.
But we’re also the first of this planet’s creatures to grasp the consequences of our actions and to consider changing our ways.
I want to believe that we can turn the tide, that we can keep wild species from going over the brink, or maybe even bring them back.
If we act thoughtfully, empathetically, and urgently, maybe our species will redefine the legacy we leave on all the others that share our one incredible planet.
(announcer) This program is available with PBS Passport and on Amazon Prime Video