Speaker 0 00:00:00 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:00:11 Hey friend, welcome to another episode of rewild ology, where we explore conservation travel and rewilding the planet. I'm your host to Brooke Mitchell, Norman conservation, biologists, and world traveler. The more people I meet and talk to the more I love seeing how we all combine our interests and talents to contribute to conservation today's guest is another perfect example of using a past career and the startup tech world to save wildlife today. In this episode, I'm chatting with Eric Schmidt, who is the executive director of wildlife protection solutions. WPS his mission is to use technology, to conserve endangered species and ecosystems. And boy, are they good at it? Eric and I chat about how WPS came to be the technology they've deployed around the world. And he even, she has a few stories about catching poachers in the act. We also talk in depth about the poaching industry and why it's not a straightforward issue.
Speaker 1 00:01:07 And as in most episodes, we discuss the personal struggles he's had to overcome and how he's continuing to move forward in his emotional field. Eric and I recorded this episode, live in the beautiful front range, right outside of golden Colorado, which you can watch on the reward, LG YouTube channel. We drink some tasty bourbon and had a blast. Recording is for you all. If you'd like in the show so far, please subscribe and share with a friend sharing is the best way to help the show grow. And I'd love to connect on Instagram at <inaudible> or
[email protected] and now onto my conversation with Eric. Well, this is awesome. Certainly better than the 30 degree day with the snow. I know. Oh no, this was, this is way better. Oh, it's so nice out here. Right here in the foothills.
Speaker 1 00:02:07 Awesome. Well, thanks for meeting with me, Eric. My pleasure. Oh, heck yeah. Oh, we're gonna have fun today. Awesome. We got our bourbon Vega. She is my good friend. Yeah. Nothing like some bullet. Um, okay, so just to start out, um, let's just start at the beginning. I was like looking at some of your bio stuff and everything, and it seems like you have a pretty interesting winding path, which I think is the most fascinating thing, like how people get to where they are. So it takes me back to square one. Where did you grow up? What was your childhood like? Oh, I'm a front range kid born and raised here in Denver, Lakewood, uh,
Speaker 2 00:03:00 You know, really growing up, I got, I fell in love with landscapes like this, going down into the gullies and running through the streams and the lakes and just so much wildlife and wild lands were kind of in my backyard that ever since about sixth grade, that's kind of what I fell in love with and wanted to be part of my life. And, um, so, you know, going through high school and college, I always kind of had that in my mind and studied conservation biology at CU Boulder. And, uh, as I had hit there, they had just begun a program that was, uh, kind of an accelerated path that would allow you to get a combined bachelor's and master's degree in five years. And so I said, well, that seems pretty good. I was originally planning on studying Marine biology or something and transferring down to university of Texas a and M in Galveston, but I thought the program up the road, or I can get a master's in five, seemed like a cool deal,
Speaker 1 00:04:06 Way longer than that.
Speaker 2 00:04:08 I did that. And, uh, through various programs, I got involved in, um, a lot of local wildlife causes and conservation working with, uh, city of Boulder, open space County, open space, national renewable energy labs, uh, all while I was still pursuing my masters and honors and all that stuff. Um, and then worked for the County for several years after that. Uh, and we began applying around to different jobs, um, and sort of said, boy, this is a, this is a steep climb right now. I'm kinda need to shift paths because I have to pay bills. And, um, technology has always been kind of a hobby of mine. So I sort of took a weird turn through the business world and end up landing in a position with a company out of Arvada here, just up the road, um, that sold native American and nature-based things like books and CDs and DVDs into the national park systems and zoos and aquariums and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 00:05:13 And it was kind of an interesting balance between, you know, my passion for wildlife, but it also incorporated aspects of, uh, technology because, uh, that little company realized that they could increase the sell through of the, the educational products that they had in these retail environments that are associated with Nat national parks and things by creating essentially preview dashboards, uh, that would allow people to come up and, you know, press the button for, um, BBC planet earth. And then you see the trailer of it, or you come up and hit the button with the CD cover of the native American flute music. And you get to hear what it's like. So you can make a kind of a better buying decision about, you know, what that content, which is so great is all about, but nobody's ever heard of it or seen of it a lot of the time because it just doesn't have that mainstream presence. So they built that into a company that really, um, spun off from the media distribution house and became a interactive kiosk company, essentially. Um, as that sort of got bigger and bigger and bigger, I was like employee 12 or something. Um, and it grew up to three or 400.
Speaker 3 00:06:27 Wow. So you're a part of the,
Speaker 2 00:06:32 For the ride in, in sort of startup mode. And I got to do a lot of different things, um, ranging from implementation of their projects, to, you know, helping with the, some of the sales efforts and, uh, get to see a lot of behind the scenes stuff that goes on, like all the signage for American airlines was like my project and a bunch of others Hershey's and, uh, Deloitte and, you know, Kaiser Permanente, there's a long list of these things. So it got me, you know, even more deeply rooted in the technology world, but more importantly, uh, kind of the, one of the two, really both the founders of that company, I'd become very good friends with. And we discovered a shared passion for wildlife and conservation. He came to his primary interest through traveling the world. And so about seven years ago, um, he basically said, Hey, look, I would like to, uh, step a little bit back from the business company.
Speaker 2 00:07:31 We've always talked about, uh, doing something meaningful for wildlife. So if you're willing to step back as well with me, we can, uh, found wildlife protection solutions and focus what we really know about technology and practically applying it for the good of conservation groups working on the ground for endangered species. And so that's really how WPS was born. And I like to think of it as the line becoming a circle, you know, I always wanted to be in conservation world and then kind of took a weird sidetrack through the business, but now I'm back in it. So
Speaker 3 00:08:06 That's awesome. So what did you think, or what did you do when, so the founder, so, okay. So I'm just going to try to piece it all together here. So the founders hired you, you were like employee number 12 and you ended up being very, very close with them. And then they came to you and were like, Hey, let's go do something way more. Mission-based. So what was that like for you? Like, was, was there turmoil? I mean, I'm sure that there's other position was way more stable. And so what was that like when they came to you and asked, you know, how did, how did you want to pursue that?
Speaker 2 00:08:43 Well, to me, it was a bit of a homecoming because, um, really when the business entity started out and I was like employee 12 or something like that, it was very much family. And I knew everybody and I had, you know, very close relationships with all the upper management. And you can imagine, like, it's harder to maintain as an organization just starts ballooning up like that. And so I hadn't really necessarily worked with, uh, Dave, uh Weidner who is kind of the co-founder of WPS with myself and, uh, Sue Thompson, um, in several years. And I really kind of missed it. Uh, so I, it was an opportunity for me to re-engage with him, you know, uh, get back to what I love. And, and so, yeah, I was extremely interested in doing that and kind of getting off the treadmill of flying out to California for presentations one day and then New York for presentations, two days later, and then back and forth, all this crazy bouncing around the country. I was like, Hey, we can get back to meaningful stuff that I think is going to benefit the planet. Um, and so I was, I was really proud to be able to do it and really excited.
Speaker 1 00:09:58 I mean, yeah, I mean, having, um, you know, my path as well has taken me on and off the conservation biology train, you know, sometimes voluntarily, sometimes not voluntarily. And I don't know, I sometimes there's just like the, it feels like there's a whole missing, you know, when you're not that thing that you care about so much, and you're not helping in any way anymore. So how long were you in that role previously before probably five years. Something like that?
Speaker 2 00:10:35 It would, I've now done this longer than I've done that. I guess it's the, uh, it's the miles, not the age, but no, you're, you're absolutely right. I, and I'm curious to learn more about kind of your story, because I think that's one of the, the things about choosing to go into the conservation space. It's a passion, but you also have to kind of pay the bills and that's a balancing act in a lot of ways. So
Speaker 1 00:11:03 Yeah, you're exactly right. It's, it's paying the bills. Um, and, and my son's quite literally, so, I mean, I don't know how much debt you graduated with when you, um, you know, graduated with your master's in conservation biology. But, so I was going down that path of, I was going to be a zoological veterinarian because growing up where I grew up in the middle of freaking nowhere, the only thing that I was exposed to on how to protect wildlife was, you know, being a veterinarian. Um, and so that was the path that was on. I was going, Whoa, I had that idea like when I was 10 and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is the only path for me. And then finding zoo veterinarians, I'm like, okay, that's what exactly what I'm going to do. Um, so I was on that path and then my senior year, and then my senior year at highest state,
Speaker 3 00:11:57 I went, I just kind of,
Speaker 1 00:12:00 I guess you could go on to come to Jesus moment. I don't know what else do you want to call it? But kind of like
Speaker 3 00:12:05 That, where I was like,
Speaker 1 00:12:07 I don't know if I want to do that. Like, I don't know. I had already applied to vet school. I was, um, I already did all the internships you were supposed to do, like all of your hours. I was a vet assistant, like all those things that you're supposed to do to go, to,
Speaker 3 00:12:21 To be a vet. And
Speaker 1 00:12:26 I don't know, something came over me. I got my first zoo job. And that was the first time that I could use my personality to inspire conservation. And I didn't know that that was a thing, like, I didn't know that you could use just who you are as a person to inspire people. And so I started doing all the questioning. I'm like, I don't freaking know what I'm doing in life. What is this? So I also got a job at the Columbus blue jackets, which was also personality based. And I'm like, what is this? Like, why did I not know about any of this? And,
Speaker 3 00:12:56 Um, I was like
Speaker 1 00:12:57 Skinning so scared and so nervous. Cause I was a senior, you know, I had this big path that I was supposed to go down
Speaker 3 00:13:03 And I just up in a whim, just
Speaker 1 00:13:07 Mine. I, it, the final moment is when I went into my interview for vet school and I happened to be paired with the worst people that I could have possibly be paired with to be interviewed, to become a vet.
Speaker 3 00:13:21 Um, and I,
Speaker 1 00:13:24 Well, it's like ran out of the room. Like, no, I can't do this. This is not the path I want to go down.
Speaker 3 00:13:29 And so then I was pretty lost on what to do.
Speaker 1 00:13:33 And then, um, shortly after that, that's when I found my master's program, which was the global field program that Miami university in Ohio has.
Speaker 3 00:13:41 And that was the first time to travel. And that is when
Speaker 1 00:13:45 Love. Cause I didn't know about conservation channel either and its power, which I know that you are very with what you do, you know, completely understand the power of conservation travel.
Speaker 3 00:13:55 Um, and so that's, that's
Speaker 1 00:13:57 The route that I decided to go down and I started all this time was working for nonprofits. Um, and then I worked for my first for-profit job, which also show me the benefits of, you know, for profits with a good mission and how like that's okay. You know? Cause I was so like against, for-profits like they're the devil like, wow, I'm ignorant. That's not the case. It's all based on the mission and what they're doing with their profits. That's the only thing that matters for any business.
Speaker 3 00:14:23 Um, yeah.
Speaker 1 00:14:24 And then of course COVID happened and unfortunately I lost that job, um, last March, but you know, then, then this happened and now I guess get to talk to people like you and spread the message of conservation and share amazing stories from different viewpoints. And let me like, if the whole point is, you know, rewilding the planet and that's going to take us together to do that.
Speaker 3 00:14:44 Um, and you know, wildlife
Speaker 1 00:14:46 Protection solutions, like, you know, organizations like you that are taking a very particular to do that. That's all part of the greater scheme and just bringing us all together to do that. So I guess this is my story and like, I don't know how long it was five minutes, but yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, so, so on that note, so now I guess I just organically brought up conservation travel, um, and just the world viewpoint. Um, let's go, let's go back to, so, you know, WPS is mission and what exactly it is you all do and where you're at and your, like your part of the whole greater mission.
Speaker 2 00:15:36 Great question. You know, early on we realized that there are a lot of groups out there doing incredible work on the ground, you know, supporting Rangers, fielding people who are protecting wildlife and that sort of thing. But, uh, one of the things that we felt was unique about our background was kind of that technology focus. And as we sort of became more in co-located into the conservation realm, we found that oftentimes people in the field don't have time to be learning about the latest and greatest things that could be making their lives better or making, uh, their efforts more effective and that sort of thing. And so we said, look, rather than come in and try and, you know, reinvent how to field Rangers in the Bush or how to support groups like that. Let's put our own unique flavor on it and really practically apply conservation so that it can be meaningfully used by people who don't have time to be stuck in the mess of learning about it, deploying it, supporting it, all these different things.
Speaker 2 00:16:45 So w I, in some ways view a lot of what we do as kind of the it resource function in support of conservation. So a great example of that is, um, using different tripe types of real time, data connectivity, and, uh, most often trap cameras that are communicating through cellular, but a bunch of different ways that parks can put, um, these cameras all around in areas where they might be experiencing anything ranging from poaching pressure to illegal logging, to human intrusion, into core habitats for, and disturbing animals that, you know, need a space for nesting or all the myriad reasons that you need to know what's going on in a protected area, uh, to be able to protect it well. Um, so we establish and we deploy those systems on behalf of those groups, working in those protected areas. And that's one core function of what we do now, along the low, on the long, the way of that we met several like-minded groups who were taking a similar, uh, approaches with other types of technology.
Speaker 2 00:17:55 Uh, there's a group out of Seattle called Vulcan, which was, uh, Paul Allen's. Yeah, well, it's Paul Allen, kind of the number two guy within Microsoft is sort of multi-billion dollar organization that he, uh, through again, conservation travel got excited about wildlife and he said, look, we want to do a similar thing, but, you know, mapping where arrangers and where animals on the screen so that they can keep track of the ring rhinos that might be poached or the elephants, or what have you. So we've partnered with them, we've partnered with other groups like, um, there's a consortium that's built software called the smart partnership that has designed tools for Rangers to, uh, use in the field to track what they see and what they find, and then geospatial map that in databases, uh, and that can influence future patrols or park planning. And so we've become experts in all of those three core areas from camera deployment to earth ranger and smart. Um, and we sort of bundle those and work with the protected groups that can get those out there. That's what we do on the field facing side on the education and outreach side. Um, as we were involved with cameras more and more, it came into our preview, this notion of a new technology by GoPro and others that they can deploy, um, cameras that can film literally it's three 60
Speaker 3 00:19:19 Degrees. And then you
Speaker 2 00:19:22 Can view those in VR headsets like you might be familiar with. And we said, look, this is interesting technology to us. This represents
Speaker 3 00:19:31 An immediate point in
Speaker 2 00:19:34 Seeing people excited about conservation in my view, um, a lot of the time people like you and I, we become passionate as kids because of some experience that we had in the outdoors or things like that for many people that either isn't there or isn't widely available. And so the pathway that we see to getting people excited about wildlife starts out with, you know, you may watch a program
Speaker 3 00:19:58 And, um, uh, about wildlife,
Speaker 2 00:20:02 BBC, planet earth, something of that nature, you may go to the zoo, you may, uh, you know, that might peak your interest. You might tune into podcasts like this one. Uh, but then there's kind of a big leap oftentimes to get people really, truly passionate. And that leap was oftentimes going to these places far away, spending a lot of money and seeing it for yourself, how special these animals are. And we said, look, maybe this three 60 filming and camera footage can be an intermediary.
Speaker 3 00:20:31 That is, um,
Speaker 2 00:20:34 Well, this is a wider audience to the amazing world of these animals in a way that just TV can't. And so we also send people around the world to film rare and endangered species in three 60. And we're currently working on an app that will let people put goggles on and really see what animals are like when there are no people around. Because all we do is we set the cameras out. We've developed clever ways of turning them into trap cameras that are motion triggered. And then we see what happens and you get some amazing things like the sound that rhinos make when chasing each other to, uh, you know, just the way that a mother bears interact with their Cubs when no one's around and it's completely unseen footage. And so we hope that will inspire more people to say, Hey, this is really special. It's worth protecting. I'm going to spend my energy and resources in doing that, or at least get them to say, Hey, I'm going to go out and actually look at this and go to these places and witness some of this. So I can be more of a believer in the cause of wildlife. So really those are the two features, protection, and also kind of awareness raising that we try and aim for.
Speaker 1 00:21:40 Yeah, that's amazing. Um, so I'm going to make a connection here. Um, so I was just mentioned before we started recording bill given. So he was my first guest on this podcast and he just happens to be up the road. I might text him and be like, bill, what are you doing? Where are you at? Um, but so what am I big master's projects? Um, is I focus more on the people side, just like you said, and I built him, it was super rudimentary. I mean, you guys would laugh at this app, but I built an app, um, that was designed to bring people into the Safari experience and it became a citizen science project. So, so whenever they were on Safari, the guides, because the guides are always recording their observations of all the, especially the cats, like that was my big focus. That was Bill's big focus is as the cats.
Speaker 1 00:22:30 And, um, I studied what it was like to take these people, to elevate them from just observers to, you know, scientists where they're observing them from a scientific standpoint and, and the empathy that, that grew from that. And that is I'm seeing parallels with exactly what you said. Um, and so I just have a, I guess this is just more of a general question. Is there any, like, as I'm assuming all of this information that's coming in is being saved into a database somewhere, is there like a scientist or like a grad student that might be partnered with, to analyze the data and like the, um, wildlife that's coming in or anything, or maybe that could be something that happened in the future or, yeah,
Speaker 2 00:23:13 Absolutely. Um, really there's kind of two data sets. One is the data stream that's coming in constantly from the cameras that we have out in the field. And there are now four or 500 of them. Um, we haven't done a lot on the research side with that resource currently, other than, uh, two things. One is we, we take a portion of those images that we have permission to use, and we feed them back into our partners like Microsoft. They have the AI for earth platform and they use to iterate, uh, and do a better job of having their AI look for things like threats or specific species and animals. And so that's just kind of a partnership we've organically made with them and they support, uh, some of our work. Um, the other side of that, though, interestingly on the citizen science side is we've kind of got a public facing volunteer portal where we have, uh, people who, um, self identify, say I'm interested in, in monitoring for poachers in these protected areas, the protected areas opt in as well.
Speaker 2 00:24:18 Um, because it's always sensitive information about security in a protected area, but they say, Hey, we're happy to take advantage of the time shifting, you know, midnight here is the middle of the day in Colorado. We'd love for people to be, you know, scanning for intruders or vehicles where they may not be. And so, um, as a volunteer, you can pop the app up on your phone and scroll through and not only see an incredible amount of wildlife, but occasionally see a bad guy, hit the little button and say, report this, that then activates alerts to my staff. And we have worked out policies and procedures to get in touch with the wardens of each of these parks. And we say, Hey, there's a bad guy, camera five. Or maybe you should check on what's going on at camera eight or whatever. And we've had people here in the us actually be the first responder to poaching incidents from around the world. And, um, because of their EagleEye here, they've been able to make arrests and interventions and things around the world. So that's pretty cool on the, um, video side of things, we're basically amassing a gigantic, it's probably up to petabytes of data. Now
Speaker 1 00:25:32 That means it sounds like a lot.
Speaker 2 00:25:33 So you've got what megabytes gigabytes terabytes petabytes is like big hundreds stacks of hard drives are sitting around in our places. Um, and we're, we're cataloging. It's all kind of on storage. Uh, and right now, as I said, we're just building this app. Um, but it's not, um, sort of been tapped for scientific or research purposes yet, but we'd love to, you know, make it available. Uh it's frankly, something that we want to make available to anyone with conservation mindset at no cost. So if there's anybody out there who thinks they'd like to use some of this footage for education or outreach purposes, feel free to let us know and, you know, grab us free of charge. We just want to get it out there and see it making a positive impact.
Speaker 1 00:26:24 That's awesome. I think that's a call to action to anybody listening right now, if you have any graduate research or anything else, or just a love for that. Yeah. Cause I mean, I having done something very similar, cause that's the part where like that project had to end just because my masters was over. But, um, is you also have a long-term study going on with the wildlife in the area, which is insanely exciting. So not only do you have the people's side, you have the engagement side, you also have the wildlife side. Like that just is. I mean, to me, that sounds like I get super excited,
Speaker 2 00:27:00 I think is a potential resource. Even three 60 filming in general is potentially available for researchers as a tool that I don't think has been tapped because of the nature of the technology. You can leave it out there. Um, if it's in sort of a flock or herd situation, it can capture everything going on around. You don't have to be there, but you also have a 100% play backable. If that's even a word,
Speaker 2 00:27:33 You can go look at it and say, okay, well I'm going to focus my, my visual gaze on this segment of the population right now. And I can literally catch every animal interest specific interspecific interaction that's going on. I can rewind it. I can repeat it. I can make sure I've got it all. Okay. Now I can just look over here and see what, what did this side of the herd do or that, you know, and see all the way around, in a completely way that, you know, just sitting in the field, like when I was, you know, doing bird counts and things, it was like, okay, what did I hear? What did I see? What is it? And it's all, you know, in the timeline of life, then you can never go back. But this way you can capture it all and go back and be really sure, some amazing technology.
Speaker 1 00:28:19 I did some game counts when I was in Namibia. And I mean, I saw, I saw a Brown hyena, Oh my gosh. You know, I saw some really cool stuff, but we had to get up at three. I think it was three or three 30. And we were doesn't drop in the Bush for an entire day until the sun went down to get picked back up to be brought back. Which, I mean, I love that day. The amazing thing. I mean, it was, it was, I'm not complaining by any means. Um, because it was so much fun and me and my girl that was out stuck out there, have some hilarious stories, have to be in the bus, knowing that there were leopards and rhinos and we're just like, Oh my God. Okay. So, I mean, it was super fun and great memories, but from an efficiency standpoint and also just connectivity, just like you said, like, I mean, think of right now I have so many friends that are PhD students or graduate students where their research has been completely red because they can't go, they can't physically go. Their research was in India. Like I'm thinking of my really good friends. Sarica um, I mean, there were so many things that COVID would just completely put a record, but just like you said, the technology that you all are deploying, the opportunity is endless from a wildlife study point from engagement point from, I mean,
Speaker 2 00:29:38 One of the things that I met very excited for in 2021 here is we're working to partner with several wildlife vets in South Africa and other places. And, um, we've given them these same cameras and said, look, anytime you have a procedure out in the wild in the field, whatever, please film it for us with as best you can do, we'll clean it up. But, um, well then we'll make this available back to you. You can incorporate it into your curriculum. We just had a vet in South Africa who happened upon a rhino that was tough to buy an elephant and it was terrible. And the footage he sent us back, I don't know how graphic you want to get here. Like he, he, he put his hand in and threw the rhino on its back, like up to here. And he's like, yeah, we can. And he's working with it, he's getting it fixed back up. But the whole thing he's filming and I'm going, my God, this is such a resource for other people who, you know, how often are you going to encounter that and know what to do? Well now there's maybe even a resource where you can at least say, what did this guy? And it's like, you're right there watching him do it. So kind of cool.
Speaker 1 00:30:56 I mean, there's so many applications of that. I mean, cause I was saying, so one of my very first internship was at the wilds, which is this amazing 10,000 acre conservation out in Ohio. And it's so big that they'll wildlife is able to live wild. Um, and there was, um, this, uh, you know, talking to those things are just crazy out in Asia. Um, and she was super feisty, but she had a major Gore wound on her side. Um, you know, you know, just common interest, specific stuff. Um, and just thinking about applications like that. I mean that that's in any scenario with a major Gore wound like that. Uh, that just sounds, Oh my God, that's all so quick. I don't want to smell. I mean, I know this might be kind of gory, but it sounds so.
Speaker 2 00:31:47 Yeah, no, it's, uh, we, we have the daily calls to review the inbound footage and we were like, Oh man, that's, that's more intense than we usually get.
Speaker 1 00:31:58 Yeah. You don't know what you're going to see right. When you turn on.
Speaker 2 00:32:01 Yeah. Well, so the filmers usually like, uh, you know, after they collect the cameras at night or things, cause they don't see in the dark, that's one limitation right now, the tech, um, which we've experimented with a little bit, but uh, they collect the cameras most nights unless they're set up as trap cameras and then we leave them, but they're off during the darkness because they don't just don't record. Um, but they'll go through and kind of say, Oh, you know, an hour in there's some cool footage here, cool footage there. So we're not just wasting hundreds of hours reviewing things that didn't happen. But uh, yeah, it's, it's always a surprise and you know, just some amazing things that you see out there.
Speaker 3 00:32:42 So what are some of the craziest things that you all have caught?
Speaker 2 00:32:47 Um, you know, one of my favorites is, do you know how a wart hog it goes into its hole?
Speaker 3 00:32:55 I've seen worlds in holes.
Speaker 2 00:32:56 Yup. No, very few people do. So. I mean, it's, it's kind of one of those things they actually back in and when you hear that, it makes total sense, right? I mean, all the predators are out there, their tusks are upfront and so it makes a hundred percent sense for them to back down into the hole. But it's so funny how they just kind of get down and scoot in with their little butts. It's very funny. So that's a fun one, but then, you know, ah, just so many things I'm trying to think. Um,
Speaker 3 00:33:28 Any crazy poaching stories.
Speaker 2 00:33:30 So not what the three 60 ones, the, my favorite poaching stories are the ones where we actually find them here first and make those interventions. Wow. I remember the first time that happened was, uh, during the middle of our Workday, we happened to, you know, we have the screens back when we all Lou, you know, worked in an office, we had the screens up on the wall and we'd kind of watch this. And um, we see late in the afternoon here, like, Oh, it looks like a couple of guys in one particular area that we knew is, you know, having a lot of poaching pressure. And um, we were like, well, that's not good. So we got ahold of the warden and we said, Hey, check out camera five or whatever. It was a few minutes later, actually this is, this is really funny that it ended up that they, um, so those were the Scouts, the first two. And then the guy with the rifle came through later on. And so we got him on the, on the camera as well. Uh, well, farther down the line, the Scouts actually saw one of the cameras with the solar panel and they were like, Oh, that's interesting. So they started taking it apart. They didn't realize that it's sending pictures the whole time and the guy,
Speaker 3 00:34:54 This is the guy set
Speaker 2 00:34:54 The camera down. He really wanted the solar panel, which, you know, in the African Bush, solar panels, a nice thing, but he's literally sending selfies of themselves, deconstructing our camera on the whole time. We're like, yep, here, here. He's a camera fly right now, like five minutes. Oh, another picture just came in. And so in the whole other time we're watching the guys, the response team like creep up on them and uh, you know, we see them on the cameras, following their trail. And um, you know, the whole time we were just activating all the cameras, like more or less in real time, so we can get images of what's going on. That ended up, they got in a firefight, um, no one was hurt or killed. Fortunately, uh, they ended up dropping all of their materials, all of their weapons. They fled, they didn't necessarily catch them on this one, but the three rhinos that were immediately in the area were saved and we were just going, man, this is really happening.
Speaker 2 00:35:49 So it was, you know, one of those scenarios where the reason I love this is it for a lot of people here, you don't feel connected to what's going on with conservation around the world. And to me, this is a way that you can say, you know what, there are rhinos alive in another place because I was paying attention and to create that connection. And then in addition, you see all the cool wildlife just go on about their daily lives in the camera feeds anyway. So that's cool too. And that's kind of the spiritual uplift. You also get from monitoring the feeds.
Speaker 1 00:36:25 Yeah. Especially in the places that you haven't been before. I mean, I've been all over Southern Africa and just from country to country, the wildlife can be drastically different because I think everybody has like the Serengeti view of Africa, which understandably, I mean, it's so well known. And the wildlife there is incredible. Like I do not want to ever downplay the amazingness of the Serengeti, but Africa is a massive continent and the wildlife varies dramatically from just one watering hole to another. Um, so I'm sure that just seeing those live feeds and just seeing the difference from one to another is amazing
Speaker 2 00:37:04 And even getting into, you know, I'm very much enthused about other parts of the world. Like relatively speaking, Africa has got things dialed in with regard to their protection. Of course they have problems everywhere has problems. But if you look at the number of endangered and critically endangered species Africa, I think when I last looked had maybe 16 ish, critically endangered species, like large mammal species, not like mice and things like this, I'm sure that list is much longer, but, um, that same list for many Southeast Asian countries, countries, that list is in the, you know, above a hundred or in the hundreds. And so, uh, we want to increasingly put more focus and spotlight on that. Um, and we're trying to constantly grow our network of cameras in Southeast Asia and find partners that we're trying to work with down there. Um, and then in 2021 here, we're starting to get new projects, uh, online and, uh, South and central America and the Caribbean. I think we just, we were all excited internally cause we got our first image of a taper on one of the cameras.
Speaker 1 00:38:17 Oh my gosh. They're so cute. Oh, so how do you find your partners? I mean, in these far off destinations and these countries, I mean like, you know, I was like, I know that this area could benefit heavily from this technology, but how do you,
Speaker 2 00:38:32 Yeah, so internally we kind of have a where, uh, we want to proactively be trying to reach out to people who are working with animals that have, um, thousand individuals or less because we feel that those are really, uh, kind of the very much at the break. Right. And, and they don't frequently get a ton of attention. Like, um,
Speaker 3 00:38:58 When you, when you think or talk
Speaker 2 00:39:00 With most of the broader world about conservation, you're talking about elephants and rhinos and the charismatic megafauna. A lot of people don't understand the numbers behind that. There are 350,000 African era elephants, according to the great elephant census, at least non forest elephants,
Speaker 3 00:39:18 Um, nominally on, on paper 220,000
Speaker 2 00:39:23 Rhinos, that's actually probably closer to 10, maybe white rhinos. Um, but when you compare those numbers to what a thousand less,
Speaker 3 00:39:32 Or the, the, um, um, Northern States,
Speaker 2 00:39:36 Port of Lima, I think in Madagascar, there's like 75 individuals. Uh, the world's most endangered primate, the,
Speaker 3 00:39:42 Um, black Creston Heinen
Speaker 2 00:39:45 Gibbon is down to like,
Speaker 3 00:39:47 I think 50 E a total
Speaker 2 00:39:51 For population. Those are really the animals on the brink. So we want to try and support those. Uh, and so we kind of do some outreach every so often to try and find groups that are working with those and figure out how we can, uh, support them through whatever means necessary. It may not be, um, exclusively technology. If it's not our technology, we stay in our lane. We just say, look, do you need funds or whatever we can do. Uh, and so we'll try and be a granting organization to an extent, um, on the flip side of that, because we're so active on the technology side, we are getting more and more partners coming to us and saying, Hey, we've got this project, uh, it's got this specification, can you help us out? And so it's all been very organic for us, um, you know, between just sort of word of mouth, getting around with what we're doing.
Speaker 3 00:40:38 Uh, and that kind of is almost
Speaker 2 00:40:41 On a little bit of an autopilot that we don't have to push or advertise much because of the model that we have of just helping people. Uh, and then those that we are actively seeking we're, you know, trying to make overtures. And it helps for us not to be coming in as, uh,
Speaker 3 00:40:58 A competitive entity.
Speaker 2 00:41:00 You see, I don't know if you've encountered this in a lot of conversations with, uh, field groups, but there can be sometimes some amount of suspicion or what are you doing? You know, why are you trying to come into work with my species or in my area? And
Speaker 3 00:41:15 We come in and say, we're not here to compete. We're here to help. Here's the ticket.
Speaker 2 00:41:19 Here's what it might be able to help you to do. Let us know if you're interested in, that's been a way to very easily open the doors to a lot of these, uh, groups and field projects.
Speaker 3 00:41:31 Yeah, I can do that. I've definitely experienced
Speaker 1 00:41:34 That, which it's a, it's so unfortunate where it's like, no, this is my research. This is like my project. When in reality, we need all of us together working together if we want to save these animals.
Speaker 2 00:41:51 Right. But it's hard though, too, because the, in my view, the, the economics around conservation are fundamentally broken. And so it's always a scrape and a scratch for the next research project or the next grant or the next, whatever it is. Um, there's, there's not a lot of groups that are saying, we just need to do it for the good and support the people that are doing it for them. Um, we try and be one of those groups that say, no, we need to do it for the good. And, uh, sometimes you, you just say whatever, I really don't care about the ego or the logo or the, whatever it is. We just need to, you know, do what needs to be done here.
Speaker 1 00:42:36 Yeah. And is there, um, so it sounds like, you know, the, the Microsoft example you gave, is there ways to get, you know, just these bigger businesses that might not be aware more involved in, in conservation, have you found any like good ways for that to happen?
Speaker 2 00:42:54 That is a great question. Sadly, the answer is no. Um, I mean, organically, some of them are like Microsoft does have a great AI for earth. We've had some partnerships with Amazon that have been, um, at a much smaller scales, but, you know, we've, as an organization, we've been in the fortunate position to focus on kind of field facing and, um, impact driven focus. So I haven't necessarily had to do a lot of the more traditional things of fundraising and getting out there and that sort of thing. Um, and so we're just, you know, it's a weakness in our group in an organization that I don't have good insights into that side of the world, at least right now. And I'm sure if we focused on it, we could, I, I did sales for many years and, uh, was just fine at it. But, uh, rather be helping the animals at the moment
Speaker 1 00:43:51 You can only do. So there's only so many hours in the day. Like I know you said that WPS has been around for seven years, but I'm sure that that feels like a blink of an eye.
Speaker 2 00:44:00 Yeah. Surprisingly it does
Speaker 1 00:44:03 From zero and build it to where it is today. I mean, especially since you've, like you've said everything has been so organic.
Speaker 2 00:44:10 Yeah. Well, what did he say? What did they say? The days are long, but the years are short.
Speaker 1 00:44:16 I believe that's what it was from experience. Absolutely. Oh, that's great. Um, so I kind of want to just go, let's take this a little bit bigger picture, um, because I know that I used to have a very common misconception about poaching and the motivation behind it. Um, you know, when you just see these amazing BBC documentaries or just something that you're like, how could anybody want to kill a wine? How can anybody want to kill a tiger or just this absolutely beautiful piece of piece of it? That's not what I meant to say is absolutely amazing creature that you see on your screen. And it completely dehumanizes what the actual issue is. And so I'm sure that a lot of people listening might not have the same experience that we do when it comes to this. So I would really love it if you just took some time to chat about why there's poaching and what's going on, really when we're talking about these people and the kind of the circumstances that they're in.
Speaker 2 00:45:20 Yeah. Boy, how long you got,
Speaker 1 00:45:24 Say I got all day.
Speaker 2 00:45:27 I mean, that's, that really is one of the fundamental, I think, questions and challenges that the conservation community is faced with it because it is so multifaceted. I mean, some people will say that poaching is an economic necessity driven by a global inequality. And I think they are correct in that, in that there's, some people will say that, uh, poaching is driven by a large criminal syndicates. And I think they're correct in that. I think it, you know, it's as with everything shades of gray on a spectrum we've, and then also how you define poaching, we've caught poachers who were literally going into protected areas and gathering, uh, firewood and grass for their, uh, their livestock or to burn as cooking fuel or whatever is that poaching, I don't know. And in so many protected areas of the world, uh, parks are not seen the way that they are as you know, you and I might agree what a park is.
Speaker 2 00:46:34 A park is a set aside a portion of land that is there to not be developed, but is there for community benefit. And, you know, that sort of land use is totally legit and fine. And so it really just depends. Um, and, and that's where it gets really sticky and where we rely heavily on groups who are very much embedded in the communities and know the politics and layouts of what that looks like. But I can tell you this. Um, I personally think that, um, like I said, poaching is gradients and we, you know, see people going into protected areas with dogs and they're doing bushmeat poaching and that's purely subsistence, but when you get to sort of poaching, as we traditionally think of it, oftentimes like the going for the rhinos and the horn and things like that, I think it does get into criminal sin syndicates.
Speaker 2 00:47:30 I had an interesting conversation with a member of the, uh, us embassy down in South Africa. And they had said, look, you know, we, we sort of have an understanding of the flow of rhino horn in Sub-Saharan Africa. And we know the ports that it goes out of. We lose it kind of in the Indian ocean. And we kinda see where it crops up in the Southeast Asian marketplaces. And what we can tell you with certainty is that the amount flowing out does not in any way get reflected in what is going on in the markets down there. Most of the markets are fake horn and things like that. And so if you think about that as a, uh, commodity perception and what is your play there, if you are a criminal syndicate, you're stockpiling the real deal you're making a killing on grinding up Cal horn or whatever it is that you're passing off as some sort of a cure to people, your hope is the animal goes extinct, right.
Speaker 2 00:48:34 Then this suddenly is like, you can't get any more of this. You've got a massive stockpile and the prices through the roof. And that to me is scary as hell. I was like, damn, that's alarming. And so, um, but then you get into the questions of the use of this whole thing. And most people, it's common to say, you know, traditional Chinese medicine and rhino horn is just like your fingernail and, and, you know, chemically it is, but it's a spiritual practice and a spiritual belief. And you're, you're not going to address that by explaining science. So this again gets very much into that multifaceted aspect. And so it takes, you know, I think everybody working together to try and stuff, the demand in the marketplaces, and, you know, I view that as what it took us 20, 30, 40 years to get people to see the smoking. Wasn't a great idea. And that actively like destroys how long will it take us to get people to convince, convince you not to grind up rhino horn, to eat it or carve ivory for, uh, you know, a decoration or whatever. I don't know, but you can work on that. You can work on interdiction in the middle of the supply chain and where we really try and focus is the, um, at the front end, let's just keep the animals alive.
Speaker 2 00:50:04 So that's a long way of not answering your question, but providing a lot of background and interesting tidbit.
Speaker 1 00:50:10 Yeah, no, I think, well, that just goes to show how complicated of an issue. This is. It's not black and white. And I used to think it was, Oh, you know, when I was going through, you know, just growing up, you think it is a black and white issue. It's like killing is bad. Okay. Well, who was that person? But this might be their only source of income who, you know, like, what if there's no other opportunity and they have a family to feed and killing that rhino might be the difference between them raising their children or their children starving. Like, it's just, it's so easy to forget the human element and you know, like, who are the bad people? Is it the, the bad person is the one that's shooting them or is the bad person, the one that's buying it, like who who's the bad person here. Right. Um, and also, yeah, just education knowledge, like all of those kinds of things. Yeah. So
Speaker 2 00:51:12 Very much to your point, we did a calculation when we early started out and I don't know, just based on the more recent rhino numbers that have been released, but if you look at just the South African market of ecotourism for one year, I think we calculated it out to be something like 15. No, it was published. It was like 15 billion or something like that. And if you did a one-time liquidation, if you got, if you went out and took the horn from every rhino and sold it on current current rates, you might have 20 billion on a one-time shot. And so that really gets back into how do you think about, you know, these, uh, frankly gifts that humanity has. Um, and what's the best I hate to say use, but that is it. You can do a 20,000,000,001 shot, or you can have 15 billion year after year after year after, year in one place. So it's a, it becomes a question of economics. It becomes a question of, um, how do you extend that to, uh, communities experiencing massive inequality? How do you do that uplift so that it becomes less interesting to go shoot that animal for quick gain, as opposed to, you know, let's let everybody share in the, in this, um, incredible natural heritage that we have, you know?
Speaker 1 00:52:40 Yeah. I completely agree. And like, that's why I, you know, I ended up going down the conservation travel route for that exact reason, because no matter how much we wish that the world ran on morals, it doesn't, it runs on money. It runs on what is valuable to us in a yous sense. And if that rhino is more useful dead, then it's going to die. But if it's more useful, alive and well and prosperous, because you know that thousands of tourists that are willing to spend thousands of dollars to just see that one creature, and you're going to be the exact, the director beneficiary of that, then it's going to be kept alive, you know? And like, there's, I'm sure there's several issues. I mean, there's several like examples here, you know, Wolf tourism in Yellowstone, you know, outside of Yellowstone where they're not getting much, you know, they're hated in a lot of other areas where wolves are. Um, and I'm sure there's examples in like in South America probably where you work in as well. So yeah, that's,
Speaker 2 00:53:50 Yeah, it's, it's very interesting. I mean, that's one thing that, to my mind sets the South African model apart is in some ways they have been pretty innovative because they've actually privatized ownership of wildlife. Like you can go to an auction and we have done this ourselves with a small breeding herd of rhinos because we wanted to start getting more of them out in the world. Um, and you can buy rhinos or elephants or whatever you want and then bring it to your property and let them roam around and make babies and more babies. And then if you run out of room, you can take them to, you know, either a private sale or back to an auction and that sort of thing. And really that's kind of saved the wildlife clinical industry in South Africa. It's, it's thriving compared to many other places. You go to national parks that are, you know, massive, huge, and there's just not wildlife there.
Speaker 2 00:54:50 And it's because it's a tragedy of the commons since it's all government owned, it's, you know, if it's poached, it doesn't really matter. It was not somebodies thing to look after exactly. Or if it was, it was a department that is underfunded and, and that sort of thing. And so, you know, again, that tragedy, the commons kicks in it's it's everybody's fault, so it's nobody's fault. So it doesn't really matter. Whereas, you know, in South Africa that guy owns that animal. It had a definite price to it and he's out that price or she, and, and that like hits the bottom line. You're like, shit. And so in a lot of those places, they pay incredible sums to keep the animals safe, where they can. So it's interesting models, just all around, you know, food for thought.
Speaker 1 00:55:39 Yeah. Um, just out of curiosity, cause I honestly don't know near as much since you said that you're in South America, is there, are you going to South America at all? Like any of the South American countries?
Speaker 2 00:55:52 We're hoping to open that up 20, 21, we've got some projects coming online. We've got some in the Caribbean and, uh, some in central America, um, hoping to get into South Africa, South America,
Speaker 1 00:56:06 Central America, just curious. Um,
Speaker 2 00:56:08 We've got one in Costa Rica right now. There's one in the Island of, um, some beautiful place called union islands. That's part of St. Vincent in the Grenadines. We've got another one coming online and Billy's here soon. Wow.
Speaker 3 00:56:24 Oh, that's beautiful. Um, what is the main focus there? Like Jaguars or is there like turtles or do you know what the main focus
Speaker 2 00:56:32 Actually on the Billy's one? Yeah. Right. So we're still early days w a wildlife conservation society in a process of actually purchasing a large tract of land. Uh, I don't know much about it yet, but they were going to do the site surveys and start to tell us more about it. Uh, just when COVID hit. And then that all got like Rocky. And so I just got an email from the gentlemen, uh, about a week and a half ago and saying, Hey, good news. The fires and the, and the coronaviruses dying down a little bit here, so we can get back out to the field, actually take a look at this place
Speaker 3 00:57:08 To learn more. So it's been almost a year, right?
Speaker 2 00:57:13 Yeah. W w the virus has just sidetracked so many field projects.
Speaker 3 00:57:18 I'm going to ask you about that. Um, since you are so international and so much has had to stop when it comes to wildlife conservation, you know, just boots on the ground work, what have you seen, have you seen an increase in, in any kind of interactions on your cameras, or like, what has COVID done to your work and the wildlife that you're when people are not sworn to protect, but
Speaker 2 00:57:43 Yeah, yeah, no, it's a great question. It's, it's multiplicative in its effect. One is since nobody, um, can get anywhere, it's actually driven a lot more interest in technology as a solution. And so we've been off the charts, busy with people going, Oh man, you know, we need more cameras out there. We need to do more with what we have, the resources that we have. So we've been busier than ever. Um, that's both a good thing and a bad thing. Um, what we've actually seen on the broader global community of conservation is twofold. One is obviously tourism has absolutely just been crushed. And so that has gutted the budgets of tons of groups that we've worked with. And that's really scary. Um, that means there's less Rangers in the field. That means they're less well-resourced patrols or potentially fewer. Uh, everybody's trying to keep the wheels on and get through this thing.
Speaker 2 00:58:44 The other side of that is obviously the economics in a lot of these places that were teetering or brittle to begin with have collapsed. And that's created more pressure on these protected areas where people are going in and doing bushmeat poaching, or trying to figure out ways to exploit natural resources in ways they hadn't before and potentially becoming more violent to do so. Um, there's a group in the Philippines who, um, we had to, we sent cameras down to because a local quarry group started just illegally expanding a protected area. And they're like, Oh, now we're going to mine this. And, uh, they had several of their people threatened with murder and things like that. And they were saying, look, we need to at least monitor what's going on. Can you help us any way we can. We sent them a bunch of cameras and then they were able to document that and take it to the government entities and say, Hey, this is going on. One of our guys on a motorbike almost got, you know, intentionally hit with a truck. Uh, so it's escalating because of the economic pressures people are facing and that's driven in large part by the virus. So it's, it's scary. I'm hoping we can get through this.
Speaker 3 00:59:57 Yeah. So what do you see as like WPS as part of the solution, you know, while the friction solution, so where now that you've seen, how kind of the world has gone in turn, where do you all see yourself fitting in to helping this move forward?
Speaker 2 01:00:15 Yeah. Well, one of the things that we've done is we've taken what was otherwise our travel budget plus, and we've just shifted that straight into providing, um, conservation grants to in, on the field groups and said, look, you know, what can we, what do you need? What can we do? Just keep, keep going, keep doing what you can and we'll try and fund that. Uh, but then the other side is, um, technology, I believe never replaces anybody and the conservation space. Anyway, I believe it's a force multiplier. Um, you know, if you hang a camera in a place that doesn't mean that you don't have to have, uh, a ranger patrol, it, it means that ranger can patrol some of the other 150 kilometers he's responsible for, and, you know, maybe skip out that like little bit. So we hope that people can take some of the technology that we can offer and provide, uh, and, you know, hit some of the glaring holes that they know are problems, but then shift their attention to places that they suspect might be problems and that sort of thing. And that way make stronger, uh, protected areas and, and methods of conservation for the places that they're working in.
Speaker 3 01:01:35 Yeah. That's awesome. Isn't it just crazy how something, I dunno how something can just come in so quickly and just completely change our lives.
Speaker 2 01:01:47 Well, sure. Yeah, but also, I mean, the whole question of coronavirus gets back into conservation as well. And how are we interacting with wildlife and, um, how are, what is our use of it or exploitation of it, or, and are we doing it intelligently? Uh, are we doing it very haphazard in a way that's cooking up lots of nasty viruses that eventually will bite us again? Um, you know, it would probably be far easier to sort out, uh, better way means of feeding people so that we didn't have to gather all this crazy wildlife that would never encounter each other in these markets, you know, that are just laboratories for zoonotic disease.
Speaker 1 01:02:35 I mean, literally the wet markets are how many things have come out at 11,
Speaker 2 01:02:40 Right. And, and if you weigh the global cost of this from a pure economic side, how much would it be cheaper to actually just figure out how to feed people?
Speaker 1 01:02:53 Absolutely. So I guess, um, I guess on that note, I think we're, we're going on the right path from your, just from your personal standpoint, what is, what's the hardest part for you? Like what is the biggest struggle being in this field and what you,
Speaker 2 01:03:10 To me it's always been, uh, this is going to sound really grim, but it's always like having hope, you know, like I don't, I don't see us winning a lot, us being the conservation side. I think that you can absolutely point to incredible stories and those are good and fantastic. And I want to encourage more of those, but, uh, we need, we need more people to pay more attention. And I'd like to think that maybe with some of the big changes happening in the world, like increased automation and, uh, things like, uh, you know, larger availability of people looking to do meaningful things with their lives and their time and things like that. We can put more emphasis on preservation of nature. Um, but right now, you know, humanity's not in that mode I think, and that concerns me. So that's a challenge, I, I think,
Speaker 1 01:04:13 Yeah. And where do you see kind of your daily work helping with that?
Speaker 2 01:04:21 No, I think that it's, um, twofold really one is we can, you can use kind of the technology to reach out to the people who may not be, uh, nature minded, if you will. And it can be kind of a bridge kind of like I was talking about with the three 60 and that sort of thing. Uh, you can use the technology to kind of stay connected and, you know, make a difference in the conservation, through the apps, like, like we've developed. Um, but ultimately I think it's getting more people excited and meeting them where they are about the, the global wildlife situation. And so how do we expand that overall audience? Um, and that's kind of where the education outreach side comes in for us.
Speaker 1 01:05:14 Nice. If anybody wants to volunteer, how do they volunteer with you? Yeah, just
Speaker 2 01:05:18 Shoot an email to
[email protected]. Um, and we're always happy to have people either monitor the app or, um, you know, get involved in frankly, any way that, uh, that might make sense. We've had people come with us to deploy cameras in the field. We've had people come with us to, uh, you know, help with things like the video three 60 filming. Um, always looking for people who are doing education and outreach. And, um, part of our model for that is, uh, if, if you have an organization or you're working with someone and you think that a three 60 might, um, positively impact your organization, we're happy to come out and film whatever it is you do and make all of that available to you. Uh, we had one great story from a wildlife veterinary wildlife program in Texas Christian university. And, um, they filmed some of the veterinary procedures like I was mentioning earlier.
Speaker 2 01:06:18 And, um, they gave one of the goggles to one of their, I guess mid-level donors who supported them for some time, but not, you know, in great splashes. Uh, but he kind of saw what we had put together after our, uh, trip together. And, um, then cut a five figure, check a mid five figure check, which was like a 10 X increase of what I'd ever done before. And so we love that model. Uh, we love to try and figure out how to get more, more people and more dollars coming in, supporting the partner groups that we work with. So, um, always consider the door open there.
Speaker 1 01:07:00 Awesome. What asks or advice do you have for anyone listening?
Speaker 2 01:07:10 Yeah. Um, great question. I obviously, I would say, you know, probably with your audience, they're already fairly involved as they can be. Um, I would say keep, keep up what you're doing. If you're passionate about wildlife, figure out how to do more. Um, and you know, I would suggest that, uh, if I could give one message to the conservation community, please be as collaborative as possible. Um, the more we row the boat together, uh, the better that is for everyone. And that's kind of been a theme that I've tried to inculcate into our corporate culture. And I think that I see more of it starting to happen with more groups that we're interacting with. So I'm pretty, pretty hopeful about that. Actually.
Speaker 1 01:07:57 That's beautiful. One of my last guests, that's pretty much exactly what he said is, um, we're building a Wolf pack and we're all loud. Or when we, how together I was like, that was, I mean, that's all the episode. And I'm like, that is the most beautiful thing I think I've ever heard. Yeah. We, how louder, you know, when we're, when we all held together were way louder. And I, I just thought that that was beautiful and like, that's what this is all about. You know, how can we together as a community? Rewild the planet? How can we make it better? Let's start all over and coming from so many different angles of how we're coming together to hopefully help be part of the solution, whatever that solution is. I know. And you come from the technology side, which is great. I don't know anything about that, which I love.
Speaker 1 01:08:52 That's why I love coming here. Like you allow me to come here and chat with you and, and what that means, what that represents, because like right now I work for a startup and, um, and they're doing something very similar, you know, it was just trying to be that disruptor by using technology and building something from scratch. And, um, I think it's so honorable and just, it's like, it's like the 21st century way of doing conservation. In other words, it's kind of the way that I view what you're doing. It's like, okay, I'm, I'm taking what is very relevant now, you know, there's so many other, you know, Google and all these other big businesses or their technology, they're doing it. Like we're, we're applying it for good. And I love that. I think it's super inspiring. Awesome. And if anybody wants to get ahold of you or WPS, was that email the best way to go or actually my personal email, I'll give you the short one. It's Eric, E R I C w P S w a T C h.org. That way you don't have to type wildlife protection solutions.org. You can also check out our webpage wildlife protection solutions.org. Thank you again for listening to this episode of rewild ology. If you'd like what you heard hit that subscribe button to never miss a future episode, do you have in cool environmental organization, travel story or research that you'd like to share? Let me know <inaudible> dot com until the next night friends together, we will. Rewild the planet.
