0:05

Hi,

0:05

I'm Dominique Hildebrand. I'm a photo editor

0:08

here at National Geographic, and

0:10

I'm a co-lead of our LGBTQ employee

0:12

resource group. To celebrate

0:14

Pride, we're doing something special on Overheard. We're

0:17

handing the mic over to two National Geographic

0:19

explorers who really love nature.

0:22

I'm not going to say that I hug trees, but sometimes

0:24

I just like to be embedded in nature. If

0:27

you were going to hug trees, nobody here would judge you. It's

0:30

National Geographic. I feel like there's a lot of tree huggers

0:32

in the building.

0:35

Today we're meeting Rüdiger Ortiz-Alvarez.

0:38

My pronouns are he, him. Most

0:40

people call me Rudy. I'm a biologist

0:43

and a doctor in ecology based in Spain.

0:45

And Christine Wilkinson. I am a postdoc

0:48

at UC Berkeley and at the California Academy of Sciences.

0:52

My pronouns are she,

0:53

and I use social

0:56

ecological frameworks to understand

0:58

the interactions between people and wildlife

1:00

and to share that science through story.

1:03

Rudy and Christine have totally different research

1:05

interests. Rudy is a microbiologist

1:08

who also records soundscapes in a fascinating

1:10

rainforest in the Canary Islands. And

1:13

Christine studies large carnivores, including

1:16

spotted hyenas in Kenya and coyotes

1:18

in California. They're

1:20

each working toward a deeper understanding of how

1:22

nature and humans interact.

1:25

Rudy and Christine are also both members

1:27

of the National Geographic Queer and Allies Explorer

1:29

Group. We'll

1:30

learn more about their research and how their

1:32

identity makes them the scientists they are today.

1:35

A lot of us who may have come

1:37

from disadvantaged backgrounds or backgrounds where

1:39

we weren't accepted by our families because of some

1:42

part of our identity, queer or otherwise, basically

1:45

built our relationships with nature

1:47

because we were escaping that. And

1:50

we ended up becoming these

1:52

maybe protectors of the earth

1:55

because of our identity and because

1:57

of our relationship with that. This

2:00

is Overheard at National Geographic, a

2:02

show where we eavesdrop on the wild conversations

2:04

we have at NatGeo and follow them to

2:06

the edges of our big, weird, beautiful

2:08

world.

2:10

Coming up, we'll celebrate pride, learn

2:12

why studying hyenas can lead you to drive around

2:14

with 100 pounds of rotting meat on a sweltering

2:17

day, and hear a unique whistling

2:19

language that shows how humans and nature are

2:22

constantly adapting

2:23

to each other. Rudy

2:25

and Christine will take it away after the break.

2:28

But first, fuel your curiosity

2:30

with a free one-month trial subscription to

2:32

National Geographic Premium. You'll

2:35

have unlimited access on any device,

2:37

anywhere, ad-free with our app that lets

2:39

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2:42

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2:44

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2:47

Check it all out for free at natgeo.com

2:50

slash explore more.

2:53

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3:32

So Christine, I've seen your TikTok and

3:34

your Instagram videos many times. You have this

3:36

amazing series called Queer as Natural.

3:39

I love it. But could you tell me

3:41

a little bit more about the series? What is the

3:43

broad scope? What is it about?

3:45

Yeah, so Queer as Natural is a series that

3:47

I started in Pride 2022, where I actually

3:52

attempted to make a video every day of Pride 2022.

3:56

An absurd endeavor to try and

3:59

highlight homosexuality.

3:59

sexuality and sort of gender bending

4:02

in the animal kingdom. Happy Pride Month,

4:04

y'all. There are estimated to be over 1000 species

4:07

who engage in same sex coupling or

4:09

whose sex roles aren't exactly what you learned

4:11

about in basic biology. For

4:14

Pride Month, let's highlight these queer animals

4:16

and talk about how being queer is actually

4:18

natural.

4:20

How did you get the idea for this? How do you get the idea for

4:22

queer is natural? Yeah, so

4:24

I come from a deeply religious

4:27

and homophobic family. And

4:31

the folks in sort of those realms often

4:34

say that

4:35

being queer or gay or anything like that is

4:37

an unnatural way of being.

4:39

But the animal kingdom has shown us that

4:42

there are at least a thousand, if

4:44

not more, animal species

4:46

that exhibit some form of queerness.

4:49

So the idea behind queer is natural

4:51

is to show that queer is natural. It's

4:54

all around us. And just because we haven't studied

4:57

it in Western science, mainly because Western

5:00

science was created by cis white guys,

5:02

doesn't mean that it's not right there.

5:04

Yeah, it's interesting how embedded it

5:06

is in the society, right? Like, oh, but these

5:08

things are not natural. We are not humans. We are not

5:10

supposed to do these things. And it's like, OK, it's everywhere,

5:13

literally. Like, we just need to learn about

5:15

it. When was the

5:17

moment where you first learned that

5:20

this behavior existed? That

5:23

when was that aha moment? Like,

5:25

wow, this is a thing and it can really

5:27

be tied to my identity.

5:30

It's a good question. I'm not sure if

5:32

I had an aha moment, but it was, you

5:34

know, I've done a lot of work with spotted hyenas, which are

5:37

a very gender bending sort of animal

5:39

and kind of defy what we know about most

5:42

social large mammals, which is that,

5:44

you know, the females are a lot larger than the males

5:47

and they dominate the males and they kind of make all

5:49

the decisions. And I

5:52

think that along with the hyenas and many of the other

5:54

animals that I've worked with don't kind of fit into these

5:56

neat, clean boxes. Right. Yeah, that's right. So

5:58

I've been wanting to.

5:59

to say something to my family that they cannot

6:02

refute and it turned into

6:04

queer as natural.

6:05

Your handle on social media is scrappy

6:07

naturalist. What does it mean?

6:09

I'm Spanish, I sometimes don't get the full thing,

6:11

so can you tell me a little bit more about it?

6:13

Don't worry, I think that English

6:15

speakers also might not know what it means. So

6:19

I grew up in Queens, New York.

6:21

And when I was a little kid, I basically

6:25

would be watching nature shows

6:27

a lot.

6:27

Jeff Corwin and

6:31

Steve Irwin and all those guys on TV who

6:33

are all white dudes, right? And I was like, how can I

6:35

be like them? I don't know how, because I'm not that.

6:37

But

6:37

I would run around Queens and I'd try to

6:40

follow cockroaches and cicadas

6:42

and pigeons and squirrels and talk

6:44

about them as if I had my own show. And like

6:48

come to the table, the dinner table would

6:50

like cicadas, like plastered to my

6:52

shirt, which my mom hated. And

6:55

so even since then, I always wanted

6:57

to make like a TV show called The

7:00

Scrappy Naturalist where, you know,

7:02

someone who maybe was unconventional

7:04

was running around kind of talking

7:06

about and exploring the animals that are right in our backyards

7:09

that might be misunderstood or undervalued.

7:11

I love this. I hope you eventually do

7:14

this show. That's the plan.

7:16

That's the plan. I hope so too. I hope

7:18

so. So let's talk

7:20

a little bit more about your fieldwork.

7:23

You said, well, you have this project involving hyenas

7:26

in Kenya. So what attracted you to hyenas

7:28

in the first place?

7:30

So I had done a lot of work

7:32

on human-wildlife conflicts. So

7:35

the negative interactions between people in wildlife

7:37

in East Africa starting in 2010.

7:41

And I started to realize that a lot of the work that was being

7:43

done on carnivore conflict

7:45

where I worked in East Africa was on animals

7:48

like lions

7:49

and leopards. So like the big, pretty

7:52

kitties.

7:55

But then anecdotally, people were saying, well, spotted hyenas

7:57

are actually doing a lot more damage for us. and

8:00

then nobody was studying how they were interacting with people.

8:02

So

8:05

my thought was, how can I more fully understand

8:07

what this apex predator that

8:10

no one seems to want to study, how it's actually adapting

8:12

to and surviving in landscapes that

8:15

are highly dominated

8:16

by people, just because folks hadn't really done that before. It

8:20

doesn't look amazing. They can do many things and they are like survivor

8:22

animals, right? Female

8:25

led. Girl power. And

8:29

then we also do GPS tracking.

8:31

So we'll capture the hyenas

8:33

and put GPS collars on them. Okay,

8:36

so we have finished processing number 1626.

8:41

And we're about to let her recover.

8:45

And she looks pretty healthy. She doesn't really

8:47

have any parasites or anything. Her teeth

8:49

look good. And she has had

8:51

cubs since we last saw her.

8:52

We collared her when she hadn't

8:55

had any cubs before. So,

8:57

yeah, very exciting morning for us. In

9:00

one blog post, you described working with a pile

9:02

of raw meat on a car called a meat

9:04

mobile. Can you tell

9:06

me more about that? When

9:09

I was out in the field in Kenya

9:11

last year,

9:12

trying to take GPS collars off

9:14

of the spotted hyenas, because that's the ethical

9:16

thing to do and the collars were going to run out of battery,

9:20

I was fortunate

9:21

or unfortunate to be gifted

9:23

as a vegetarian, by the way, or a pescatarian of

9:26

hundreds of pounds of rotting cow meat to

9:29

be able to tie securely

9:31

to trees and shrubs to

9:33

call the hyenas in and get them to stick around a bit longer

9:35

and find the one with the collar. Darn it, get the collar

9:37

off.

9:38

But the problem is it's not like we have a place

9:40

to store the meat. And

9:43

it was like 120 degrees Fahrenheit. I

9:46

don't know what that is in Celsius. It's

9:48

high. It's high. Every day,

9:50

it was a big drought. And

9:52

so my friend Simon graciously

9:55

offered me his car, which is a lot bigger than mine,

9:58

to be able to store all the meat.

9:59

of the meat in.

10:05

And

10:21

the, you know,

10:29

we would close the windows a lot, which

10:31

was

10:34

terrible. But

10:38

it was really great for catching the hyenas. Yeah.

10:42

You do basically most of your fieldwork

10:44

in Kenya, right? But you're based in California, like

10:47

California doesn't have native hyenas, but

10:50

it does have coyotes. So coyotes

10:53

are hyenas are both animals that have a bad reputation,

10:55

like we've been discussing. So is it tough to

10:57

make other people care

10:59

about these two animals, these less

11:03

liked ones? Absolutely. So

11:05

something about misunderstood animals or vilified

11:08

animals like coyotes and hyenas is that

11:10

many of them, if not most, are

11:13

misunderstood because they are generalists

11:15

and they can adapt to the various

11:18

things that we humans throw at them.

11:20

And in so doing, they kind of stick around and

11:22

persist alongside us and then get into

11:24

things that piss us off.

11:26

And if you just like, you

11:28

know, anything from rats to cockroaches to,

11:30

you know, whatever, those are

11:32

all things that have managed to make it work despite

11:34

what people are doing and that pisses us off. And

11:37

so it's really, really tough when not

11:40

only maybe some things are happening,

11:42

like, you know, spotted hyenas are killing livestock sometimes

11:44

or coyotes are occasionally

11:47

getting into your trash or eating your dog,

11:49

right? Like things are happening,

11:51

but also because people have grown up hearing

11:54

all of these stories about these animals

11:56

that are deeply embedded in their

11:58

values and their perceptions.

11:59

about

12:01

how those animals work on the landscape and

12:03

how they should be treated. And so

12:05

getting at the root of the issue really

12:08

takes getting into people's kind

12:10

of hearts and minds and values

12:12

and listening to what they're experiencing and

12:15

combining that with education.

12:17

What do you want the people to understand actually

12:19

about these animals? What is their takeaway that you

12:21

would say, hey, you need to know this? So

12:24

the

12:24

animals that have a bad reputation might be, well,

12:27

I understand them better now, so I don't know, I

12:29

may change my relationship with them.

12:32

I think that there's a few things. So a

12:34

lot of the stories that people are taught about these

12:36

animals are laden with myths, right?

12:39

So

12:39

things like people often think coyotes

12:41

are purposely teasing their dog to

12:44

get there, to lure their dog in, to be attacked.

12:47

That is not what's happening, right? If

12:49

you get some basic understandings of behavior

12:51

of coyotes and hyenas, you can see like, oh, actually,

12:53

like they're protecting the den, or coyotes

12:56

are playful and like they are just trying to play and

12:58

don't let your dog do that, but like they're not trying

13:00

to like

13:01

lure, they're not doing some trickster thing, right?

13:04

But

13:04

those are woven together with the myths around the animals.

13:07

The other thing I think is really important to help people

13:09

understand is that these animals can be benefiting

13:11

them. You know, for instance, coyotes are

13:13

out in the cities eating rodents that we consider

13:16

to be pests, which I have a huge problem

13:18

with that word, pest. It's another valuative

13:21

word. But, you know, some

13:23

of these are disease vectors, right? Like rats are

13:25

disease vectors and coyotes eat them.

13:27

So just kind of showing that

13:29

a lot of the

13:30

things about how they can adapt to us, like

13:33

the ways that they've kind of pissed us off because they've adapted

13:35

to us and stuck around, are actually

13:38

rooted in really, really cool behavioral traits and

13:41

adaptations that they have.

13:47

Hey, Rudy. Hi,

13:50

Christine. Hi,

13:52

again. So let's start. I love Twitter. I'm

13:54

ashamed to say. So

13:56

I want to start with something that I saw on your Twitter. And

13:59

I'm just going to show you.

13:59

I'm going to show you a tweet from you. And

14:03

can you just translate it

14:05

for us after you read it in Spanish? The

14:07

next day I was in the center of Madrid, I

14:10

was able to read the book and read the book. I

14:12

was a little bit nervous, but I was very impressed.

14:15

And I was like, what are you doing? So

14:18

this was just... I

14:20

was a little bit tired that day, so what I wrote was,

14:23

the next day that I escaped the center of Madrid, to

14:27

just get dirt in my skin,

14:29

with dirt from the countryside. Maybe

14:32

it's a little bit drastic, but it's Friday, I'm impulsive, and

14:35

I need little forests. And the tweet

14:37

that I was sharing, because this is not random, was

14:40

a tweet that was discussing the biodiversity

14:42

in

14:43

urban soils versus forest soils. So

14:47

the microbes that we have in the skin and within

14:50

ourselves, the

14:52

microbiome is better when we are in a natural environment, like

14:54

forests and stuff. So that was like, I need to get out

14:56

of the city, and I need to

14:58

go to the forest and just... Cover yourself

15:00

in

15:00

dirt. Cover myself in dirt. Yes, exactly. That

15:04

is awesome. That was the tweet. Okay, so

15:06

did you go and cover yourself

15:08

in forest dirt? Let's

15:11

look at your follow-up tweet. Yeah,

15:12

the follow-up tweet says, I was

15:15

not bluffing. And it's

15:18

basically me laying down in

15:20

the floor in my hometown. My

15:22

hometown is like one hour away from Madrid. It's near the

15:24

mountains. And I always go

15:26

there to relax and clear my mind.

15:29

I love that you followed through. I totally would have joined you, actually,

15:31

by the way. You would be so welcome. Can

15:36

you just explain a little bit about

15:38

your connection to nature? It seems like

15:40

what you just said, you do that kind of often.

15:42

Yeah, well, I was born in San Lorenzo

15:45

de Escorial. This is a town near the

15:47

mountains in Madrid, as I said. Only 10 minutes

15:50

away from my house, I have this

15:52

great forest and this great pine

15:55

tree area

15:57

that I always loved to go when I was a kid. to

16:00

go there with my mother and just see amphibians

16:02

and frogs and looking at

16:04

nature from a very small age.

16:06

Yeah, so it feels like you've had

16:08

a connection to nature for quite

16:11

a long time and you have your own ways of connecting

16:13

to nature. I'm

16:14

curious why you've decided

16:16

for your National Geographic work to focus on

16:18

what nature sounds like for that connection. How did you

16:20

first get interested in that?

16:21

Yeah, as I said, sometimes when

16:23

I live in cities and stuff,

16:25

I get this necessity of going outdoors.

16:28

So I was by the end of my PhD, as I mentioned,

16:30

I used to work in microbial ecology, it was okay,

16:32

I liked it. But I was

16:34

a little bit tired by the end, I have to be honest and

16:37

a friend of mine and

16:39

I decided, okay, let's go

16:41

for a trip. Let's go to somewhere wild. Let's go

16:43

to Borneo. And

16:45

there we did like a canopy

16:47

walk, which is like they have these metal structures

16:50

in the marine forest. So you just can go up

16:52

and see the whole thing.

16:53

And we were there at

16:56

dusk because we wanted to see flying squirrels.

16:58

So apparently they had maximum activities at dusk,

17:01

like many other animals.

17:03

And I was not expecting to hear

17:05

what I heard next. So suddenly

17:08

this orchestra exploded out

17:10

of nowhere.

17:11

And it was like, what is happening

17:14

around me right now? Like, all

17:16

of this is not random. My

17:19

scientific side came up, right? Like, this has patterns,

17:21

these are things that I want to know how it

17:23

works. That is absolutely beautiful.

17:26

You didn't tell us whether you saw flying squirrels though.

17:29

I saw them, they were amazing. That's

17:33

awesome. And so for that

17:35

work that was Nat Geo funded, I saw

17:37

that you're releasing a film based

17:40

on that project in the Canary Islands.

17:42

You're going to be famous. I'm super excited

17:44

for you. I'm not very famous. Can

17:47

you tell me about where you went in the Canary Islands

17:49

and why you picked that place? Another thing. So I

17:52

was in Borneo when I had this like a moment,

17:54

let's say, but there was another

17:56

piece to the puzzle that I wanted to develop. And

17:59

that was like, okay.

17:59

orchestra of sounds in the nature

18:02

is amazing. How do we fit in

18:04

this orchestra, right? So I start to think

18:06

about it, like our relationship with sound and

18:08

particularly about our communication.

18:11

We emit sound, we speak, we communicate

18:13

with that. Does it fit somewhere in

18:15

the natural soundscape? So there

18:18

is one place in the Canary Islands,

18:20

this island is called La Romera, and

18:22

they have these two main components

18:25

that I needed to study. First,

18:27

an old rainforest is the oldest forest in

18:29

Europe, it's called La Romera, and

18:32

then Silo La Romera, which is a whistle language

18:34

that people use to communicate in the island. So

18:36

it's like, this is the place where everything

18:38

is connected. So that's why I decided,

18:41

okay,

18:41

I need to study this

18:44

and I want to make a broader case about how

18:46

do we relate with nature through sound.

18:48

I would love to visit at some point already

18:51

without you even telling me about it. But can you

18:53

please paint a picture of La Romera for me? What's

18:55

it like?

18:56

The fascinating thing about La Romera is that it's

18:58

like the same latitude of the Saharan desert.

19:01

And in the center of the island, we have this old

19:03

rainforest. Okay, this that was not supposed

19:06

to be there.

19:07

It's there because there are a lot of mists and

19:09

clouds that make humidity

19:12

optimal for this forest to grow. It's

19:14

super, super steep. Walking in the

19:16

island is a challenge. And like you have to be a

19:18

very good hiker, I'd say. And

19:22

you can imagine that the sun is

19:24

it has a lot of contrast. It's like a mosaic, like in the center

19:27

is very humid, you have the lower silva,

19:29

but in the other outside is super

19:31

dry. Sometimes there are a lot

19:33

of contrast in between seasons.

19:35

So it's a very dynamic island. I like to

19:38

consider it like a musical island.

19:40

I would like to show you how the center of the island sounds.

20:05

So what you're hearing is a

20:07

chorus of mainly blackbirds. This

20:10

area is also close to some towns, so you are listening

20:12

to some dogs as well.

20:15

But the complexity of blackbirds in

20:17

this case, it's quite

20:19

astonishing. That is so fascinating.

20:22

I need to like get a like an hour long track

20:24

of that from you. I can share that with you. I

20:26

have many hours of it recorded.

20:30

I just want to go back to what you were saying about that

20:32

whistling language, Silbo Gomero. Can you tell

20:34

me more about how it works? Yeah, so

20:36

Silbo is a whistle language or

20:39

a communication system. There are some debates about that. So

20:42

people back in La Gomero, as I said,

20:45

it's a very steep island. It's not easy to just

20:47

walk five kilometers because you

20:49

need to go a lot of ups and downs. So

20:52

for them, it makes sense to

20:54

just say a whistle and the

20:57

sound travels like five kilometers. So

20:59

you can transmit a message to the whole island

21:01

in 20 minutes. The

21:04

whole island can know what you're trying to tell

21:06

them.

21:07

And it's not like a code, so it's not like Morse. It's

21:10

actually Spanish. They are whistling in Spanish, right?

21:13

Like it's actual words.

21:31

So what you just heard were two sisters arranging

21:34

a meeting at 4 p.m. You

21:38

just heard Paola and Faida Correa. These

21:40

are two sisters who live in La Gomero. And we're amazing

21:42

with us showing us how

21:44

Silbo works and how they use it. So

21:47

a big high five for them. Did

21:50

you like Silbo?

21:51

I would love to learn it. I

21:53

know that I can't even whistle like

21:55

the kind of whistling we do in the West. Can

21:59

you tell me whether there's

21:59

been times where you weren't sure if it was a person

22:02

or like a blackbird imitating a person. What

22:05

does happen is that there are a lot of

22:07

tourism to the island and they all want

22:09

to hear about shield ball. So there's a lot of shows

22:12

and okay you take a whistler you take

22:14

it to the rain forest and you do like this communicating

22:17

thing and they they actually show

22:19

that they can understood the messages. And

22:22

I bet that there are some words that are common

22:24

in these shows because I recorded

22:26

one blackbird who

22:28

was actually saying one word by

22:31

whistling like in shield ball.

22:35

When I first heard that file I was like

22:38

am I really listening to is

22:40

this a blackbird or what what the hell am I listening

22:42

to? So it's pretty short but it's like that's

22:47

Laura Silva. So

22:48

Laura Silva is the type of forest so it made sense

22:51

that in demonstrations they whistle Laura Silva. I'm

22:53

kind of disappointed they weren't like saying bacon or something.

22:56

No maybe but I

22:58

also think they can say Paco. I cannot

23:00

prove that but I'm pretty sure that I got blackbird

23:03

saying hey Paco.

23:04

That is fantastic. I feel like a lot of the work

23:06

that I do or that I've done

23:09

is

23:09

very much about alleviating

23:12

negative interactions between people and nature

23:15

and shaping them into positive interactions.

23:17

But this feels like

23:19

a really lovely kind of marriage

23:21

of people in nature and can you tell me more

23:23

about what you want people to take away from that?

23:26

Yeah we

23:28

live in cities most of us like 55% of the total population and 75%

23:30

of the western population

23:33

lives in cities. So

23:36

we are not exposed to these soundscapes

23:38

anymore and there was a time when

23:41

we were connected to this we made up a

23:43

language to communicate through the ravines of an

23:45

island. I think it's quite impressive right

23:47

what we could achieve.

23:50

It's

23:50

an ecological adaptation and I

23:53

don't know I just wanted people to understand that

23:55

we need to reconnect with nature

23:58

in some way right and I think

23:59

So that I could achieve that with sound. That has

24:02

an empathetic component that

24:04

other forms of storytelling do not

24:06

have. So that's why I wanted to do this

24:08

project. And if I could say something,

24:10

Christine, and for you maybe after we

24:13

finish this conversation, is just to go for

24:15

a moment outside, pause, and

24:18

just listen. Just

24:20

see where you are at, what's happening around you,

24:23

and just think about it.

24:26

So Christine, can I ask you about

24:28

an essay that you wrote earlier this year? You

24:31

described your identity as a black biracial

24:34

queer scientist, and you

24:36

wrote that embracing intersectionality

24:38

has influenced your research. Can

24:40

you say more about what you exactly mean? Yeah,

24:44

absolutely.

24:45

Just as a background about that essay, since you're laughing

24:47

about it earlier, is that

24:50

when I applied for that award,

24:52

I did not read the instructions fully, and I

24:54

did not realize this was going to be published in a major

24:56

journal, if I can.

24:57

That is incredible. And

25:00

it's not only personal essay, I have to say. It's very

25:02

vulnerable, and it's just out there.

25:05

But that's okay. But yeah, I think in

25:07

a few ways, my intersectionality

25:09

and identities have influenced the

25:12

way that I approach my research and I approach

25:15

my relationship with nature.

25:16

I've really been able to span

25:19

a lot of different levels of understanding of

25:21

these

25:22

really complex kaleidoscopic

25:24

situations that make up human-wildlife interactions.

25:26

And I've had a lot

25:29

of empathy for different groups of people

25:31

that are dealing with these issues. I

25:33

feel like my identities

25:36

as a black and queer person

25:38

can be reflected in a lot of the people that

25:41

I work with, but also are connected

25:43

to systemic injustices and inequities

25:45

that lead to a lot of human-wildlife interactions

25:48

being negative.

25:49

And so I think that my

25:51

identities have led me

25:53

to have a much more holistic view and empathetic

25:55

view of what both people and wildlife

25:57

are going through. That's amazing. Yeah,

26:00

so I'm curious what

26:03

you think about that and whether your identities

26:06

have influenced your work in any way.

26:07

Maybe I have

26:09

a different experience because perhaps

26:12

I've been more privileged. Let's say I'm a white

26:15

cis, homosexual guy in

26:17

the Western world. And

26:21

what happened to me was that perhaps I

26:23

was not hiding, perhaps

26:25

I'm during my career, but

26:27

it was kind of invisible, right? I'm also passing,

26:29

so it's like, okay, I'm queer, but I don't

26:31

know how to express this in my work. I

26:36

know there is also one thing that people

26:38

state usually that is like, oh, but why

26:40

do I have to put my queerness into my

26:42

job, right? Like I'm just working, it doesn't have to

26:44

do anything about it. And I will say, yes,

26:47

it does, because it's you and you are doing

26:49

that work, you are doing that research

26:51

and it does influence it. Whether you know it or not,

26:53

maybe it doesn't have to be a specific

26:56

queer issue that you know, but

26:58

we are shaped the way we are and the

27:00

work we do is obviously shaped by that

27:02

as well. I absolutely agree. And

27:04

I feel like a lot of the pushback you're getting is again

27:07

tied up to that Western science notion

27:09

of objectivity, which is fake and

27:11

doesn't exist. We are

27:13

subjective beings and our backgrounds are

27:15

very important.

27:16

Absolutely. I agree so much with this.

27:19

So queer folks have made a lot of

27:21

gains in parts of the world, but not everywhere.

27:23

So are there times when you have

27:26

to be careful about how you present yourself?

27:28

But maybe you can talk something about Kenya, right?

27:30

Like, what is it like?

27:32

It's been a really interesting experience

27:34

and often psychologically

27:36

harmful, I think, for me to

27:38

work in countries where

27:41

being queer is illegal. But

27:43

also

27:44

now that I've made at least one

27:47

or two friends who I know are queer

27:49

and are Kenyan to see what they're going through

27:51

as well. Because I mean, yes,

27:53

like a lot of my career and my work is based there

27:55

and

27:56

I'm deeply embedded in Kenya.

27:59

end of the day can always walk away, right? And some

28:02

people,

28:02

you know, in our group

28:05

and in who I work with cannot

28:07

walk away from, you

28:09

know, where they live.

28:11

So I'm very grateful to be

28:13

able to have that view of the two

28:15

different ways of being and maybe

28:18

start to see where I can

28:19

tap into the change. Yeah,

28:22

so I'd love as our as our final question

28:24

to ask,

28:26

you know, there's probably somebody listening to this podcast

28:28

who's interested in becoming a scientist, or

28:30

an explorer, but

28:31

might be struggling to bring in their

28:34

full self and be their full self,

28:36

either because of safety reasons or because they're

28:38

just unsure. So

28:39

what advice would you give those folks? Well,

28:42

first, I would say that please

28:44

do apply for grants. If you have an idea, please

28:47

do it. Don't feel like you're not valid

28:49

to do it.

28:51

Particularly, I would like to welcome trans people

28:53

to apply for grants. I'd say,

28:56

I think this has an underrepresented group.

29:00

Within the explorer community. And

29:02

we would love if you would if we

29:04

could welcome some of these folks around.

29:07

What

29:07

do you say? What do you

29:08

think? Yes, please come join us. Christine,

29:12

what would you say to your younger version of yourself?

29:16

If you could give her an advice?

29:19

Yeah, I would I think I would tell her that even

29:21

though it might seem lonely, to

29:23

persist because there are communities

29:26

of kaleidoscopic beings like yourself, who

29:29

care about nature or whatever their passion

29:31

is that that will support you. And that

29:34

are there for you and and that

29:36

we are here, right? So we're seeing

29:38

increasing representation of folks

29:40

with queer and other identities. And

29:43

that's wonderful. But you're just seeing the

29:45

tip of the iceberg, there, there is a vast community

29:47

ready to support you in what you do, and support

29:50

you as being a queer person and or

29:52

a person of color. So

29:55

try not to feel alone. And

29:57

and we hope that we can represent ourselves enough

29:59

to.

29:59

to be there for you and for you to know

30:02

where to look.

30:07

If you like what you hear and you want to support more

30:09

content like this, please rate and

30:11

review us in your podcast app and consider a National

30:13

Geographic subscription. That's

30:15

the best way to support Overheard. Go

30:18

to netgeo.com slash explore

30:20

more to subscribe. There's

30:22

a link in our show notes. And

30:24

you can check out links to Christine's TikTok where

30:27

she posts her Queers Natural series and

30:29

Rudy's new film about the Canary Islands

30:31

and its whistling language. Plus

30:33

see more Netgeo stories about pride and the people

30:36

pushing for equality.

30:37

This week's Overheard

30:39

episode is produced by Jacob Pincher. Brian

30:42

Gutierrez is a senior producer. Our

30:44

senior editor is Eli Chen. Our

30:47

manager of audio is Karla Wills who

30:49

edited this episode. Our executive

30:52

producer of audio is Dvar Ardalon. Ted

30:55

Woods sound designed this episode and Hans

30:57

DelSue composed our theme music. This

30:59

podcast is a production of National Geographic Partners.

31:03

The National Geographic Society is committed to

31:05

illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world

31:07

and funds the work of National Geographic explorers

31:10

Christine Wilkinson and Rudiger Ortiz-Albras.

31:14

Michael Tribble is the vice president of integrated

31:16

storytelling. Nathan Lump is National

31:18

Geographic's editor in chief. And

31:20

I'm your guest host, Dominique Hildebrand.

31:22

Thanks for listening and happy pride.

31:29

Happy pride. I really want

31:32

like confetti to be coming out while I say happy

31:34

pride.