Ten News EXTRA: Dr. Gabby Wild 👩🏻
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👩🏻 We're getting out into nature with our favorite wildlife veterinarian and eco-fashionista, Dr. Gabby Wild! What does it mean to be a wildlife veterinarian? 👗 How do our fashion choices impact the environment and wild animals? 🐘 How often does a wildlife veterinarian travel to save wild animals? What does a typical day look like for a wildlife veterinarian? 🦋 Plus! The Trivia Question of the Day!
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Transcript
Various voices 0:00
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
Bethany Van Delft 0:07
From eco-fashion to butterfly inspiration, today, The Ten News gets into nature with more from our favorite wildlife that Dr. Gabby wild.
I'm Bethany Van Delft, and this is The Ten News gets extra. Last month, we had so much fun talking to Dr. Gabby wild about her work as a wildlife veterinarian, and her new book, wild vet adventures saving animals around the world. Did you know that what you're wearing can impact the environment? Let's learn more from Dr. Wild.
Dr. Gabby Wild 0:55
My name is Dr. Gabby Wild, and I'm a wildlife veterinarian. So what we're dealing with here is I have to know all of these different species, because we learn them through the domesticated species. And then we take it and we learn about these other animals that are very rare sometimes. So for example, we might learn about the domesticated pig when we're a veterinary student or when we're working as vets. But then you might be exposed to a unique species that's like a pig, but it's not a domesticated pigs to something called a peccary, which is located in Central and South America. So that's what a wildlife lead does, we go internationally. And we many of us, and we work with these unique wild animals. It also involves us working with local people, whenever we work with local people, we have to understand their cultural practices and what these animals mean to them. And you might be you know, living with deer in your backyard. And it might sometimes be very nice to to deal with. Sometimes they're eating your flowers. And it seems a little bit frustrating. So imagine living with the elephant in your backyard. So that is sometimes what veterinarians like myself have to deal with, is understanding the different types of natural wildlife that occur in different people's backyards. So it's a human interface. And then we also have a public interface of disease. So I'm sure you guys are familiar with scary diseases like COVID, you may have heard of Ebola, or bird flu, Zika virus, all of these types of viruses are transmitted from animals to people, and sometimes people to animals. But we have to be monitoring these kinds of scary diseases. So that way we can protect people and animals from becoming infected. So that's the main gist of wildlife veterinary work.
Bethany Van Delft 3:00
So what is your day like? Like how often do you travel to help animals someplace in the world, versus seeing an animal at your surgical Center in New York?
Dr. Gabby Wild 3:12
So my days are very varied. When I'm not in the wild, I work as a surgeon, and I'm in the OR, you know, about 1415 hours a day? OR, meaning the operating room. And we're doing all different types of surgeries, mostly on dogs and cats. But I also will do exotic species.
Bethany Van Delft 3:33
This is another as if there could be more cool things about you. But this is a very cool thing. You're an eco fashionista. Which is such an amazing, it's just an amazing way to live and a thing to think about.
Dr. Gabby Wild 3:49
Absolutely. So by calling myself an eco fashionista kind of just fell in my lap if you're looking at me now, I no makeup on my hair is all over the place because I was a NEO Noir. And I've I've had this for years, like little wool, little wool piece because I get cold easily. And just over modesty to keep my hair down. So how that happened is because I think it's very important to understand that all of our decisions that every day we make, but you might say, "oh, does it matter" matters. Every decision including the clothing you buy, the food you buy, what you're doing with your piece of paper when you're finished with it, what you're what you're doing with everything. And so I decided what can we do to get people excited about sustainability because people might not realize that what you're wearing affected a whole ecosystem in another country or even your country. And that affected the animals that because if they had dies that they just threw into polluted rivers, what do you think is happening to those animals? What's happening to those trees that the animals depend on. And all of these things relate to each other. It's not just about sharing an animal for its for its it goes farther than that. And so that's why, several years ago, I started a campaign with designers from the TV show Project Runway to wear one outfit, yes, I got smelly, one outfit for an entire month, and then one outfit for each month of 2012. To represent 12 different critically endangered species, or species whose habitat was under severe threat. For example, the blue morpho butterfly isn't per se, under, you know, the endangered species list, but its environment, the Amazon, is. So that's why it's important to understand that everything is interconnected. And people got excited about it. They thought more about what they're wearing. They said to themselves, do I really need a new outfit? Do I need to be this rapid consumptive system? Or can I keep my clothing? Can I maybe stitch it myself or my mother or a friend or take it to a tailor so I don't have to just throw it away? Well, maybe I could go and share clothing with somebody things of that nature. And then let's say you do want to buy something new, we all do. It happens there's a party you have to go to. So if you need to go and do that, then go find a company who's doing it ethically, that they're not taking fabrics that are really, really polluting the planet. But the people who made those fabrics are being paid a fair wage, that they're being put into places where they feel comfortable working, that children are being forced out of school, to go ahead and do this. So that's why when you make these purchases, remember that every purchase you make, whether it's fashion, what else, what you're asking your parents to buy you something, but it's not something that is going to hurt the planet. Think about it, because your choices are going to affect our whole future.
Bethany Van Delft 7:18
That is one of the number one most incredibly important messages and what in a creative and an impactful way to get the message across through fashion. How fashion affects animals and wildlife. Absolutely brilliant. To hear the full interview with Dr. Wild, visit The Ten News website at www.thetennews.com.
Sound Bit 7:51
What, what, what's the big idea?
Bethany Van Delft 7:55
Trivia on The Ten.
Everyone knows we all learned so much from nature and animals. But what have scientists and engineers learns from the blue morpho butterfly? Was it A) different ways to flutter B) different ways to create color or C) a new way to stretch?
Did you guess it? The answer is B. Here's what Dr. Wild had to say about the blue morpho butterfly.
Dr. Gabby Wild 8:36
We learned from butterflies, different ways in which to create color because they use the wavelengths of the sun. They don't have pigment the same way that some flowers have pigment. It's the way the sun hits their wings that creates that color. We learned how to make Velcro because of the way that their wings work. So they inspire us to make our lives better and unique inventions from that. And that's one of the reasons why we celebrate wildlife because we share this planet with them. It's not a me versus them. It's an us and it's our world. And it's our responsibility to share it appropriately. And that's why World Wildlife Day is so exciting because it's our chance to say one planet, one world, altogether.
Bethany Van Delft 9:32
Time's up, but before we go, here's a quick note for the grownups. Want even more great content from The Ten News? Sign up for The Ten News newsletter, aka The Ten News-letter. It's a free bi-weekly email with even more stories to enjoy together and we made it easy for you. The link to join is in the show notes and on our website, thetennews.com. Thanks for listening to The Ten News. Look out for our new episodes on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and extras on Saturdays. The Ten News is a co-production of Small But Mighty Media and Next Chapter Podcasts and it's distributed by iHeartRadio. The production and editorial team has a bunch of wild animals including Tracey Crooks, Pete Musto, Andrew Hall, Jenner Pascua, Stephen Tompkins, and Sarah Olender. Our production director is Jeremiah Tittle and The Ten News is executive produced by Donald Albright and show creator Tracy Leeds Kaplan. Do you want to be part of the show? Don't you? We want you to! Have a grown-up help you record a question a joke or a fun fact do you want to share and email it to us at hello@thetennews.com and show your love for The Ten News by going to your favorite podcast app and submitting a rating and review. It helps others find the show so we can all have fun together, together. I'm Bethany Van Delft, and thanks for listening to The Ten News. Say this sentence: butterflies flutter by butterflies flutter by butterflies.
Butterflies. Butterflies. Do they make it? I don't think I did. Bye!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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