World Wildlife Day with Dr. Gabby Wild 👩🏻
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🐯 March 3rd is World Wildlife Day! So what is World Wildlife Day? 👩🏻 On today's Ask An Expert, we're joined by National Geographic Kids educator and wildlife veterinarian, Dr. Gabby Wild. 🐘 Dr. Gabby is answering questions about animals, being a wildlife veterinarian, her new book Wild Vet Adventures from Nat Geo Books, and some of the biggest, scariest animals she's ever treated! 🦁 Future veterinarians and animal lovers alike, get ready for a wild ride!
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Transcript
Various voices 0:00
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Bethany Van Delft 0:07
From elephants to axolotl, in the next 10 minutes, we'll get the lowdown on what's up with wildlife with our very special guest, Dr. Gabby Wild. I'm Bethany Van Delft, and this is The Ten News. March 3rd is World Wildlife day, a day proclaimed by the United Nations to celebrate and raise awareness of the world's wild animals and plants. World Wildlife day was first established in 2013, and it's become the world's most important annual event dedicated to wildlife. This year's theme highlights the connection between forests and communities. According to the World Wildlife day website, between 200 and 300 million people live within or adjacent to forested areas around the world, relying on the various ecosystem services provided by the forest and forest species for their livelihoods, and to cover their most basic needs, including food, shelter, energy and medicines. That's a lot of people. And even if you don't happen to live in or near a forest, this World Wildlife day reminds us how connected we all are as humans to the natural world. We couldn't think of a better guest for World Wildlife day than a vet who has traveled the world saving animals, Dr. Gabby Wild. You might know her from animal jam classic, where she's answers lots of questions from kids about wild animals. And I got to talk to her about what it's like being a wildlife vet. So exciting.
My name is Dr. Gaby Wild, and I'm a wildlife veterinarian.
What does it mean to be a wildlife vet as you know, instead of a regular vet, we'd bring our pets to. What does it mean to be a wildlife vet?
So when you bring your pets to the, to their doctor, usually if it's a dog or a cat, you're seeing a general practitioner. So we call those small animal veterinarians, but then a wildlife vet, we actually work with species like all of these different types of species all over the world. And they're just not owned by anyone. They're owned by nature, if you will.
Did you know that you wanted to be a vet when you were little? And if you did, did you know you want it to be this type of vet?
Dr. Gabby Wild 2:34
Yes, ever sinceI was four years old, I knew I wanted to be a veterinarian. I always loved animals, always always. But then when I saw the Lion King, when I was four years old, I decided that's it, Mufasa would not have died if I was his veterinarian. He would have, by the way, unfortunately. But what I can say is that solidified it within me. And I then went to other veterinarians and shadowed them as a child, I worked at different shelters and just tried to get experience working with animals. It's really important to know that veterinarians don't just pet puppies all day, we have to deal with a lot of disease, and you have to understand science, and medicine. And if you like that, then being a veterinarian is exactly what you should do.
Bethany Van Delft 3:25
You have a super cool book. It's with National Geographic, and it's called "Wild Vet Adventures: Saving Animals Around the World with Dr. Gabby Wild." That is the coolest thing. Do you want to talk a little bit about the process of doing your book?
So making a book is like a dream come true because now I get to bring my adventures to you. And you can come on my journeys and see what I, what I'm doing. And you can meet some of my patients so you can travel the world and meet the people we work with. It's really, it's really cool to be able to do that. And I was just be, so overwhelmingly happy when I got all of these emails from kids all over the world. Just saying this is so cool. Can you tell me about this? Can you teach me about that? Or what about this and I think kids are amazing. I find children to be way cooler than adults because you ask much better questions. So because of that, National Geographics, that you know what? I think this is a kid's book. Together we wrote this book, and we discussed discussed which stories were the most meaningful, but I really love each of the stories, because I think you get to feel more of what it what it's like so enjoy all of the story.
One wonderful story is about your time in Thailand and being able to communicate with a very special elephant. How do elephants communicate?
In many different ways. You go to the zoo, and you stay there for a little while, and you just kind of meditate, close your eyes, and just meditate and feel the ground. If there are more than two elephants, and they're separated, you might feel a little bit of a vibration. That's them communicating with each other in what's called infrasound. So that's one way that they communicate. And yes, they have a whole language, we can't hear it, because it's below what our auditory system can detect. But they communicate that way. They obviously communicate through the auditory system that we can hear, the audible system. So you hear them trumpeting and they mean different things. These are different communications, they obviously also communicate through touch. They communicate, so they actually use their trunks like little fingers, actually, they're very, very sensitive. They, it's very funny. In fact, my I call her my car, and he has Tonto on my car. An elephant knows that whenever I come to her in the morning, I always bring her some breakfast. And I always hide it behind my back. It's usually sugar cane, sticky rice, or bananas. And she always takes her trunk and puts it behind my back to see what her treat is in the morning. So that and she always picks on me to just play with me with a little fingers. And then of course, their facial expressions just like us, that we're that we're able to read from I've come to learn what the facial expressions mean, and they can read each other.
March 3 is World Wildlife day. So why is that day special? Why should we know about it? And why is it important?
some people might say, it's important because they protect the environment. And then we have that circle of life, and we have that ecosystem protected. So for example, I always love to go back to my elephants. So if we discuss an elephant, what is its job, its job, besides being really awesome, is to take dead trees and to rake them up. And with that the soil gets turned over. That's extremely important. In addition to that, it creates new homes, but those trees now fallen. And it makes a soil a lot more conducive to new growth. So these are examples of animals revolve, they're essential in this ecosystem. They can provide us with health benefits, they can inspire us. We celebrate wildlife, because we share this planet with them. It's not me versus them. It's 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.
Do you have a favorite animal that you've treated or a least favorite animal that you've treated? Or both?
Huh? Oh, I don't like rude animals. So with wildlife, I'm completely fine if they want to eat me, because that tells me you're feeling great. So it's okay, if you're a wild animal and you want to eat me. I don't like dogs or cats that want to eat me. I like really nice dogs and cats. But so in terms of this, yeah, I don't like the ones that just want to attack you. Monkeys, monkeys are so clever. They're so clever. And they run so fast that sometimes I can't dive them quickly enough. Sometimes they outsmart me. So, so monkeys can be really sometimes fun. And favorites, I really love all, all species and all animals. It's so hard to give you a favorite, but I do also really like working with penguins. They are so funny. They can be so bumptious meaning like they want to come and get their exam first because they're gonna get their fish, and they're gonna push out the other penguins. It's really a bit selfish, but it's really funny. So I just love all of my patients.
Bonus Question. Do you have any pets at home? And if so what do you have?
I do have pets at home. So I have one dog who has the very bold name of Pixie Dust. You have to go crazy if you have a Chihuahua. And then I have a horse who I've had since she was one year old and I trained her. And her name is Boo.
Thank you so much, very much. Oh, it's a pleasure to meet you.
Likewise, likewise. Thank you.
It's trivia time. What rare trait does the axolotl salamander possess? Is it A) It grows new limbs every year? B) it stays at baby for life or C) it understands sign language.
Did you guess it? The answer is B! Let's have Dr. Gabby explain.
what I find so amazing about axolotls is that they're what we call petamorphic, meaning that they stay in this baby state for their whole lives. And I find that to be absolutely incredible. And they're located in only this one freshwater location and in Mexico. That's incredible.
That is incredible. And I hear you axolotl. I mean, sometimes I wish I was still a baby. You don't have to go to school. You don't have to do chores. You're just a baby. Time is up. But before we go, here's a quick note for the grownups. Are you interested in receiving a copy of Dr. Gabby's book to read with the kiddos? I mean, you should be, take it for me. It's awesome. Now's your opportunity to receive your very own copy for free. You heard it here, that's free-99. And we're giving away 10, of course, because we are The Ten! Ten copies of "Wild Vet Adventures," and there's still time to enter. For full details click the link in the show notes or visit thetennews.com/contest. That's thetennews.com/contest. You do not want to pass up on this book. I'm telling you, it's the coolest book and axolotls are in there. And platypuses and pangolins and wombats and cabbie berries and kinkachus. Oh my gosh. Thanks for listening to The Ten News. Look up for our new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. The Ten News is a co production of Small But Mighty Media and Next Chapter Podcasts and it's distributed by iHeartRadio. Our editorial director is Tracey Trooks, editing and sound design by Pete Musto. Our creative producer is Jenner Pascua. Stephen Tompkins is our head of audience development. And our production assistant is 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 this show? We would love to have you! Have a grown up help you record a question, a joke, or a fun fact you want to share, share, and email it to us at hello@thetennews.com and you can show your love for The Ten News by going to your favorite podcast app and submitting a rating and a review. It helps others find the show so they can join the fun with us. I'm Bethany Van Delft, and thanks for listening to The Ten News. See a-lotl, axolotl. It didn't make sense, but it rhymes.
