Keeping it Real - Becca Bryan (Friends of the Florida Panther Refuge)

In this episode co-hosts Ethan Leaman and Koji Sumalde meet with Becca Bryan from Friends of the Florida Panther Refuge. 

Anyone ever feel like their personal journey could never lead them to conservation work? Our conversation with Becca proves that no matter what your route is...if you are passionate then you can be a part of conservation programs for a living. We go over the journey Becca took to get to Friends of the Florida Panther refuge, early Florida conservation efforts, and how to keep it real in the industry. 

Transcript

Koji Sumalde (00:01.33)
Hey everyone, welcome back to this week's episode of Wild and Unprotected. On today's episode, we have the president of Friends of the Florida Panther Refuge. I know that's a tongue twister, but her name is Becca Bryan. Becca, welcome to the show.

Becca Bryan (00:15.794)
Thank you, I'm happy to be here. Thank you.

Ethan Leaman (00:15.97)
Yeah, welcome to the show, Becca.

Koji Sumalde (00:21.51)
Awesome. It's been a delight getting to know you in the few moments before we hit record, but let's go ahead and start before we dive into Friends of the Florida Panther Refuge. Let's talk a little bit about Becca. Could you explain to us, have you always been a Floridian or are you a transplant? Are you originally from here or how did you get started in Florida Panther realm?

Becca Bryan (00:45.498)
Well, I'm a transplant. I was born and raised in Western Pennsylvania. I went to college in West Virginia. After I graduated from college, I moved out to Los Angeles because I wanted to be an actress and I soon found out that was just an absolute shit way to make a living, excuse my language. You know, if you're not a smart girl, you'll never figure out that when someone, you go to visit a casting director,

Ethan Leaman (01:05.076)
We welcome that here.

Becca Bryan (01:15.002)
They ask if you can read without your bra or your shirt on, you know, and you say, no, I cannot read without my bra or my shirt on and walk out the door. So as soon as that happened, I realized that was not the path I wanted to take from my career. So I started working in community theaters as a stage manager, but I lived out there for 10 years. And after the riots in the early 90s, I moved to Key West where I had some friends and had visited.

And I lived there for almost five years before moving up here to Fort Lauderdale. So, and that's how I got here and rather a long way to go from LA to Key West. And then up here to up here to Fort Lauderdale. But I'm glad I did. You know, there are great parts to everywhere I lived to Western Pennsylvania. I was just visiting there last week.

beautiful and mountainous. Key West is, you know, very coastal. It's surrounded by water, very much the island lifestyle of living. LA, you know, is a huge, very crowded city, full of different ethnicities and different occupations. I loved living out there until the riots, but that was it for me. I...

I think it was about a year after the 90s riots when I left and moved to Key West, which was not really culture shock, but it was more like I could ride my bike around Key West to get my errands done. So that was nice rather than having to take the bus everywhere. So that ended up in very different worlds. Fort Lauderdale, a lot of people consider Fort Lauderdale to be a part of the Miami metropolitan area, I guess geographically it might be,

Ethan Leaman (02:56.223)
Yes, two completely different worlds.

Becca Bryan (03:11.046)
Fort Lauderdale is much different than Miami. It's a smaller city, it's less crowded. There's lots of nature parks here and trails and everything like that. You know, I love Florida. I love this peninsula state. I love Southwest Florida because it's got a lot of wild open space that anyone can walk the trails for free.

and appreciate nature when you're stuck indoors working all the time. You know, and there are some good, Florida has some good initiatives and put some decent money aside for land acquisition to prevent more land development in the future.

Koji Sumalde (04:00.81)
Right on. Yeah. Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed for sure. So, you know, transitioning from LA in the 90s to Florida, can you kind of touch base on what really kicked off your career in the conservation space? And specifically with the Marine Mammal Conservancy.

Becca Bryan (04:03.086)
Yeah, fingers crossed for sure.

Becca Bryan (04:26.271)
Ah well.

Becca Bryan (04:29.922)
I think that, you know, I've always been a writer. For most of the last 20 years of my work life, I've been a writer of different things. I've been an SEO content writer. I've been a business plan writer and editor. I've always done freelance writing on different topics. When I moved up to Fort Lauderdale from Key West,

I heard about a volunteer opportunity down in Key Largo, which is the very northern part of the Florida Keys, about a marine, a very large marine mammal stranding, dolphin strandings. Just a lot of rough tooth dolphins, which are deep water, far out in the sea, marine mammals, and they're called rough teeth because if you touch their teeth, they're rough. They feel rough instead of like smooth like ours.

And it was with this organization called the Marine Mammal Conservancy, which is now defunct. They had regular staff members or what we call senior trainers that you learned from and that you volunteered with. So you would learn everything you need to learn, like how to prepare the fish for them to eat, how to put medication and water in the fish for them to eat. We had to observe their behavior.

We were encouraged to ask questions if we didn't know what type of behavior meant, you know, when to me that it was like all brand new. I'd never seen a dolphin up close before. So I had just like tons of questions. I was asking all the time, well, what does this mean? What does it mean when they slap their tail that hard? What does it mean when they stick their head out of the water like this? You know, what does it mean when they roll over? You know, what's that?

Flemish stuff, they blew out of their blowhole. Is that normal? I mean, I had tons of questions and they encouraged me to ask any questions I had and I did. And it was on a remote site. I did a lot of day shifts then, weekend shifts because I had a full-time job. And I learned an awful lot about rainmail with strandings and rough tooth dolphins.

Becca Bryan (06:46.486)
And one of the first things I learned from one of the Marine Mail Conservancy's oldest volunteers was when the dolphin politics start to fly, you duck and keep your mouth shut because dolphin politics, like any animal-related volunteer work or care, is highly heated. And I just learned because I was a brand new volunteer just to stay out of it.

um in the later years there was another with there was a stranding with one juvenile male dolphin that the navy found in Key West and they named him Cutter for you know a navy vessel Cutter. Um and that little guy was a little snicker he was he was feisty and rebellious.

Koji Sumalde (07:35.906)
Thanks for watching!

Becca Bryan (07:40.198)
and super energetic and playful. I remember one time swimming around in a big fenced-in area. I was on a Styrofoam kickboard and I was just swimming around just monitoring his behavior and he went deep under the water and he went stealth and then he came right up underneath my little surfboard and just completely knocked me off it. Took the surfboard and swam all the way down the water with it and here I am struggling in the water to swim. I didn't have a swim by the way.

Koji Sumalde (08:09.941)
Mm-hmm.

Becca Bryan (08:11.982)
He did bring it back. And in one hour's time, he did that three times. He knew what he was doing. They're not dumb. They're not dumb at all. Um, and when it came time to, to release them because he was releasable, um, some of our heartier, bigger, stronger staff members had to try to catch them in the water so they could hold them and, and put the GPS tracker on his dorsal fin, which doesn't hurt them at all.

Ethan Leaman (08:18.362)
I'm gonna go.

Becca Bryan (08:40.378)
But I do remember that he squirmed himself and flipped himself out of the arms right back in the water. And everyone was just cussing and upset because I had to go get him again. Our director was coloring at people and I was just sitting there going, good job, kid. They finally did. They finally did get him and put the tracker on it. They released him off of Key West in a pod full of his.

his species. And I think probably within a day's time, we lost a signal. People were driving around with a big antenna on the top of their trucks trying to catch a signal and they couldn't find it anywhere. They kept asking me if I wanted to go. And I said no. You know, I said, listen, he's a juvenile boy. They gave him a phone to call home.

And he ditched it immediately. So that tells me that you can drive around for hours and you're never going to find a little shit. So he was pretty.

Ethan Leaman (09:44.85)
Yeah, I feel like that's pretty typical for teenage boys.

Becca Bryan (09:49.27)
Yeah, I'm like, he's a, he's a teenage boy and he gave him a cell phone to call home and he threw it right off, you know, and I don't think he's may have been spotted a few times by another dolphin organization, but no one really knows. Um, my favorite stranding event was castaways stranding event. And she was, um, she's single stranded in Sarah and the Sarasota Florida area. She was rescued and rehabbed and.

and released in the Sarasota area and she stranded two other times before she, before my organization was asked to bring her to Key Largo and work with her. She was deaf and at the time she was pregnant. Although we did not know when we got her in Key Largo that she was deaf, we just knew that she had been problematic and super aggressive with the people that were taking care of her in Sarasota.

So everyone was a little on edge when they got in the water with her, whether to give her fish or check her vital signs or anything like that. She was a big, beautiful offshore dolphin. In the six months that we had her before she was released to a Swim with the Dolphins place in Key Largo, she exhibited just wonderful affection.

for her favorite human beings. She present on all sorts of crazy behavior, usually in the middle of the night when there was a horrendous thunderstorm happening, she would be at around a big holding area and she would sink to the bottom of it, just flip down to the bottom and completely disappear. And when they do that, the volunteer was supposed to count on a stopwatch how long they're underwater.

When I clocked her underwater for 12 minutes, I told our director and he said, she'll be okay. The next night in a raging thunderstorm, pouring down rain, lightning, wind blowing everywhere, she did it again and she was underwater for 15 minutes and I was having a stroke. I was told I could not leave the talk. So I'm a good girl. I follow orders.

Becca Bryan (12:09.09)
I stood on the very edge of the dock and we had a trailer, an office trailer where the director was sleeping and I know that I could not throw anything far enough to hit that trailer to wake him up. So instead I picked up a bunch of rocks and they walked about five feet off the dock ramp and I started throwing each stone as hard as I could over and over again, picking up more. I picked up a rock finally and it actually hit the door and he came out and he said,

Becca Bryan (12:38.306)
So he comes out and he takes his good old time and he's walking up the dock and halfway up the dock, she's cast away, sticks her head out of the water and she's laughing and smiling. And I looked at her and I said, you shit, you scared the hell out of me. You know, and he's looking at me like, what's the problem? You know, the next night was a weeknight and I couldn't be there and someone told me that

Koji Sumalde (12:53.006)
Thanks for watching!

Becca Bryan (13:05.018)
that a volunteer had gone to the director and said, oh my God, cast a waste bin underwater for 13 minutes. And he said, don't wake me up until she's been down for 16, because we clocked her at 15 last night. She was beautiful. She was affectionate, a little bit jealous now and then, super playful. I bonded with her almost immediately. The first time I looked her in the eye, she looked at me, you know, like one eye, they look at you.

Roll over to silicate with one eye. And that just clicked. You know, it gets you right in your heart. And once it gets in there, you just, it's almost impossible to get it out if you wanted to get out, which I never did. I spent a lot of overnight shifts with her that were like eight to 12 hours long. I knew her behavior as well as anyone.

And when she went to the Swim with the Dolphins place, I went down, I drove down to Key Largo as often as I could to swim with her. So she didn't think that we had abandoned her. By the way, she did have her calf at the Marooning Mammal Conservancy, but he didn't make it. It was like, I think they said it was like failure to thrive kind of situation, but Castaway was an excellent mom for being deaf and having to stay awake.

24 hours a day to keep tabs on him, even though there were like four volunteers in the water, you know, helping her out and everything. Castaway did pass away several years ago. She had a stroke and she passed away and I grieved that loss, like I grieved the loss of my own pets. So, but you know, dolphin strandings are long events.

in the elements, the heat, the rain, the cold, wind, thunderstorms, you name it. You're on your own. You have to bring your own food, bring your own place to sleep. I often slept in my car when I had a chance to take a nap and not actually, I got a really good sleep in there. But it was, I mean, they're great to do if, you know, if there was a call for volunteers

Becca Bryan (15:31.898)
You're just going to learn to love them and learn a lot more about them.

Koji Sumalde (15:37.035)
Mm-hmm.

Ethan Leaman (15:37.77)
Yeah, your journey kind of into kind of the conservation world is pretty starkly different than what we normally encounter on the show. A lot of it's academia based, you know, people who are going through their PhD programs and to see someone who started just essentially directly from volunteering, forming relationships with animals and then evolving to where you are now. That's a pretty interesting story and I'm glad you're able to share it with us today.

Becca Bryan (15:45.362)
Okay.

Becca Bryan (16:06.318)
Yeah, I'm not a biologist. I do not have a scientific background. And I think that gives me the, what's the word I'm looking for? It gives me the pleasure and the freedom to project my human feelings onto the animal, onto whatever animal it is, to understand them and bring them to people's attention in a way that most human beings

think of animals that they love. You know, there are a lot of wildlife biologists and environmentalists in my wonderful circle. Every single one of them knows that I do not have a scientific background. So when I tell you that Florida panther mom of roe-tail is absolutely the best mom in the world, you better believe it. And it's not based on the fact that-

Koji Sumalde (17:01.282)
Hehehe

Becca Bryan (17:04.058)
She said several litters of kittens on the Panther Refuge. It's not based on the fact, you know, that she was born and raised on the refuge or anything scientific behind it. It's based on the fact of what I've seen and what I've heard from people, you know. And that's what gets people interested in wildlife conservation. You may get your biologists, you know, in there that wanna relate the scientific.

Koji Sumalde (17:25.664)
Mm-hmm.

Becca Bryan (17:33.262)
you know, specifics about wildlife. But the general public wants to know what they're like. What's their personality? What do they eat? Where do they roam? What are their threats? I mean, friends of the Florida Panther Refuge gets emails on a pretty regular basis from people from all over this country asking, you know, about Florida Panthers. Where are their threats? Where do they live? What do they eat? You know.

And what can you tell us about them? So you have to make it personal to people, or they won't care. Sorry, I rambled there.

Koji Sumalde (18:08.226)
Mm-hmm. Oh, no, it's okay. Let's shift gears a little bit. Let's backtrack back into your journey of being a freelance writer. You mentioned a couple of dolphin stranding experiences early on in your career. Are there any pieces of literature or writing that you have that you can directly credit into your transition into Panthers? How did you go from Marine to Florida Panther?

Becca Bryan (18:39.942)
That's a great question. I, after I, living in Fort Lauderdale, I was working for about three years in a very dead end job as an SEO content writer for a company here. I was bored to tears. And I wanted to write something fun and interesting to me. And for a long time before this,

I did freelance writing where I interviewed actors and actresses and directors out in Hollywood and sold the stories to my hometown newspaper. That's kind of how it all got started.

Becca Bryan (19:20.726)
I first started writing about endangered wildlife in different countries, like, you know, South Africa has a lot of endangered species. I wrote about the African elephant. I wrote about lions for World Lion Day for aside from India and environmental group for India.

Becca Bryan (19:49.794)
shared all those with my parents and my dad said to me, why aren't you writing about Florida's endangered wildlife? So immediately, of course, I'm thinking Florida panther and researching that I tried to figure out where you can see them, but you know, they're elusive. They don't want you to see them. And I wasn't about to go camping in some of the big nature preserves or in the refuge here because I've never wanted to never really like camping to be honest with you.

So the route I took was I found an orphaned, was she orphaned? An orphaned Florida panther kitten that Zoo Miami had just taken in. Now when there's an orphaned or an abandoned Florida panther kitten, someone usually calls the Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission. It comes in and picks up the animal, takes them to a veterinary clinic.

in Naples, Florida, because Southwest Florida is usually where the strongest population is and then it's determined by several authoritative sources what happens to that panther kitten. This panther kitten's mom and two siblings were hit by cars and she was found hiding in some bushes on a golf course. Zoo Miami has the space for her. They built a bigger space for her.

She's been living there now, she's all grown up. She is what they call, ah, a tool rat. Oh, an ambassador animal. She's an ambassador animal. She was the first Florida panther I ever met in person. She still had the kitten. You could see some faded spots from her kitten hood. You could see she still had blue eyes from her kitten hood. She was fiercely defensive of everyone naturally. But I immediately fell in love with her.

Um, the, she was named Baha'u'llah, which is, um, which is an Indian name, which means strong woman or strong female. Um, and a lot of, a lot of abandoned Florida Panthers get, um, names, uh, get Indian names from native Indian, Native American names, I should say, because Florida has a very strong Native American history, so it's kind of playing, you know, um, honoring, honoring the Native Americans with that, so.

Becca Bryan (22:16.718)
Mahalo is still down in Zoo Miami. I still get down to visit her. She now knows she is the queen bee. And she will come out when she wants to come out. She's got a big indoor habitat that is air conditioned. She's got a lot of space to play outside. From Athena, I went to, I think it was the Naples Zoo, which has, I think they had an orphan. I think she was an orphaned Florida Panther kitten.

They named her Sassafras, sassy for short. She's also now all grown up and sassy. She's very sassy. She likes to show off sometimes too. And then they wrote about, no, the Naples Zoo has Athena. Athena was, Athena was abandoned in Big Cypress National Preservatory, which is a huge area.

Koji Sumalde (22:54.51)
Thanks for watching!

Ethan Leaman (22:57.126)
Living up to her name.

Becca Bryan (23:13.846)
Sassafras at the West Palm Beach Zoo was orphaned. So I wrote about three Florida Panthers and I kept trying to find more. So I found two more up in North Jacksonville, Florida area, two brothers whose mother had to be euthanized because she got the wasting disease that was going around for Panthers. I forget the name of it, but it was a disease where it basically renders

Ethan Leaman (23:34.97)
What's a wasting disease?

Becca Bryan (23:42.67)
behind corridors useless.

Ethan Leaman (23:46.783)
Okay, oh that sounds horrible.

Becca Bryan (23:47.098)
But these, yeah, it's horrible. I watched a video of one kitten that had it and you can't watch it if you have a heart. You can't watch it. It just rips your heart out so much. But the female that was euthanized, her two boys are big, growling, hissing, fun-loving.

Ethan Leaman (23:58.814)
Ugh.

Oof.

Becca Bryan (24:15.906)
rock climbing Florida Panthers up there. So I went up there and I wrote about them. So that's kind of how it all, how my wildlife conservation writing evolved into writing about Florida Panthers. And from that writing, someone from the Friends of the Florida Panther Refuge Board contacted me and asked me if I was interested in joining the board. I knew nothing about

friends groups, I knew a little bit about the Panther Refuge. So I did a little looking around, and I noticed that there was one Panther advocate whose name I was seeing in just almost every Panther article, news article that came out. And I joined the board because she was on the board. And I first started, they put me in the media chairperson position, so I was answering emails and doing little clips for her.

Southwest Florida News Stations and trying to drum up interest for the Friends Group and everything else. We had some leadership changes, and I ended up as president of the board where I am now. So it's been...

Ethan Leaman (25:30.398)
Let's talk about that a little bit. Let's talk about how you became the president because we had talked about this in our call before our recording. And I thought this was a particularly interesting story. So let's dive into that a little.

Becca Bryan (25:44.374)
Well, at the time.

that the board went through some leadership changes. There were four of us left on the board. The treasurer, the secretary, the advocacy chair and me. And we had one board meeting, it was on Zoom because we're scattered around Florida. And I said, well, we can't just sit here without at least a board president. And I said, and...

You can't be it because you're the treasurer and you can't be it because you're the secretary and you don't want to be it because you're the advocacy chair. I said, so that only leaves one person. And they all sat there and I said, well, that would be me. So all in favor of making me the board chair, we're going to say aye. And of course there are only three people to do that. So they did. And.

Koji Sumalde (26:33.524)
Mm-hmm.

Ethan Leaman (26:43.971)
Yeah

Becca Bryan (26:45.658)
That's how it ended up. That's how I ended up the board chair and in taking over. This was like right before all of the COVID-19 shutdowns and everything. And then, you know, the refuge was shut down and we had our annual meeting, which we invite lots of people to, we had to do that over Zoom and everything. But we evolved and we keep moving. We had a

Koji Sumalde (26:56.963)
Hmm.

Becca Bryan (27:10.182)
Brand new annual meeting recently this year in Naples at a big environmental center. It was great. I got two new board members from it. Yay. One of them said she would be the secretary. Double yay because I was doing that and I suck at it. Just I have never been a good note taker. So that's how that all came about. You know, and I'm still the board president. Now we have a vice president, a treasurer and the secretary.

Koji Sumalde (27:19.039)
I'm gonna go.

Ethan Leaman (27:25.014)
Hehehehe

Becca Bryan (27:40.454)
Um, everyone that's on the friends board has, is working or has worked in environmental or wildlife conservation for most of their careers. And they are, they are extremely well aware and, um, educated and then have, are very intelligent about and very active in, uh, pamphlet conservation in Florida. So.

Koji Sumalde (28:08.458)
Well, yeah, let's dive into that. Let's dive more into Friends of the Florida Panther Refuge and what your organization, like what do they do? So like you said, the general public wants to know, you know, let's give it to them and give us the details that you love talking about.

Becca Bryan (28:27.966)
Okay, well let's see. The National Wildlife Refuge System in the United States has 588 National Wildlife Refuges and Hatcheries. And most of them have a Friends of whatever National Wildlife Refuge or Hatchery organization. We are in all, we are, most of us are all a, all volunteer.

organization that guides, that supports, and advocates for our specific wildlife refuge or hatchery. So, in the Friends of the Florida Panther Refuge organization, we support the activities and the staff and the goals of the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge and of the Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge.

which is a wide open space, marshy space in the water in Southwest Florida. And we're all a part of this one complex called the Southwest Florida Golf Complex of Refuges, which includes JR Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, which is on Sanibel Island. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge is a beautiful, beautiful place to go visit if you're over there.

They have an extremely active and nicely wealthy friends group. We are friends of the Florida Panthers. We're the scrappy little sister refuge. We don't have, you know, a ton of money. We have money, but we don't have a ton of money. Um, we're careful with our money. Um, and, uh, you know, and it's people drive by.

The Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, all the time. People that live in Immokalee, Florida, where it's located. Drive right by it. I had no idea there was a wildlife refuge here. Well, the sign is humongous on each side of the refuge. And were you just driving too fast that you couldn't read Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge? Maybe you slow down. You can see it. So the Panther Refuge is 26,500 acres.

Koji Sumalde (30:31.799)
Mm-hmm.

Becca Bryan (30:46.306)
It's humongous. There are true open trails. We try to have some activities on the refuge every year like we have a refuge open house. And we invite the public, it's free, they come in, they can take a swamp buggy ride through parts of the refuge that you normally can't walk through, which, you know, do you know where a swamp buggy is?

Koji Sumalde (31:08.374)
Mm-hmm.

Ethan Leaman (31:08.438)
I was going to say, I think we need to elaborate on that. I think the West coasters that listen to the show might not know what a swamp buggy is.

Becca Bryan (31:11.89)
Thank you.

Becca Bryan (31:17.206)
It is a huge vehicle.

that is high off the ground, enabling, that has seats on it and can be driven, that enables people to essentially drive it through swamps and other thick growth in a natural area. When you're sitting on them, like I said, I don't know the feet because I'm not a math person.

But you can see instead of walking out of the ground level you're way up above it Looking down on it so you can see everything below you and have essentially a better view They're very loud and a lot of people love them because of the view that you get So they're called that's why they're called small buggies essentially there they've got tires and the capacity to actually you know, we never through small so if they need to and

There are a lot of swamps in Southwest Florida. So by the way, if you ever.

Ethan Leaman (32:23.062)
Yeah, that's definitely something that you don't see in many other places is a bunch of swamp land. So swamp boogies are definitely, I would say, a Florida thing.

Becca Bryan (32:30.71)
Yes, yes they are. And anytime you hear any politicians say it's time to clean the swamp, all you got to say is, now listen, swamps are absolutely valuable to the ecosystem. So if you want to clean the swamp out, you're going to kill the ecosystem. But there are a few, you know, cyanobacteria infested individuals in the political swamps that do need to be cleaned out.

Koji Sumalde (32:43.805)
Mm-hmm.

Koji Sumalde (32:56.791)
You said it.

Becca Bryan (33:02.13)
I wanted to make sure that I cleared that up. That's what the friends do. And you don't have to live in Florida to become a friend's supporter or a friend's member. You can live anywhere you want. We have members that live all across the United States. And whenever they come to Southwest Florida, they like to visit the refuge and other places and everything. But...

Ethan Leaman (33:02.146)
Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one.

Becca Bryan (33:31.418)
We're happy to have members come from wherever they want to be, whether it's the United States or any other nation in the world. And the refuge does get a lot of visitors. I mean, I think it was during the early part of the, of Russia's push into the Ukraine, there were a lot of Ukrainians that, that moved into Poland. So there were a lot of Polish people that wanted to like take a break from the influx.

And when visit there, friends or relatives in South Florida, who eventually I met a few of them at the Panther Refuge one morning. And most are not prepared at all to be walking through an area that has like scratchy branches and rocks. And mosquitoes.

Ethan Leaman (34:20.986)
I'm sure you have quite a few people who come inappropriately dressed to walk a trail like that.

Becca Bryan (34:27.342)
You know, like flip-flops, short shorts, tank top, you know what I'm saying? You can't walk through there like that. There's rocks and there's tree stumps and there's snakes on the ground and gopher tortoises. You know, I said, dope, you know, I said, you need to wear like sturdy shoes and if you have long pants, put them on. And if you have long sleeves, put them on. You know, if you don't, then you, you know, I gave them a can of like deep woods off, which is, you know, heavy duty mosquito repellent. I'm like, take this right all over your body and protect yourself.

And they're like, oh, we're going to see Panthers. And I'm like, you're not going to see Panthers. They're going to see you, but you're not going to see them. You know, I walked the trails a few times, even by myself once, which wasn't the brightest idea, but you don't see them, you know.

Koji Sumalde (35:13.834)
Yeah, a trail hike through the mountains is vastly different than a trail hike through Florida. You're risking your life going through any trails in Florida just because of the wildlife here. And I mean, just a quick story. A few days ago, I was on my paddleboard in a very back country marsh area on the other side of Tampa Bay. And I had seen maybe five, six gators.

on the bank that slip in when they're, you know, startled. And of course I'm like, okay, I'm good. Like I ended up seeing like an 11 foot gator. Like, I mean, the head on this guy was, you know, a foot and a half wide. And I mean, just when you see that tail slip into the water, something in your heart sinks and you're like, I'm, I'm not supposed to be here on this paddle board. And, um, on my way out of there, I actually, uh,

Becca Bryan (36:09.537)
Yeah

Koji Sumalde (36:12.73)
I startled a five foot gator and he slipped into the water. I was on my way out kind of tired, just moseying out of there. I was like, I wonder if that was a gator or a loon or maybe a cormoran. And it ended up being a gator because I looked down and he surfaces his head right next to my foot, next to my paddleboard.

Becca Bryan (36:41.011)
Oh, holy crap.

Koji Sumalde (36:42.518)
And I'm like, you know, like just daydreaming, thinking to myself when I looked down and he pops up right next to my foot and I go, oh shit, with the paddle. And then he raises his head out of the water and just tail slaps right next to my paddleboard. And my heart, my heart was racing. I was like, if that was that 11 footer, I probably would have, I know I was alone. Like it was, you never know what's gonna happen. And this is like, you know, this is.

Becca Bryan (36:49.838)
Yes!

Ethan Leaman (36:51.437)
Hahahaha

Koji Sumalde (37:08.706)
far from people. I was probably 45 minutes away from the closest person to help me. That's with a long trail hike that I was in a place I shouldn't have been. Same thing with those trails. You get back into those back country areas and it's not our domain. I could see how people come well

Becca Bryan (37:14.886)
Holy crap!

Koji Sumalde (37:37.442)
and anything with mangroves and old oak trees, you're in for a treat.

Becca Bryan (37:37.483)
Yeah.

Becca Bryan (37:42.199)
and smooth.

And thick brush, even though there's a clear trail there, you know, it's like, you know, a friend of mine on the board cautioned me against ever taking either there's two trails, a long trail, which is like a mile and a third and a short trail, which is about a little more than a third of a mile long. And I would sometimes take the short trail by myself. Um, and she told me that I should not do that anymore.

Not because, you know, I could come face to face with a female panther with a den of kittens nearby, but because of the fact that it's open to the public and that means anyone can pull into the parking lot with any intention. The refuge has had some problems with the farriest characters who cut the fences and steal the saw palmetto berries.

Koji Sumalde (38:29.006)
Mm-hmm.

Becca Bryan (38:41.338)
the purple berries that are on soft metal plants because...

Koji Sumalde (38:41.778)
Mm-hmm. It's just a huge, uh, huge FWC case with that happening.

Becca Bryan (38:47.298)
Yes, there is. I know the friends have funded the refuge cameras in hot spots for that. You know, and I think they just caught somebody. So

Koji Sumalde (39:00.074)
Yeah, they had, they, man, they had a lot. They had a lot of those berries. Um, yeah, it's, it's not only like female Panthers and you know, people with ill intentions, but I think my biggest fear of walking trails in Florida would be, um, like, uh, like a hog, just a big boar or, or Sal that's just hungry, rooting and, or protecting her little piggies. That's something that you do not want to come in to encounter with because they could.

Becca Bryan (39:26.292)
No, I definitely did not want to come in contact with that.

Koji Sumalde (39:29.326)
They can clear a five foot jump if they're full stride. So you're not hiding behind anything. And yep, that's...

Becca Bryan (39:36.794)
Yeah. No, no, not doing, taking the trails again by myself.

Koji Sumalde (39:42.227)
Yeah, so that's my big...

Ethan Leaman (39:42.474)
I don't think we're helping people want to come to Florida. Just don't take the trails.

Koji Sumalde (39:46.986)
Well...

Becca Bryan (39:51.302)
You're welcome to come to Florida to visit. We've got no more room for permanent residents on the south side. No more room.

Koji Sumalde (39:51.49)
You gotta know your risks.

Koji Sumalde (40:00.514)
Same over here on the West Coast, same here. Well, that's awesome. Thank you for diving into that a little bit with us, Becca. Let's shift gears into your mama broke tale story. I know this is a topic that you've been waiting to uncover. So let's just go ahead and uncover that one.

Ethan Leaman (40:01.102)
Uhhh...

Becca Bryan (40:03.831)
Yeah.

Becca Bryan (40:17.626)
Oh, mama broke tail.

Becca Bryan (40:23.09)
Oh, Mama Brobe-Tail. If I had to choose one wild panther that has stolen my heart, it's Mama Bee. She's called Brobe-Tail because at the very end of her tail was kind of crooked. She was born on the panther refuge. She's had several litters of kittens on the refuge. There are several...

two specific males that think she's hot stuff, so we can definitely call her a hot mama. She is a hot mama. She has a beautiful face. She's a great mom. She's taught, in the last two years, she had a litter of three. And there's video of her teaching her kittens.

Ethan Leaman (40:58.531)
Hehehe

Becca Bryan (41:19.858)
who were at that time probably just maybe six months old, how to go under a wildlife underpass. And the underpass has some water in it. And she starts across it, paddling through the water. And you can hear her chirping to her kittens and you can hear them chirping back to her. The first brave one I call, I call him the brave one. He goes right.

right behind her. Then the second sort of brave one goes right after them. And the third one goes in, he gets about halfway and he's like, nope. And he runs back the up, back to the, back to the ground. You can see her turn around and she's looking at him and she's calling him. And then the other two kittens turn around and go back where he is. So then she has to go back. And then I think probably like, in an hour's time or something like that, she has to go back and get that one.

the kittens three times because she tries to cross with them three times and the first two kittens go with her or right behind her and the third one is like barely gets a foot in the water before he turns around and runs back. Nope not going there. It's probably because he heard vehicles and he didn't know what they were. Baker just seen me just runs up and he's like no not doing it turns around so I call that kitten the Becca kitten.

Ethan Leaman (42:44.494)
Hahaha

Ethan Leaman (42:48.482)
That's that's funny it's amazing how you fall in love with these animals and get to see the What what goes on with their interaction with human-made structures through these trail cams and the stories that you can pull from them

Becca Bryan (42:48.526)
You know? They... You see?

Becca Bryan (43:03.486)
I know, you know, the trail cameras at that wildlife underpass were paid for or were paid for and put there by the Florida Gulf Coast University Panther Policy Team. They picked the perfect spot. There's another organization called F-Spot Foundation. They also have a lot of great trail cameras across the state of Florida. Catching Panthers do things like using underpasses and or just, you know, in some cases just

laying underneath an underpass when it's dry and getting away from the heat. But, but mama broke tail now has, um, we think she has a litter of two, a brand new litter of two, because the other three had grown up and they left her. Um, Panther kittens usually leave their mom at about two years of age. Um, and she now has a new litter. Um, we're not sure who the baby daddy is. It could be the one they call white spot. It was

really big male that has a white spot up on his forehead. Or the panther bad boy, SP260, he got himself into some deep shit. And look at all the...

Ethan Leaman (44:13.07)
That's a hell of a name. That sounds like a weapon.

Becca Bryan (44:17.686)
Well, you know, they're all given the F.P. and a number, you know, and his number is 260. Some people wanted to call him Logan. I just call him 60. He's another big boy. He reeks some total havoc on local ranches and specifically one ranch in southwest Florida where he killed and ate so many calves that the ranch owner was calling for his head.

Koji Sumalde (44:45.984)
Wow.

Becca Bryan (44:47.698)
I mean, and I know this is, it's hard to say this because some people will take offense to, but what the hell? All I gotta say is, if you were, if you were a male panther and you were hungry, would you want to expend all of your energy trying to catch a rabbit or a deer? Or would you rather just go the easier route and go grab a calf?

Ethan Leaman (45:13.646)
I would want to go to the buffet because that sounds like someone opened a buffet next to a hungry animal refuge. So that sounds like, wow, I understand.

Becca Bryan (45:22.754)
And that ranch has been there a very long time, you know, and, you know, but there's an estimated 120 to 200 Florida Panthers living in the wild, according to any official record, you know, and most of them, most of them are in Southwest Florida where the ranches are. But it hasn't, I haven't heard any news this year that he's, you know, been chowing down on the ranch.

Ethan Leaman (45:52.354)
Yeah, he's busy making babies.

Becca Bryan (45:55.491)
but we hope he's making babies. We think he's the father of the three kittens that Broke Tail was teaching how to use the underpass. We're not quite sure if he's the father of this new litter of two. But when I tell you that Broke Tail is a hot mama, you can count on it. I should be able to.

Koji Sumalde (45:55.662)
Mm-hmm.

Ethan Leaman (46:13.486)
Well come on FP260 go get it in man!

Becca Bryan (46:16.866)
Yeah, yeah, you fight that, you fight that white star guy. You're both big guys. Let's see who wins the battle of Broke Tail.

Koji Sumalde (46:25.998)
Well, that's awesome. I could tell that a broke tail has that, uh, has that special place in your heart. Hopefully FB 60, two 60, you can meet one day too. Um, you know.

Becca Bryan (46:34.702)
No, he does. He also has a spot in my heart. I've seen pictures of him and I, you know, and he's just, he's gorgeous, but he's got the fiercest, he's got the fiercest face. I wouldn't want to come up on him on any trail, that's for sure, you know.

Koji Sumalde (46:52.482)
Well, that's the thing, you won't see him. He'll see you though. On the trail.

Becca Bryan (46:56.262)
That's it. People have always said to me, what would happen if you saw a panther on the trail? On the trails, and I'd say I would probably freeze in my tracks and pee my pants. I would just be stuck there, not believing what I could see and too afraid to move to get out my cell phone to take a video of it.

Ethan Leaman (47:19.994)
I love how that's the first thought, not call any other refuge members to come help you in case there's an incident. No, we need to film this.

Koji Sumalde (47:20.221)
That's...

Becca Bryan (47:29.595)
Hehehe

Koji Sumalde (47:30.986)
Yeah, you gotta get proof for it didn't happen.

Ethan Leaman (47:33.21)
Thanks for watching!

Becca Bryan (47:34.062)
You know, people are like, oh, you make that up because you love him so much. No, I was afraid to move. Afraid to move. He's big. Well, even the females are big. You know, they're a lot bigger than me. Six feet long, over a hundred pounds.

Koji Sumalde (47:38.198)
Same thing with Bigfoot.

Koji Sumalde (47:50.154)
Yeah, those are big cats. Becca, let's shift gears a little bit. Let's talk about your current projects. I know we've noted the Florida Panther Festival at the Naples Zoo. Can you touch base on that?

Becca Bryan (48:03.938)
The Naples Zoo every year hosts a Florida Panther festival where they invite all of the environmental and wildlife conservation organizations and volunteer groups. And The friends of the Florida Panther Refuge consider the Naples Zoo to be A, a, a great partner and

We're there and we have a table set up, we have brochures and information about the Panther Refuge and about our program. We're usually placed beside the Panther Refuge table. And it's just a great day to meet the people. It's free to, I think that it's free to get into the zoo that day, at least in the morning. The festival I think is from maybe nine to one. There are...

The defenders of wildlife is there, live wildly. The Conservancy of Southwest Florida, the Florida Gulf Coast University Panther Policy is there. And just, you know, maybe 20 other wildlife and environmental conservation groups are there. And it's just a fun day. It's a long day, because, you know, it takes about two hours to get from Fort Lauderdale to the Naples Zoo. So for me, that means I would have to, you know, get up before the break of dawn.

do it but it's one of my favorite one of my favorite things that we do and they have a panther there they have Athena

Ethan Leaman (49:31.642)
Yeah, yeah, that's great for exposure and getting involved with the community. You know, I'm sure while you guys have a lot of people reach out, every bit of interaction that you guys can get with any community is important.

Becca Bryan (49:49.302)
It is, yeah, you know, especially locally. It's great to do that locally. Um, and it's great when, when people reach out to us on social media or through email, um, like you guys did, um, that aren't based in Southwest Florida or South Florida, you know, we have students last year was like big, big student request year. We had student requests for Panther information from all over the country. And we're doing there. There were.

their end of year science project on an endangered species. So, you know, at least five of them chose the Florida panther. So, you know, it's great when kids do that and think about the Florida panther because you think only people here in Florida, you know, know about the panther. And a lot of people actually in Florida don't. You know, even the people that live in Naples and call your county over there, you know, they're like the what? What do you mean the what?

You moved into Panther habitat, you know. You're gonna see bobcats and deer and wild boars and the occasional panther slinking through your backyard. So, it's great when we can reach it. Go ahead.

Ethan Leaman (51:09.628)
Well, I'm glad you guys are able to do that and, you know, garner that interest. And that's important for an endangered species like this. And that's why we want to do the show on animals like this that are endangered and be able to feature people like yourselves that are involved in organizations that are involved in protecting them. But Koji, I think it might be time to get to our favorite segment of the show. What do you think?

Koji Sumalde (51:36.683)
Hello.

Becca Bryan (51:39.075)
I can hear ya.

Ethan Leaman (51:41.014)
Yeah, I can hear you Koji, we can't see you.

Ethan Leaman (51:46.35)
I think we might have lost Koji for a second.

Becca Bryan (51:49.183)
Oh no.

Ethan Leaman (51:51.222)
This happens, essentially so you know, it's not a problem. What we'll do is we'll wait for him to get back. And I put a mark on the show and Koji goes back through and edits it. So I think he'll be back in just a second. But we go through, we edit it. So anything, this is a part of our post-production talk that we do once we finish record anyway. So you're just getting this early.

Becca Bryan (52:06.458)
There he is! Oop, there he goes.

Ethan Leaman (52:20.722)
So any of the things like that, you know, we don't want people to see gets cut out. So we'll keep this edit kind of rolling and Koji will just go in and chop it. So this will be out. Let's see. I wonder what happened. See if he, if he texted.

Becca Bryan (52:27.634)
I'm going to go to bed.

Ethan Leaman (52:44.075)
Yeah, he said his riverside is frozen.

Becca Bryan (52:47.898)
Yikes. There he is. Welcome back.

Koji Sumalde (52:49.2)
Hey, sorry about that. My, my Riverside froze and I was like, I don't know if you guys heard me, but yeah, I was like.

Ethan Leaman (52:56.99)
Yeah, you said hello and then and then completely disappeared.

Koji Sumalde (53:03.024)
Sorry, sorry about that.

Becca Bryan (53:03.338)
Wait.

Ethan Leaman (53:06.97)
I did leave us a perfect little transition point, like right as you left, so you have a good cut spot, just as a heads up. But Becca, what I was transitioning to was our wild story segment. So essentially what we'll do is I'll go kind of back to what I was saying, like the very end, and we'll let Koji kind of dive back in. So it's just easy for him to edit and we'll just continue like nothing happened.

Becca Bryan (53:37.035)
Okay.

Ethan Leaman (53:38.662)
So Koji, the last thing I said was, Koji, what do you think? So I'll just repeat the Koji, what do you think? Talking about the wild story segment. And then we'll let you do the kickoff for the second. Hello. All right.

Becca Bryan (53:44.315)
I'm sorry.

Koji Sumalde (53:47.745)
Hello?

Okay, that works.

Becca Bryan (53:51.686)
Hello.

Ethan Leaman (53:54.754)
Well Koji, what do you think?

Koji Sumalde (53:57.5)
Let's do it, Becca. Let's dive into these wild stories.

Becca Bryan (54:00.614)
Oh, wild stories. Oh boy, they're wild stories at a dolphin stranding. Are can be really hilarious if they're happening to somebody else. You know, or surprise or surprising to you if they're happening to you. The first training I went on was the rough tooth training and we had a calf there that we nicknamed booger because

She was just a little booger. She was a little bratty, super jealous, super affectionate, very independent little dolphin calf. She loved our director. She didn't like anyone else loving our director. I think her mother was passed away or with euthanized.

Koji Sumalde (54:32.776)
Thanks for watching!

Becca Bryan (54:59.374)
as part of the stranding. So she was kind of an orphan, but there were near the end of the dolphin stranding. She was 104 left and dolphins, you know, travel in a pod. And the younger ones are usually in the middle of the pod for safety reasons, of course, but she was a feisty, super independent little girl. And she always maneuvered and pushed her way to the outside.

She didn't want to be in the middle. So we could see them trying to move her back in the middle, but she was like, nope, I want to be over here, or I want to be over here. It was for those reasons that the officials that regulate marine mammal strandings thought that she would not survive in the wild. So she went to live at Gulf World, which is up in Panama City Beach. She lived a long time there. She was feisty with them.

you know, in order to feed formula, baby formula for a dolphin calf, you have to get the formula right and there's a special formula for it and a special mixture. And then you literally have to like pry open their mouths and stick the bottle in and squirt it. She was very fond of snapping her jaw shut and the volunteer squeezing the bottle will end up with formula all over their face.

And it's not cheap. You know, marine mammal stranding organizations are usually asking for donations for a reason because it's not cheap. The fish they eat is restaurant quality. You know, and a lot of times it comes frozen in a big box and you have to thaw it out and not break any fish parts off, inject them with water.

Becca Bryan (56:55.69)
for some reason knew which fish had the pills in them and wouldn't touch it. We had dolphins who would eat just a certain kind of fish and who wouldn't? And the fish kitchen that we had just a free-standing covered structure.

Koji Sumalde (57:02.224)
Hmm.

Becca Bryan (57:20.938)
was always cleaner and more sanitized than any restaurant, you know, Michelin five-star rated kitchen. And it took a hell of a long time to get it that way. The fish buckets had to have no scales on them. I remember having to wash fish buckets at least three times in a row because our director would find one scale on them. And at that point, you just want to take the bucket and hit somebody upside the head. But I don't want to do that really.

Becca Bryan (57:53.384)
But that little booger was just a booger. You know, and she lived a long time up at Gulf Road and she recently passed away. And Cutter, I told you about Cutter, the juvenile male, the teenage male, that was super feisty, that flipped out of, flipped himself out of our volunteer's hands when they tried to tag him, knocked me off a surfboard. You know, all I gotta say is good job.

Becca Bryan (58:19.85)
lost his GPS tracker. Good job. The dolphin organization that was tracking him for a while, every time I see them speaking somewhere and they ask for questions, I raise my hand and ask them if they have if they have ever been able to locate Cutter after the first initial times and they always blow off the question. And in a very rude way, in a very rude way.

Koji Sumalde (58:41.849)
Hmm.

Ethan Leaman (58:44.846)
Like, can someone please have this lady stop asking this question? We lost the dolphin, okay? We lost the dolphin, we lost the tracker, that's it. Can this lady please stop?

Becca Bryan (58:52.734)
Oh god. Oh god, she's here again. Can someone please just escort her out?

Becca Bryan (59:02.178)
So, you know, they've not been very forthcoming with information and I don't consider them to be the friendliest dolphin research organization out there, so anytime someone invites me to one of their events, I just politely pass. Cast Away, like Cast Away will always have my heart. I was told so many times that I became too close to her.

Ethan Leaman (59:02.179)
Oh, that's funny.

Becca Bryan (59:30.966)
Um, but I don't believe that because I'm a sensitive kind of person and, and I don't think there's, there's ever a way to become too attached to an animal. You know, it just shows that you, that you care and you care more. And that, you know, that's human nature. You know, it's like when my broke tail, you got a lever, but

She was funny. She did a lot. She did a lot of fun. She did a lot. She played a lot of tricks on me in the overnight hours. I love working overnight shifts because usually we would get volunteers that would just or tourist volunteers, people that are down there on vacation and they want to come and see the dolphins and they show up on this site with a dry waste, just nothing but coral rock and coral gravel.

in stiletto heels and short dresses, all done up like they were going out in Miami and wondering why they were getting, you know, the misfitters are going smorgasbord, you know, and they want to sit there and they don't, they freak out when the little Florida pink shrimp are just putting themselves up on the dock and they're freaking out and just in their high heels and I'm like, why are you here? Oh, I want to help the dolphins.

Ethan Leaman (01:00:46.906)
Hehehehehehe

Becca Bryan (01:00:50.514)
I feel like you can help the dolphins by, you know, being serious about it and not showing up like you're going to a disco. You know?

Ethan Leaman (01:01:00.746)
Oh, I'm sure there were quite a few encounters like that. That he was just like, no, we don't need volunteers today.

Becca Bryan (01:01:02.253)
I'm in volunteer.

Oh yes.

Yes, and the number of people that called in that wanted to do like the, uh, like an evening, an evening shift, and you would say to them, the evening shift is full of mosquitoes. So if you have an allergy to mosquito bites, if you have an aversion to insects, this is not the shift for you. Oh no, no problem, no problem. Well, you know, halfway into their shift, they're sitting there in a full wetsuit.

cap on all the way down, complaining about mosquitoes. I had one guy did that to me, complained. No one told me, I said, I talked to you on the phone. I remember your name, I talked to you on the phone, I signed you up for the shift and I said, this shift is full of mosquitoes. If you have a problem with mosquitoes, this is not the shift to take. Oh no, no problem, you said. I don't remember talking to you. I said, oh, I remember talking to you. So you can go home if you want to and we won't hold it against you.

Koji Sumalde (01:01:47.73)
Thanks for watching!

Koji Sumalde (01:02:08.072)
Thanks for watching.

Becca Bryan (01:02:08.634)
But, you know, that's human nature. Huh?

Koji Sumalde (01:02:10.736)
He never came back.

He never came back.

Becca Bryan (01:02:16.374)
I think he came back one other time and complained to our director or somebody that I was rude to him and then I was, director came to me and this guy said you're rude to him and I was rude, you were rude to him and I openly said that guy is a fucking asshole.

Becca Bryan (01:02:33.038)
I told him this shift is full of mosquitoes. If you have a problem with mosquitoes, don't take this shift. Two hours into his shift, he's sitting there in full wetsuit gear because he's getting eaten by mosquitoes.

Ethan Leaman (01:02:34.498)
Hehehehe

Becca Bryan (01:02:49.006)
He goes, well, you're not supposed to be rude to volunteers. I'm like, listen, he's a fucking asshole. I have no respect for him. So it's hard for me to be diplomatic and polite to someone that I have no respect for who is an asshole.

Koji Sumalde (01:03:07.408)
That's right, you gotta keep it real.

Becca Bryan (01:03:10.882)
You do, you know, and I did get chewed out for that one, but at the end of the day, I just shrugged and luckily the guy was never on my ships again. And, you know, I got some decent people and I got some duds. You know, you're dealing with people, I mean, and human nature and human behavior. You sit there and you're like, oh my God, how did this woman live so long? And is that dumb?

Koji Sumalde (01:03:33.768)
Thanks for watching!

Ethan Leaman (01:03:36.258)
I always say, oh my gosh, these people vote.

Becca Bryan (01:03:39.606)
Yes, they do. Unfortunately, yes. Yes. And you know, go G down here in Florida. Oh yeah. Yay. The people that are voting. Um, but you know, I'm sure people have said some things about me as an early volunteer, you know, like, oh my God, I wish you would quit asking like a million questions that we all have the answers to.

Ethan Leaman (01:04:05.585)
hehe

Becca Bryan (01:04:06.15)
I always, whenever I came home, I smelled completely of deep woods off. I had bug repellent all over me. You want a wild story about that? I had an old car one time when I was driving up the 18 mile stretch, which is a long road that goes from the Upper Keys all the way up to Homestead, or no, Florida City. And it was an old car, the air conditioning didn't work, so I had the windows open.

So we're stopped on here because there's an accident. It has just rained just enough to make, of course, everything stink and bring every living mosquito in the world to that one area. So I'm sitting in there and hordes of mosquitoes are flying in my car and I'm taking a towel and I'm sweating all around and I'm sure people are looking at me like I'm having a spastic fit. I get out my bug spray and my mosquito spray and spray down the car.

Swatting and everything, you know, I did that for an hour before the traffic started to move and then I drove as fast as I could to blow them out the windows, but I did come in with quite a few mosquito bites on that trip

Koji Sumalde (01:05:20.108)
Yep, you gotta be prepared for that. I smell like DEET and off woods every time I come off the water. I get eaten up. No seums and mosquitoes cannot resist.

Becca Bryan (01:05:27.599)
Yep.

God, no sins. I hate those suckers. You know? Yes.

Koji Sumalde (01:05:33.66)
The worst when they get your eyelids and they start biting under your eyelids and then you're like, I'm just gonna die right here.

Becca Bryan (01:05:40.166)
Yes. You know, I'm Koji. What the hell is the matter with people complaining about, you know, wanting to use anything with DEET? I mean, it's, you know, we've had people come down there using the all natural citronella oil. I don't know, I'm wearing the all natural citronella oil, but you don't realize that becomes like glue to mosquitoes and then they're just stuck on people.

Ethan Leaman (01:05:40.766)
Hehehehe

Koji Sumalde (01:05:51.655)
Right.

Koji Sumalde (01:06:04.68)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

Becca Bryan (01:06:08.91)
I don't want to put any poison on. I'm like, no, give me the poison. Spray it on, you know?

Koji Sumalde (01:06:15.105)
As long as you don't inhale it.

Becca Bryan (01:06:17.934)
Yeah, don't inhale it. But, you know, in heavy mosquito areas, you just really have to use what works, you know?

Koji Sumalde (01:06:26.956)
Yeah, that's true. Yeah, and I think, you know, to kind of wind down the episode, you know, finding the proper information, the correct information on how to prepare yourself for coming to Florida, because people come to Florida and they think it's just beaches. And you got to drive through, yeah, beaches in Disney. And, you know, you got to drive through some questionable areas to get to the populated...

Ethan Leaman (01:06:46.189)
and Disney.

Koji Sumalde (01:06:56.412)
gentrified, beautiful cities that people want to live in with hipster coffee makers and breweries around every corner and murals on every building. But to get to those areas, you got to go through old Florida. And old Florida is some of the most beautiful landscapes in the US, in my opinion, and some of the most diverse. With that being said, it's organizations like yours and a few guests that we've had on the show before that help preserve and help, you know.

Becca Bryan (01:07:08.914)
Hmm?

Koji Sumalde (01:07:26.736)
bring awareness to these refugees, these refugees, these refuges, and, you know, really just shine a light on that. So not everyone's built for Florida. That's an absolute fact. I mean, you just, you got to be willing to put up and not put up, but more so co-exist with the wildlife we have here. Otherwise, you're just a part of the food chain.

Becca Bryan (01:07:39.985)
Yeah.

Becca Bryan (01:07:49.134)
It's true. That's true. And that's part of any volunteer organization in Florida is the outreach to the people that just moved here. The people that moved here during COVID, the people that are moving here now and moving into what's left of some well-open spaces and don't understand why there's a couple of bobcats running through the yard.

or why Florida Panther just deprecated their cat. You're moving in a wildlife habitat. If you don't know what that means, we'll be glad to come and tell you. And we've joined other organizations in doing that. But they have to know, and they just don't. They wanna move here because it's no income tax and it's supposedly sunny and beautiful all the time.

Koji Sumalde (01:08:20.872)
Mm-hmm.

Ethan Leaman (01:08:43.834)
except for 3-4 o'clock... every day.

Koji Sumalde (01:08:43.985)
Mm-hmm.

Becca Bryan (01:08:47.278)
Yes, well right before you called there was a hellacious thunder and lightning storm and lightning was striking close here and I thought all the power would go out so I was getting ready to email you from my phone to tell you that I had no power.

Koji Sumalde (01:09:00.816)
Hey, yeah, we're glad you made it on the show, Becca. I think this is a great way to shift into the closing of the show. Let the audience know how to contact you and the friends and how to get involved.

Ethan Leaman (01:09:00.86)
Well, I'm glad that didn't happen.

Becca Bryan (01:09:02.87)
Me too!

Becca Bryan (01:09:20.838)
Well, if you want to, if anyone wants to contact me or friends of the Florida Panther Refuge, you can email us at contact at floridapanther.org. We are also on Facebook. Just type in the search bar, friends of the Florida Panther Refuge, and it will come up. You will also see in there that we have a new Shopify store where you can buy some, some cool Panther Friends merchandise.

you know, we're more than happy to welcome anyone that wants to join the Friends of the Florida Panthers mission, which is to support the Florida Panther Refuge staff and their mission and their goals, and to shed more light on the National Wildlife Refuge System as a whole. We're an extremely easygoing group.

We don't have super powered board meetings, you know, we just, if you can't make it, just email or text someone and it's okay. We can, you know, we go on, you know, you can donate any amount of money to us on our website, which is Fordapanther.org. We're not, or you can just send us an email note. You can join our mailing list and when we have news, we'll email everyone that news.

You don't have to be from Florida, you don't have to be from the United States, you can be from anywhere you want to be and we're happy to have you learn more about us and contact us if you have questions or you have a school project you want to do, your company's looking for, you know, a not so famous volunteer organization, that's us. We're just happy and grateful for any support.

and any extra people we can to join our mission.

Ethan Leaman (01:11:16.482)
That's awesome. I hope you gain some extra people from this.

Koji Sumalde (01:11:16.988)
That's wonderful.

Becca Bryan (01:11:20.769)
Me too!

Koji Sumalde (01:11:23.056)
Yeah, and hopefully no assholes come on to your volunteer shift.

Becca Bryan (01:11:27.434)
And we've had a few of those. Wait, this is awesome, y'all. We've had a few, like, assholes. We've had a few volunteers.

Ethan Leaman (01:11:29.791)
It's fucking assholes. We have to make sure the terminology is correct.

Koji Sumalde (01:11:31.352)
Yeah, that's right.

Koji Sumalde (01:11:37.224)
Hehehehe

Ethan Leaman (01:11:39.259)
All right, well thank you, Becca, for joining us on today's show. We're glad to have you.

Becca Bryan (01:11:45.646)
Oh, thanks so much for inviting me. Um, not many people know about, you know, friends groups or friends of the Florida Panther Refuge, and we're so happy that you contacted us to do this podcast and it's my very first one, so I hope I didn't screw it up. Thanks.

Koji Sumalde (01:12:00.016)
No, you did great. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. We'll talk to you soon, Becca.

Ethan Leaman (01:12:00.035)
No, I think you did good.

Becca Bryan (01:12:05.58)
Okay.

Koji Sumalde (01:12:07.216)
All right, bye bye.

Becca Bryan (01:12:08.474)
Bye bye.