Tommy's Outdoors

Welcome to Wild Development Studio, where we delve into the captivating world of wildlife arts and untamed adventures. Join host Lauren as she interviews Tommy Serafinski, an outdoorsman and podcaster, to discuss his journey from a city boy in Poland to an advocate for conservation and nature. Tommy shares his experiences, insights on human-wildlife interactions, and the importance of presenting multiple perspectives in complex environmental issues. Tune in for inspiring stories, expert interviews, and a deeper understanding of our natural world.

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Transcript

Especially to give every side of the story. 
Because there are certain issues, let's call them this way, in conservation and in nature that are so complex. 
There is no way that you can get one person and that's going to be a full view. 
Welcome to Wild Development Studio. 
Join us as we venture into the breathtaking realm of wildlife arts and untamed adventures. 
With captivating stories from the field and ideas to dive into the visual arts will ignite your passion for conservation. 
Get ready to develop something wild. 
Welcome to Wild Developments. 
I'm your guide, Lauren. 
Today we are thrilled to have Tommy Serafinski, an outdoorsman, podcaster and speaker on the show today. 
On Tommy's Outdoors, he delves into the natural environment, biodiversity, conservation, hunting and fishing, 
rewilding and more. 
More. 
Tommy is passionate about wildlife and human -wildlife interactions, enjoying scientific research and first -hand outdoor experiences. 
He offers services such as public speaking, workshops, panel discussions, and engaging video content covering topics like climate change, 
biodiversity, and effective communication for scientists and environmentalists. 
With years of experience as a podcast host, Tommy converses with world -class scientists and experts in the natural sciences and conservation fields. 
His extensive reading and firsthand experiences have equipped him with unique perspectives on our relationship with nature. 
Tommy, thank you so much for being here today. 
Thank you for invitation. 
Well, I want to learn a little bit about your background because I have a hypothesis that us naturalists like you and I, 
that we just have had a love for nature from a very young age. 
So can you tell us a little little bit about that oh i might i might uh kind of uh make you to do the corrections of that of that uh idea um so i'm saying i'm the i'm a city boy born and bred and born and raised in city boy city boy in poland um and you know i i grew up in a big city and then after finishing university i moved to another big city warsaw and so i was surrounded by concrete and buildings and all that you know stuff um but we did have something that we called summer house and that was like a little house that was really not suitable for polish winters at least back in the day polish winters but we we were there usually three to three to two to three months in the summer and that was like in a rural area so i pretty much enjoyed walking in a in the woods because there were you know a little bit of the woods around and playing on on the grass not on the concrete and stuff like that so that was really my background and um as i was growing up i i take a little bit on fishing like angling i started doing this and you know but i think that so i always had that interest uh it was always like a change of scenery but only when um oh this pushing 20years now i I moved to Ireland. 
To the west coast of Ireland. 
And here's like very much rural area where I live in County Kerry. 
Well, Ireland mostly is rural anyway. 
And yeah, and that took off. 
I was like, wow, look at all these opportunities, you know, all these mountains here and this ocean here and all that. 
And so I gone crazy like that. 
So you kind of proved me wrong. 
I i thought maybe you were outside out in nature all the time so city boys what city boy what made you decide to like how did you arrive to tommy outdoors oh there are there are there are two parts to to this question so first you know why podcast and and what you know about the subject of the podcast so i would i had a blog in in polish language when i was still in poland i I had a blog in Polish language when I was basically reporting and logging on my on my fishing adventures. 
My angling adventures. 
And so I was doing this thing and, you know, I had like, 
you know, they were like back in the day when actually organic growth was the thing. 
And, you know, at some point, Google was listing my blog at the first position. 
When you type River Shannon, like in Polish, it was going like a first position in Google, 
right? 
Completely organic. I've done nothing. 
It was just back in the day, right? 
Internet worked differently. 
And so then I moved to Ireland and I started, you know, all these new opportunities, 
new species of fish, newer fishing. 
So I was doing this blog, a lot, you know, entries there, a lot of stuff were happening. 
Happening. And then after a while, it kind of dried out and it dried out because I never, 
you know, I wasn't like, oh, I'm going to publish every week or I'm going to publish every month. 
It was, I literally had a header on the blog saying like, posts are random depending whether something interesting happened because I didn't want to post like, 
oh, I was fishing, right? 
And then the next one, oh, I was fishing today again. 
I caught bass, right? 
And you have this picture, there's a guy with a fish and you don't even know whether it's the same photo or maybe different different photo I didn't want to that so there's only so many things that you can do and I kind of like you know was posting very seldom at some point and also because I was in Ireland I had like all the friends here and I thought that it would be good to do something in English so you know basically have a wider audience and a lot of my Polish readers subscribers whatever whatever it's called when you have a blog. 
Would still can access my English content. 
But I just wanted to do something for people I was, you know, 
knew who were around me because I was in this new place. 
But obviously, English not being your first language, it is way easier to speak than to write. 
And that's how the idea of podcast came in. 
Like, hey, you know, there's this thing called podcast. 
So you basically, you know, again, good old days, you just, you know, 
hit the record button and you do. 
So that's how I started doing podcasts. 
And so current, you know, like back then, if you told me that I'm going to be like speaking with a world class scientists and, 
you know, interviewing research teams who are doing some research and publishing papers, 
I would never believe that. 
Because my idea was basically, you know, I'm going to just hang out with my fishing buddies and we're going to talk about fish that we caught and whatever. 
So that was the idea of the podcast. 
And the first episodes that I probably don't want anyone to listen to are a little bit like that. 
And then at some point, you know, it always interested me from the perspective of complexity of issues related to conservation and human wildlife conflict or human wildlife interactions. 
Interactions and, you know, things that supposedly be, you know, obvious, like, oh, 
everybody wants to protect nature. 
And then it turns out like, oh, it's not that easy. 
There are people who have different ideas. 
And that complexity really interested me. 
And, you know, from really from guest to guest, I started, you know, 
to interviewing scientists and, you know, one and another. 
And and say, hey, I heard you recorded this podcast. 
We have an interesting scientist. 
And that kind of like took off, right? 
And obviously people were also more interested in that than, you know, me talking about that we caught fish with our friends and, 
you know. 
So that's how that transformation turned out. 
And that's where I kind of rebranded from Tommy's Outdoors. 
Now it's Tommy's Outdoors Conservation and Science science, because that is the main focus to discuss issues related to ecology, 
conservation, human -wildlife conflict, and especially to give every side of the story. 
Because there are certain issues, let's call them this way, in conservation and in nature that are so complex, 
there is no way that you can get one person and that's going to to be a full view it's always it's always going to be different stories right and and you know i also often given that example that i had an episode about uh seals in in ireland right and the conflict with seals and i had a lady from seal rescue ireland and you know very emotional language every animal deserve a second chance and the you know like and then i had a trawler man who's you know losing money right and his attitude was like shoot them and then i had a scientist who are you know gluing gps tags to seals and they're tracking them and they really can see what they're doing and and all that again very factual language very you know matter of fact so now i think that only when you see the issue from all these sides then and you know like i'm not trying to convince anyone what's right what's wrong i have my own opinions of course like everybody else but it's not like i'm promoting one or another point of view in a podcast it's like hey you people are intelligent you can listen to all those points of view and you can make up your mind and surely you know some people will think that something people think something else but they will be better informed and that is the main thing and from the very beginning i was saying like. 
Hey, if after listening to my podcast, even one person goes like, oh, 
I never thought about that. 
Well, my job is done. 
I'm already happy. 
So that's how it... 
I'm probably rambling now starting from your question, but that's how it started from city boy going fishing in the pond and then putting photos of the fish they caught in the blog to now conservation and science podcast where where i'm interviewing these incredibly interesting people that's really interesting that you're getting all sides and i love that because you don't know what the fisherman maybe is going through um because you know they're after the same thing the and you have other people that just have a bleeding heart for these cute animals so we do need to hear all sides of it and somehow try and figure out a way to meet in the middle and all coexist so that's that's a great takeaway message from your podcast now is this your full -time job or do you do something else no i'm i'm on i'm working in the computer industry uh my day and this is sort of my you know alter ego if you like like a like a like a passion project it's a passion project it's a labor of love like one of the guests uh called is it's a complicated hobby well i think it's great and you've got over 170episodes is that right yeah that's right 173is dropping next week while we're recording that by the time it goes goes like it's going to be probably 180something yeah so this is going to be kind of a trick question because um bring it on I know my answer to this. 
What has been your favorite guest? 
My favorite guest. 
You know, I don't think it would be fair to just to pick one because then someone's going to listen. 
Oh, you like me. 
So I don't think I have a I have a favorite guest. 
There were some memorable guests, I would put it that way. 
And you know I may be going to flip that question around a little bit and answer this way if not the podcast I would never have an opportunity to speak with people I'm speaking with on the record let's take polar bear research or conflict with wolves policy policy or anything like that right and you have this expert i couldn't just call him up and say like hey are you gonna talk to me for an hour about polar bears right the dude was like whoa what a weirdo right but now i'm coming like hey i'm gonna produce this podcast and i think there's the you know a lot of interesting information and people go like yeah okay let's do this and and so i you know to some extent and i'll answer your question so to some extent every single guest is my favorite guest because i have opportunity to learn and and through me learning by speaking with them and asking questions hopefully other people also learning and um you know finding new information and and getting getting more informed so i i would put it that way you know i don't think really it would be fair and and honest to pick one because every every person is different. 
Every person has their own personalities. 
Every person has a different point of view and, and they're doing different things. 
So it's hard to say, but, but I feel privileged every time I am recording a podcast. 
I feel, in fact, I feel privileged right now speaking with you because again, 
this is like, we learning something and we have this conversation. 
Yeah. I was just going to say that every guest is my favorite guest because I learned something thing completely new from every single person I have on and like you said you wouldn't otherwise have that opportunity to talk to that person because you'd be like why does this weirdo want to talk to me and I love getting to talk about one of my favorite subjects which is nature so what okay adults don't talk about this but what is your favorite animal animal oh my favorite animal depends on the day you know it's it's again one of those one of those difficult questions it's like wolverine well but i never seen a wolverine in my life right maybe something that i am more you know see more often see kadir which is which is very you know i think misunderstood and it's like uh treated as an invasive species in ireland they come from um i yeah it's it's it's it's a tough one i don't i don't i don't have like a favorite anything because for me life is just a you know how many things you experience it's just a collection of experiences and saying like oh this is the best one is like tells me that you probably didn't experience much much else and everything it's hard to you know how can you compare fish with with mammals. 
With birds, with, you know, invertebrates, you know, like, it's a tough one. 
I'm going to dodge that one, Laurie. 
Okay, that's fair enough. 
Now you do some public speaking too, right? 
What are some of the topics that you speak on? 
Yeah. So maybe most interesting topics. 
One of them was really, I could not so much public speaking, but it was a panel discussion on consumption of meat. 
So the question was whether it's possible to still consume meat and have both climate and animal welfare at the forefront of your mind. 
And that was interesting because i came um from the perspective of a hunter saying like hey i'm not suggesting that this is societal solution because of the society we need many different solutions we need a collection of solutions like no one's size fits all but if you have an opportunity you can actually procure or harvest your own meat by going hunting and at the same time. 
Being where I am in Ireland, actually the talk was in Great Britain, 
in the UK. 
So same thing, because we don't have any natural predators, wild ungulates, deer are essentially, 
there is a reliance on hunters to reduce the numbers. 
And everything that goes into that damage to forestry damage to crops destruction of biodiversity as well because if the overabundant species basically eats everything then you know the vegetation collapses and and biodiversity suffers so my point was like hey if you have that opportunity you can get your own meat and that way you are in charge of animal welfare you know depending how good shadow you are and at the the same time you're actually helping biodiversity and you're helping nature um and you can have like a best possible nutrient dense clean lean meat so that is an op one option that i'm suggesting and um after the event the organizers said that they were a little bit worried about me you know like given the people who are coming in there and like this is this guy comes and say you only hunt deer um but surprisingly that wasn't controversial at all uh more of a discussion picked up on like oh should we ban meat so so it was like focus on on um really there's no good solution because you have a social inequalities and and you know so oh you need to like consume less meat but better quality but then the argument is like yes but poor people won't be able to afford that meat. 
So this is fundamentally classist. 
So we need to have a cheap meat. 
But when you have a cheap meat and the production of it is an animal welfare disaster and environmental disaster, 
et cetera, et cetera. 
So that's when the conversation went in. 
And then another subject that I surprisingly to myself speak quite often is about climate change and connection between between climate change and biodiversity, 
and I am just surprised how many otherwise intelligent and well -educated people are still kind of poking on the borderline climate denial ideas. 
And I always come to this with genuine approach to answer the question, 
right? 
Because if someone says like, oh, is the climate change really man -made? 
If you go like, oh, you're stupid, educate yourself, you're not getting there. 
This is the opposite of what you should do. 
So even if I am disappointed because I think that in 2024,the discussion about climate change should move on, 
and there is a lot of things to discuss, and there is a lot of questions. 
And there is a lot of still unknowns. 
But I think that we should be already past the like, oh, CO2 is food for plants. 
It's all good. 
Right. We should be already have that behind us and sorted this out. 
So when the people are still coming with those arguments i feel like you have to appreciate the question and and approach this with like okay i'm gonna approach this in a good faith and try to answer that question best to my ability not dismissing the question even though i might think that the question was already answered so that's uh again something and there is you know I think that what's the word I'm looking for? 
I think that people are becoming more conscious of the problems that are happening because of climate change. 
So there is more and more need and we are like naturalists, we are in it, 
right? 
We see what's going on. 
But people who are just like, I'm working in the computer industry, people in computer is like, 
oh, whatever, right? 
Maybe, yeah, I know there's a climate change. 
But then there are regulations coming in. 
Now the companies need to report on their CO2 emissions. 
So this thing is becoming really, really mainstream. 
And I think there is a lot of need for people going in and explaining things again, 
because I think this is the pitfall that we thought that everything was already discussed. 
Everything was already figured out and if someone asks the question like is there really climate change is it human made right then straight away they're deniers and i'm not gonna spend time on them like no no we need to spend the time explaining one two three five ten times what's going on and why you know what what is the evidence for that i really feel like if if people that are in the computer industry. 
Let's say, you know, they're going every day to their office and they don't see maybe something, 
let's take ocean pollution, for example, like unless you go to a beach and there is animals stuck in like maybe fishing line, 
or you just see the trash everywhere, you're not going to. 
You're going to be blind to that. 
And you're like. 
Like, oh gosh, why are these regulations coming down? 
Why does this affect me? 
I don't understand. 
Like we need to, like you were talking about earlier, have these shared stories and get the word out. 
And then, you know, then people will care if they don't see it, 
they're never going to care. 
Exactly. 
And like, you know, all it takes is on a summer day in the city, 
you're not going to be out on the concrete. 
You're going to want to be in a green space. 
We need more green spaces yeah but you know even even things that like you know if you look i don't know like how it is where you live but but in europe i i think it's it's most in europe certainly in poland and central ireland you you see what's happening to the olive oil like an olive oil like either certain brands disappearing or the brands that are still on the bottles are getting smaller but the price is still the same and they're harder to come by why because the places where where where you know uh olive uh olives grew they are turning into a desert literally so there it's gonna be it's gonna be less and less so at least like hey do you do you know like why this happened this is not because of some conspiracy some you know olive oil drinking uh you know lizard people it's because it's you know there's a actual problem with growing the plants right i was uh I was talking with the owner of a vineyard in the UK. 
And they had to close down that vineyard because of the climate change, 
right? 
And you may say, like, how? 
Like, vineyard because of the climate change in the UK? 
We heard that argument, right? 
That in the medieval warm period, there were vineyards in the UK, right? 
So climate is getting better, and it's only coming back to what it was. 
Like, no. 
So what turns out is like it is not so much that the climate is getting warmer because that in itself would be okay for for for vines the problem is that there is usually around i'm probably going to butcher this now but uh i think it's around march there is still freeze there still can be temperatures below zero right and then when the vines are still in the ground they very resilient into that you know they can survive all the freeze and then they start growing the problem with climate change is that just getting warmer much earlier and those vines are starting to get out of the the soil but then comes the freeze and they're all gone right so it's a combination so you know sometimes it's like counterintuitive you would say oh climate is warmer than the vineyards should flourish in the uk no not true because you still have a freeze late you know early in the year and if those vines start growing earlier they just been gonna freeze out and that's you know nothing right and what is the solution well the solution is you can fly a helicopter over the vineyard that that draws warm air onto them like oh that's great right we have a we have a problem with climate change and with all the emissions so now we're gonna fly helicopters over vineyards to make them a little bit warmer right so you you think about this like oh my god like what is going on and i just people don't know these things people just don't know so i think it's very interesting to to talk about those things that sounds very interesting um gosh when was do you do talks like that often not not nearly as often you know like uh i have my full -time job which i which i like very much i i do my podcast um you know i'm occasionally writing blogs uh you know outside of that i have like a you know normal life and i'm also trying to go you know hunting and fishing and actually be outdoors you know like one of the one of the the things about Tommy's outdoors is that I'm less time outdoors and more time in front of a computer so that's the problem um so uh yeah not nearly as often as I would like to but I'm also kind of picky um just to just to balance everything out you know like you have only 24hours in a day and you need to spend like seven to eight you know sleeping and then you eat and then you need to you know work for eight hours so there's very little time in the day yeah i hear you there i had that thought the other day i'm like i'm loving interviewing all these people but then i'm like i could be outside doing 100percent um so what's your five -year goal with the podcast and do you have a dream guest that you want to have on the show not anymore not anymore you know about the dream guest i i used to you know i used to have like a celebrities from the industry and oh i would love to but then you know that thing with the it's very boring because like the thing is like those celebrities when they're going on the podcast they usually have either film coming or book coming or something and they're like everywhere everywhere every single podcast. 
Are you going to say yes to almost every opportunity? 
And that is precisely the moment where you don't want to talk to them because they're everywhere. 
So I think I'm more focused on environmental issues rather than people. 
So I had a podcast coming about European Union trying to put Sika deer on the invasive alien species list and what that might mean to Ireland. 
For Ireland and as you know I recorded an episode about the EU proposal to lower protection status of wolves so again when the topic is kind of hot then I want to cover that topic as well and not even from the perspective like oh sure right this is great for listenership and for downloads and what have you because everybody is but it's actually not what drives me you know what drives me is to inform people because like with this situation like with wolves for example that's a good example right you you basically have like a very polarized view right on one hand you have like oh they now want to shoot all the wolves and on the other hand now they value wolves more than us and the wolves are the worst thing ever right that the school gonna close and the priest gonna leave and everything will go you know and it's like no it's neither of these things let's talk about what that really is what that really might mean and this is what what kind of drives me to like counteract a little bit of these kind of like extremely polarized mainstream narratives and and present how that thing really look like because when you look at those things they're really complex and they're seldom simple they're seldom can be encapsulated in a soundbite or in the one header it's complex it's complicated there. 
There are many different nuances and points of view. 
And it's interesting. 
And I think that people should know about it. 
And this is important to counteract this click -bitey, hey, I know everything about this from this 280characters and I'm moving on to the next thing. 
So, and to touch to your first part of the question, like what is the plan for five years? 
I would love to be like this go -to place. 
When people have like, oh, this happens again. 
Yeah, I'm going to listen to Tommy on Conservation Science Podcast because that is where I can get every point of view or multiple points of view and actually make my own mind. 
I think that people are not spending enough time on making up their own mind and rather want something to be given to them. 
And then obviously there's a lot of people who are very willing to give them opinions and that we shouldn't do that. 
We should always think about it and learn, gather information and figure out stuff ourselves. 
Have you ever done like a forum during your podcast where you've had both sides of an issue? 
Not on one episode. 
I've done that, but I record those separately. 
And being like so many years in computer industry in the corporate i i think i could you know moderate and deal with that uh no problem so i'm not worried about that i am more i don't want those people i well i put it like i could handle that i'm not sure if my guests could handle that and then they will get confrontational and when you get confrontational and when you get you know emotions are high you tend to say stupid things and when you say stupid things you might unwillingly dismiss your own point of view so that's what i prefer speak with every person separately poke them a little bit just you know ask uncomfortable questions that's i'm all for asking uncomfortable questions but let them you know be be able to fully articulate the answers and and then you know know present that and say hey this is you know similar question or this is similar question here's here are the answers so i do that i'm gonna do this more um because i think it's a better format so like for example the example i gave you about seals right there were like three different episodes so and and between them was something else so people need to listen to three different episodes not many people will do that so i'm i'm doing that now combining into one episode episode at least trying to you know as much more work because essentially if you have three guests in one episode it goes as much work as for three into three episodes so that's another thing you know that um but that's definitely direction i i'm gonna be taking my podcast more often to present different views but on one episode that's fantastic i can't wait to hear more in the future of your podcast where can people find you well every podcasting app including youtube like youtube is also podcasting up these days apparently uh tommy saudor's conservation and science or just conservation and science um you see the logo a man in a hat and sunglasses um that's me so tommy saudor's conservation and science also tommy saudor's .com um whichever you you know. 
Like any search engine, whether it's YouTube, Google, or, you know, Spotify, Apple, 
you'll find me there. 
And from there, you can always find all the links to social media, 
website, et cetera, et cetera. 
Thank you so much for being on the show. 
My pleasure. 
Thank you. 
And until next time, get outside and see what develops. 
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