Veterinarian Dr. Ellen Boyd Part 1

Episode 7 
 
There comes a time in every podcasters life when they have an important decision to make. I had to ask myself, what is the best way to proceed forward when my guest and I have so much to talk about that I can’t squeeze it all into 75 short minutes. So I decided to make this interview into two episodes! You are going to have to wait until next time to hear the rest of her story!

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I speak with my favorite veterinarian, Dr. Ellen Boyd who shares stories from her life, growing up on the sandy beaches of Pensacola, Florida attending veterinary school, getting her PhD doing reproductive work with animals ranging from birds to full grown elephants, if you ever wanted to know how you stimulate an elephant to ejaculate you are going to find out, and she shares her artistic side with her passion for belly dancing. 

Realized a passion for animals at a young age. Attended Loyola University in Chicago, then University of Tennessee for veterinary school. 

Did research studies on sea turtles in Ostional, Costa Rica, also performed semen collection at an elephant sanctuary.

Research internship at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans performing artificial insemination on wolves, cranes, antelope.

Went to graduate school at the University of Washington for PhD study at Seattle with Professor John C Wingfield.

Thats all I have time for this episode - tune in next week for part 2 where I talk to Ellen about her move back to Chicago, meeting this podcast host, healing the loveable Isa the miracle chicken, her passion for belly dancing and some great international music recommendations. 

Transcript

spk_0:   0:04
Hey, everybody, there comes a time in every podcasters life when they have an important decision to make. I had to ask myself, What is the best way to proceed forward when my guests and I have so much to talk about that I can't squeeze it all into 75 short minutes? So I decided to make this interview into two episodes. You're gonna have to wait until next week to hear the second half of this week's story anyway. Today I speak with my favorite veterinarian, Dr Ellen Boyd, who shares stories from her life growing up on the sandy beaches of Pensacola, Florida, attending veterinary school, getting her PhD doing reproductive work with animals ranging from birds to full grown elephants. You ever wanted to know how you stimulate an elephant? You're going to find out and shares her artistic side with her? Thank

spk_1:   0:50
you so much for having me. I'm super excited to see you and talk to you again.

spk_0:   0:54
We're recording from Ah, her basement, which you're gonna talk about. I hope I love your basement and we're recording from my studio, which is really just the living room, but neither here nor there. So What can you tell me about your childhood, Alan?

spk_1:   1:07
My goodness. OK, so So I guess I should Maybe I should head over to the couch there and, like, you know, and put my feet up. Let's see my childhood

spk_0:   1:18
psychiatry jokes. Last night

spk_1:   1:21
it was a pretty you know, I didn't realize it at the time, but it was looking back on it. It was a pretty charmed life. I, you know, I had no idea how special the little place and situation was that I grew up in. When I did, all I could think about was trying to get out and see the world.

spk_0:   1:39
And where was that?

spk_1:   1:41
That was Pensacola, Florida Panhandle of Florida, Way northwest of Florida. And I actually live on that on the small, tiny barrier island of Pensacola Beach. So there's, like the main city Pensacola. And then there's a little in insula Coco freeze, and after that, there is a little tiny, and it's basically just a giant sand bar called Pensacola Beach. And it is beautiful. It's white sandy beaches like white white that, you know, I could put the sand in a little salt shaker on you and know the difference. I've done that to people

spk_0:   2:20
until you see

spk_1:   2:21
Oh, yeah,

spk_0:   2:25
backstory of Arab.

spk_1:   2:26
Sure, And then also it's, you know, it's pretty much it was just a small, little sleepy town. Otherwise, But, you know, the the, you know, being so lucky to grow up in, like, this sub tropical barrier. You know, Little Barrier Island on the northwest coast of Florida was was pretty cool. And it was kind of when I was little and younger. It was kind of undiscovered. It wasn't There weren't a lot of people out there, so it was a tiny little space, you know, on the Little Barrier Island we have exactly one tragically So,

spk_0:   2:58
Wow, any siblings or what? What's the family look like?

spk_1:   3:02
It's me and my sister, Terry. She's two years older than I am, and then my mom and my dad. And you know, we always at least had a dog and then various other creatures that I would just show up with on a regular basis.

spk_0:   3:20
Yeah, my mom definitely didn't let that one happen. No pets. I think I brought home mice one time from the pet store, and she was like, turn right back around and take those back was like,

spk_1:   3:27
Oh, come on. They're

spk_0:   3:28
cute. Didn't happen.

spk_1:   3:31
So, man, no, we had everything. Like my dad. He grew up on a farm and, like in the country, So we always had stuff. And then I was just always running around in the backyard, catching things. So there was I had a pet locust for a little while. He was very beautiful. He was larder if he was huge, like the size of my hand. Like he's gorgeous colors. And and then I also had a what's taking my cousin Eric and I caught a lot. Well, this may be isn't something brag about but incredible Siegel, little baby Siegel chick wants a little chick, so that poor little guy did not last long. Yeah, that was it. That was a little sad. But me and my cousin Eric, we're always, um, actually getting animals and secret and hiding them together. I mean, that we can actually keep him for quite a little while without anybody knowing about it

spk_0:   4:23
before anybody.

spk_1:   4:24
Yeah, exactly. So you know, I had lots of cousins that were a big part of my life to There were gosh e forget exactly how many first cousins I have, but I think it's something like 25. So not

spk_0:   4:37
too. So it's really easy to That's it

spk_1:   4:40
s O. And we were all a big part of each other's lives, too. So we spent a lot of time together, So there was always something happening, you know, there was plea. There was always somebody available Thio, you know, watch the kids. So we were always being carted overto one house or the other trying Thio, you know, keep everybody under control. So that's what life was like, a

spk_0:   5:00
relatively similar age set as far as all you guys are pretty.

spk_1:   5:03
Yeah. Yeah, it was a wide range. I mean, actually, we did like there were plenty of us in my age group, you know? But like, it went all the way from, You know, I have cousins who are yet 10. 15. I think I have a cousin. Yeah. So I have a first cousin who's 15 years. I think maybe 10 years is the biggest split for my first cousins. And then But I have other cousins that are 20 years older than me, so

spk_0:   5:31
Oh, no, we have two cousins that are one by one cousin was actually the day my brother was born. My dad called and my brother's three years older than me. So he was born in 1974 the day he was born. My dad calls his parents in, who actually lived in Florida at the time and said, Hey, congratulations, you're a grand parent And they said, I know and he was like, What are you talking about? He said, Your brother already called us and he's like, What are you talking about? Is like your brother already called us. They had their baby boy today and he was like, What? And he knew his brother and his wife were pregnant at the time, but my brother and my cousin were born the exact same day, like a couple of hours apart from each other. That's a lie. Yeah, yeah, My other cousin is, I think, a year younger than I am, but so that, you know, as Faras age is concerned, they're close. But they also lived in Florida, and we grew up in California, so we saw them once every couple of years at best. So I never had that fun cousin experience, which it sounds

spk_1:   6:23
like it was It was great. I mean, yeah, we not only saw each other analogy is like we would have a Sunday dinner at my grandmother's house on the farm every Sunday. Oh, like every single Sunday or 30 people at her house.

spk_0:   6:36
She was.

spk_1:   6:36
So we were. And it was

spk_0:   6:38
it was doing all the cooking.

spk_1:   6:38
Yeah, she was doing all the cooking and her farm. It was It was very really big pharma grand at his farm. There was at one time, actually, before I was born, there was actually a riding club on the farm as well that he operated a little nightclub to There is late, huh? Yes, my very easy. Yeah, my Amber operated that she was a little spitfire, so she was in charge of that. And there is a big lake out there to really beautiful lake that we used to go fishing on all at all the time. My grandmother taught me how to finish out there and how to put worms on hooks and, like, clean, you know, clean a fish And how to make sure when you handle catfish how you don't get stung and all that kind of stuff. So, you know? And she fished out on that lake until she was in our seventies, you know? So

spk_0:   7:28
there was this in Florida also?

spk_1:   7:30
Yes. Yes. This was in the on the west side of Pensacola proper. So in the city, Not not on on the beach. So that's where my dad grew

spk_0:   7:39
up. Is this farm still there? Are we moving down there? What's going on?

spk_1:   7:42
The farm? Well, the land obviously is there, but it is. It has been broken up into a subdivision, so Yeah, it's not. But there is. There is a boy drive so we could at least walk down. Boy. Yeah, that's

spk_0:   7:57
fun. Yeah. Got your own street named after. There's definitely no robe in road or anything like that s so Yeah, that would work that people seem to forget that I lived in Orlando or just outside of Orlando from two years, and people really forget that Florida is the most southern part of the United States. Like it just seems to be its own different world. A logo. Miami Orlando, like everyone associates Miami with kind of the Cuban and Puerto Rican thing and Orlando with Disney and they forget about the rest of Florida and the rest of Florida is south. It really is. So

spk_1:   8:30
you get that

spk_0:   8:31
Southern farm Southern cooking in Southern everything for good and bad,

spk_1:   8:35
right? Yeah, we had, Yeah, we had fish fries. We had, like, gumbo. You know, that's what we used to have on our at our holiday gatherings and stuff. You know, along with hand. There was there was always a ham. So we're

spk_0:   8:48
boiled thing. Were boiled peanuts a thing down in

spk_1:   8:51
Mexico? Yes, they

spk_0:   8:52
are oil that with my favorite thing I brought back from Florida. In my world, it's definitely not a thing on the West Coast, and I obsessed with them, and I now will make them in the crock pot. And it's it's a thing that I have to kind of convince people to initially try. And then once they get addicted to that delicious saltiness, that kid's stuff

spk_1:   9:10
Yeah, exactly. I know it is a little weird. I mean, I understand there's a there's a texture thing you might need to get over. You know, if you're eating

spk_0:   9:17
beans, it's basically, you know, Yeah, we're so used. The peanuts being hard and crunchy. So the fact that it's soft and squishy, I think, is obviously what you're referring to. But I absolutely love it. It's a salty or Cajun spiced peanut. And what is wrong with that?

spk_1:   9:31
Yeah, nothing, Nothing. It's the best. Especially yeah, When you go, you get the boiled peanuts, like up the side of the road on the interstate. You're driving.

spk_0:   9:40
Dude has a keg that he's like, chopped the top off of, and he's boiling it in there with some onions and peppers. And yes, yes.

spk_1:   9:48
And you gotta be able to get the peaches too right next to him because there is nothing better. Then leg in Alabama Peach in August. There just really isn't now you're

spk_0:   10:01
just making me hungry. So why did you want to leave there? I would have never left just taking over the farm.

spk_1:   10:07
You know, I don't know how widely distributed this is going to be, but I mean, honestly, it is it is a really conservative community. It's, you know, it is the deep South, and it is a small town, so it is really not, You know, it wasn't nothing. And we have his joke Whenever we go, you know we'll be hanging out at my parent's house, which is on the water. It's gorgeous and having the best time of our lives. And every day we look at each other and think, Well, we should really move back. I mean, what are we doing? And then we have to go to the grocery store and interact with other people. No way. Remember why we move,

spk_0:   10:50
man. People ruin everything.

spk_1:   10:52
They Yeah. I mean, really, the people are actually very, very nice. And Pensacola, It is just, you know, I really wanted to be in a more diverse and progressive sort of area. So I was moving. Yeah.

spk_0:   11:05
Okay, so So school grade school, high school. What was that like? Did you play any sports? Do any theater. You collected animals? Clearly. So,

spk_1:   11:12
yeah, clearly collected animals all the time. Everything I could think of. I went to a small little like parochial school as a kid for elementary school in middle school. And then I went to the local high school Booker T. Washington High School. And, you know, I was I wasn't like a popular kid by an Easter after the imagination, but I wasn't a total loner, either. Him and I did a few things, you know, I was, Oh, as a young child in elementary school, I was a gymnast and I loved it, but it just it was It got too competitive, really too quickly. And so I wasn't, you know, I wasn't up to par. I was not that dedicated to it. Where,

spk_0:   11:55
yeah, just had fun with it.

spk_1:   11:57
Yeah, exactly. And

spk_0:   11:58
when Europe, it's actually think Germany in particular. They start kids out in essentially gymnastics for acrobatic type movement because they don't want you specializing in some sport related skill. That is a repetitive motion such as baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, whatever you name it. They really want you to be a well rounded, strong, flexible, kind of well balanced person, so to speak. And then from there, you can take that skill or that kind of body you've built and apply it to a baseball, basketball, et cetera, et cetera. I think that's a great way to do it, even if you don't go far into it. I mean, I obviously being a circus performer like it, but I think it's so great for anybody to have. So,

spk_1:   12:38
Yeah, I know. I I've been trying to get my son, you know, into more into gymnastics. He did this Park District one, and they have a really great They had a really great program, but at his elementary school, he just is like, the basketball is really popular. And so he's been really into that, and I mean, you know, that's great. I love basketball as much as the next person, but, you know, we live in Chicago. He is not gonna go that far basketball. Oh, sorry. I mean, we just need to be realistic. You know, basketball is not gonna get us a scholarship, you know? You do something that

spk_0:   13:16
Did you see the, uh Did you see the mim of Lori Lightfoot telling people to stay home and you stay out of the parks and it was basically heard with a very straight face saying, Stay out of the park, stop playing basketball. It's not like you got game anyway. Yeah,

spk_1:   13:33
Yeah. So yeah, I agree. The gymnastics is Yeah. It's one of my one of my favorite things to do, and I really want, you know, but he can't make him do what you love to do. So

spk_0:   13:44
I need a horse. Marijuana.

spk_1:   13:45
Exactly. But so I want Yeah, Exactly. But, um, yeah, I was really into gymnastics as a kid, and and then in high school, like I did place in soccer, I was terrible. I was Well, I was actually a pretty good ball handler, but I was not fast enough. You know, when I wasn't as into running, so I was not, you know, I wasn't sporting in that way at all. Um, and

spk_0:   14:08
I have spent this on the podcast before, but I was telling somebody about this. I played water polo in high school in the first day. The coaches like great here, you know, start swimming. And I said, Yeah. Is there anything that doesn't require is much swimming, cause I'm not actually such a fan. She's like, OK, why did you play water polo? Yeah, great. You could be the goalie goalies Don't swim anywhere. So here you go. So I did a lot of drills, but

spk_1:   14:29
nice. Nice. Yeah, I just you know, and I just didn't care about this board itself that much. I wasn't like, into that competition, so I just didn't have that killer instinct to, like drive me to do it. You know, I haven't. Later in life, I became much more a competitive academically, but like I just I was always just kind of like I never had that killer instinct As a kid, I was always just like Joe. And so I guess, for it's just weren't for me and then, But, I mean, I was always I was always very into animals and ecology and sort of the natural world. I would just sort of spend, you know, hours outside, just wandering around, you know, looking at stuff, looking at bugs, doing whatever you

spk_0:   15:12
know. And so that got you into high school high school. You just usual classes or any focus is like what started happening there.

spk_1:   15:19
High school high school is kind of when I figured out that I was pretty smart. So then I got lazy, so that was good. I figured out that, you know, really, most of the stuff was relatively easy. I had my grades were fine. I was because I was capable of not paying attention and not doing a lot of the work and then just showing up for the test and, you know, and making a good grade on the test so that I could eke out just like a regular, decent grade for the class. Then I was like, Okay, that's fine with me. I'll do that. So did that for awhile. And then I realized because I had always wanted to go, I always wanted to be a veterinarian, by the way. So I just I forgot to say that in the beginning, you know, about my childhood and being in animals, that was just sort of the obvious thing to me. Like that's what you would do if you like animals and you would be good animal doctor, like, what else would you do? So clearly, that was what I was gonna be. And there was never a time in my life when I didn't. I think that's what I was gonna be.

spk_0:   16:27
That's so cool. Yeah, I knew from a pretty early age I want to be a circus performer. But that was at the same time. I also wanted to be an astronaut and a fireman, and, you know, like every child God that actually went to space camp, which was a ton of fun from space camp. Clearly, that didn't pan out so well. But I was applying to circus school and West Point Military Academy when I was graduating. The private, all boys Jesuit high school I went to in California, and I went through kind of introduction meetings to West Point and got to the point where you have to write a letter to a congressman and get a congressional recommendation letter Sort of a thing. And I decided it's not fair to somebody who really, truly this. Is there entire focus for me to take that potentially take that spot away. So I just decided, You know, circus school is probably my jam, so

spk_1:   17:14
Yeah. Yeah, I am. Yeah. I never wanted to be anything else ever. I mean, I remember being in kindergarten, like, thinking about this and like, knowing that that's what I was gonna be. So there was in there. I never I never questioned it. Never. You know, my father was a physician, so that was kind of like, also attract that was just expected. Like oh,

spk_0:   17:38
like family practice or what type of

spk_1:   17:40
he was a trauma surgeon, actually. Well, yeah, yeah. In Pensacola, he was one of the very 1st 1 of the first black physicians in Pensacola actually own a practice and practice at all in Pensacola. Yeah,

spk_0:   17:53
that hasn't come up either to talk about your mom and dad for a moment because

spk_1:   17:57
oh, yeah, they are some really interesting people in And have, you know, like my family is actually I That's another thing that I count myself. Lucky Amish. It's filled with a lot of really amazing, generous people filled with some crazy people, too. But I got a lot of amazing generous.

spk_0:   18:15
I am a little

spk_1:   18:16
all right. Exactly. You know, sometimes they're one in the same

spk_0:   18:20
time line between genius and insanity. This is

spk_1:   18:22
right. Yeah. Oh, my dad. Yeah. My dad was a trauma surgeon in Pensacola and did a lot of e. R and general surgery. And my my mom is and was a professor of nursing at University West Florida because they say no, They met in an odd way. My my dad's brother was living here in Chicago, and my mom grew up here in Chicago and her whole family is from Chicago, and my dad's brother was had a practice on the South side of dentists. A dental practice on the out south side. And my dad was at Great Lakes Naval Station.

spk_0:   19:02
Sure. Yeah, but North.

spk_1:   19:03
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So they my uncle knew my grandfather, my mom's father. And like, they kind of like it was sort of They were sort of placed near each other at a party or something like that. Uh,

spk_0:   19:22
the two of them. We should have some punch together.

spk_1:   19:24
Yes, exactly A little. There's this young doctor. You must meet him. So that's my mom, Laurel. Anyway, they hit it off. My dad was after he finished medical school, went to Vietnam as a physician as a naval officer, but was stationed with a group of marines that were on the front lines. So he walked through the jungle of Vietnam with the Marines.

spk_0:   19:52
Oh, my God.

spk_1:   19:53
Yeah, exactly as there. And ran their medic and should reward. And so he was doing surgery, like in

spk_0:   20:03
straight up field medicine? Yeah, that I mean, that's the trauma you see at a hospital. Obviously one thing. And I'm sure you can see crazy stuff in Pensacola when there's farms nearby and farm implement accidents. But I would imagine combat far, far worse in Vietnam. So

spk_1:   20:16
right, Exactly. So that was a crazy thing he doesn't talk much about. That's pretty bad, bleak spot in his mind. But there are some things he has told me about it. And, you know, one thing he said to me is that, you know, at first he was just like you didn't care about anything. Just was doing when about it, his his business. And then about six months into it, he started thinking that he might actually live because his time was getting like the time that he was supposed to be a station. There was getting short. So it was like, you know, I might actually go home. So then he started to, like, get scared about stuff. So, yeah, you know, before he was like, Wow, I might actually get to go home. And so he just assumed that he wasn't coming home when he left. And then so and then, not long after they got back, they my parents got married. And the rest, they say, is history. They My dad is a, you know, hometown hometown boy. So we went back to Pensacola, took my mom from the big city and they went back to Pensacola. And then there was house, you know, me and my sister. And that's, you know, I guess where all the magic happened. Um, I was just, you know, being out there on the beach and being able to grow up running around in the water in the afternoon after school and catching hermit crabs and, you know, seeing dolphins like, literally, you know, in the backyard, looking out over the water and seeing dolphin fins and things like that. Just world so cool just away. What? So it was, um, different. I didn't understand how special, you know?

spk_0:   21:54
Yeah, Yeah, but your boys get to see really big rats running around the city,

spk_1:   21:58
right? Yeah, exactly. They dio the trash panda, isn't everything. Yeah,

spk_0:   22:08
actually, there's this great Twitter account. That is when God made animals. And one of them is Ah, it says something like when God made the raccoon. He said, you're gonna hang out in trash cans, but you're gonna look like an old timey burglar.

spk_1:   22:24
Nice. Yeah, you know, Yeah, they actually, you know, and we get to go back to Pensacola every summer. That's something that I make sure that my kids get to do and just run around on the beach and have some free time just exploring because it's so 11 of the things that that really makes me sad about being in a city that has some dangers, like streets and things, you know, fast moving cars is that you can't just run free, Um, as a as a child, you know. And that's part of one of the things that really that I think a lot of people don't really understand about, like the world of biology in the field of science is that would That's what science is is curiosity. You know, it's it's all about the inquisitive, like looking at the world and the world we live in and seeing how it works in, like asking questions about why it does things, Do this or do that. It's not, um, of a bunch of facts in a book, you know?

spk_0:   23:21
Yeah, I was talking about that was somebody recently and how the need to get board is so important and that you really your mind doesn't wander. If you're not bored, you have to get bored. You have to start staring at the ground and digging a hole to China as I did as a child on multiple occasions, getting approximately nine inches down before I realized it's really hard to dig. Things like that are just so important to developing your sense of you and what is interesting to you. Because I just hope that phones and ipads and things like that don't end up derailing that and kids and that they do actually really developed that sense of curiosity themselves,

spk_1:   23:59
right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I try to make sure that my kids just gets timeto run around outside and just make sure because I think it's because I just like doing it, too, you know, like it just you just gotta kind of stare at, sit outside and just, you know, stare at that little bird, you know, doing whatever he's doing and, you know, building a little nest like, Look at that. He got that from over there. What do you know? You know, in in order to really understand what science is about, because it's so much more fun when it's just about understand, you know, like when it's just about curiosity, you know, and it's not. It really just killed the love of learning. I think the way you know, scientists presented and everybody thinks they're bad at it. You know, like I have. Nobody wants to do it because they all think they're bad at it because they couldn't memorize everything they were told to memorize, you know, and that's really not point. So So that's That's one of my pet peeves. But we don't have to go there. Let's see if

spk_0:   24:58
he's okay. We finished with us. We got family, we get Ah, we were I think we're about to go to college or roughly at that point in your life. So what does that? Where'd you Where'd you apply What happened? All that fun?

spk_1:   25:11
I wanted to go to a big city and I wanted to get out of Pensacola. As I was saying so I was already already knew that I was going. I was headed to vet school and I already was interested in the sciences. And I had already after, you know, my first couple, my firsts. A year and 1/2 or so high school when I was lazy because I figured out I was pretty smart, I realized, Oh, shit. You know, I hate school is not gonna be forever. College is coming up, and I'm gonna have to apply somewhere. So I started applying myself and I I started doing quite well in high school towards the last half, and I was doing things like taking multiple AP Kim, you know, AP Chemistry and AP Physics at the same time. And, you know, doing well and all that kind of stuff. So my college choices were pretty pretty wide open, so that was good, and I but I wanted to really go to the big city, and that, to me, meant Chicago. I mean, I thought about going to New York, and why you But then I don't know. I just like I just I fell in love with the lakefront. And, um because, you know, I'd come here to visit my mom's family, so Sure, Yeah, it was It was just always like this really cool big city to me. So that's was the end all be all of everything.

spk_0:   26:25
Yeah, I moved here and I thought it would be for, like, six months. And that was 17 years ago. So it kind of dragged me into,

spk_1:   26:31
uh, and so I am. I applied to just, like, a number of basically the, you know, the small, smaller schools, smaller colleges. I didn't do any of the big, like, state school stuff. I didn't wanna have anything to do with that. And I ended up at Little University in Rogers Park, where I was basically part of the pre med cohort that that they'd turn him out, man be the pre med, and the doctor is out of loyal little like they have a physician machine over there

spk_0:   27:05
with a who is search. Yeah,

spk_1:   27:09
exactly. They have because they are in their Siri's about it, man. Um, you learn

spk_0:   27:16
money. Royal is Jesuit. That's I went to a Jesuit high school, and they definitely they do well at the money jobs, it seems like

spk_1:   27:24
Yeah. Yeah, they like

spk_0:   27:26
producing circus performing police officer

spk_1:   27:30
clearly. Oh, lucrative. Could you

spk_0:   27:35
get Yeah, weird. I never see myself in the alumni magazine. So bizarre.

spk_1:   27:41
Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I was there. And let's see, you know, I had a I had a funny I had a fun time in an undergrad. It was I don't know I don't know if it was a unique experience or not being in like us, you know, a city university. I don't know how you know how different most people's experiences. I guess most people are like big state universities or something. You know, that Aaron college towns or something. But I don't know, that was a It was an eye, An eye opening time in my life. It was like it was like a coming of age in the true sense, you know, like just understanding that you can leave high school and all that b s behind and like, Oh, wait a minute. None of that matters. Well, if you

spk_0:   28:26
grew up in a smaller town where everybody from grade school goes to the same high school and you know you don't escape anybody I mean, I went from a grade school with 240 kids in kindergarten through eighth, and then we went to probably eight different high schools in the relative area between the 30 kids that were in my class. So I think three people were at my high school that I knew from grade school, and then I had a class of 400 for my freshman year, so clearly not stuck with the same people know, you know. Oh, this is gonna live with you forever. Sort of stories.

spk_1:   28:57
Yeah. No, no, no. I had, like, the person. Oh, the person who officiated my wedding was somebody that I went to high school or went to school with from the time I was five years old until I was 18. Yeah, Yeah, until I grabbed it. Like when? Tony What I say or went to college. And she was also one of the first. I don't know, she's want first, but she was one of the first sort of waves of women pastors and priests in the Episcopalian church, so that was kind of cool. I just wanted to support her. Wouldn't be. We got married, but some of my best memories from college. I remember being when I was a freshman and going to jazz fest with a bunch of people from my dorm. Um, it was like, who? An outing in the city. We're gonna go to take the train down. That? Yes, exactly. It was called the hotel. Yeah, and then being down on a Milan down there in the park as the sun was setting over this the city listening to Miles Davis played, Ah, son, like, you know, just kind of these kind of opportunities to see all this. You know, the these historical things happening before your eyes, you know? So it was that that memory is like burning in my mind.

spk_0:   30:17
Yeah, we are so lucky in Chicago with the amount of stuff we have to go see and do and within walking distance. In many cases, depending on where you live, truly the number of bars, restaurants, music venues, nightclubs, comedy clubs, major stadiums, major concert venues It's crazy. The river and the rivers 1/2 a mile away from us and weaken. You're not even 1/2 a mile. You're like, Ah, block, right?

spk_1:   30:40
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm a block and 1/2 and yeah, I know. That's why I love I love that. I can call up my friend Matt Reuben and say, Hey, you pick me up down the way and we can Hi. Gonna hop on your boat And I don't even have to get in a car and do any of that.

spk_0:   30:58
Yes. What chicken of the sea is back in the water.

spk_1:   31:01
Oh, really? Okay. And it's bigger than six feet. So it

spk_0:   31:06
is true. You can sit at one end, all set of the other, and we could socially isolate together.

spk_1:   31:10
Exactly. That would be awesome if it would stop snowing, so Oh, my God. Seriously, I

spk_0:   31:18
drove it home last night from the mechanic. He had worked on a dead oil change stuff like that. It had only been out of the water for, like two weeks, but I drove it home last night. It was maybe 40 degrees and probably a 15 mile an hour wind in my face the entire time. Thankfully, there was no snow, and I had many, many layers on, but it was very fun. Way to spend my evening. So I'm not complaining.

spk_1:   31:39
It was awesome. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, you had the snow I woke up to kind of like, what is bullshit, but, you know,

spk_0:   31:46
really snow on April 15.

spk_1:   31:49
So anyway, reasons why we love Chicago jazz

spk_0:   31:54
fast. Three inches of snow in April.

spk_1:   31:57
Exactly. Being here in Chicago was amazing to me. As you know, coming from a small town and like hitting the big city And then also, just being in having that kind of diversity, like at my fingertips in Rogers Park, is nothing that I had ever nothing like anything I had ever experienced with people from all over the world just around you, you know? So that was that was so cool. And that's where I met my husband.

spk_0:   32:24
Oh, miss your Geoffrey.

spk_1:   32:25
Mr. Jeff. Was

spk_0:   32:27
this during school?

spk_1:   32:28
Yes, I met him my sophomore year. My second year. Like the very first weekend of school in September at a friend's horny. So that was when I was post 18 years old. So I have known him since I was 18 years old.

spk_0:   32:43
And it was Jeffrey also going to oil.

spk_1:   32:45
Yeah. Yeah, he was a little student. Um, he was a junior. He was. He was night.

spk_0:   32:50
An older man?

spk_1:   32:51
Yes, exactly. Yes. So he was nearly 12 months older. It was scandalous. And,

spk_0:   32:58
yeah, I met Emily when she was a junior at Stanford. I think she had turned 21 like, not even two months before we met. Oh, and I was hanging out with her sister and a group of friends, and we were at a bar, not far away from the campus and her sister texted. I was like, Hey, come out. There's this really cute guy. I think you'd like him sort of a scenario. And she showed up a little while later and we started chatting about or a Heineken glassy. I know. And, uh, and from there, here we are.

spk_1:   33:25
No, it's true.

spk_0:   33:27
I was five years older than her.

spk_1:   33:29
Oh, my goodness. Wow. Still are. Yeah, it's funny how that works.

spk_0:   33:37
So what was Jeffrey going to school for?

spk_1:   33:38
He he was going for Yes, He was much more utilitarian than my sort of premed, pre vent bio degree. He was going for a degree in philosophy, so you know, something much more useful that you know, But so, yes, he did. He wooed me with be, you know, being the intellectual type. Uh, I don't

spk_0:   34:03
see that that maybe we're gonna get him one of those jackets with the slate elbow patches. Yes. You know, smoke a pipe and even wax philosophical to us.

spk_1:   34:13
Exactly. Pontificate about this in that thing or the other.

spk_0:   34:17
Okay. And so clearly he went into philosophy is a career because he does

spk_1:   34:21
philosophy every day. Yeah, Yeah s Oh, yeah, Yeah. Moment works for all state. Please don't ask me to explain it, Thio. I'm not sure

spk_0:   34:34
that the philosophical side of Allstate,

spk_1:   34:36
right? Exactly that? Yes, in the philosophy department. Exactly. Do you really

spk_0:   34:41
need insurance? That's a question you ask yourself, existentially Yes. I mean, I see it. I see it,

spk_1:   34:49
right? Yes, yes, Exactly. The unexamined insurance is not an insurance E

spk_0:   34:57
d here, E. I think we just wrote an Allstate commercials. Let's let's sell it to him. Money. Okay, so now you're in college, and now you're you know, you want to be a vet. You've always known you want to be a vet. But what's where a vet schools at and what's that whole process? Because I've heard and being married to a doctor, I have heard that that school is actually harder to get into than medical school. Is that is that true? What can you tell me about that?

spk_1:   35:22
That is true that this is where, like, everything really gets good, because, yeah, I had to I had to go through the same self discovery process of being lazy cause you're like, Look at me. I'm smart. They work and then, you know, like, oh, should've better You gotta move on because I wanted to do something, you know, and really buckle down and became focused. And, yes, the process for getting into that school is really unfunded. And it is harder to get into than medical school, mostly because there are so few. At the time I applied, there were I think they were only, like, 25 or 30 schools in the country.

spk_0:   36:01
And how many people are they roughly taking

spk_1:   36:03
there? The number of people per class like my class had, um I think 65 people in it.

spk_0:   36:09
Okay, so we're not talking. Tens of thousands were like a couple 1000

spk_1:   36:12
right? The larger classes would have, like, 200 people, you know? So and I mean, now there are a few more than there were, but only a handful, like five more or something. So really not that many. And

spk_0:   36:24
I see a business offer to

spk_1:   36:25
say exactly. I mean, if you look at the number of medical schools, I mean, every state has tons of them. I mean, here in Chicago alone there, like five. You know, um, medical schools, they're just more spots. You know,

spk_0:   36:37
we should open a veterinary school in the, uh, in the islands, like in the Bahamas. You know, they have those medical schools in the in the America, the U. S. Virgin Islands. That, too.

spk_1:   36:46
Yeah. There are Ross University, which is a lot of people do. Rossi. I know a lot of Ross grads there. There are view someone's already got you on that one. If you want to make you that much money, well, it problem,

spk_0:   37:00
right? We're gonna figure this out somewhere. I hear there's a lot of cruise ships available. Maybe we could do it on a cruise ship right now.

spk_1:   37:06
That would be crazy time. Let's Yeah, that would be maybe not so smart to be on a cruise ship right now, but

spk_0:   37:12
we're working out the kinks here, but you're ruining my game. Come on,

spk_1:   37:17
Floating Petri dish. How

spk_0:   37:21
amazing would that be if we could get all the animals on their And like the captain's, you know, a state room was actually for horses way. Get the track upstairs. They can run on, and the monkeys can call on the rock climbing wall. We get a penguins on the ice skating rink. I think we've actually got something here.

spk_1:   37:38
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Be downloading

spk_0:   37:40
zoo, and especially with the popularity of the Tiger King right now, I think we've got seriously, we've got We got a chance with us.

spk_1:   37:47
Yeah. I mean, yep. Yeah. Okay.

spk_0:   37:49
Okay. So let's get back to actually talking about what we're talking about. Which is you applying to veterinary school

spk_1:   37:54
eso applying to veterinary schools. And at the time, I had been working doing a lot of work in wildlife and ecology research when I was an undergrad. So I knew that I wasn't just gonna be, you know, your neighborhood dog and cat person. I was going to be a zoo vet. And so I had to go somewhere that was that was going to give me a good wildlife programme. A good exotics program, which at the time, because I graduated more than 20 years ago. So at the time, it was really difficult to come by any sort of exotics, you know, training for so anything besides regular cat and dog or farm animal, sort of the traditional ways that you think about, you know, veterinary medicine. So it was really, really hard to come by that there were a few places like UC Davis. See, Cornell was one that had a really good program. Tufts University had a really good wildlife programme and then University of Tennessee, where I ended up going because they also gave me a scholarship, too. So they say Exactly which Cornell did not. And and and it's a $1,000,000 of year. Yeah, Cornell was very expensive, so I'm Tennessee was quite a bit less expensive than they gave me a scholarship. Um,

spk_0:   39:17
so did Jeffrey follow you down there?

spk_1:   39:19
He did not know. He did not. We We had

spk_0:   39:24
a similar story.

spk_1:   39:25
Then you you separated for a little while.

spk_0:   39:28
Yeah. I moved to Chicago two months after I met Emily. And then we spent two years living in different cities before she even started applying to medical schools because she did Stanford and realized her senior year she wanted to go into medicine and had none of the pre Rex got a human biology degree. And then she's like, Oh, I got to go to pre med stuff. So she started going to San Jose State, did three years at San Jose state on while she was there is when we Ah, I was still in Chicago, right? Just moved to Chicago, and we were like, This is ridiculous. We actually broke up for two years entirely. And then, as she was applying to med schools, applied to Chicago and said, Hey, I'm thinking about coming up. Chicago. Do you wanna see me when I even come out? And then we kind of got back together. And from there, all the magic and wonder of our glorious romantic life happened Really? Are today.

spk_1:   40:16
Thanks. Nice. Yeah, it was. I mean, when I left for Tennessee for Knoxville, Tennessee. We had already been like Jeff and I have been dating for, like, three years by that time. So we were We were tight, very, very. You know, we were tight and we talked about it, but he was just laid on me and I can't go Knoxville. I'm a city boy, so it's like, fine that

spk_0:   40:37
school four years?

spk_1:   40:38
Yes, it is four years long. It is a pretty intense four years. It is four years of I mean, what I what? I walked in the first day. They you know, you have this big binder. They give you your schedule and every second from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. Is scheduled as far as like what? Lecture? What lab? What being you are doing, what thought you will be having at this moment you are told. So a

spk_0:   41:09
za person who knows nothing about veterans who are there live animals around at veterinary school like how much of it? Obviously, at some point, start dealing with animals. But is it kind of like from day one you get to pet the fund furry friends and feathered friends and Scalea friends? Or how does that work?

spk_1:   41:23
Not in my experience, and I don't think not in most people's. I think they're starting to do that a little bit more now and just sort of getting the freshman more involved with, you know, the clinics and everything earlier on because it traditionally it was always just no lecture, and you don't get to do anything until, like your fourth year when you go into the garage into the clinics. However, I mean a lot of the people, traditionally, maybe not so much anymore, but traditionally most of the people going to veterinary school where people who grew up in rural areas, you know, on farms and already have a lot of animals sense and know how to be around animals and know how to do that kind of thing. You know, they're traditionally not people who you know who have a lot of that who do have a lot of experience with them. Um, now there's a whole lot more interesting, like Compagnie animal medicine and, like, you know, the kind of the urban vet. So things air, we're different. People don't have the same kinds of experience necessarily. But traditionally it's people coming off of farms who are going who were going to vet school and most vet schools, our land grant colleges. So they are places that, you know, the university was given a huge plot of land, and there is a large, like school of agriculture. So there is the Sure, right. So

spk_0:   42:42
what do you have? I

spk_1:   42:43
personally right, Like the big university hospital that is, has the school literally attached to it like you can walk through the halls, you know, on the scenic route or something to get into the clinic, the hospital area from like the lecture halls, you know, like they're right on top of each other a lot of times, so, you know, it was just Knoxville, you know, it was I was back in a small town, so I knew exactly how to act and what to do. It was it was different from because it wasn't a place where my family was a huge part of the community and and knew everybody and everything. So life was a little different. But I was at that time in my life I was, you know, a real go getter. So I was ready to run after, like, every experience possible and did everything I could do and volunteered in a wildlife clinic and cozied up to everybody who was doing anything with zoo medicine or bird medicine or anything that, um, I could like, spend my time time doing and started to finally get, you know, really take advantage of all the opportunities that were available to me doing doing something every single summer I spent. Let's see, when I was an undergrad, I spent a summer in Costa Rica studying sea turtles, you know, tagging them and oh, men Most most amazing thing to ever see is what's called Inari bada, And it's a time when the sea turtles come up on onshore like on Mass, instead of doing like single solitary nesting like they do most of the time. But there are some species that during the breeding season on a full moon, will all converge on the beaches to lay their eggs. So you can walk down in Austin al Costa Rica. You can walk down the black, the amazing black sand beaches and see 200 sea turtles digging nests and laying eggs at night time for like, three days at a time during three nights at a time during the during the antibodies. And so that's what I was studying. You go out and count eggs and tagged turtles and get, like, all of the, you know, all of the information and kind of learned how to do field work. So that was that was one summer, I mean, and everything about that was an amazing trip. I mean, everything from the science that I learned to just being in the town of those General Costa Rica that was a really tiny town with there was one person who had Ah, electricity. He had a generator. He was melding. There were probably, I don't know, 75 or 100 people in the in the town. So So he had a little general store, and every night for about three hours, they would turn on the generator, fire it up, and we would all hang out. And Melvin would play guitar, and we would hang out and, you know, drink some surveys is and, uh and

spk_0:   45:35
listen because the recon, all

spk_1:   45:37
right? Exactly. Um and, you know, there's gorgeous black sand beaches with these. Cool. Um, you know, the little phosphorescent organisms that you know live in the in the tide pools and in the in the wet sand so you could walk down the black sand beaches. And if you disturb, um, they're these little teeny, tiny creatures that light up green and glow in the night. And so your footsteps along the black sand actually turned this like, fluorescent glowing green color.

spk_0:   46:10
Okay, this is the store story. I'm pretty sure.

spk_1:   46:12
Yeah, So it is. It was a pretty cool experience, you know, learning how you know, just being out there and seeing the world so that was that was I made sure to take advantage of all those opportunities that I could. I'm now is with the

spk_0:   46:25
school. Could be It's totally okay with that.

spk_1:   46:27
And so that was, you know, part of the preparing for a veterinary school and making sure that I was a package, that they would accept an invite to go to each school. So let's see. And I ended up in Knoxville, Tennessee. Jeffrey did not come with me. And so we had a long distance relationship for the whole four years that I was there that would

spk_0:   46:48
you guys kind of travel back and forth or were you kind of stuck there with how busy you were?

spk_1:   46:52
I would travel. We were travel back and forth. I would come up to Chicago a cz well, and one of the things I did have my own car, so I could, you know, take off and come up here whenever I whenever I could find the time. But, you know, I mean, when you're young and in love, you do stupid things. I would just, like drive up here for literally I would do this.

spk_0:   47:11
Let us you do

spk_1:   47:12
eight or nine hour drive, Um, both ways for, like, 48 hours, you know? Like what? Yeah, I

spk_0:   47:20
flew home one time. Emily's dad. His work had tickets to a kiss Aerosmith concert. And Emily was like, Hey, there's this concert. Do you want to go to it? And I don't remember. I had gigs or something. Like back to back with one day in between. And conveniently that day was the concert. And so I think I flew in at, like, eight o'clock in the morning, Got on a flight, landed at noon, went to a concert at six PM And I think I got on a red eye that night at midnight and was back in Chicago by six or seven o'clock the next morning. Just cause I just wanted to be with my girlfriend. Did that?

spk_1:   47:49
Yeah. Yeah, there were. Yeah, we were Definitely. We were super tight. And we were gonna be you know, we were by that time for sure, for sure. Together forever. This is what's gonna happen. We did have a little time, actually, where their scandalous we did break up for about a year. But then Jeffrey came back to Knoxville, drove down Justus, a friend. But we went hiking and we went. We drove over to North Carolina to go hiking one day, and we went out hiking and up into the mountains. And we're just like we weren't paying attention. We were out way too late. It all of a sudden it was dark. And then it was like, Shit, we gotta time down this mountain in the dark now and then we look over and my big hound dog, Montana coonhound was like walking funny and looking weird. And we look at his feet and his pa pads were completely raw and the skin on all of his feet was just rubbed off. So we really Oh, my God. So then we had to carry this £75 coonhound down the mountain at in pitch black. Uh,

spk_0:   49:00
this was your dog or his dog.

spk_1:   49:02
My dog. My dog. Yeah, just from like walking on the rocks just from walking. So liberated his feet and I looked at was like cash. Montana is not really keeping up, and I look over and his He was just kind of like holding up its feet all gingerly and then so we had to take turns like carrying him on our backs to get it down the mountain. And we Oh, my God. We didn't have enough food. We would have. And then so we You know, I guess desperate times call for desperate measures that so we got back together that night

spk_0:   49:33
and you knew who could bear Children with this man,

spk_1:   49:35
right? Exactly. But we made it down, and then, you know, we went straight back to the actually to school to the university. I was on clinics at that time in convenient. Yes, exactly. And, like, doctored up his feet and got him some, you know, paint control, and, like, bandaged it up and put some ointment on its feet for poor guy. Um, he was really sad, so but that was Yeah, that was, like a tough, tough walk down. That was one of those life lessons, like, you know, obviously taken up food with you. If you're gonna walk that far and I'm go home, will, you know, get off the mountain before it's pitch black because there are no lights. Yeah, like mountains s Oh, um, and it's it's not. It's pretty dangerous climbing down. Ah, Hiking trail

spk_0:   50:22
pitch black hiking trails in the mountains.

spk_1:   50:24
Yeah, exactly. So? So that and then had to drive, you know, hour and 1/2 back to Knoxville from where we worked. So that was the debacle that Reese treat Kendall a romance. And yeah, exactly. And then we were. Then then we were together forever. Pretty much very cool. Yeah, And then I graduated and started. Went straight into the zoo world. I didn't do any time. Most people do like small animal internship or, you know, start with companion animals and exotics or something. But I went straight into the zoo world. I did an internship, a research internship. So I was at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans and okay, as I, um, as I was, you know, taking advantage of pretty much every opportunity that I could get my hands on and really coming into my stride, getting more and more excited about, you know, ecology and field work and research. I went thio. I got an internship, a research internship at the Audubon Zoo, and they had a at the time they had a special program there for research of endangered species, and it was ah, reproductive research facility. It was separate from the main zoo and it was basically on the West Bank and we had we had no visitors, so we could design our space and do what wanted without the worry of the the problem of the public. You know, viewing and making things aesthetically pleasing. For whatever reason. You know, like you, you just

spk_0:   52:01
got to do the work,

spk_1:   52:02
right? Exactly. We got to do the work. It was super cool. I was my first year. My first year out of school, I was working with critically endangered animals alongside scientists who were doing things like we would do surgeries where the head, Ben and I would do the surgery and collect in the anesthesia to help collect the oocytes from endangered cats and Angelo wolves, Mexican gray wolves and all kinds of animals. And they would take the oocytes and collect semen, and then do do artificial insemination. Do embryo transfer putting embryos from an endangered species into a more but you know, prevalent feces to carry for gestation so that maybe you could get 10 babies out of this critically endangered animal who, you know, there might be 10 of them left on the planet. You know, that kind of O s O. So I was doing, you know, not downs with antelope within months of graduating, so is pretty cool. That sounds amazing. Yeah, it was I mean, it was it was a dream. It was, and it was research. I produce scientific papers out of that place. Got experience. That's where I fell in love with birds. I was really looking for my niche as faras. What? I was going to study and really hone in on and focus. I had decided since I've been there that I was definitely going to get my my PhD because I wanted to become more research focus. And I was starting to become really sort of intense about, you know, being competitive and having a competitive edge when I was gonna figure out where I wanted to go next. You know, in my career, so it was like, all right, if I'm really talking about research than what I need is PhD like, that's what you do when you do research. So if I want to have those kind of credentials, I gotta get moving. So I had another like self discovery period and kick in the pants and started think really thinking about graduate school and what I wanted it to look like and what I wanted it to be. And all the while I am, you know, daily interacting with people who were like, Who were the first people to do this or that thing ever? You know? Let's see collecting. I have I have these, Ah, a couple of years in a row I set out Christmas cards to my family my my senior year, fourth year when I was in clinics. My Christmas card to my family was me with the obese leave on in the cow. Ah, picture doing the reproductive examine a pregnancy check. And I had, like, you know, ho or something. And then the year after that, when I worked at the zoo and my my immediate boss, Susan Dakota, Dr Susan Dakota was an expert in tuberculosis and elephants. We went to an elephant sanctuary where she was giving lectures and things, and so I got to go along with her, and during that and at that time, the reproductive specialists came to I'm collect semen from one of the bull elephants so he let me help. So I got to do the semen collection and electro ejaculation on this giant bull elephant when we were there. And so and I got pictures of it, and that was

spk_0:   55:30
okay. What is electro ejaculated? Electric stimulation? Because it's doing what I'm imagining. But I have to know.

spk_1:   55:39
Okay, Yes. So it is exactly what you think it is. It is an electrical stimulation of the prostate. It's placed about it with a device placed in the rectum, so right on top of the prostate and will send electrical shocks basically into the prostate and stimulate mail until he ejaculated. That's insane. So it I love it. It's something that you can do when you have an animal anesthetized like you can't you know, you can't do like manual massage or anything when they're invested ties. That's not

spk_0:   56:17
because they just don't,

spk_1:   56:19
right, right? Exactly. But, you know, like in large Amum medicine and farm animal medicine, you just You put him in a shoot, you just do it and they do. You

spk_0:   56:29
know what? I gotta do it.

spk_1:   56:30
Yeah, and they did. And that's what we did with this elephant. I mean, we didn't Not him down to do just to collect semen, you know? So but and he handle it? He didn't. You know, he didn't become anxious, are ordinary or, you know, combative. I mean, I

spk_0:   56:44
wouldn't either if you were getting me to orgasm. Let's be very clear.

spk_1:   56:48
Exactly. That's true. So he was used by like, Okay, I'm good with this. Yeah, Yeah, he was. He's That's That's one of the things that, like whenever I tell people that I did that for expertise is a seaman evaluation in reproductive research and reproductive medicine. So I have collected semen from males of most sed types of species. So actually funny

spk_0:   57:17
you say that because the current partner I have that I ride with used to work at a reproductive clinic, and he loves talking about that with all of us. And we love telling him how little desire we have to hear about it. So you still ignited a listen to this conversation.

spk_1:   57:35
Oh, man. Yeah, well, we'll have to Adele, um, we should Yeah, we should meet and talk about it because yeah. I mean, people are usually very interested in the fact that that's what I did with long part of my career, but they usually are not interested in the details once they they like, are interested in. That's okay, that's crazy. They'll think about that for a minute, and then we will move on like we won't talk about that. You know, the logistics of it, it or anything like that. So sure s Oh, yeah. Most people are a little oh, weirded out by a very next year, the first year that I was out of veterinary school and in my internship at the Autobahn, that's was on my Christmas card that year, and it was on to bigger and better things. So I think the cow and the classic butt Yeah, then through Autobahn, which was technically the Autobots Center for Research of Endangered Species, is where I started really diving into research and really being interested in. And I was always interested in reproduction. But that's when I really figured out like, Wow, this is the craziest, coolest process in the world. It is so varied. It is like there is almost like there's no rhyme or reason to it, you know, like for some things, there is a very clear reason for the design. You know, like if you look like it will get a bird wing or a foot from any animal, there's like a really clear reason for every detail of the thing, and reproductive organs and processes and things have really seemingly no rhyme or reason. They just kind of happened. And there are theories out there that there are certain traits that males have, and it's just because of female choice that that's like a scientific theory, female choice in evolution. And it's just because the chick digs it. So that's your answer. The chicks dig it like That's your scientific answer for Why the You know the Emperor Tamarin has the big, big, huge moustache with chicks Dig it. So reproduction is just like really out there in its diversity. Even very closely related species will have very different ways of doing things, and they're always pretty amazing. I mean, if you look at bird than like something like a chicken that produces that amount of nourishment in little packages to go out every single day

spk_0:   1:0:05
every day,

spk_1:   1:0:06
energetically demanding that is that's crazy. That's

spk_0:   1:0:10
yeah, it really is insane when you think about it and that's like every legitimately every 24 hours.

spk_1:   1:0:15
Yeah, yeah, and it's, you know, another. Here's another being again, you know? So it's pretty crazy and reproduction just and the things that evolve around it and develop around it are pretty cool. So I really found a passion for that. Also started to look at how the endocrine system and different things, particularly stress, affect reproductive success. Because I was studying and trying to make all these endangered species produce produce produce in captivity. And this was a very artificial situation, and I just couldn't help but think like, Well, isn't there a piece that we're missing that is not something easily tangible? Like there is a piece here that is not just well, the humidity is not the right way or there isn't the sunlight isn't a this or even the angle of the sunlight or the type of food that you give, or this or that, like it's not something so easily quantifiable. You know, it's just this vague thing that we call stress. Like what? What? What is that that's affecting us? Because this just things aren't quite right, you know? And what are its like effects on reproductive success because we're asking birds that might migrate thousands of miles over across continent to hang out in a room and make baby Never leave. Yeah, and make babies, you know? So, you know, like, there's gotta be just cause that's just not right, you know? It's like they gotta figure this is a man right here. So how is that really gonna affect what's going on and just sort of thinking of it from an animal welfare sort of a stance? And then also, conservations dances the same you know as well. And just because science is interesting and it's fun to know things

spk_0:   1:1:59
Okay, so then this is the end of your internship or the next phase is you're going to get a PhD.

spk_1:   1:2:04
Yeah, Exactly. Yeah, the next phases. Then me going to the University of Washington in Seattle and working with John Wingfield, the endocrinologists and famous, her infamous, maybe even stress physiologist at the University of Washington up in Seattle. And he's now at UC Davis. So he has since left U Dub, and he's now you see David, she I was really lucky to be in his his lab. He's one of those Brits that loves the little bit. You know, this

spk_0:   1:2:32
Totally picturing David at Verona. And next, the very moment you'll see this little tit week.

spk_1:   1:2:39
Oh, my God. That sounds exactly like him to s. Oh, yes, he would. His his bird of choice, the one that he studied and ended most of his work in was the white crowned sparrow. And he would always say, It's a

spk_0:   1:2:53
toy. It's crowned sparrow.

spk_1:   1:2:54
Such an elegant bird. He would say, I

spk_0:   1:2:58
just want to follow you around one day and I'll just narrate like that for you the whole time.

spk_1:   1:3:02
Yeah, it would be so seeding, that actually quite lovely way

spk_0:   1:3:08
to punch me in the face,

spk_1:   1:3:09
right? Like her hiding now already. So I got I was lucky enough to work with him because he also he was one of those big names in science, and he drew a lot of really talented people to work for him. We had people who were post stocks in the lab, who in any other university in their own right would be their own major professor having their own lab. But because of who John Wingfield was, they just decided that they would go for the longer post stock and stay there a little bit longer. Do this thing because, you know, So I had them

spk_0:   1:3:46
for years. Was this

spk_1:   1:3:47
This was I was there for 4.5 years.

spk_0:   1:3:50
Did Jeffrey come with you on this

spk_1:   1:3:51
one? Yes. He came with me on this. Okay. You guys have been apart for, like, a decade now. No way was like Seattle. I I dig that weaken good there. Yeah. Okay. Um and this was from New Orleans. So I was at Audubon Zoo not just for my year of the internship, but immediately after that, they hired me as an associate veterinarian there, and so I was an associate. And then as things were changing and leadership at the zoo was changing, it was like, I better jump ship because I don't like the way the leadership is changing. So I decided not to get my PhD at University New Orleans in New Orleans. I was planning originally on staying at the zoo and doing it there and like using the acres animals as my test animals and the ones that I would use when I saw the leadership changing. I was like, No, I need, like, mentors and people who can teach me things and I This is not the right right situation. So that's when I decided to go to Seattle.

spk_0:   1:4:51
Okay, 4.5 years in Seattle continuing it was this endocrine focused, you said, or

spk_1:   1:4:58
was indignant, focused. And so But I already had all the skills of semen collection and evaluation under my belt because while I was there at the zoo, I was intimately involved in the crane projects. So I was helping and working with the keeper's doing the all of the artificial insemination so I would go out there. They taught me how to collect semen. They taught me how to actually take that seaman look at under a microscope, mix it with the semen extender and go is inseminate later that day, Take it out and inseminate. You know three different females. So get you know, three insemination is out of this one male. But you had to go take it back to the lab quickly and look at it and just evaluate it. Make sure there was enough sperm in it that you could how many times he would be able to divide it in that kind of thing, you know? And then you also had this predetermined plan, though, of who's gonna be breeding with whom? Because you have to have this idea. You have to have an understanding of the whole flocks genetics and not even just the whole flock, but the whole the whole population. So the captive population there there are people that are keeping track of stud books for these for each species at every single organization. And you get together several times a year at meetings and decide. You know, in all, meet and talk and get your stud books out and talk about who's gonna be breeding with whom and who who's over represented in the genetics. And if you can ship semen between organizations, can you do that? Or do you need to ship eggs once they've been inseminated and that there's

spk_0:   1:6:31
a volunteer dive, It's aquarium. They, I think, do a similar thing with the beluga whales in the Dolphins. They kind of shift them around to each other,

spk_1:   1:6:38
and that, on

spk_0:   1:6:40
its own, is its own unique, fascinating world of

spk_1:   1:6:43
fright animal husbandry. Oh yeah, yeah, and that's really what it was doing. And so I was collecting demon and evaluating it on all the cranes there and the birds, the big, leggy birds. I did some stuff with some Jabba rue storks and other sort of big, big lady birds that we had there. But we were part of, you know, up here in Wisconsin, at the Crane Foundation of their embarr abou those creams that we had it autobahn belong to the crane foundation of here unbearable. So we had also, though it's specific population of cranes named Mississippi sandhill cranes, and they were a non migratory flock. And so they were a special population in Mississippi. And so we actually had a flock of those birds that we were managing captive Lee to continue to produce chicks every year to release on the refuge in Mississippi. So we had, like, actually were actually doing conservation work with live animals that were endangered in a special situation like this special niche population that was really critically endangered because of habitat destruction. And we were there managing the genetics so that we weren't artificially selecting for a certain type of animal. You know what I'm saying? So you're gonna be some that are successful in in captivity. Like are we selecting for traits that are only gonna make them successful in captivity, and then we're gonna send them out on the refuge, And then it's gonna be wildly failure because we didn't manage it properly, so that that's part of the deal to you. Gotta monitor that. And that's what I was. And that's what I learned. I learned how to collect semen from everything from tape, ears, elephant cranes and storks and Tom totally at Ella's. You taught me some stuff about Hispano Lian parents. He had a huge population over there, taught me some stuff about reproduction. Those guys, Mexican gray wolves in all kinds of different species, so really took off there and focused more on the interaction between the endocrine system stress physiology with reproduction. When I went up to Seattle and worked under

spk_0:   1:9:00
Tokyo chills, that's all. I have time for this episode. Tune in next week for Part two, where I talked to Ellen about her move back to Chicago working at the Brookfield Zoo, meeting this podcast host healing the lovable, said the miracle Chicken passion for belly dancing and some great international music recommendations. What can you tell me? The podcast. For more information, go to www dot what can you tell me dot com