Saving Wildlife with Sam – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Rocio Palacios has dedicated her life to learning about and protecting one of the world’s most elusive cats. The Andean Cat Alliance works across the four countries where the cats are found. Their research and conservation involves local communities and their impact benefits cats and other wildlife in the high Andes. Rocio shares fun and inspiring stories of a life rich adventure and passion.

Follow Rocio and her work

https://www.facebook.com/alianzagatoandino

Instagram: @alianza_gato_andino

Support the protection of Andean cats: https://wildnet.org/wildlife-programs/andean-cat/

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Dr Colleen Begg, thought-leader in conservation, has dedicated her life to working with local communities and saving wildlife. She shares awe inspiring stories of her adventures and endurance:
Wildlife and wilderness
Catching Honey Badgers
Elephants roaming through camp
Learning traditions from local people
Leadership and community
A deadly attack by insurgents
Conservation when security is uncertain
Women empowerment
The future for conservation

Follow Colleen and her work

https://www.facebook.com/colleen.begg

https://www.facebook.com/niassalionproject

https://www.facebook.com/WomEnviroAfrica

Instagram: @Niassalionproject

Support Colleen’s team and the protection of wildlife in Niassa: https://wildnet.org/wildlife-programs/lion-niassa/

Signup for the Saving Wildlife With Sam email https://forms.gle/3v5UCmN6CgLGGM3s5

#conservation #savingwildlife #honeybadger #WomenInConservation #NiassaLionProject

Peter Damerell, Interim Director of the Saiga Conservation Alliance, shares his journey from aspiring wildlife filmmaker to leading conservation efforts across Central Asia for one of the world's most unusual antelopes. From the vast steppes of Kazakhstan to working with traditional medicine markets in Asia, Peter coordinates an alliance of organizations protecting a species that has crashed twice and recovered dramatically—and could crash again at any moment.

In this conversation:
19:03 - What is a saiga? The biology of an Ice Age relic
32:12 - How the Saiga Conservation Alliance works
40:28 - When conservation succeeds: new challenges emerge
1:00:06 - Vision: Ecosystems where saiga and people flourish together

Learn more about Saiga Conservation Alliance:
Website: https://saiga-conservation.org/
Donate: https://wildnet.org/wildlife-programs...
Facebook:   / savesaigas 
Instagram: saiga_conservation

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Most marine biologists dream of studying dolphins. Dr. Louisa Ponnampalam actually did it - and discovered that saving wildlife requires far more than science.

Louisa shares her journey from teenage "dolphin obsession" to founding and running Marecet, Malaysia's leading marine mammal conservation organization. She opens up about the steep learning curve from field researcher to organizational leader, the surprising skills conservation work demands, and why protecting animals means understanding the humans around them.

In this conversation: 

→ The baby dugong encounter that took 11 years to happen 

→ Why marine mammals are legally protected but their habitats aren't 

→ Building trust with fishermen to reduce dolphin bycatch 

→ The reality of conservation funding and facing "get a real job" criticism 

→ Making marine conservation accessible to marginalized communities

Key timestamps: [UPDATE WITH FINAL TIMES] 

0:00 - The baby dugong encounter 

8:00 - Why Louisa founded Marecet and filling knowledge gaps 

10:30 - The turning point: Conservation is more than science 

25:00 - Working with fishermen on bycatch solutions 

32:00 - Marine debris and habitat threats 

40:00 - Getting research into policy and protected areas 

44:00 - Learning to lead and communicate 

53:00 - "Just because it's never been done doesn't mean it can't be done"

About Louisa: Dr. Louisa Ponnampalam is a Pew Fellow and co-founder of Marecet, living the childhood dream she never gave up on. She's spent nearly two decades researching dolphins, dugongs, and whales, and has helped establish multiple internationally recognized marine protected areas in Malaysia while training the next generation of homegrown marine conservationists.

Learn more about Marecet: 

• Website: https://www.marecet.org/ 
• Donate: https://wildnet.org/wildlife-programs/dolphins-and-dugongs/ 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/marecet-research-organization/ 
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marecetresearchorganization 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marecet/

CONNECT WITH SAVING WILDLIFE WITH SAM: 

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Weddell Seal audio from NOAA

Rosamira Guillen shares her inspiring journey to becoming Executive Director of Proyecto Tití and shows us that conservation is more than just biology. We range from fun stories of the Cotton-tops, protecting their dry-forest and working finding ways to benefit local Colombian communities to values, culture and leadership!  

Follow Rosamira and her team’s work

https://www.facebook.com/proyectotiti

Instagram: Proyecto Tití (@proyectotiti) · Barranquilla

Support the protection of the world’s cutest little monkey: https://wildnet.org/wildlife-programs/cotton-top-tamarin/

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More about Saving Wildlife with Sam https://www.facebook.com/savingwildlife 

Please support the channel and subscribe to help more conservationists tell their story! 

Frank Pope, CEO of Save the Elephants, shares his unconventional journey into conservation

This episode is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton (1942-2025), founder of Save the Elephants and pioneer of elephant research. His groundbreaking work transformed our understanding of African elephants and shaped modern conservation practices.

Learn more about Save the Elephants:
Website: https://savetheelephants.org/
Donate:https://wildnet.org/wildlife-programs...
LinkedIn:   / save-the-elephants 
Facebook:   / savetheelephants.kenya 
Instagram: @savetheelephants

CONNECT WITH SAVING WILDLIFE WITH SAM:
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Snow leopards live in some of Earth's harshest environments, hunting on vertical cliffs at elevations where oxygen is half that of sea level. They're sacred to the indigenous communities who share their landscape and they're threatened by human-wildlife conflict, climate change, and the challenges of survival in an increasingly unstable mountain ecosystem. 

Ashleigh Lutz-Nelson, Executive Director of Snow Leopard Conservancy, works to lift up local conservationists protecting one of the world's most elusive cats across six countries in Central Asia.

Track a snow leopard: Support conservation and follow a real snow leopard's journey with Fahlo's GPS tracking bracelets: https://myfahlo.com/products/snow-leo...

Learn more about Snow Leopard Conservancy:
Website: https://snowleopardconservancy.org/
Donate: https://wildnet.org/wildlife-programs...
Facebook:   / snowleopardconservancy 
Instagram: @snowleopardconservancy
LinkedIn:   / snow-leopard-conservancy 

CONNECT WITH SAVING WILDLIFE WITH SAM:
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Jen Miller is Senior Manager of the Sea Otter Fund at the Wildlife Conservation Network, and her path has been anything but linear. A PhD from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies studying tigers and livestock depredation in India. Wolves and jaguar reintroduction policy at Defenders of Wildlife. International wildlife trafficking grants at the US Fish and Wildlife Service. And now, one of conservation's most genuinely hopeful comeback stories: bringing sea otters back to 800 miles of coastline where they've been absent for over a century.

Sea otters were once called "soft gold," hunted so relentlessly in the 18th and 19th century maritime fur trade that 99% of their population was wiped out. Today, with 3,000 in central California and real momentum building around reintroduction, they're at the center of one of the ocean's most important ecological recovery stories. As a keystone species, when sea otters return, kelp forests follow, and when kelp forests return, everything else follows too.

But the biology might be the easy part. Getting to yes with fishermen, tribes, state and federal agencies, and coastal communities is where the real work happens.

Jen also speaks honestly about the emotional interior of conservation: eco-grief, climate anxiety, burnout, and the working group she co-founded called Revive, a global community of practice helping conservationists build the resilience to keep going for the long haul.

Bonus 5-Minute Guided Resilience Practice with Jen

Feeling eco-grief, climate anxiety, or the everyday weight of change? Jen leads a short guided body sensing practice you can use anywhere, anytime.

About the Sea Otter Fund

The Sea Otter Fund at the Wildlife Conservation Network supports research, community engagement, and the logistical groundwork needed to reintroduce sea otters across their historic range. With 3,000 southern sea otters in central California and an 800-mile gap to close, the fund is focused on the science, the stakeholder relationships, and the socioeconomic research needed to get to yes, with tribes, fishermen, and coastal communities leading the way.

In this conversation:

• 0:00 - Introduction
• 16:10 - Sea otters: from 300,000 to near-extinction and back
• 24:10 - Why great white sharks are accidentally blocking sea otter recovery
• 37:00 - The Sea Otter Fund: closing the 800-mile gap
• 43:20 - Revive: building emotional resilience in conservation
• 58:50 - Guided 5-minute emotional resilience practice with Jen

Learn more:

• Sea Otter Fund: https://wildnet.org/wildlife-fund/sea-otter-fund/
• Revive: https://www.reviveconservation.org/

CONNECT WITH SAVING WILDLIFE WITH SAM:

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• Follow Sam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-williams-0989483/

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Bill Sutherland is Miriam Rothschild Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Cambridge, Department of Zoology, and founder of Conservation Evidence. For over 20 years he’s been asking a deceptively simple question: if a doctor can look up the evidence for any treatment before prescribing, why can't a conservationist do the same?

Conservation has long relied on tradition, intuition, and accumulated experience. But the tools being used today are often the same ones used 50 years ago, while every other field has been transformed by innovation. Bill's work is changing that. In this conversation:
0:00 - Introduction
9:50 - Conservation Evidence: the database changing how we save wildlife
27:03 - Indigenous and traditional knowledge: opportunities and challenges
46:18 - Horizon scanning: predicting the next big threats to biodiversity
49:50 - AI in conservation: promise and risk
53:10 - Where conservation is headed in the next 5 to 10 years


About Bill Sutherland:
Bill Sutherland is the Miriam Rothschild Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Cambridge and founder of Conservation Evidence. He coined the term "evidence-based conservation" and has spent over two decades building the tools and frameworks to make it a global standard. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and was appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2021 for services to evidence-based conservation. He also runs Conservation Concepts, a YouTube channel making ecology accessible to anyone curious about the natural world.

CONNECT WITH SAVING WILDLIFE WITH SAM:
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George Shillinger has spent 40 years protecting sea turtles. His path started a pet box turtle that had literally been to space!

I sat down with the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Upwell to talk about what it takes to protect an animal that crosses entire ocean basins, dives over a kilometre deep, and falls under the jurisdiction of dozens of governments.

Here's what struck me most: we've been pouring resources into protecting nesting beaches for decades. But sea turtles spend 99% of their lives at sea. That's where they're dying, from bycatch, ship strikes, pollution, and climate change. George built Upwell to address exactly that gap, using satellite tracking, species distribution models, and partnerships with fishers to protect turtles where it actually matters.

He also makes a compelling case for head-starting and rewilding, two of the most controversial ideas in sea turtle conservation. With Eastern Pacific leatherback populations down as much as 99%, his argument is hard to ignore.
In this conversation we cover:
Capturing and tagging Bumpy, a 1,500-pound leatherback
How spotter planes, acoustic telemetry, and satellite tags track turtles across the Pacific
The Eastern Pacific leatherback collapse: from 185 nesting females to 2 or 3
The Great Turtle Race
The Lost Years: tracking baby turtles with 2-gram satellite tags
Why the old conservation playbook isn't going to cut it

Link in comments. 🐢
#SavingWildlife #Conservation #SeaTurtles #Leatherback #MarineConservation