Show Notes
Welcome to Pod of Orcas! Last season, we dove deep with an endangered population of killer whales, and we met some brilliant scientists and storytellers along the way. This season, we’re zooming out. We’re gonna look at the place they call home, which is also the place we call home. And by that I do mean the Salish Sea and its 8 million people and two large cities with bustling ports and shipping routes, but I also mean the Pacific Ocean, the planet, all of it.
We’ll look at everything from dire stories of near extinction to inspirational stories of recovery to stories that are just cool or downright weird.
How do we maintain hope amid so much grim climate news? Could Chinook salmon go extinct in our lifetime? What makes poop so crucial to marine mammal research? And why do human feet keep washing up on Salish Sea shores?
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This episode originally aired back in 2022 but it recently got taken down because of a short clip of the Tayl*r Sw*ft song "Lavender Haze." This is that original episode, sans Taylor. On this episode we cover social media at the intersection of science, nature, conservation, and nonprofit work. More specifically it’s about Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and a state agency that has leveraged social media beautifully as a way to get their word out. Our guest is Rachel Terlep was Social Media Manager for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources when we spoke, but now runs social media for Washington State Department of Transportation. Note: We had this conversation about four hours before Twitter, now called X, entered a state of crazy flux on November 17, 2022. SUPPORT THE CREATION OF THIS SHOW: seadocsociety.org/donate
Our big summer auction event will take place Saturday July 18th, from 4-7 pm, on Orcas Island. The event is near but we have a handful of tickets left if you'd like to join. It will be held at Slanted Apple Farm, not far from the ferry landing. Get tickets an learn more at seadocsociety.org/auction
Today’s guest is SeaDoc Society’s new Veterinary Translational Scientist, Michelle Barbieri Lino.
Early in 2025, the amazing killer whale research organization Wild Orca merged with SeaDoc Society, adding Giles to our growing team of scientists, alongside Joe Gaydos and Cat Lo. In today's episode we talk with Giles about her time on the water this field season, having her life changed by a Superpod on her 18th birthday, Eba the poop-sniffing dog, and the future of Southern Resident Killer Whale science and conservation. You can support this work at seadocsociety.org
Bob Friel is the producer of SeaDoc Society's EMMY-nominated web series, Salish Sea Wild, hosted by Joe Gaydos. He's also an award-winning writer, photographer, documentary filmmaker, and author of the true-crime bestseller The Barefoot Bandit. In this episode we talk about how to get folks to care about vital science in a chaotic and unreliable media environment—more specifically how he and Joe make their own brand of magic with Salish Sea Wild. Salish Sea Wild: youtube.com/seadocsociety Get our newsletter: seadocsociety.org/newsletter