Following the Birds | A 30,000 KM Journey

Every year, millions of birds make some of the most arduous journeys in the natural world. The Hudsonian whimbrel (Numenius hudsonicus) travels from its breeding grounds in Alaska’s High Arctic to as far south as Argentina. 

Two endurance athletes are preparing to embark on their own journey to follow the paths of three GPS-tracked whimbrels.

In this episode of “Our Wild Lives,” Timm Döbert, tropical ecologist and scientific explorer, and Leanna Carriere, extreme athlete, join us to talk about their upcoming 30,000 kilometer expedition titled, “Wings of Survival.’’

Döbert and Carriere will spend the next nine months on their bikes for 10 hours a day, crossing through 15 different countries along their route. Along the way, they will host virtual classrooms, conduct scientific studies and use the power of storytelling to bring awareness to migratory bird conservation. 

“Our Wild Lives” is The Wildlife Society’s biweekly podcast, sharing compelling stories from wildlife professionals doing critical work around the world. Your hosts, Katie Perkins and Ed Arnett, of The Wildlife Society, bring you thought-provoking conversations with leading experts and emerging voices. 

Further reading:  

About Wings of Survival - https://www.wingsofsurvival.com/

About the hudsonian whimbrel - https://abcbirds.org/birds/whimbrel/

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Music

[00:00:03] Leanna Carrier: The birds are kind of that very special link, I feel, between the natural environment and us humans. We need to look after the environments around us to protect our own human health so that, so that we can run outside, that it is healthy to breathe the air outside so we can eat and, and live, um, as well.

[00:00:24] Timm Döbert: How do we reconnect people to the natural world?

So Wings of Survival is designed to... It's a storytelling endeavor. It's, it's using the power of story to, to capture people. 

[00:00:49] Katie Perkins: Welcome to another episode of the Our Wild Lives podcast. If you were with us at our annual conference in Edmonton, Alberta last October, you might remember Leanna. She joined us to talk about the Wings [00:01:00] of Survival expedition, and today we're bringing 'em back.

We're gonna catch up with what's been going on since, uh, we heard from them last, and, and really learn more about this expedition and what they're hoping to accomplish with it. So thank you so much for being here, Timm and Leanna.

[00:01:13] Leanna Carrier: Yeah. Thanks so much for having us. Thank you

[00:01:16] Katie Perkins: So you guys are really about to kick off the expedition. When's your official launch date?

[00:01:21] Leanna Carrier: We're in Edmonton, Alberta, and we're gonna start July 15th, drive our support vehicle and all our gear up to Alaska, and leave, what, four days after that?

[00:01:31] Katie Perkins: Awesome. Yeah, so we're really catching you right in the last kind of preparation bits. What are y'all doing? What are your final steps for preparation here?

[00:01:39] Timm Döbert: Lots of things. We have to, um, have to vacate the apartment, so that's a big kind of added intensity thing. So we have to move out by the 30th and get everything to Liana's sister, and then go somewhere because we'll be homeless for two weeks. Uh, so that's, that's one thing. The second one is connecting the dots.

So it's [00:02:00] really, there's, there's amazing brands at this point, as part of the, part of the story. There's, there's science, there's education, there's storytelling. So there's so many partners, but the biggest challenge right now is getting some funds to run the vehicle 'cause it's a long journey. It's 30,000 kilometers plus Edmonton to Alaska, plus shipping the vehicle across the Darien Gap, where there's no connection between Panama and Colombia, and then getting it all the way back from Santiago to Vancouver.

So that's the last hurdle we're working on, trying to, trying to be able to operate the expedition.

[00:02:38] Katie Perkins: Yeah, I guess let's back up. For those who weren't with us in Edmonton and don't know what we're talking about today, introduce us to the Wings of Survival Expedition

[00:02:48] Leanna Carrier: Yeah, so it's the world's first race with nature, so we're following the migration of birds. Our focal species is the whimbrel. So we got to this past year, we went to [00:03:00] Chiloe Island and put these little GPSs with a group of scientists on the back of the whimbrels so we could actually see them fly up to Alaska.

And then, yeah, and hopefully we'll connect with them up in Alaska, and then start our journey and kinda have this shared parallel journey across the Americas. And we'll be on bikes, of course. 30,000 kilometers we'll be cycling on bikes.

[00:03:23] Timm Döbert: Yeah, so it, it's this very unique blend of, of science, of education, of extreme sports, and of storytelling.

So it's, um, it's essentially an attempt to use birds, or to portray birds as the greatest endurance athletes on the planet, which they truly are. It's, uh, phenomenal what they're capable of. And then kind of seeing how we as humans compare. And, and the, the idea overall is we want people to reconnect to nature again because it's something we've, I think, lost as kind of [00:04:00] the, the societies we live in.

And it's essentially the, the root cause for the problems we're facing as in climate change and biodiversity loss and pollution. It's this, this disconnect to the natural world. And I like to say it's, you know, if your house burns down, or y- y- you're making sure your house is safe, you're making sure your vehicle is safe, but we easily forget about this big support system which is the planet, something we absolutely cannot afford to sacrifice and lose.

So yeah, it's an attempt to get people closer to nature using this, this human story which people easily gravitate towards, but then closely intertwined with the bird migration, building lots of bridges, using education and science.

[00:04:42] Katie Perkins: Yeah. And how did this idea come about? Like, how do you, one, pick, pick a focal species, pick where to start, where to end? How does that all just come together?

[00:04:53] Timm Döbert: Yeah, so the sto- the story the way it is right now is it's... The, the final cue was looking at the map of the flyways. [00:05:00] The flyways are the, the pathways, the corridors that birds use to migrate, and there's, there's a couple across the different, different continents. And that was sort of the last spark moment to think this would be pretty, pretty clever, pretty crazy.

But some- something that resonates with people and something that excites people. And, um, and then an important cue was Leanna early on wanting, kind of proposing to be the fastest female to cycle the Pan-American Highway.

So that's, we're kind of on the highway. It's a little bit on and off, but it's essentially this connection Alaska-Patagonia, crossing the entire Americas. So it made a lot of sense to come together and create something that's very, very impactful, and it's been an interesting journey. So that's five... It's been five years in the making. But the trajectory's always been pointing in the right direction, like up and down. But let's see what Generally up ...the next four weeks bring.

[00:05:57] Katie Perkins: And so tell me a little bit about each of your [00:06:00] backgrounds, 'cause you both bring such a unique skill set to this. Tell me how you guys are kinda melding those backgrounds together to this expedition going

[00:06:07] Leanna Carrier: Yeah, I've been, um, I always liked to stay an athlete my entire life. I've been very athletic. I competed for Team Canada in the women's pole vault and was Canada's first female decathlete. I've been a personal trainer for over 20 years, so hu- human health is something that's super important to me. And as an endurance athlete, after I had my daughter and through COVID, I was swimming in the rivers, running in the trails, cycling the mountains, and I noticed the environments around me changing really fast.

But I kinda had this, this feeling of helplessness. I di- I didn't even know where to begin, kind of just as an athlete, had no idea. and then shortly after meeting Timm, and kind of as he mentioned with, with the highway for me originally, it was just a really simple ride in some ways, it's just try to attempt this record.

But he really [00:07:00] challenged me as a person and as an athlete to create something that's more impactful and more than just a record or an event. Because often, yeah, as a, as athletes, we just focus kind of on our ourselves or our individual goals, but how can we connect this broader group of people together to do something a little more powerful?

Races are always being canceled due to weather events and poor water quality and air quality, and it w- it was getting really frustrating for me, too. Yeah. So using, I guess, my own passions and talents with, with training and the physical aspect, as well as the mental side of things, was something maybe uniquely that I bring in.

A slightly different, a different demographic. And for me, it's really been transformative over the last five years, learning a lot. I've taken, a couple extra courses on climate change and trying to just learn more about what I can do to create [00:08:00] impact so that hopefully people... I can be relatable. It's like, if I can make positive impacts, so can others.

[00:08:06] Timm Döbert: Um, myself, I'm a, I'm a conservation scientist. I've been very fortunate to work in many different places across the globe. It's probably obvious at this point by now I'm, I'm German-born, and, um, so I started university degree back home in, in a subject called geoecology, so studying the different spheres, the soil, the water, the air, the animals.

And then about three years after starting my degree, I went to New Zealand, and it was this beautiful sense of freedom getting out of the German academic system, and it was just, just the place I really wanted to be, so I stayed much longer than I anticipated. Started a master's degree at Otago University.

Um, got drawn into the tropics, so did all my research in Thailand. Kind of [00:09:00] started working on forest fragmentation, restoration, so the impacts that we have on, on the natural world, and then continued for a PhD in Australia, University of Western Australia. Uh, had this opportunity to do all my research in Borneo, so spent about four years living in, in Sabah, in Malaysian Borneo. Very immersed into the forest, sleeping in hammocks and yeah, really becoming one with nature. No phone connection, no electricity, beautiful wildlife, orangutans and big hornbills and snakes and whatever's out there. Just amazing, amazing PhD. Like I see a lot of people struggle doing their PhD, but for me it was just unreal, the experience. So that was my PhD, and then lived in India for a while, worked with a wildlife filmmaker, different things, and then got the opportunity to come here to the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Did two postdocs, started working on grassland [00:10:00] ecosystems, so more temperate regions, but all in the context of what are we doing to the planet, and then looking at the different, different elements.

Here, more a focus on, on water and carbon, and a bit on birds. So I've just published my first bird paper, which took a long time. Science is... Science can be very slow, but that was about a month ago, so I feel I'm more entitled now to have a, a bird expedition project. So yeah, that's a bit of my, my story.

[00:10:30] Katie Perkins: Yeah. So Timm, were you an endurance athlete before this, or is that something that you're learning like Leanna is kind of stepping into the science world?

[00:10:38] Timm Döbert: No, always been, always been an athlete, just not my main focus. But the only, the only way I can do this, um, is because I've always been an athlete. It's hard to make a decision, "I wanna be an athlete now," and then I'm cy- cycling 30,000 kilometers. So no, I definitely started young and always cycled, never had a car.

That's always been my [00:11:00] means of, means of transport. So it, it comes very natural

[00:11:05] Katie Perkins: Yeah. What similarities do you see between, like, these huge, lofty athletic goals and then working in wildlife science? Like, how do those kind of come together?

[00:11:15] Leanna Carrier: Yeah, I think, I think for me what was really unique about the birds that I've learned is that they're one of the best indicators for the health of the environment. And we know if the environments aren't thriving or healthy around us, it affects our own human health. So that they're both linked closely, and that we need to look after the environments around us to protect our own human health so that, so that we can run outside, that it is healthy to breathe the air outside so we can eat and, and live, as well.

Same with the other biodiversity. So the birds are kind of that very special link, I feel, between the natural environment and us humans. And, and we also see birds everywhere, [00:12:00] so if we see that the bird population is declining, then I feel that's such a strong call to action, um, because it, it's telling us it's a warning sign that the environment's not healthy and that maybe won't sustain our own human health as long as we want as well.

[00:12:17] Timm Döbert: Yeah, it's the, the interdependence, right? It's there's nature and there's humans, and I guess oftentimes we like to say we are animals and we're part of it, and it's so true. You know, we can't sustain ourselves without looking after, after the planet. And, um, and then I think there's this element of resilience, which is something that scientists are studying in us, so that's one of the, the fun science projects we're doing.

Sports nutrition scientists looking at our kind of mental wellbeing, our physiology, our nutrition. We're plant-based athletes as well, so that's adding an- another layer of, not complexity, but interest, I would say. You know, it also reaches a [00:13:00] different audience. Once again, people are interested to learn what's it like to be a high-achieving athlete but purely live on, live on plants, so to speak.

So that's, um, I think that's really the shared denominator between the birds. Incredibly resilient, but at the same time so fragile. And that's, that's not just because the journey in itself is so incredible. So just putting that out there again, this is Alaska, Patagonia. This is crossing the entire Americas.

And so the birds we've been tracking since, since January, of those five individuals that we equipped with little GPS devices, two never left the island, because sometimes they choose not to migrate. Three left. They all went to Baja, California. That's a, it's a massive jump. That's about 9,000 kilometers. It took them five days.

And then because they don't stop, it's an easy, it's easy maths. It basically means they're traveling at 80 [00:14:00] kilometers an hour. So that's, that's absolutely phenomenal. So again, amazing resilience, amazing endurance, navigational skills, but they're so vulnerable to... Well, first to, to nature. There could be a storm, and it just picks up the bird and takes it out into the Pacific, things like this.

But then we as humans, we're adding all these additional kind of obstacles and challenges. Habitat is, it's always number one, right? For most, for most species, it's the loss of the ecosystems, the places they live and need to live. Yeah, and then there's hunting in certain parts of the flyway's still an issue.

Infrastructure, you know, flying into buildings, um, is, is a problem. Pollution, obviously those birds live in kind of those transition zones between land and sea, and it's oftentimes polluted. So there's all these, all these challenges they're facing. Invasive species, and, and we haven't-- we're not even talking too much right now about [00:15:00] climate change and how this is changing the phenology, right?

The dynamics between when are plants flowering, when are insects kind of emerging, and then when are the birds coming and capitalizing on this, on this wealth and richness of insects. So that's all be- starting to become out of, out of sync. So there's all these challenges, and I think what I hope what captures people's interest is that in a way, yes, we're on the ground, we're on bicycles, but we're facing the same elementary challenges of a safe place to sleep, clean water to drink, healthy food to eat, so that's shared with the birds

[00:15:37] Katie Perkins: Right. the birds, it sounds like they kind of make quick work of the journey. How is that gonna compare to how long it's gonna take you guys to complete this journey?

[00:15:45] Leanna Carrier: Well, yeah. So the birds will stop over on some refueling places, and they could, might stop for, for weeks. They might keep going. Each of the birds we did notice when we tag them, they completely [00:16:00] had their own unique story. They're just their own individuals. One followed the coastline. One made a big hop from Baja, California over the ocean to Alaska.

So i- it's really neat to kind of see where, where these birds go 'cause I, I don't think we know a lot about them. Um, but they'll definitely beat us.and e- even just seeing how fast they fly, I thought maybe at one point we could have a comparison to see if we could hit the same speeds on a bike as a bird, but 80 kilometers an hour is pretty fast on a bike.

It wants me going downhill fully packed, 

[00:16:33] Timm Döbert: Yeah, you need a good- 

[00:16:34] Leanna Carrier: Yeah ... 

[00:16:34] Timm Döbert: good tailwind. A 

[00:16:35] Leanna Carrier: good tailwind, yeah. So the, the goal is to really, uh, meet those birds again where we tag them 'cause they have high site fidelity, that they'll return to the same spot again before they leave. So nine months we have to get there before th- they'll start flying back to Alaska.

So we're hopefully catch them at their, their end of their summer.

[00:16:59] Timm Döbert: The [00:17:00] birds always, the birds always- Yeah ... have summer. They're always in the summer. Always. It's around the end of March. 

[00:17:04] Leanna Carrier: Yeah. 

[00:17:04] Timm Döbert: So we know from, from this year's data, we know they leave in, like, between 20 and 30 March roughly.

So we wanna get there a week before and make sure we can... Well, hopefully we can find those individuals again. Mm-hmm. And hopefully they recognize us too, and they're- ... they're happy to see us. But that's, that's the story arc. It's this idea of can we reconnect with those same individual birds in Patagonia again nine months after embarking in Alaska.

And, you know, just, I just wanna add, there's so little we know about the birds. So we don't... They could potentially fly from Alaska to... They could fly to Mexico. They could go to Colombia. Maybe they're even capable of going all the way to Patagonia in one stretch. Who knows? If they go to get a good tailwind, and they've got all the right fitness and everything works out.

There's so little we know about those birds, so that's part of the, the [00:18:00] science. We're, like, we're advancing science by, by, yeah, just the fact that we tag those birds. But, um, yeah, generally speaking, they're, of course, way, way quicker. We'd, we'd be lucky to, to see them again in Mexico somewhere while they're refueling

[00:18:14] Katie Perkins: Yeah. So you kind of touched on it all throughout this, but this expedition has so many different components to it, from the science to the, to the athleticism. and there's also an educational component to it. Can you tell me a little bit more about, some of the educational work you'll be doing along the way?

[00:18:30] Leanna Carrier: Yeah, we've partnered with Exploring by the Seat of Your Pants. it's been a great organization. Uh, it's here in Canada, in Ontario, and we'll be doing virtual classrooms once a week so kids can tune in from all over the world and, and join us for this journey and ask us questions while we're in the field, and hopefully they're not too difficult.

Uh, never know what the kids are asking. Uh, so that'll be a lot of fun, and I think that's a really important part of this [00:19:00] journey 

[00:19:00] Timm Döbert: Yeah, so we'll, we'll have a Starlink device, so we'll have connectivity across the journey. And so every week we'll have those live tune-ins into those classrooms. And as Leanna said, any school technically anywhere in the world is welcome to sign up.

There's, of course, for the live sessions, you might have to be in the same kind of time zones, minus, plus minus one or two, but it's all live recorded, so schools can watch after. We really want to bring young kids into this, into this journey, become part of it, be inspired about this, um, relationship between human health, so there's the cycling component, and the adventure, the expedition, and how this relates to, the health of the planet.

So that's more the birds and... So things we encounter. It's, it's definitely one of the highlights of this journey. Really excited about this.

[00:19:50] Katie Perkins: Yeah. What are some other things that you're really looking forward to or that you're hoping will happen as you embark on this journey?

[00:19:57] Timm Döbert: For me, getting away from the screen. [00:20:00] It's just been, it's just been such a deep dive into, into LinkedIn and all these platforms and trying to, trying to fundraise and trying to make connections. So actually being on the bike. You know, if you've planned for something for so long, and it's been, it's been, it's always been there, but it's also been distant.

And right now you're really getting that sense of it's actually happening, and four weeks are gonna, gonna pass by very quick, and all of a sudden we're on the bicycles. And then, you know, there's this element of, yes, my motivation is always protecting the planet and, and animals, but whenever I've done research, as I've said, in Thailand and Malaysia and those different, different places, lived in Colombia for quite some time, it's always the human connections which are really beautiful.

So I'm looking forward to, yeah, meet people from, from across the flyway, have interactions, learn from them, right? We're just, we're, we're just visitors. Yes, we, we come with a very unique story, but, but we don't know [00:21:00] anything about those places, so we wanna learn and, um, meet people, so I'm excited about that.

[00:21:05] Leanna Carrier: Yeah. I think, as Timm said, just being on the bike is, 'cause it, it's taken so much work just to get to this point, and it's still so much work that we have to do in the next three weeks to get all of our things packed, the vehicle ready, making sure we have all the funds in place. And then, and then just I think that those moments, I always really love those moments where it's just you're in nature riding your bike, and you're just kind of amazed by the environment around you, and it's quiet.

I'll, I'll say off the highway riding.

[00:21:36] Katie Perkins: Yeah.

[00:21:37] Leanna Carrier: When you're on a busy highway with the loud trucks, it, it can be a bit much. But there's definitely those really great moments, usually in the mornings when we go on long rides, that I, I just love. It's so peaceful, and you can hear the birds. You can see the birds flying next to you.

Sometimes completely different wildlife you encounter you didn't expect and amazing views. So yeah, I just, I, [00:22:00] I love those moments of just being on the bike and kind of being in nature.

[00:22:03] Katie Perkins: Yeah. What's some challenges that you're, trying to prepare for should they come your way?

[00:22:09] Timm Döbert: Well, a big challenge of course, and I don't know how to prepare for it, but a big challenge is because we follow the progression of summer starting in July in the Northern Hemisphere summer, slowly making our way into the Southern Hemisphere summer, fires are obviously a huge obstacle.

And on a bicycle having to take a detour of 50 kilometers to avoid, it's not just the actual forest fire, but it's, it's the air pollution, right? Trying to get around it. That is just not easy on a bicycle. So I think this is, aside from just being on the road in the traffic, and I feel that's the biggest potential obstacle.

This could really impact us hugely if there's big tracts of kind of areas where the air quality is just so bad. And imagine 10 hours on a bicycle [00:23:00] exercising. No doctor's gonna recommend doing this when you have a, like really, really bad air. So I think that's, that's definitely a big one. I 

[00:23:09] Leanna Carrier: think the, the border, the border crossings.

We we have to cross 15 different countries.

[00:23:14] Katie Perkins: Wow

[00:23:15] Leanna Carrier: and we have a support vehicle and that, that's part of the research Timm's been diving pretty deep into the last few days, making sure that we have the right vehicle and the paperwork. 'cause it can be hard sometimes. I, I think, you know, you hear and you, you look up and read on different stories where people aren't let in or something happens, paperwork's not signed properly and there's a delay.

So it is a lot of countries to get through. But yeah, I think that's, I think that's gonna be a challenge.

[00:23:43] Katie Perkins: Yeah, the birds don't have to worry about border control

[00:23:46] Leanna Carrier: No. Yeah. We'll make sure to spotlight- that every time. The beauty of, the beauty of approaching conservation as a, like without borders- 

Mm-hmm ... 

[00:23:56] Timm Döbert: I guess, and really understanding it's all, it's all [00:24:00] connected. But yeah, reality's gonna be different. Border crossings are difficult. People are, you know, for the most part I think people are friendly, and they're going to be excited, and they wanna talk to us, and they might ask us over to come for a meal or something.

You know, I think people, people will do this a lot, but the crossing's always more serious, so.

[00:24:21] Katie Perkins: Yeah. Definitely.

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 So, where are some places that people can follow along on this journey with you? Where should they look? And then there's gonna be a feature film at the end of this. When can people kind of expect to see these kinds of things?

[00:24:58] Timm Döbert: I would say [00:25:00] definitely the website is the best place to go, so just wingsofsurvival.com. We are working with an organization called 060. They're based in the US, and they're... It's actually, it's actually just one person, Anthony, and he's working nonstop on creating really cool expedition maps for explorers.

So he's made himself a name doing this, and he just sent me a... At the moment, if you go to the website, you can see, you can kind of see the interface. You can see our route that we've proposed or that we're proposing. But he's developing lots of things in the background, so he's already connected the birds to the map.

So you can see in our little whimbrel icon for each individual and all the individual journeys. So people can see how did those birds get from Chile to Alaska in the first place, or did they maybe not even go to Alaska? But then also the return journey, which is then more live [00:26:00] tracking. We'll have our bike computers so people can see our journey.

And then every day, at the end of the day, there's going to be a little, let's just for now call it day number one, a tiny circle. You click on it, and it just opens up a kind of portfolio of different images and some clips, and we're connected to Strava, so people can see our kind of calorie in and out and whatever it's been from a physical point of view on the road.

And we're connected, we have this little device, it's called a Bird Weather Acoustic Monitoring device. So we'll run this every day as we cycle, and ideally, it's gonna pick up bird sound. So that's what it does. It's just the wind pollution, so to speak, could interfere a bit, but it's basically collecting the soundscapes and then giving us the collection of the birds we've seen in a twenty-four-hour window.

So people which, um, who are maybe not so interested in Strava, they might be really interested in what birds did those guys [00:27:00] not see but come across. So it's trying to get something, for everyone to be interested and kind of take, take a bit of a dive into our daily, daily life on the road. So I'd say this is number one.

It'll be linked to Instagram, so that's, that's another platform to use. But, um, yeah, I feel the, the website is, is gonna be the most interactive, and it's gonna give people the most sense of this is not just two people doing something interesting and here's one post, but it immediately conveys this idea of this is a journey because now I can see the route and I can see the movement in space and time, and I think that's something people will really enjoy

[00:27:38] Katie Perkins: Yeah, I know I'm excited to kind of follow along. And you're right, there is a little bit of something for everyone, whether you're a birder, an endurance athlete, a scientist. What are some of the ultimate outcomes that you hope come from this expedition? From the science side, your own personal journeys, the athlete side?

[00:27:58] Leanna Carrier: Yeah, I think, well, [00:28:00] accomplishing a cycle of this, like, 30,000 kilometers is a huge ride just personally. I mean, that's, that's an achievement in itself. The, the biggest thing I, I'm most excited to see is how we connect the schools and the kids across the flyway. I would love to see it build kind of through each of our, uh, virtual classrooms and kind of by the end be able to, you know, tune in and see all these kids that we've created some sort of impact or got them engaged in some way. And so I, I really look forward to seeing kind of those young, young minds along with us and see how much of it we can build over, over this journey 

[00:28:41] Timm Döbert: Yeah, I'd say it's, you know, when I earlier said the motivation is really how do we reconnect people to the natural world?

So Wings of Survival is designed to... It's a storytelling endeavor. It's, it's using the power of story to, to capture people. And [00:29:00] the more we can reach people, I think the more, the more valuable this is going to be. And the expedition is, of course, just what happens in the moment, but then there's all these opportunities that hopefully are going to evolve from this journey.

So there's, there's the film that you mentioned. So Moving Artistry Productions here in Edmonton is creating the professional film. That's something to be really excited about, and that's something where the story continues to live on. And then there's those different partnerships which are, which are part of kind of the storytelling network, you know.

So we're creating a lot of content, and then those different partners are bringing this content from the different angles that they're focused on as, as those different brands and institutions, um, yeah, to their followers. So I'd say reaching people and planting seeds, you know, that's oftentimes what it takes.

It's the same with this story. It's a, it's a consequence of seeds that have been planted along the way by [00:30:00] yourself, but also potentially just by other people, right? So I think that's, that's a big one, planting seeds for people to, to maybe revisit who we are as humans in this spectacular web of life.

You know, it's such an amazing planet to be on, but how do we start to appreciate again that we shouldn't exploit the planet, but really being, being the stewards? And we've got the responsibility. So I think that's kind of the 180-degree mind shift that, that we have to create in people. And the easiest way to do it, I believe, is, is stories and, and those planting of seeds.

[00:30:38] Katie Perkins: 100%. to kinda close us out, you know, a lot of TWS members, wildlife biologists, uh, the people that listen to this show, they love spending time outdoors and being active. What advice could you give someone who has a big goal like this, whether it's a career aspiration in the wildlife field or an endurance challenge like this or a- another personal [00:31:00] ambition? you know, you're taking on such a big project here. Could you give any advice to people to, to take on a big project of their own?

[00:31:07] Leanna Carrier: Yeah, I guess I would, I would say don't, don't shy away from your talents and expertise. And as silly as it sounds to just go for it, but understand that, you know, there's hard work, there's lots of hard work to be done to achieve something great. But I think don't ever be afraid to, to showcase that or use your talents, especially to create a positive impact in this world.

We're all capable of so much, and, and if we could unite a little bit more as a community, we can create some incredible things 

[00:31:43] Timm Döbert: Yeah, I think it's understanding, it's understanding what ... Well, first what is your motivation? Everyone's got a different, A different aspect perhaps that might be the primary interest.

And then the, and then the second step is sort of understanding [00:32:00] what is it that I can do as an individual? So for us, it's, yeah, we're fortunate, right? We have the physical abilities to, to go on a big journey like this. But I think it's this understanding of even if I, if I can't do something of such big scope, but it's you c- you can always talk to people.

You can always, if you strongly believe in, in a certain message, then you can communicate this message to people, people around you. You know, as an example, we're, as I said, we're plant-based athletes, and that's, you know, just becoming vegan is, is, is scary for a lot of people because it sounds so, it sounds so definite in a way, saying, "Now I'm suddenly not doing something I've done for the last, whatever, X number of years.

I'm, I'm suddenly deciding I'm never going to do this." And that's, that's intimidating. Been there myself. But I think conversation is the most important kind of power we have as, as humans. So it's, it's storytelling at different, different scales. [00:33:00] So I'd always encourage people to find their own little kind of power zone to, to spread the word.

[00:33:07] Katie Perkins: Was there anything else that we haven't touched on that you wanna talk about?

[00:33:12] Timm Döbert: Yeah, just really to emphasize, you know, it's such a, it's such a big story. It's, it's in no way about us. We're just a catalyst for a much bigger, much more important story. So we're very welcoming for people to, to reach out to us. It could be just to say, "This is, this is awesome. Thanks for doing it." Or it could be something like, "Can I join you somewhere in one of those 15 countries?

Can I be part of this journey for a day? I'm living-- I live in Los Angeles, and are you coming through? Can I, can I bring my, my little community on board and we join you for a day?" So that's, that's one, one idea. It could be something different like in, as in, "Oh, we've got this private nature reserve here somewhere in, in Oregon on the coastline.

Would you like to visit?" And we do some joint [00:34:00] storytelling. So we'd, in general, we'd just love for people to embrace the story as an opportunity for bigger storytelling reach, but also for bigger impact. And then obviously, if there's, say, there's brands or people work for different companies or individuals even who say, "We'd love to support this. Let's, let's make this happen together." We'd absolutely love and appreciate that, that support of... It's hard being on the road and so any, any support is very much appreciated.

[00:34:31] Katie Perkins: Now, I know TWS is excited to support you guys and follow along on this journey. And we really appreciate you coming and telling us a little bit more. Maybe we can catch up in nine months, 10 months and, and see how it went and, and hear some stories from the road. But thank you so much for joining us today

[00:34:49] Leanna Carrier: Yeah, thanks so much for having us. Yeah, thanks for what you do, and thanks for having us 

[00:35:00] Hey, it's Katie. Thanks so much for listening to the Our Wild Lives podcast. If you're loving what you're hearing, could you help us out? Leaving us a review, rating our show or sharing it with a friend will help us continue to grow the Our Wild Lives podcast. If there's something in particular you wanna hear about, send us an email to comms@wildlife.org and we'll see if we can't find someone to bring on the show.

Thanks again for listening. We'll catch you next week.