TEAM:
Megan Morrison – co-host/co-creator
Jennifer Merems – co-host/co-creator
David Drake – editor/producer
COURSE: Independent Project
MEDIUM: Audio / Podcast
DESCRIPTION:
A podcast episode talking about animal migration (drivers, consequences, examples). We are both wildlife scientists that study ungulates and my thesis focused on migration so this podcast was created to discuss migration and give examples that we’ve studied.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT (by Megan):
I am a recent graduate from the Nelson Institute Environmental Resource program, with a focus on wildlife ecology. One aspect of my thesis was translating my scientific research for a broader public audience. Personally, I feel the bridge between scientific research and the general public is one of the biggest challenges wildlife conservation faces today. To address this, I wanted to be able to translate some of my work into a resource that could be used by a general audience. The goal was to create a podcast episode that was engaging and informative to both scientists and non-scientists. To do this, I worked with Dr. David Drake (professor and extension wildlife specialist in the Dept. of Forest and Wildlife Ecology at UW-Madison) and my lab mate, Jen Merems, to create a 45-minute episode that reviewed different drivers of migration and how those are observed in animal populations across the globe. Migration is a phenomenon that has amazing examples, most people have seen visuals of massive herds of animals moving across the African savannas, so it’s easy for a non-scientific audience to imagine. It is also a major issue in wildlife conservation today as anthropogenic impacts continue to disrupt wildlife corridors impacting animal populations world wide. Jen and I are passionate about these conservation issues and hoped to use our podcast to inform a broader audience of these issues and how they could become involved.