By their very nature, endangered animals are a difficult target for scientists to research. They tend to be few in number — naturally — and the populations that exist have sometimes survived purely through remaining isolated from their top threat, which all too often is us.

To those outside the field of academia, the assumption might be that science takes place in the kinds of locales that appear on the pages of National Geographic — pristine forests, wind-swept deserts and coral reefs.

In reality — as you’ll discover in this episode — science can sometimes mean dodging cow pies in a field or blindly reaching under a muddy stream bank only to come back with a handful of diaper rather than a Hellbender salamander.

In the launch episode for the third season of The Podcast Aquatic, Aquarium freshwater scientists pull back the curtain to show the sometimes remarkably unremarkable places where we find the animals we’re working to study and protect.

Watch us find beautiful endangered darters off the side of an Alabama highway: https://youtu.be/8Jg_u37G6iI?si=molX52-gSueb__Vq

Episode cast

• Casey Phillips, host/senior communications host/occasional spelunker/enthusiastic cowpie dodger
• Dr. Bernie Kuhajda, aquatic conservation biologist
• Emily Culp, GIS analyst
• Dr. Jeronimo da Silva, research scientist (geneticist)