A conversation about my favourite parrot! I had the pleasure of chatting with the Co-founder and Chair of the Kea Conservation Trust Tamsin Orr-Walker has spent 20 years protecting Kea, the world’s most curious parrot.

Kea slide down rooftops for fun, dismantle cars out of curiosity, and once caused $30,000 in damage to forestry equipment in a single night. They’re also endangered, with fewer than 7,000 left in the wild. The very traits that make them so captivating are the same ones that keep getting them into trouble.

This was a fun conversation about one of the most intelligent, curious, and mischievous birds on the planet. In this conversation we cover:
How 150,000 kea were killed under a government bounty, and the shift that followed
The lead poisoning crisis hiding in plain sight on South Island rooftops
How a conflict with forestry crews turned into one of their biggest conservation wins
Why New Zealand leads the world on public support for conservation
What 20 years of building a conservation trust from scratch actually looks like
Link in comments. 🦜
#SavingWildlife #conservation #kea #podcast #wildlife #NewZealand

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.

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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:

• Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@savingwildlifewithsam
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/savingwildlife
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/savingwildlifewithsam/
• Join the newsletter: https://forms.gle/3v5UCmN6CgLGGM3s5
• Follow Sam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-williams-0989483/

Please like, comment, and share to help more people discover these conservation stories. 🌊 🦦