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20 Years of "Something Wild," 20 Years of Nature Stewardship

To celebrate 20 years of Something Wild on NHPR, we take a look at how New Hampshire has changed in terms of nature and ecology over the two decades the program has been on the air.  

For 20 years, the hosts of Something Wild have been giving listeners a bit of an insider’s view, whether interviewing a logger or a limnologist, a dendrochronologist or a bear rehabilitator, or by visiting a dark vulture nesting cave, a lofty peregrine cliff nest, or a chaotic and guano-filled tern colony.  Earlier editions of Something Wild mused about the approach of spring or the winter survival strategies of birds.  Scroll through to see photos, hear audio excerpts, and test yourself on the vernacular of Something Wild.

GUESTS:

  • Dave Anderson -  Something Wild host, naturalist and Director of Education for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.
  • Rosemary Conroy - one of the first hosts of Something Wild.  She is now a contemporary wildlife artist living in Weare.
  • Mike Marchand - Program Supervisor of the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department’s Nongame and Endangered Wildlife Program.  He helped evaluate and revise the latest Fish & Game 10-year Wildlife Action Plan.  
  • Chris Martin -  Something Wild host, and Senior Wildlife Biologist with New Hampshire Audubon, specializing in Raptors.

Check out theFish & Game 10-Year Wildlife Action Plan.  The Taking Action for Wildlife organization has lots of resources and information on its website.

Listen to one of Chris and Dave's favorite Something Wild episodes, "Going Woodcocking...And Making Memories:" 

sw042613-going_woodcocking.mp3
Listen to "Going Woodcocking and Making Memories"

"The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant "What good is it?" If the land mechanism as a whole is good, than every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of eons, has built something we like but do not understand, than who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering." from Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 1949

Rosemary Conroy and Iain MacLeod participate in a game of Name That Amphibian from a 2000 Something Wild:

sw040700-name_that_amphibian.mp3
Listen to the "game show" Name That Amphibian.

Something Wild hosts Chris Martin and Dave Anderson brought Sam Evans-Brown of Outside/In along to look for turkey vulture chicks:

sw_turkey_vultures.mp3
Listen to this Something Wild episode: Of Death, Beauty and Vultures

Sam Evans-Brown joins Dave Anderson and Chris Martin on a search for a turkey vulture nest.

Listen to the episode to understand what is going on in this picture.

Something Wild Vernacular

The hosts of Something Wild enjoy introducing listeners to new concepts in the natural world.  Here are 20 words, one for every year of Something Wild, covering just some of the concepts they've explored over the life of the show.  How many of these words do you know?  Definitions follow.

1. Lagomorph 

2. Sessile

3. Petiole

4. Monoecious

5.  Dioecious 

6.  Viviparous

7.  Oviparous

8.  Ovo-viviparous

9.  Ontogeny

10.  Phylogeny

11.  Facultative migrant

12.  Partial migrant

13.  Phenology

14.  Hemi-parasite

15.  Torpor 

16. Marcescent

17.  Semelparity

18.  Iteroparity

19.  Altricial 

20. Precocial

1.  the snowshoe hare is a member of the order Lagomorpha, of gnawing plant-eating mammals comprised of rabbits, hares, and pikas.  2. attached by the base, such as a leaf coming directly from the stem.  3. the stalk that joins the leaf to the stem.  4. plant gender: monoecious plants have both male flowers and female flowers on the same plant.  5.  plant gender: dioecious plants have male flowers on one plant and female flowers on a different plant.  6.  producing live young.  7. egg-laying.  8. producing living young from eggs that hatch in the body. 9. the development of an organism from fertilization to maturity; or the study of the lifespan of an organism.  10. the evolutionary development and history of a species or grouping of organisms.  11. individuals can alter when to migrate, based on environmental factors.  12. when one part of the migrating population migrates, but the other part remains in a habitat year-round. 13. the study of the different phases that plants and animals go through in their life cycle each year.  14. a plant that generates some energy by photosynthesis, but gets most water and mineral nutrients from its host plant, for example, mistletoe.  15. a state of decreased physiological activity in an animal, enabling animals to survive periods of reduced access to food.  16. having leaves that wither but remain attached to the stem; such as oak and beech in NH.  17. having only a single reproductive episode before death.  18. having multiple reproductive cycles over the course of a lifetime.  19. a species in which the young are born helpless and require parental care after hatching or being born. 20. a species which hatches or is born in an advanced state and able to feed itself almost immediately.

The sound editing brilliance, and clever choice of music following Something Wild, is done by NHPR's Andrew Parrella.  He often accompanies Chris and Dave on their nature adventures.

Here Andrew Parrella interviews logger Todd Carmichael.

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