Ian Redmond: Gorillas, Elephants and 50 Years in African Conservation | Animals & Us

Ian Redmond: Gorillas, Elephants and 50 Years in African Conservation | Animals & Us

Ian Redmond describes himself as a naturalist by birth, fascinated by nature from childhood despite growing up in the English countryside far from the tropical wildlife he dreamed of. A chance letter to Dian Fossey in 1976 changed everything: he arrived at Karisoke Research Center in the Virunga Mountains as a research assistant and dog's body, encountering gorillas on his second day in the field. Over the next decades, he witnessed both profound loss, the murder of his friend Digit by poachers, and Fossey's own killing, and remarkable triumph: the mountain gorilla population rising from 250 to over 1,000. He later discovered elephants visiting caves on Mount Elgon and spent years building trust with wild elephants underground. Today, he channels his decades of field experience into international conservation policy, believing that personal encounters with wild animals inspire the protection they desperately need. Ian Redmond is a conservationist and naturalist who has spent more than 50 years protecting gorillas and elephants across Africa. He worked as a research assistant to Dian Fossey at Karisoke Research Center in Rwanda, later introduced Sir David Attenborough to wild gorillas, and has since advised governments and led international conservation initiatives. ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses grief, which some listeners may find distressing. If you need support, you're not alone — help is available: • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au [lifeline.org.au] 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 A Naturalist from Birth: Childhood in Yorkshire and Malaysia 07:07 Herding Reindeer in the Cairngorms 10:02 The Letter That Changed Everything: Writing to Dian Fossey 17:09 Arriving at Karisoke in '76: Into the Virunga Mountains 24:30 First Days in the Field: Confronting Poachers 29:04 Meeting Group 4: Gorillas and Nose Prints 39:34 Understanding Gorilla Society and Safety 45:54 The Death of Digit and Diane Fossey's Murder 51:36 David Attenborough and Life on Earth 57:51 Cave-Dwelling Elephants on Mount Elgon 1:04:04 Underground with Elephants: Trust and Conversation 1:12:32 The Three Ps: How Individuals Can Protect Wildlife 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED: Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International: https://www.gorillafund.org/ [https://www.gorillafund.org/] The Gorilla Doctors: https://www.gorilladoctors.org/ [https://www.gorilladoctors.org/] Born Free Foundation: https://www.bornfree.org.uk/ [https://www.bornfree.org.uk/] Stop Ecocide: https://www.stopecocide.earth/ [https://www.stopecocide.earth/] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome. We're glad you found your way here. Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most. Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another. This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan. Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens: • Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham • Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale • Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova • From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd • Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience • Pride in Stories, hosted by John Dwyer (launching 31 July 2026) Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected. Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here. New episodes are released weekly across our series. If you'd like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate [https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate] Thank you for being part of this community. We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CONNECT WITH US ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au [https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au] ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes [https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes] 📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes [https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes] 📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes [https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes] 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes [https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes] #KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #AnimalsUs #AnimalsAndUs #Gorillas #Elephants #DianFossey #MountainGorillaProject #Conservation #Wildlife #NatureLovers #EnvironmentalAction #AnimalWelfare #CommunityConservation

Sharks for Kids founder Jillian Morris: eye contact with apex predators and rewriting the shark narrative

Jillian grew up obsessed with the ocean and marine life, sparked by an encounter with a nurse shark at age 8 in Florida. As she became a marine scientist, she noticed a stark disconnect: people hated and feared sharks intensely despite knowing nothing about them. Rather than accept this narrative, she committed to becoming a voice for these animals, diving with them, documenting their behaviour, and founding Sharks for Kids to teach children facts instead of fear. Now living in Bimini with her family, she witnesses daily how education reshapes attitudes. What drives her is not changing minds into love, but into respect and understanding that sharks, like all species, have irreplaceable value in ocean health. Jillian Morris is a marine scientist and shark researcher based in Bimini, Bahamas, where she has spent two decades diving with and studying sharks across species. She founded Sharks for Kids, a free global education nonprofit that has reached students in over 80 countries, to shift how the next generation understands and values sharks in ocean ecosystems. In this Animals & Us conversation with Natalie Stockdale, Jillian shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • Sharks have been in Earth's oceans for over 400 million years and are perfectly adapted to their role; understanding this ancient evolutionary success can shift how we see them. • Education in childhood, grounded in facts rather than fear, genuinely reshapes attitudes and behaviour across generations, not just toward sharks, but toward ocean conservation broadly. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 A lifelong obsession: Growing up by the water 03:08 First spark: The nurse shark encounter at age 8 05:04 Why sharks? From fear to fascination 08:36 Eye contact underwater: What scientists see 12:00 Living in the shark diving capital: Bimini and its ecosystems 14:35 Witnessing birth in the mangroves: A turning point 18:45 Starting Sharks for Kids: From conversation to action 22:49 Changing minds in classrooms: The data of transformation 27:07 Myths and misinformation: Why sharks are misunderstood 29:35 Culling is not the answer: Ecology and alternatives 36:56 Where fear comes from: Media, primal instinct, and Jaws 42:42 The ask: Respect, understanding, and moving forward 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 🌐 CONNECT WITH JILLIAN MORRIS: Sharks for Kids (Sharks4Kids): sharks4kids.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome. We're glad you found your way here. Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most. Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another. This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan. Here you'll find five podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens: • Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham • Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale • Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova • From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd • Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected. Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here. New episodes are released fortnightly. If you'd like to help us continue sharing these stories and keeping them freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate#donate Thank you for being part of this community. We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CONNECT WITH US ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://kintsugiheroes.com.au ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes 📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes 📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes #AnimalsUs #KintsugiHeroes #AnimalsAndUs #SharkAdvocate #BahamasWildlife #SharkConservation #MarineScience #OceanEducation #Wildlife #EcosystemHealth #SharkMyth #ConservationThroughEducation

Red Dust in Your Veins: Dr Rick Fenney on Veterinary Life, Loss, and Belonging in the Outback

Rick Fenney recounts how a reluctant choice to study veterinary science in 1966 led to a life of adventure across Australia's most remote regions. After failing second-year vet school in Brisbane, he was driven to complete his degree and repay a government cadetship. As a young government vet in the Kimberley and Pilbara, he improvised surgeries in hospital mortuaries and treated everything from cattle to circus animals. His encounter with Red Dog, a free-spirited kelpie who belonged to everyone and no one, became the catalyst for writing a four-book memoir series that preserves the story of outback life and his own journey. Now in his seventies, Rick continues building businesses, promoting his books, and preparing the definitive Red Dog account for publication. Dr Rick Fenney is a Western Australian veterinarian, author, and businessman who has spent over 50 years in remote Australia. He is best known for his deep connection to Red Dog, a legendary red kelpie of the Pilbara, and has written a four-book memoir series linking his life stages to the red dogs who shaped him. He runs multiple vet clinics, pastoral stations, and an aquarium across Western Australia. In this Animals & Us conversation with Natalie Stockdale, Dr shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • Failing at something important early in life-like Rick's second-year vet school-can be the most formative success, teaching resilience and maturity that propels later achievement. • Rural veterinarians and farmers understand animal welfare better than urban advocates because they treat animals as animals and respect their essential nature rather than humanising them. • Writing with strict principles of truth,… 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Introduction: Margie and the Red Dog Legacy 00:01:26 Albany Childhood: Fishing, Freedom, and First Red Dog 00:05:10 The Accidental Vet: How a Chance Interview Changed Everything 00:08:27 Vet School in Queensland: Failure, Maturity, and Horse Manure 00:12:29 Derby to Port Hedland: Early Career Loss and Improvisation 00:23:36 The Chimpanzee: A Daughter Saved, A Monkey Treated 00:28:01 Red Dog Enters the Picture: The Wanderer Arrives 00:36:34 The Weight of Euthanasia: Responsibility, Guilt, Legacy 00:40:51 The Four-Book Structure: Life Eras and Red Dogs Aligned 00:51:15 Creative Tension: Building Multiple Businesses and Staying Alive 01:00:07 Brain-to-Brain: Telepathy, Animals, and Intuitive Communication 01:14:06 The Desert Vet: Television, Public Life, and Ongoing Work 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome. We're glad you found your way here. Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most. Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another. This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan. Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens: • Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham • Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale • Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova • From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd • Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected. Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here. New episodes are released every week. If you'd like to help us continue sharing these stories and keeping them freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate#donate Thank you for being part of this community. We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CONNECT WITH US ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://kintsugiheroes.com.au ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes 📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes 📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes #AnimalsUs #KintsugiHeroes #AnimalsAndUs #RickFenney #TheDesertVet #PilbaraStories #VetLife #veterinary #outbackaustralia #rurallife #animalwelfare #memoir #reddog #westernaustralia #humananimalbond

Catherine Grady: Snow Leopards, Sheep Eyeballs, and Why Every Animal Just Wants to Be Loved

Catherine Grady spent five months in Mongolia this year — central grasslands, the Altai Mountains, and the snowy west — quietly setting camera traps for one of the most elusive predators on Earth: the snow leopard. In this episode of Animals and Us, host Natalie Stockdale sits down with Catherine, a young American wildlife conservation biologist freshly arrived in Australia, for a beautifully grounded conversation about the lives of carnivores, the limitations of how science is taught, the quiet act of reframing “habitat” as “home”, and the universal truth she's seen across every species she's studied: everything just wants to be loved. From acting student to wildlife biologist Catherine pivoted 180° after two years of university — leaving acting to follow what made her feel “most alive”. Why that introspection is the foundation she now teaches young scientists. Five months in Mongolia From Khustai National Park to the Altai ice patches to setting traps for snow leopards in the snowy west — Catherine shares what it's like to live in a country where hospitality is automatic and strangers are fed at no cost. The secret lives of snow leopards The “ghost cat” is one of the most understudied predators on Earth. Catherine and her team want to challenge the assumption that snow leopards are isolated and antisocial — using satellite camera collars to capture the affection, play, and intelligence the public never sees. Habitat is just a word — home changes everything Why Catherine refuses to call an animal's place “habitat”. The single language shift that reframes how scientists treat the creatures and ecosystems they study — and the parallel she draws to Mongolian hospitality. Everything just wants to be loved Across grizzlies, wolves, freshwater fish and the shy cow she befriended in rural Mongolia, Catherine has seen one universal truth — and a Jane Goodall warning about apathy that every Gen Z conservationist should hear. GUEST BIO Catherine Grady is a wildlife conservation biologist from Seattle, Washington, recently arrived in Australia after almost five months of research in Mongolia. She has worked across the United States (including studying wolves at Yellowstone), Belize, and Mongolia — and her work centres on two equally-held values: wildlife and environmental conservation, and indigenous justice. Catherine is particularly drawn to carnivores, especially the misunderstood ones — wolves, snow leopards, and (next on her list) Australian dingoes. Resources Mentioned ● Lucy Cooke — “Bitch: On the Female of the Species” (book) — https://www.basicbooks.com ● How to Train Your Dragon (2010 film) — referenced for the “everything we know about you guys is wrong” quote ● Jane Goodall — research approach and quote on apathy as the greatest danger to our future ● Joseph Campbell — “Follow your bliss and doors are open” ● Khustai National Park, Mongolia — https://www.hustai.mn ● Monkey Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, Belize — https://www.monkeybaybelize.com ● Xavier Rudd — “Follow the Sun” (Animals and Us theme music) TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Introduction 01:53 A Childhood Outside — Seattle and Salmon Recovery 04:07 Acting to Biology — A 180-Degree Pivot 09:42 Why Everything We Learn About Animals Should Be Questioned 17:48 Five Months in Mongolia 21:21 The Secret Lives of Snow Leopards 27:39 Universal Truths — From “Habitat” to “Home” 50:06 Advice for the Next Generation of Conservationists CALL TO ACTION If this conversation moved you, please follow Kintsugi Heroes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your preferred app, leave a rating or review, and share it with someone who loves animals as much as you do. To support our not-for-profit mission to share more stories like Catherine's, visit https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au [https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au] and make a tax-deductible donation, or get in touch about partnering with us. THE KINTSUGI CONNECTION Watch every episode on YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes [https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes] If this story resonated, explore more from Animals and Us — honest conversations about the creatures we share this planet with, and what they have to teach us. ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit storytelling platform sharing real stories of resilience, disability and transformation. Inspired by the Japanese art of kintsugi — repairing broken pottery with gold so the cracks become the most beautiful part — we believe every life can be made more beautiful through what it has survived. THEME MUSIC Thanks to Xavier Rudd for permission to use “Follow the Sun” as the theme music for the Animals and Us series. PARTNER / DONATE / CONNECT Partner with us — https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au [https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au] Donate — donations over $2 are tax-deductible. https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au [https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au] Web — https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au [https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au] YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes [https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes] Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes [ https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes]

Megan Hensley: The Donkey Farrier Teaching the World to Listen Before They Lead

Episode Summary Megan Hensley grew up outside Sacramento with animals as her closest companions — the kids at school didn't get her, but the animals always did. After dropping out of high school at 15, a stint in the US Army, conservation work that brought her to Australia, and a chance apprenticeship with a compassionate farrier, Megan found her calling: the care and welfare of donkeys. Nearly 20 years on, she is one of the most respected donkey farriers in the United States, founder of the Donkey Hooves and Health Academy with over a thousand students worldwide, and a tireless voice for an animal that has been misunderstood, misused, and underserved for far too long. This conversation is about donkeys — but it is also about trust, patience, and what happens when you meet another being exactly where they are. Episode Pillars ● The Rebel Who Found Her Calling: From dropping out of school at 15 to the US Army to conservation work in the Australian outback — how Megan's winding path led her to a 20-year career as a donkey farrier. ● Donkeys Are Not Stubborn — They Are Discerning: The biggest misconception about donkeys, why they end up mistreated and mislabelled, and what it actually means to earn a donkey's trust. ● The Care Bear Stare and the Science Behind It: How Megan uses loving intention — and heart-centred energy backed by HeartMath research — to reach animals that no one else can get near. ● Romulus: Six Months to Liberty: The story of a mule so traumatised by a previous farrier experience that he trembled and broke into a sweat at the sight of tools — and how patience over six months changed everything. ● The Donkey Hooves and Health Academy: How COVID forced Megan online and led to a global school teaching donkey owners to trim their own animals' hooves — stress free, halter free, and with their hearts on. The Kintsugi Connection To see the visual story of Megan's journey and explore more episodes of resilience, visit our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes/videos If Megan's story moved you, explore these related Hero conversations: ● Love animals and their power to heal? Listen to Ron King's story of building Oscar's Place, the donkey rescue at the heart of this episode. ● Drawn to stories of purpose found through unconventional paths? Explore how our other Animals and Us guests have found meaning through their relationships with animals. About Kintsugi Heroes: An Australian not-for-profit (DGR endorsed) dedicated to strengthening mental wellbeing through the power of storytelling. Partner with Us: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/partners/ Donate (tax-deductible): https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate/#donate Website: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/Kintsugi-Heroes-100084850387170/