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Rewilding Earth Podcast
Episode 156: The Golden Toad – Hope, Loss, and the Power of Conservation Storytelling
00:49:22
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- [00:11]
Kyle Ritland
If we spend the whole time looking for the golden toad, thinking about the golden toad with our eyes cast down on the trail in front of us, we're going to miss all the other amazing species and features of the forest that are around us. On that trip, I saw things I never thought I'd see in my life, and that was because of the golden toad. Whether it's extinct or not extinct, its existence made the world around it better, and it made us able to enjoy that world better.
- [01:13]
Podcast Announcer
You're listening to the Rewilding Earth podcast.
- [01:15]
Jack Humphrey
I'm your host, Jack Humphrey.
- [01:19]
Podcast Announcer
Today's episode takes us on a remarkable journey into the heart of conservation storytelling.
- [01:25]
Jack Humphrey
We're diving deep into a tale that.
- [01:27]
Podcast Announcer
Bridges mystery, hope, and the profound connection between humans and the natural world. I recently sat down with brothers Kyle and Trevor Ritland, whose fascinating book unravels the enigma of the golden toad, a brilliant orange amphibian that vanished from Costa Rica's misty mountaintops almost as quickly as it was discovered. Through a masterful blend of scientific inquiry and storytelling, the Ritland brothers remind us that even in the face of loss, there's room for hope. Their work not only chronicles the disappearance of this remarkable creature, but also celebrates the power of narrative and conservation, showing us how stories can inspire protection of the world's most precious ecosystems. Get ready for a conversation that might.
- [02:07]
Jack Humphrey
Challenge what you think you know about.
- [02:08]
Podcast Announcer
Extinction, discovery, and the need for connectivity and protection, not only at large scales, but also the very small.
- [02:16]
Jack Humphrey
Kyle, Trevor, I am so excited to talk to you guys. I. This kind of came out of the blue for me. I was immediately fascinated, mainly because this book is so beautiful. First of all, let's just talk about your artwork. It's one of the catchiest covers I've ever seen.
- [02:32]
Trevor Ritland
Yeah, thanks.
- [02:32]
Kyle Ritland
We were excited to diversion.
- [02:34]
Trevor Ritland
Our publisher kind of came out with that. And the little toad outline in the A is something we kind of took from our illustrator who illustrated the book, who's a Costa Rican guy named Daniel Wesson. So we're really happy to get some of his art on the COVID too.
- [02:48]
Jack Humphrey
Awesome. I really don't like to start out talking about things that people are going to think, oh, no, it's another dry biology species doom book. This is not. This is so good. You guys did a great job.
- [03:04]
Trevor Ritland
Yay. Thanks so much.
- [03:05]
Kyle Ritland
That's awesome to hear, obviously.
- [03:07]
Trevor Ritland
And especially that last kind of piece you said around being hopeful and not just being doom and gloom, because that's. That stood out to us when we kind of first encountered the story is how much hope there was kind of tied up in this tale.
- [03:20]
Jack Humphrey
You guys have an incredible story with Bill McKibben is saying that you've somehow maintained a sense of possibility in this. I'm very interested in that. Because you're talking about the extinction of a species that we barely even knew.
- [03:36]
Kyle Ritland
Yeah, absolutely.
- [03:37]
Trevor Ritland
And, you know, the story of the golden toad can be kind of depressing if you choose to tell it that way. To me, it really implies a understanding of how much we don't know about, you know, this world we live in and the things that are still out there. And the fact that the golden toad was only described by science in 1964 tells you, like, how complex and how much possibility is contained within these forests. And so that's kind of a point of hope, too.
- [04:09]
Jack Humphrey
I wonder if there's a word for the feeling I get learning about species that were on this planet while I was alive that we didn't know about, that just went extinct, that we were maybe, like, in the golden toad story, just getting to know a little bit about. Why does that hurt so much more than a species that died millennia ago? It's like, wow, we just. It was just here. It, like, we. And you guys must really be up close and personal with that kind of feeling, like you're on a. You're on a very fresh mystery. The trail of a very fresh mystery with the book.
- [04:50]
Trevor Ritland
Well, yeah, I mean, the last photo of the golden toad, the last documented sighting was 1989, and Kyle and I were born in 1993. And so it's like we. We just missed it, you know, by that much. And I have a friend in Monteverde who was born in 1989, the year the golden toad went extinct. And. And that, you know, feeling of. Of familiarity, but loss where like. Like you say, it's like, yeah, I'm, you know, sad I didn't see a dinosaur. I would've loved to see a dinosaur, but the golden toad was so close to me in time. And that feeling of us kind of just missing each other is this, you know, kind of wound that. That. That you have to live with. And it makes you, I think, appreciative of the things that are here you haven't lost. And Kyle and I both have little babies, and so we're now very much in the mindset of what can we show them that's still here so they don't have to kind of grow up.
- [05:44]
Kyle Ritland
With that feeling that we grew up with. Yeah, it's the sense of, you know, what might have been, and that that's something that you weren't even aware of and is gone before you have the chance to get to know it. It's a very specific type of grief, and I don't think we encounter it too often.
- [05:58]
Jack Humphrey
Yeah, well, I think it's up to you guys to invent the new word for that type of grief. Mine. Mine are all cuss words. So. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, let's. Let's. Let's kind of go back to the beginning and give everybody a feel for what I meant by you guys. Your lives have been kind of intertwined with this story for a very, very long time. Can you kind of go back and give us a synopsis of how this is all unraveled?
- [06:28]
Trevor Ritland
Yeah, for sure. So we, Kyle and I first heard the story of the golden toad from our dad. He's a biologist, and he had colleagues who were doing work in Monteverde, Costa Rica, which is the home of the golden toad. And so when we were little kids, I remember he would use the story of the golden toad in his biology classes that he taught as an example of how species are affected by changes in environmental conditions and how quickly specialized species can disappear. And so that was the first encounter we had with this species is as a species that was gone. And it's this bright orange toad. And it was, you know, super interesting because it was endemic, only found on this one ridgeline above this one town in Costa Rica in this really unique elfin forest habitat, stunted trees, really misty, windy. So, you know, for a little kid, it's like this bright toad lives in this really misty, ethereal ecosystem. I want to see it. When can I see this toad? Well, you can't, because it's extinct. And so that, I think, is part of the reason why this story stuck with us in the way it did. To be told, you're never going to get to see this really cool species. And then kind of by accident, after college, I ended up living and working in Monteverde, and I started to hear stories of the golden toad again. But these were kind of the local versions of the story. And the piece that really kind of captured my imagination was I had always.
- [08:01]
Kyle Ritland
Heard, you know, the last golden toad.
- [08:03]
Trevor Ritland
Was seen in 1989 by this US biologist, and none were ever seen again. And in Monteverde, one day, a guy kind of walked by our office and somebody pointed him and says, oh, that's the guy who saw the last golden toad. I said, what? I didn't think he lived here. So I asked about the story and it turns out this local guy, Eladio Cruz, claims to have seen Golden Toads in 1991, two years after they were supposed to go extinct. And he'd never been back to that last spot where he'd seen them and nobody else had either to look for them in about 30 years. And that was really what kind of captivated my interest aside from really just wanting to learn more about this species and what happened to it. That kind of, you know, mystery of could it still be out there and what would that mean if it was still out there? To the people of Monteverde and all the conservation work they've done to protect the forests in the wake of the golden toes disappearance.
- [09:01]
Jack Humphrey
The way that you open this up and describe throughout the book the lay of the land, it, it's Disney esque to me. It's like the, the reading, it was like the feeling I got when I was a kid when that music in a Disney show would start playing in a forest scene. And I don't know why I made that connection, but it just speaks to your guys ability to communicate and to weave a story. Once again, I'm probably going to harp on that quite a bit, but it means a lot to me and I think to the conservation community. We pick up on this stuff. You know, Ben Goldfarb, who's also on your jacket cover, is, is who he is because of the way he weaves a story, you know, and I just love that. But the way you guys do it was just there's a lot of magic and mystery and things here that you just don't expect anymore. And it's kind of sad to be that jaded about conservation writing that you're not really expecting to open a book like this and have it give you this delightful although disturbing topic at times treatment.
- [10:18]
Trevor Ritland
Yeah, well, thanks. I mean that was really key to me and Kyle going into how we wanted to tell this story was kind of conveying the sense of place that is Monteverde and the cloud forest and the elfin forest and these ecosystems. Because I think it's as much core to the story as the species that are at the heart of this story is the ecosystems, the habitats they live in. And I don't know, maybe Kyle can speak to. I lived in Monteverde for a couple years. I never really got used to living in such a really cool and wild place. But the first time that we got Kyle out into the cloud forests for the golden toads once were, it was a lot different where he was coming from he'd been living in LA for like a year before we got him out into Costa Rica to help kind of start to tell this story. So those were very different ecosystems for him. I'm sure he was struck by it, too.
- [11:07]
Kyle Ritland
Yeah, it's a magical place, for sure, and it's a magical species. And I think it's always been our goal to convey that as much as we can through text and images and illustrations. And you're absolutely right. I mean, these are serious issues that affect not only species throughout the world, but human beings as well, obviously, and environments across the globe. But it was really always our goal to tell this story in a way that's also enjoyable in and of itself, that it's not just a dry scientific report and it's also not all doom and gloom. That hopefully there's some inspiration that comes from this. You know, we were swept away by our father's stories and the slides that he would show us on his old slide projector. And so anything that we can pass on of that, I think, is really the goal.
- [12:02]
Jack Humphrey
On this podcast and at the Rewilding Institute. From the very beginning of the very first Wildlands Network designs in. In the sky island region back in the 90s, where we were talking about vast landscapes that were cut off from each other, that were disconnected, and trying to connect the entire Rockies, you know, all the way up into Canada, and just huge, huge things. And here we're talking about a very, very small creature in a very, very small place with very few options at its end. And I wanted to try to marry those two things together with the habitat protection issues that you. That you encountered that are always ongoing. Not that it's going to help the golden toad, but that story about where does it go when it needs to move an inch in any direction in such a small place. Could you talk more about what that. What that micro geography is like?
- [13:05]
Trevor Ritland
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, the golden toads made their home at the top of this ridgeline. And in Monteverde, right now, you can kind of see the impacts of climate change, for instance, driving other species further up the mountain. Like, there are fer de lance snakes in the San Luis Valley that are climbing kind of bit by bit, expanding their ranges up the mountain as the conditions change, as things get drier or warmer, their range expands. For the golden toad, as climate impacted that ecosystem, whether it was changes in mist inputs, whether it was drier wet seasons or wetter dry seasons or more intense rains, all of those little changes stacked up to the point where they did not have anywhere left to go. They could not climb higher on their mountain. And actually, one of the Costa Rican biologists that we spoke to about the golden toad kind of made the point that because of its range and the way that it adapted to its environment, the golden toad, in a way, was kind of destined for extinction. In the context of climate change, forest conservation is great and connectivity is necessary. The problem in these vulnerable ecosystems is that you can't just then fence those forests off and expect that everything's going to be okay. There are those external impacts like disease and climate change that kind of find their way into those protected ecosystems. And for the golden toad, the problem was not disappearing forest, it was changing forest. It was climate conditions and potentially the introduction of a pandemic that made its habitat no longer survivable. And I think we can kind of draw a parallel between the golden toad and us in that regard. Where do we see the impacts of climate change and disease in these. These other kind of existential threats to humans happening? They're in the fringe communities, they're in the vulnerable communities first, before we see them kind of in what we consider to be our backyard. And so Monteverde is going to respond to those environmental changes first. And a species like the golden toad that's so vulnerable and so at the mercy of its highly specialized environment is going to react to those factors and potentially disappear before we see those impacts hitting other species.
- [15:31]
Kyle Ritland
Yeah. I think we can also look at the golden toad as warning about connectivity of. Of habitat. You know, as. As Trevor mentioned, and as we examine a little bit in the book, we don't know for sure what the history of the golden toad looked like prior to its discovery by science, its description by science. We don't know if there were huge other areas that the golden toad once inhabited, and for one reason or another, it was, bit by bit, secluded up on this one ridgeline, or if maybe this was the only place it ever was. But we do know that there are a lot of parallels to that story. The southeastern United States is an area that's really important to Trevor and me because we grew up there and our dad would take us out to waterfalls and show us salamanders. You know, the Southeast US's the global hotspot of salamander biodiversity. And there are a lot of salamander species that look a lot like the golden toad in terms of their circumstance. Small populations, isolated populations. And in those cases, the more habitat connectivity you have, obviously the greater chance that population has to continue, not just in terms of resilience, but in terms of genetic diversity. And the golden toad, as mentioned, it didn't have that by the time that it was discovered. And so it is a warning in some ways, both to ourselves, to other species, of what A changing ecosystem, a changing environment and a changing climate, the pressures that they can put on these species. And really asking the question of how.
- [17:12]
Trevor Ritland
Do we combat that, you know, I.
- [17:15]
Jack Humphrey
Remember, and I'm sure you guys do, too, when our former director, John Davis, said he thought it was like in 2005, was one of the peaks of amphibians and especially toads, hitting the headlines, hitting the monitor, the mainstream news. And I remember stories having that same feel. These are bellwethers, these are. These are indicators. And you look on the fringes, I. It almost feels like I. I read something like that and, and it. It felt really good that everybody was into. Felt like news people, journalists, you know, had had some sense of purpose behind all the stories, and then they, like probably several species just disappeared. The stories went away. And I'm. Why do you think that we stopped talking about something we should have only been talking more and more and more and more about until we came up with the solution? And instead it's just. It goes away. And I'm not sure if we're ever going to have that kind of, you know, spark in the news about something so incredibly important. We luckily have your book, but I think more people should be talking about it. Why do you think they're not?
- [18:22]
Trevor Ritland
Well, I mean, that's a great question. And if I was confident in the.
- [18:26]
Kyle Ritland
Answer to it, I think I could.
- [18:27]
Trevor Ritland
Solve a lot of problems in the world. I think one of the problems is around empathy. And I think on paper, some people find it hard to empathize with a frog. They're so different from us, but we also have so much in common with them. Like, we all came from the same place. We came out of the water just like they did. And so that's one of the things that we were really trying to accomplish with this book, is to instill a sense of ecological empathy with a species that people might not be inclined to think they have a lot in common with. And that's, you know, one of the things that we kind of are going back and forth with our editors on. And, you know, I think in science, in conservation biology, there's always kind of an instinct to avoid anthropomorphizing or ascribing human emotions to animals. And so we didn't want to do that, but we didn't want to say, what would it be like if I were the golden toad? But we did want to ask, what is it like for a golden toad to be a golden toad and try to give the reader a glimpse into what the golden toads experienced in their life and in their death in the last few days on that mountain. And I think that's important because we only have an instinct to protect things that we love, and we only love what we understand. And so that's one of the things that we hopefully try to go out of our way to accomplish in the book, is to encourage that sense of ecological empathy. Because if people can feel for a species, if they think they have some sort of resonance with it, I think those stories tend to stick with them and hopefully lead to action and conservation.
- [20:03]
Jack Humphrey
Yeah, well, that probably is a great segue to. Do you guys want to talk a little bit about Adventure Term and what you're also doing in that area to try to expand the kind of work that you're demonstrating here with the book?
- [20:16]
Kyle Ritland
Yeah, absolutely.
- [20:17]
Trevor Ritland
Kyle, do you want to give at history? Do you want me to do that?
- [20:19]
Kyle Ritland
Yeah. So Adventure Term, I mean, it came out of. It's basically the non profit that Trevor and I formed in order to operate all of these sorts of projects, projects like the Golden Toad. It came out of our. Our time at college, went to a very small liberal arts college where our dad taught biology. And the benefit of that was that we could make a lot of things happen because it was so small and you could basically talk your way into anything. And what we talked our way into was going down one January to the Florida Everglades to make a documentary about American crocodiles. And Trevor and I were going to just do that ourselves. But as more and more of our friends started hearing about it, more and more thought it sounded like a good way to spend their January and wanted to join us. And a lot of these friends were friends we never really talked about, you know, conservation or ecology with before and who didn't really seem to have any interest in it before. But as they heard about the trip and as they eventually joined the trip and as the trip went on, it became clear that, you know, they do care about these things. Maybe they just didn't know about some of them or didn't know that they had this, this, this passion for, for wildlife and ecology. And we were really inspired by that. Not only was it, you know, a fun trip and learned a lot, but it really was an inspiration to see. Okay, people do care about these things. Even if they don't know that they care, or even if they don't know how to apply their skills to make a difference, they do have an. A desire to do so. And so as time went on, that idea kept returning to us. Trevor went to Costa Rica and I went to California to study writing. And the more we thought about, the more we decided we really wanted to bring these passions together, the passion for storytelling and for conservation. And so that was really the foundation for that. And since then, it's just been the goal to tell stories of endangered species and threatened ecosystems and to teach stories. People who are interested in learning to do that as well. Because we really believe that, you know, you can publish as many critical scientific reports as possible, but if people aren't engaging with the story that exists within that, we won't really see the kind of impact that we hope to.
- [22:39]
Jack Humphrey
Now, you guys, neither one of you is a biologist by trade, right?
- [22:43]
Trevor Ritland
Correct. And we remind people of that as often as possible.
- [22:47]
Jack Humphrey
Well, but the thing is, we have so few people talking to us and communicating in the way that you do. I wonder, you know, I think it would be fair for people to go, these guys must be hardcore biologists with several degrees and all this stuff, because you can pull it off. I'm just wondering, do you have any hope for actual biologists who are out there? Then they're intertwined maybe with just one species through most of their life. Does this have to come from you guys? Or do you have hope that more and more people from wildlife biology degrees and things like that are going to be able to communicate their wonderful stories that they're out there encountering with the species that they study?
- [23:26]
Trevor Ritland
Yeah, definitely have hope for that. I mean, I think some people just have that instinct. Like our dad is that way, the way he teaches a biology class as he walks in and starts telling stories about this time he was in this place with this species and it. And it ends up teaching you something, but he does it with a story. I think that's why we kind of have that instinct, Kyle and I. But I've. I mean, the. The biolog and conservationists and folks working in the field that Kyle and I have encountered, like, so many of them have such cool stories, and I think a lot of times they just need a nudge to be able to help tell those stories, whether it's, you know, telling it themselves through talks and slideshows or writing a book, or whether it's like partnering up with people like me and Kyle who really want to help tell those stories but don't have the scientific background or aren't the people doing the research? I think you can do it a number of ways. I know that there's more like science communication programs in higher ed now than there used to be. I hope those programs continue because I think they're super duper helpful. Because people, these, you know, field biologists have the stories, they have the knowledge, they have the interest, they have the desire to tell them because they know that that's how they get support for their work. I think sometimes they just need a resource here or a recommendation there or a little nudge to tell that story in the right way. That kind of captures the public attention.
- [24:50]
Kyle Ritland
Yeah, I mean, I think it's. At times, I think it can feel like a lot to ask to, you know, these. Some of these scientists and researchers who spend so much time and effort really fighting an uphill battle to even conduct their research and then publish their research in the ways that they need to publish it in order to, you know, keep their jobs and keep their funding, to then turn around and tell the story in a way that is interesting and digestible to the public. I think that's, that's a huge, a huge additional lift. And I think that if we're counting on the people who are conducting the research to also be the ones to tell the story, that I feel. That feels like a lot. And so, you know, I do think that one, hopefully, and Trevor's right. I mean, I definitely see more, more tools for that becoming common in higher ed programs, you know, environmental communication becoming more of a thing that people can actually study and, and be engaged with. But I, I also just hope, honestly, I hope that there are more people like us who didn't. Weren't trained, you know, formally as biologists. We had a biologist father, which does a lot, but it does not make you a biologist who care about this stuff and maybe have storytelling training or, or at least an interest in learning to identify some of these stories that need to be told, connecting with those folks and then finding a way to do that. I mean, this book was an amazing project. It would be five times as long if we, if we were allowed to do that. Because of all the stories of all the different folks we talked to, it's the most painful thing in the world to have to cut out some of these stories because they really are remarkable. And I think the more people who are interested in telling them, the better.
- [26:39]
Jack Humphrey
That's a really good point about the busyness of people doing the work and then Being asked to do any more when they're trying to keep their funding going and everything else. So that was a very, very good point. Which brings, you know, kind of shines the spotlight back on people like you who, you know, whose. Whose specialty is this, the telling of stories and. And the weaving of those things, you know, and also just grabbing people who have a little time off from. If that even exists, and just interviewing them. They don't really have to do anything but talk on the phone, essentially, and about what they love, you know, and as long as they can do that, then the job gets done. You know, they're. They're passing along their stories. I'd love it if you'd tell a story, either one that got cut or. There were so many people that you met. I was really captivated by the mysterious stuff. Like times you didn't want to ask someone directly about the golden toad and you didn't. Yeah, there was just different stuff in there. I thought, it really sounds like a movie, I swear. And I'll totally. I figured this out. Who's going to play you guys in the movie? It's gotta be Ryan Reynolds and his buddy that owns the Wrexham soccer team.
- [27:56]
Trevor Ritland
They both look well. Who's who? That's the important question. That's.
- [27:59]
Jack Humphrey
Well, yeah, you guys can fight over that, right? We'll fight over that, definitely. I. I just can't. I. I would be very shocked if somebody hasn't already come to you for the rights, because I really. It's that entertaining. But those stories, you know, you want to talk about any one of those, especially if you want to include ones that you didn't get to put into the book.
- [28:21]
Kyle Ritland
I mean, I think Kyle should start.
- [28:23]
Trevor Ritland
With the Australia stuff.
- [28:24]
Kyle Ritland
Yeah, I was gonna say. I mean, the one that stands out is there's a lot. So this part. Part of what drew me into this book, this project was, you know, it's not just the story of the golden toad. It's also. We're trying to. To tell, in a way that I don't think has been told in this way, the story of the chytrid fungus, the amphibian crisis. And what's so interesting about that story is that the discovery of chytrid, the fungal pathogen that's largely behind the decimation of the world's amphibians, and that discovery unfolded at the same time in three different places. A group of Central American researchers, a group in D.C. and a group in Australia, all really coming to the same discovery at really the exact same time, like within literal days of each other. And some. And this isn't, this is again an example of, in some cases you have a scientist who is naturally a very good communicator. And so that is the story that people tend to hear of, the story of chytrid. And then you have all these other individuals who have done incredible, incredible work and for one reason or another, their story didn't break through in the same way. And in doing a lot of the research into the history of Kytrid and this discovery, I was blown away by how much I had never heard about what happened in Australia. And it was kind of a goal of mine to trace as far back as possible where, where can we pinpoint the first traces of chytrid's impact? And what I found in answer to that question is the late 70s in Australia, you start to see disappearances of certain amphibians that up until then had been everywhere. You know, you had stories of you would go camping and get woken up by the frogs hopping all over you and then the next year they're just gone. So I talked to some, a lot of Australian folks, but the one that I'll name is Greg Chachera. He was, you know, just a tremendous guy and conservationist who really was just out there because he loved it and loved encountering the amphibians. And he was one of the first to notice some declines and disappearances. And he and some of his friends were some of the first to really start to call attention to these disappearances and try to gain some manner of public attention for them. And another individual who I won't name, who he reached out to for an interview, declined to, to, to talk about it because he said it was just, it's two painful memories to watch your favorite species disappear in front of you and have nobody believe you because at that time there was no knowledge of a global amphibian crisis. It was, oh, you know, populations rise and fall. You're overreacting. It's nothing. But they were right. And if some of those stories had broken through earlier, we might have seen a very different outcome. But those, the Australian folks that I talked to were all incredibly gracious and had incredible stories to. And I don't think they've ever really gotten enough credit for the work that they were doing at that time.
- [31:55]
Trevor Ritland
Yeah, I wanted to send Kyle to Australia. That was my goal.
- [31:58]
Kyle Ritland
That one wasn't in the budget, unfortunately.
- [32:00]
Trevor Ritland
But yeah, that was going to cost the thousands and thousands of dollars, so we didn't get to do that.
- [32:06]
Jack Humphrey
It's amazing. I know when you're putting something like this together, the. The number of people you talk to and. And hear stories about, it must have been. It must have been kind of cool to at least be talking to people who had actually seen a golden toad. And. And I know you got to do that. I mean, it's like one degree of separation at least there. What were. What were discoveries on the ground, like in Costa Rica, when you started talking to people that come to mind here?
- [32:38]
Trevor Ritland
Well, the most surprising thing was how many people still had hope that it could be out there. So I really went into those conversations, you know, thinking me being. Having hope that the golden toad might still be out there, kind of thinking I was going to get, you know, scolded by a lot of these, like, older biologists who'd known the species and kind of watched it disappear. But the trend would be I would hear from, you know, this guy. Well, I personally still have hope that the golden toad is out there, but if you talk to this other person, they'll tell you it's definitely gone. And then I talk to that other person and they say, well, most people will tell you it's definitely gone. But personally, I still held out hope.
- [33:18]
Kyle Ritland
That it could be there.
- [33:19]
Trevor Ritland
It's like, though, maybe kind of in their public, you know, their public eye, maybe these people didn't want to go around saying they think the golden toad's still out there. When we talk to them, more and more people kind of, you know, confessed this little hope that they had. Even, you know, people like Alan Pounds, who's a biologist who did a lot of research on the disappearance of frogs and toads in Monteverde. I kind of thought he would be very focused on, you know, what's still here and the science and the data. And he says, no, I still. Every time I go up there to that ridgeline, I look for golden toads. And Eladio Cruz is the same way, the guy who saw these Golden Toads in 1991 at this other spot. Like, every time I go out in the forest, I still hold out hope that I might find a golden toad. And so I think there is grief for a lot of these people. And that's not to say everybody thinks it could still be out there. There are definitely people I talk to that are very much of the mindset that the golden toad is gone, and we should accept that and we should learn from that and we should, you know, direct our focus to all those species that are still here. But it was super interesting to hear who still had hope for it, but also just those, you know, those very tactile memories of the people who remembered seeing them. You know, this is more than 30 years ago. And so I'm glad we have photos of this species that are going to live on, because the generation of people who saw golden toads is going to start to blink out within the next couple decades here. So it was really humbling to get to hear their stories directly from them.
- [34:56]
Jack Humphrey
It's kind of wild how we have to. We feel this pressure, biologists, scientists, to say specific things into one microphone and then around a campfire with a glass of wine. Other things. Their human side comes out around the. More so around the campfire. Then it's a. They feel aloud in front of a microphone from a reporter. But I think that was a really good point because I've seen a lot of that in. Throughout the years. I'm like, wait a minute, you're talking to me, man. I know you don't believe that. I'm not a reporter. Come on.
- [35:32]
Trevor Ritland
Yeah, yeah, well, and that's the benefit of, you know, I lived in Monteverde for two years, and my wife, who I met there, had lived there for, like, eight years before that. And so that, I think, is part of the benefit of building those relationships with those people and then asking those questions. I think I mentioned in the book at one point kind of trying to find the right moment to ask Eladio what he thought about the golden toads. Because if you ask that question too early, when you don't have the right relationship with somebody, you might not get the right answer, the correct answer, how they really feel. And so I think that was useful to him to have these people kind of be friends. By the time we finally decided we were going to write a book about this, rather than just random Trevor coming up to you with a microphone and asking you what you think about the golden toad.
- [36:18]
Jack Humphrey
You guys seem like pretty hopeful people. You don't seem too dour too. Too down in the dumps from all of the, you know, not so great discoveries you've made about life on Earth. Where do you find the hope? Where. Where's the. Where's the plot twist? The possible plot twist here?
- [36:37]
Trevor Ritland
Yeah, well, for me, and I want to hear Kyle's answer to this, too, but for me, it really comes down to seeing those species that have returned in the tropics and beyond. So, you know, over the last, like, 10, 15 years, a lot of lost frogs that we thought had gone extinct entirely have begun to recolonize some of those areas and it's because there's a place for them to come back to. People have preserved those ecosystems in memory.
- [37:06]
Kyle Ritland
Of those lost frogs.
- [37:07]
Trevor Ritland
And now that they're beginning to re emerge, they have a place to return to. So there's strategy.
- [37:14]
Jack Humphrey
Good job.
- [37:14]
Kyle Ritland
Exactly right.
- [37:16]
Trevor Ritland
They waited it out. So there's one species that I love that we mention in the book, but I didn't get to see in person until just this last March. That's Atelopis various, a variable harlequin frog. And it disappeared same time as the golden toad. And it's just starting to come back in little pockets in Costa Rica. And that gives us a lot of hope. It's even demonstrating some like, natural resistance to this chytrid fungus, which is awesome. The problem is they exist in these little pockets that are not connected. So going back to that point of connectivity, we need to connect these ecosystems. This mountain that I saw variable harlequin frogs on is surrounded by pineapple fields. They're not getting genetic diversity connecting with other populations. So the frogs have done their part right. They've started to come back. They're even starting to develop these genetic resistances to this pathogenic fungus. Now they need our help to kind of connect those corridors, give them a habitat and a forest to come back to. But that's what gives me hope, is seeing these frog species that we thought were gone start to come back and talking to the people who are really passionate about kind of devoting their lives to making sure that they have a future.
- [38:34]
Kyle Ritland
Yeah, for me, it's really two things, I think, that drive the hope. One of those is a focus on what we have instead of what we've lost. We've lost some amazing species. That's. That's undeniably true. But there are so many more that still exist and that aren't gone. Whether that's aren't gone yet or won't be gone is, is kind of up in the air in a lot of cases. But you know, if we take the golden toad, for example, if, if we spend the whole time looking for the golden toad, thinking about the golden toad with our eyes cast down on the trail in front of us, we're going to miss all the other amazing species and features of the forest that are around us. You know, when we're out in the forest on that trip, I saw things I never thought I'd see in my life. And that was because of the golden toad. Whether it's extinct or not extinct, its existence made the world around it better, and it made us able to enjoy that world better. So remembering that it's not just what we've lost, but what we do have, I think is really important. And then the other part, and it's what originally got me very interested in this story, is just the idea that the golden toad might be out there. And that's a really powerful idea. You know, when we think about the vast sections of uncharted forest and the knowledge that maybe those contain a remnant population of golden toads, that's a really powerful idea. And it's almost nice to just to keep that idea as it exists. And it's why Trevor and I, you know, initially even debated do we go and look for this, this existing second population of golden toads, because just the idea of it is a really powerful fuel for hope that it might be out there. I mean, that's. What better incentive could there be to preserve the environment and preserve the forest is that it might have a population of golden toads inside of it somewhere. That's a really powerful feeling, I think.
- [40:46]
Jack Humphrey
If there is a chance that there's golden toad population somewhere else, does that translate on the ground to people eagerly wanting to protect all of those possible places better than they are now, or connect them up or what kind of conservation work along those lines, rewilding and protections do you think are. Have resulted from this or will result from this?
- [41:08]
Trevor Ritland
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think so that a lot of the protected forests that surrounds Monteverde as part of the children's eternal rainforest, and that kind of grew out of, like, individual people wanting to protect the forest either in their backyard or across the world. This is a really interesting story about the creation of this reserve. So it was a biologist who had done work in Monteverde, went to a school in Sweden and gave a talk about the imperiled cloud forests of Monteverde. And the school kids there was. Got so worked up about it that they did a bake sale and a fundraiser and raised a bunch of money to buy a bunch of forest to protect in Monteverde. And that snowballed and more and more schoolchildren across the world kind of started donating money to help protect this forest. And Eladio Cruz, the guy who saw the last golden toad, was the first farmer in Monteverde to donate his land to what would become the children's eternal rainforest and kind of set that example of conservation in Monteverde. All of this forest is historic habitat of golden toads and other frogs that disappeared from Monteverde at this time. And so whether it's I want to protect this forest because I love this frog that lives in this forest, or I want to protect this forest because I don't know what's out there and I want to protect it for whatever.
- [42:33]
Kyle Ritland
Could be out there.
- [42:34]
Trevor Ritland
I think both of those instincts lead to the same thing, which is a lot of protected and connected forests in Monteverde, one of the most biologically diverse places in the world. And what's great about that is when you protect forests for one species, you're protecting it for everything else too. There's a great little vignette in the book about a guy named Donald Varela Soto in kind of the Upala region of Costa Rica who bought a former cattle pasture. And he originally wanted to protect that land for tapirs. Those tapirs live in that area. So he protected that land, let it regenerate. And there are bears, tapirs there. But they also just recently discovered a brand new frog that has never been known to science before. And so you protect a tapir, you get a new frog.
- [43:23]
Kyle Ritland
And that also is reason for hope.
- [43:25]
Trevor Ritland
If we're still discovering frogs and has never been formally described by science, that only opens that door of possibility a little bit wider around what could still be out there.
- [43:38]
Jack Humphrey
I love how nature has a, a sort of TV commercial marketers kind of thing. And if you protect this land now, there's a bonus if you act soon. You're also going to get a.
- [43:48]
Trevor Ritland
Get a free frog.
- [43:49]
Jack Humphrey
That's right.
- [43:51]
Trevor Ritland
Oh, gosh.
- [43:52]
Jack Humphrey
Maybe we need a marketing team as well. That's right.
- [43:55]
Trevor Ritland
Do some, do some commercials.
- [43:58]
Jack Humphrey
You know, it's being in, in, in the States and we feel like, I know there's a lot of things that are probably left to be discovered, but not as many in places like you're talking about. And, and just the, the wonder that there are places on this planet left where you don't really even know exactly what you're protecting. All of our petitions and all of our work is like, protect the jaguar. We're really going at it. We're going at it for the jaguar corridors and all of that stuff here you're like protecting what you don't even probably know, what we don't even know is there. And it's another thing about that mystery and that wonder that I wish we could use everywhere. But I'm glad at least that we still have places to use it anywhere.
- [44:43]
Kyle Ritland
Yeah, yeah, I agree.
- [44:44]
Trevor Ritland
But I also think it's also really great to give people a face of.
- [44:49]
Kyle Ritland
Your Campaign to protect like people.
- [44:51]
Trevor Ritland
Jaguars are so charismatic. That's a great example of, you know, people are going to come out and donate money or donate their time and devote energy to protecting jaguars, and then they're going to protect everything else underneath the jaguar food chain, too, and in that ecosystem. So whether they know it or not, whether they're setting out to do that, I think, I think both ways work, too.
- [45:12]
Jack Humphrey
Yeah, well, you got to do. I think it was Sule who coined the phrase charismatic megafauna.
- [45:17]
Kyle Ritland
Yep, yep.
- [45:19]
Jack Humphrey
You got to have those. I mean, you know, World Wildlife Fund has never had as good a response putting, like salamanders on their brochures as a. Opposed to, you know, golden eagles.
- [45:32]
Kyle Ritland
Yep.
- [45:33]
Jack Humphrey
Yeah.
- [45:33]
Kyle Ritland
Yeah.
- [45:34]
Jack Humphrey
Well, you guys, I'm, I can't wait for the next book, and I hope it comes out soon. I don't know what you're working on, but you guys have to stay at this. I, we really, really depend on people like you who are into this, who can tell these stories. And, and I just feel like there's more to come. I don't, I don't know why I get that feeling, but I don't know that you're not going to stop doing the work that you're doing with other species, other people and things. But what does it look like in the near and the far term for you guys going forward?
- [46:08]
Trevor Ritland
Yeah, well, thank you so much for those, those kind words. And obviously, like the work you guys are doing with Rewilding Institute, like, that's, that's what fuels us, is the people out there who is doing like that on the ground conservation work. And then we just get to come in and tell the fun stories about it. So we. More power to you. We like doing that. No, we have no plans to quit telling these stories. The scope and scale might change a little bit. Kyle and I both have babies under one year old at home right now, so we're kind of, we're telling them stories right now and showing them cool critters and stuff, but we definitely have some other ideas we want to tell.
- [46:44]
Kyle Ritland
Kyle mentioned that crocodile trip we did.
- [46:46]
Trevor Ritland
Back in the day.
- [46:47]
Kyle Ritland
We've flirted with the idea of going.
- [46:49]
Trevor Ritland
Back 10 years later and seeing how the crocs of the Everglades are doing now and, you know, thinking about how those ecosystems have changed. And I'm really interested in these variable harlequin frogs in Costa Rica. I think there's stories to be told there too. So there's no shortage of these stories and we love telling them. So I Hope we'll find some cool collaborators and people who want to share their stories and continue trying to do this work.
- [47:13]
Kyle Ritland
Yeah, that's either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. But there's definitely no shortage of stories about endangered species and threatening ecosystem. So as long as those continue, we're going to keep trying to tell them.
- [47:24]
Jack Humphrey
Yeah, there's a. No shortage of those stories.
- [47:27]
Podcast Announcer
There's a shortage of storytellers, for sure.
- [47:31]
Jack Humphrey
And, and they all deserve their stories to be told. And the fact that you guys are working in that area, too, to get people telling those stories, feeling comfortable telling their stories is really, really a crucial component. You're not delusional to think that you can do it all yourself and you need more of you and you guys are helping to make more of you. So that's awesome.
- [47:51]
Kyle Ritland
Thanks.
- [47:51]
Trevor Ritland
Yeah, we have exciting hopes and plans for adventure Term and getting some more students out into some cool, some cool field trips to sharpen those skills and get some more people telling the stories, because then it gets exponential. They can train some more people.
- [48:04]
Jack Humphrey
And we'll duplicate the link to the Golden Toad and all kinds of other links to Kyle and Trevor's sites and the stuff that they're into will be found on this episode@rewilding.org pod. You can just look up Golden Toad when you get to the Rewilding Institute and check out this episode. And then the extra credit will ply you with all kinds of other stuff to do. So. The adventure does not end here. Kyle and Trevor, thank you so much for taking the time to write this book, to do all the work leading up to this book, which I know was extensive. And for coming on the podcast. We really, really appreciate it.
- [48:44]
Trevor Ritland
Thanks so much for having us. Thanks for the chat and thanks for all the great work you guys are doing.
- [48:47]
Kyle Ritland
Great to talk with you. Thanks so much.
- [48:50]
Podcast Announcer
Thanks for listening to the Rewilding Earth podcast. We do what we do because of you. This podcast is supported by listeners like you who long to live in a wilder world. Please consider donating@rewilding.org and subscribe to our weekly news and article Digest. While you're there to go the extra mile, you can follow and share Rewilding Earth on Instagram, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Bonus points for sharing this podcast with your friends. To listen to past episodes, go to rewilding.org pod that's rewilding.org pod.