Life On The Brink

What a title hey? Apologies for this episode being a few days late, we're both still getting a handle on keeping this podcast running while now working full-time!  But enough of that, it's time for Episode 18! Our guest on this episode, Dr Emily Roycroft, was supposed to be studying the family tree of eight species of extinct Australian rodents. She then realised one wasn't actually extinct. Listen in to hear that story, and whether this mouse will go extinct for the SECOND time.  Follow Life On The Brink on Instagram: instagram.com/lifeonthebrinkpodcast and via our website: lifeonthebrinkpodcast.com Follow Emil on Twitter: twitter.com/emily_roycroft Produced by Gabriel George & Alex Bezzina Theme music by Kyle Morley Episode Cover Image: Shark Bay Mouse. LAWLER.

Our final update episode before we start Season 2!   This Life On The Brink update features biodiversity ranger Denis Stojanovic and the Haast southern brown kiwi. The Haast population of southern brown kiwis is a unique group of kiwis that only numbers around 500. Denis has major updates for us on how the recent breeding season has gone for this tiny population of threatened birds, and some corrections to the voice-overs we made over our original interview for Episode 3! Follow Life On The Brink on Instagram instagram.com/lifeonthebrinkpodcast and our website: lifeonthebrinkpodcast.com  Follow Dennis Stojanovic on Instagram instagram.com/viv.fox Theme Music by Kyle Morley  Production by Alex Bezzina & Gabriel George Episode Cover Image: Denis the kiwi-wrangler.

Lions #2 electric boogaloo you're carbon credits are due!  (Alex said we had to say that, sorry) It's Episode 13 of Life On The Brink, featuring LIONS. Didn't we already do lions? Yes we did... deal with it. But also this episode is very different from our first lion episode. Last time we focused on the tree-climbing lions of Uganda, this time we're focusing on the equally unique lions in Kenya known for their maneless males! In the episode, our over-achieving guest Dr James Allan talks about what it's like to grow up with a family that owns a safari company in a national park the size of Switzerland, we hear about the research he was involved in that influenced international conservation policy, and we talk with James about his new project - a company dedicated to capturing carbon AND saving threatened animals at the same time! Follow Life On The Brink on Instagram: instagram.com/lifeonthebrinkpodcast and via our website: lifeonthebrinkpodcast.com Follow Life On The Brink   on Twitter: twitter.com/jamesecology Find Koobi Carbon via their website: koobicarbon.com Produced by Gabriel George & Alex Bezzina Theme music by Kyle Morley Episode Cover Image: Man-eating maneless male lions (ones from the railway James mentions in the episode) from Tsavo, Kenya. Currently full of stuffing instead of human as they stand on display in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, USA. JEFFREY JUNG.

This is our third ever bonus episode!!! Last week's episode introduced us to Deborah Santos de Azevedo the incredible great hammerhead researcher who works with stressed-out sharks. She also happens to be a member of Minorities in Shark Science (MISS) an awesome organisation looking to build diversity in marine research and support minorities in the field. So this episode focuses on Deb's experiences as a Brazillian immigrant making her way into the wild world of shark science and her message that you aren't alone and if you work hard enough you can work with hammerheads too! Follow Life On The Brink on Instagram: @lifeonthebrinkpodcast and via our website: lifeonthebrinkpodcast.com Follow Deb on Twitter: @diverdebb and Instagram: @deborahsazevedo Follow MISS on Twitter and Instagram: @MISS_Elasmo Produced by Gabriel George & Alex Bezzina Theme Music by Kyle Morley

It's our second ever bonus episode! Last week's full episode with manta biologist Asia Haines left a lot of cool stuff on the cutting room floor, including a story about when the organisation she works with (Project Manta) tracked a manta ray down a highway! She also talked through how absolutely anyone can help Project Manta discover more about manta rays through the power of belly photos. Follow Life On The Brink on Instagram: instagram.com/lifeonthebrinkpodcast  and via our website: lifeonthebrinkpodcast.com  Follow Project Manta on Facebook: facebook.com/ProjectMANTA Theme Music by Kyle Morley Production by Alex Bezzina & Gabriel George Album Images: Tracking map of the tag mentioned in the episode & a photo of the tag. PROJECT MANTA.

...is tigers are wonderful things! However we can't verify whether their tops are actually made of rubber nor their bottoms made out of springs.  Episode 9 of Life On The Brink is full of tiger talk and more Tigger from Winnie-the-Pooh references! Hear how hard it is to count one of the world's most elusive big cats, and how Arjun once came face-to-face with a wild tiger in a 15-minute standoff. This episode is a big one, full of stories, ways anyone can help conserve tigers, and high-brow questions like 'Where did the tiger actually get its stripes?!'. Follow Life On The Brink on Instagram: instagram.com/lifeonthebrinkpodcast and via our website: lifeonthebrinkpodcast.com Follow Arjun on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ArjunGswamy Produced by Alex Bezzina & Gabriel George Theme music by Kyle Morley Episode Cover Image: Wild bengal tiger. 

Welcome to the first Life On The Brink bonus episode! Launching Life On The Brink has been a very humbling experience. The response we've seen so far blew us away, so we kept pushing weekly episodes out so you could get to know who we are and what this podcast is all about. But we've now kicked into our on-going fortnightly release schedule to maintain the standard we want to keep (and, to be honest, to stop us two from burning out too quickly). But that doesn't mean you won't hear from us in these "off weeks". We'll still be popping up in your feed with bonus episodes like this one, mini-series we have in the works, and major updates to our previous stories. For today, we have some bonus content from our third episode featuring southern brown kiwis and biodiversity ranger Denis Stojanovic. When editing down the episode, we had to leave a whole raft of Denis' stories on the cutting room floor! A bunch of those stories were about another of New Zealand's strange rare birds starting with 'k': the kakapo. So for this episode, we stitched those cuts back together so you also get to hear his stories about tracking kakapos and meeting the famously kinky kakapo Sirocco!  Follow Life On The Brink  on Instagram instagram.com/lifeonthebrinkpodcast  and via our website: lifeonthebrinkpodcast.com  Follow Denis on Flickr: instagram.com/viv.fox Theme Music by Kyle Morley Production by Alex Bezzina & Gabriel George

Episode 6 is bringing us back-to-back bird episodes woo!!! This edition of Life On The Brink takes us on the incredible journey of the world’s largest migrating shorebird from Australia all the way to China and features Professor Richard Fuller as our guide. Get ready to learn all about these goofy birds, their marathon journey, their enormous pecs, and how to protect an animal that crosses international borders like it's a competition. Follow Life On The Brink on Instagram: instagram.com/lifeonthebrinkpodcast/ via our website: www.lifeonthebrinkpodcast.com Theme Music by Kyle Morley Production by Gabriel George and Alex Bezzina

Time to give the big blue some love on Life On The Brink number four!  This is episode four of Life On The Brink featuring the green turtle and marine biologist Melissa Staines. Melissa is a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland who researches the effects of temperature and rainfall on sea turtles with support from the World Wide Fund For Nature in Australia (WWF Aus). In this episode, Melissa talks about a bloody, shark-filled SCUBA-diving incident that pushed her towards studying sea turtles, a day in Papua New Guinea that sounds straight out of a Disney movie, and explains how we figured out it takes sea turtle hatchlings 30 years to return back to lay the first eggs of their own.  Follow Life On The Brink on Instagram instagram.com/lifeonthebrinkpodcast and our website: lifeonthebrinkpodcast.com  Follow Melissa Staines on Instagram instagram.com/melissa.staines Theme Music by Kyle Morley Production by Alex Bezzina & Gabriel George Episode Cover Image: Green sea turtle hatchling. MELISSA STAINES.

Episode 2 electric boogaloo… well actually TREE CLIMBING LIONS!  On the second episode of Life On The Brink Gabriel and Alex chat to big cat biologist and NatGeo explorer Dr Alexander Braczkowski about the rare lions that spend most of their days up in trees. So get ready to learn about how one of the most iconic species is threatened with extinction, listen to the adorable sounds of lion cubs learning to climb trees, and hear about what goes into being both a conservation scientist and filmmaker.  Follow Life On The Brink on Instagram instagram.com/lifeonthebrinkpodcast and our website: lifeonthebrinkpodcast.com  Follow Alex Braczkowski on Instagram instagram.com/alexbraczkowski check out his doco: disneyplus.com/en-gb/movies/tree-climbing-lions/ and his website: alexanderbraczkowski.com/ Music by Kyle Morley  Production by Angus Bezzina, Gabriel George, and Alex Bezzina Episode Feature Image: Young lion cub hangs in the branches of a euphorbia tree in Uganda. ALEXANDER BRACZKOWSKI.

Everything has to start somewhere, and Life On The Brink starts here! We are Gabriel & Alex, a couple of conservation scientists and science communicators. During our time studying and researching the natural world, we've been lucky enough to meet some of the most incredible people - people who have dedicated their lives to saving species they love. This podcast is dedicated to telling their stories, and the stories of the species they protect.  Check back for the first episodes in August. Until then, find us on our Instagram @lifeonthebrinkpodcast to follow the production process.