16. Conserving Wild Florida

Conservation is a word we all grew up knowing, but what does it really mean and how does it relate to other big topics we've discussed on the podcast?

Lean into a conversation that covers an array of conservation issues and projects, from Eastern Indigo snakes and land acquisition to Florida's aquifer and efforts to create a Florida Wildlife Corridor, this episode will bring clarity to an overwhelming word, equipping you to talk knowledgably on the topics and engage in additional learning if something piques your interest.

Guests:

Mark Brewer, Central Florida Foundation

Dr. James Bogan, Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens and the Orianne Center for Indigo Conservation

Jay Exum, Wildlife Biologist, Consultant, Nonprofit Board Member and Philanthropist

Traci Deen, Conservation Florida

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Transcript

Audio file
FYT_Conservation_mixdown.mp3
Transcript
00:00:05 Laurie Crocker
Welcome to Central Florida foundations First You Talk podcast. Here you'll gain a better understanding of society's toughest issues at the end of each episode, we'll summarize the main points and offer deeper dive options. If something piqued your interest. So ready to demystify a complex issue and up your knowledge.
00:00:25 Laurie Crocker
Let's get started.
00:00:27 Laurie Crocker
Episode 16, Conserving Wild Florida.
00:00:36 Traci Deen
And with that growth, at that pace, we're seeing a lot of our rural and green places being transitioned into more urban and intensive uses. And so that comes with the loss of habitat that comes with a loss of water recharge for our fresh water, for our drinking water that comes at a loss of places.
00:00:54 Jay Exum
That's that's one reason to protect listed species. The other is just because it would be a tragedy or a shame if we had the ability to protect them and then didn't.
00:01:04 Dr. James Bogan
So that gave us the first pilot type of analysis that this is probably good to go long term. So we're entering our second phase where we're going to feed some young snakes, nothing but sausage diets and follow them through breed.
00:01:23 Laurie Crocker
Conservation.
00:01:24 Laurie Crocker
It's a word we've all heard before it showed up in our elementary school classrooms when we learned about turning off the faucet while brushing our teeth. It popped up in a science fair project, or maybe as an adult on a documentary. We half watched one night as we scrolled our phones or finished up a work e-mail. The word conservation has been with us.
00:01:44 Laurie Crocker
Our whole lives, but what does it really mean?
00:01:48 Laurie Crocker
Saving the trees, protecting the oceans and endangered species in Florida, we hear about desperate attempts to save Panthers and Gopher tortoises development, where once oranges grew or cattle grazed and concerns about our fresh water supply. How urgent are these issues, really?
00:02:09 Laurie Crocker
Is conservation a problem that ranks equal to other issues such as homelessness and housing? And how does that all relate back to one another and the issues we've talked about here before? Let's start how we often do with Mark Brewer setting the stage.
00:02:26 Laurie Crocker
Hello Mark, how are you?
00:02:28 Mark Brewer
I'm good.
00:02:28 Laurie Crocker
Good. I'm glad that you're here. So we're going to jump right into it. I wanted to 1st talk about how one of the things that I know about you is that you like to go on Florida trails and walking. So can you talk a little bit about what do you get out of it?
00:02:40 Mark Brewer
Yeah.
00:02:42 Mark Brewer
So I I like all of the Florida trails depending on what time of year you hike.
00:02:48 Mark Brewer
but the Florida Trail Association, which is a a great organization that maintains the Florida Trail from Key West all the way up to the top of Florida.
00:03:01 Mark Brewer
Had a plan for a long time to make this a trail system that people could come down the East Coast and enter to come into Florida.
00:03:11 Laurie Crocker
So in my research for this episode, is this the Greenway or something like that? OK.
00:03:17 Mark Brewer
Yeah, there are different names for it and all all of the locations around Florida that contribute to this or provide funding for it all have a different kind of title for it. So the Florida Trail basically runs through mostly private.
00:03:19 Laurie Crocker
OK.
00:03:28 Laurie Crocker
OK.
00:03:33 Mark Brewer
Property that people allow access to and it's mapped so you can see it in the middle of the state. In Central Florida, it shifts over to the East Coast and runs up the beaches there, but it's a great way to see Florida as it was for the last two or 300 years.
00:03:54 Mark Brewer
Because many of those agricultural properties haven't really changed all that much. Mm-hmm. So it's just an interesting. It's a part of Florida that you wouldn't typically.
00:04:03 Mark Brewer
see.
00:04:04 Laurie Crocker
So when we think about conservation in Florida, what comes to mind?
00:04:09 Mark Brewer
Well, so the three things that kind of stand out in everyone's mind is water because we have this aquifer that runs underneath Florida that is close on the South end to salt water intrusion.
00:04:12 Laurie Crocker
Mm-hmm.
00:04:20 Laurie Crocker
Can can we stop and talk about what an aquifer is? I have a high school level understanding of an aquifer, so if you could and this was on the websites that I read on the state parks, but if you could just take a moment and explain what that means. 
00:04:31 Mark Brewer
So aquifer is fresh underground water, not salt.
00:04:36 Mark Brewer
Water that you can tap into to drink, which is how people in Florida get water because we're surrounded by salt water.
00:04:44 Laurie Crocker
Yeah, I read that 90% of our drinking water comes from this aquifer, OK?
00:04:48 Mark Brewer
Yeah, yeah. And and so if the aquifer ever gets intruded by salt water and and damage, then we would have.
00:04:58 Mark Brewer
No fresh water. We'd have to desalinate it or find some way more expensive. Way to get fresh water to do things. So that's why through the years, water protections been at the top of everyone's mind, including in the beginning, not using that aquifer water for agriculture if possible, because that's water that you can never get back and.
00:05:20 Mark Brewer
You want to save it for drinking.
00:05:22 Laurie Crocker
You mean not watering crops? OK, I see. And then is there also a concern with pollution getting to this aquifer water?
00:05:24 Mark Brewer
Right, right.
00:05:28 Mark Brewer
Yes, in the aquifer, but also pollution, just in the general sense of Florida. And that's the second thing everyone thinks.
00:05:36 Mark Brewer
Out is how much stuff is here that doesn't belong here. So if you have a place where lots of people come.
00:05:43 Mark Brewer
They tend to bring things here and plant them because they like them back in Ohio or wherever they came from. And unfortunately they don't belong here and that creates issues. But that's a real issue. So that's an issue with both plants and animals. So we have, we have lots of snakes and other creatures here that.
00:06:03 Mark Brewer
People introduced here.
00:06:05 Mark Brewer
That don't belong here and they can't really thrive in the environment. And so they become predators. They take things over and they damage the ecology of of both plant and animal. So those are two things that people spend a lot of time looking at. And so those two lead to land conservation, which is kind of the last of the big conservation issues.
00:06:22 Laurie Crocker
OK. Yep.
00:06:25 Mark Brewer
Is where you've got to make sure that there is natural filters, so when it rains, when we have water up above groundwater, that there's a way that we can filter it to be used later, and you can't do that through concrete and buildings.
00:06:42 Laurie Crocker
I'm going to ask a dumb question and it's just going to be a devil's advocate question. I don't actually believe this as a human, but isn't it true that water is renewable? So can't we just take that drinking water and?
00:06:58 Laurie Crocker
Will it ever run out? Are we concerned? Why do we have to protect something that is renewable?
00:07:04 Mark Brewer
Well, so I.
00:07:05 Mark Brewer
Think the question is we don't know how renewable, renewable an aquifer is, right? The fresh water is there as long as we can drill into it and suck it out, then it that's good. But we don't really know when that might end. I mean think for instance, if you live in Key West
00:07:20 Mark Brewer
All your water comes in pipes over a bridge because you can't. The aquifer doesn't run that far, and the only way you get fresh water being an island in.
00:07:23 Laurie Crocker
Yeah.
00:07:29 Mark Brewer
in the middle of salt water
00:07:30 Mark Brewer
Is to pipe it in, so clearly all kinds of disasters could happen quickly. That would leave the islands without any water.
00:07:42 Laurie Crocker
Mark has now put into focus what we're talking about when we say conservation with three main areas of focus, plants and animals, water and land.
00:07:53 Laurie Crocker
Let's go ahead and start with snakes. I know not warm and cuddly like the Panther, but a certain person I spoke with made me care deeply for a species I once didn't give a second thought to, or quite frankly, I'm not even sure if I knew they existed. This one person is one of the hardest guys in all of Florida to track down.
00:08:13 Laurie Crocker
I'm joking. Sort of. Dr. Bogan from the Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens.
00:08:19 Laurie Crocker
Doctor Bogan wears a lot of hats. He is the Director of the Zoo's Orianne Center for Indigo Conservation and the lead veterinarian for the Zoo in Sanford, FL. To say he's busy would be an absolute understatement, but I was lucky enough to find him by taking a trip up to the OCIC in Eustis, FL.
00:08:40 Laurie Crocker
More on that in just a minute, we stood out most about Doctor Bogan, wasn't just his knowledge though, that's fast, but his passion for Florida, the way he talks about the eastern indigo snakes, makes it clear that his work isn't just about one species. It's about something much bigger. He and the zoo.
00:09:00 Laurie Crocker
Are working collaboratively and incessantly to keep Florida, Florida.
00:09:08 Laurie Crocker
Doctor Bogan, after many weeks, I got you on the podcast.
00:09:13 Dr. James Bogan
You pinned me down.
00:09:13 Laurie Crocker
I pinned you down and I had to drive to Eustis to do that and I'm happy to be here at the OCC, which we'll talk more about.
00:09:21 Laurie Crocker
In in a.
00:09:21 Laurie Crocker
Little bit, but first I just wanted you to introduce yourself.
00:09:25 Laurie Crocker
Can you share what your role
00:09:26 Laurie Crocker
Is at Central Florida Zoo and a little.
00:09:30 Laurie Crocker
Bit about your background?
00:09:32 Dr. James Bogan
Sure. My name's Doctor James Bogan. I'm the chief veterinary officer for the Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens, and I'm also the director for the Central Florida Zoos Orianne Center for Indigo Conservation. I oversee the veterinary department at the zoo. We take care of everything from the giraffe and the rhinoceros down to the tarantulas.
00:09:53 Dr. James Bogan
Everything in between.
00:09:55 Dr. James Bogan
At the Orianne Center we we dedicate that facility strictly for breeding eastern indigo snake, which is a a threatened species for the sole purpose of releasing offspring back into the wild.
00:10:06 Laurie Crocker
So we we just spent about an hour walking through the OCIC facility. Can you kind of in a nutshell share what the OCIC is, what the goal is, what happens here?
00:10:19 Dr. James Bogan
No. [laughter]
00:10:23 Dr. James Bogan
Yeah. So.
00:10:25 Dr. James Bogan
I again this species is is is a threatened species. Our goal is to breed eastern indigo snake in in captivity or under human care for the sole purpose of releasing the offspring back into regions where their numbers are extirpated, which means locally extinct. So.
00:10:45 Dr. James Bogan
We have select areas where we're going to release the the babies.
00:10:48 Dr. James Bogan
To try to bring back the population.
00:10:50 Laurie Crocker
MHM.
00:10:51 Dr. James Bogan
Historically, the eastern indigo snake was found throughout the entire state of Florida. The southern third of Georgia, and the southern 10% little dangly parts of Alabama. Mississippi, currently, their numbers are restricted to just select regions within the peninsula, and the southern 25-30% of Georgia.
00:11:11 Dr. James Bogan
A lot of this has to do with habitat loss and habitat fragmentation.
00:11:15 Dr. James Bogan
So the habitat, their ideal habitat, and especially in the northern latitudes of the of the range, involves the long leaf pine ecosystem and that's one of the most imperiled ecosystems on the planet, in my opinion. You know, we we always hear about the Serengeti, hear about the Amazon rainforest and the pants and all. Well, the, the longleaf pine ecosystem before.
00:11:35 Dr. James Bogan
Europeans settled into this region of the country. It was over 93,000,000 acres of this ecosystem. We're now down to less than two to 3% of the original footprint. This used to be in that region was was long leaf Pines.
00:11:51 Dr. James Bogan
That were creating a a light canopy over a grassy Savannah, and lightning would strike the areas often and there would be regular burning of the forests, which would keep a lot of the scrubby brush down and the longleaf pine itself is resistant.
00:12:11 Dr. James Bogan
Higher and so it would persist, creating a little bit of a canopy so that we filtered light would have this grassy Savannah that a lot of animals flourished in, one of which was the is the Gopher tortoise and the Gopher tortoise is a keystone species in this ecosystem. They create Burrows that are, you know, many times.
00:12:31 Dr. James Bogan
20 feet deep and maybe 20-30 feet horizontal
00:12:35 Dr. James Bogan
and a lot of other animals will rely on that Burrow for housing as well, so that's why they're called a keystone species. Eastern indigo Snake uses their Burrows in the northern range to over winter. So when it gets cold out, they can get down in the borough and stay warm. And actually in the southern part of Florida, they'll actually use the go for tortoise Burrows to cool off.
00:12:57 Dr. James Bogan
It gets too hot down there. We'll get down in there and.
00:13:00 Dr. James Bogan
With settling, we would clear the forest and and and build on. Ohh we want to make lumber ourselves. We'd plant other trees. We would suppress fire because we're trying to grow trees for lumber and or or housing developments or we don't want to have fires through there. So we suppress that and we get a lot of this.
00:13:20 Dr. James Bogan
Underbrush that fills in that grassy Savannah and they'll go over. Tortoises can't move around through there very well, so they're not making Burrows. The other critters that rely on these boroughs for for housing can't for.
00:13:32 Dr. James Bogan
As well, so eastern ago snake is is one such such animal that's affected now. They also are a snake that that.
00:13:41 Dr. James Bogan
Claims a large hunting ground, right? So 1 snake may claim anywhere from 200 to 2000 acres, which is a lot for a snake, but try to find 2000 acres that doesn't have a road going through it, right? So habitat fragmentation. You know, if you got a snake trying to cross the road and if those cars coming, that's not.
00:14:00 Dr. James Bogan
Going to make it.
00:14:02 Dr. James Bogan
And then degradation, you don't have the the grassy Savannah type set up, so that's probably the biggest key to their decline.
00:14:10 Dr. James Bogan
And then you throw on top of it collection for the pet trade. You get this really big cool looking snake. People want to have it as their pet.
00:14:17 Laurie Crocker
Is that illegal? OK. OK.
00:14:18 Dr. James Bogan
That is, that is.
00:14:19 Dr. James Bogan
Illegal. You can't do that, but.
00:14:22 Dr. James Bogan
You know, before 1978 it was legal. I always like saying I mentioned to you earlier, you know, the scientific name for eastern indigo snake is Drymarchon couperi and that roughly translates into Emperor of the Forest, which I think is the just cool, right? This is so cool. Yeah.
00:14:36 Laurie Crocker
Very cool name. I mean it got.
00:14:38 Laurie Crocker
A cool name that's true.
00:14:40 Dr. James Bogan
But they they get that name because they eat everything.
00:14:43 Dr. James Bogan
They don't. They don't discriminate. If it fits in their mouth, they'll eat it. They'll eat everything from slugs and snails to to lizards, small tortoises, turtles.
00:14:54 Dr. James Bogan
Rodents, birds they've been known to eat fish they've been known to eat frogs.
00:15:01 Dr. James Bogan
But their favorite thing to eat is snakes. They eat other snakes and their favorite flavor of snake. I like to say is are venomous snakes, and so, you know, being a top dog, you know they're a linchpin species. I mean, we talked about the keystone species. These guys are lynchpin species. They're apex predator. They help keep other.
00:15:22 Dr. James Bogan
Animal populations in check. Mm-hmm. You know, and one, one of which are venomous snakes.
00:15:29 Laurie Crocker
Now, if you've listened to First You Talk in the past, you know that always applying the status quo when trying to solve challenging issues isn't how we typically see things. We value innovative thinking in real time. Problem solving, listening now to a challenge that Dr. Bogan's team at the OCIC is facing.
00:15:49 Laurie Crocker
And how they're working to solve it in a proactive, creative and collaborative way.
00:15:57 Dr. James Bogan
Probably the biggest thing, one of the main things we're focusing on is egg binding dystocia so.
00:16:05 Dr. James Bogan
Eastern indigo snakes in captivity at least have a high incidence, or high likelihood of having eggs get stuck, and so we found that about one out of three moms will have their eggs stuck. And it's not usually the entire clutch, so they'll have maybe.
00:16:25 Dr. James Bogan
Ten eggs that they're they're making inside.
00:16:28 Dr. James Bogan
And they'll lay 7 to 8 of them and the last one.
00:16:31 Dr. James Bogan
Or two get.
00:16:32 Dr. James Bogan
Stuck. When we look at that the the data we see that first time moms are 9.23 times more likely to have the egg stuck than experienced.
00:16:40 Dr. James Bogan
Moms.
00:16:41 Dr. James Bogan
And my thought is that they're getting tired. So if we think about their their Physiology, you know we have.
00:16:48 Dr. James Bogan
Snakes that are.
00:16:49 Dr. James Bogan
Going 200 to 2,000 acres in the wild,
00:16:53 Dr. James Bogan
And we have them in here. They're in a small habitat. They might be in a in an outdoor habitat that's 10 feet by 10 feet, which is a far cry from 200 acres. So they're not really. I mean, they're exercising and great, but they're not doing the same amount of exercising, you know, if you pick up an indigo snake, you're like.
00:17:08 Dr. James Bogan
That's a.
00:17:09 Dr. James Bogan
Big strong snake, but if you.
00:17:12 Dr. James Bogan
Then to pick up a fresh out of the wild, wild caught indigo take the same size like ohh no, that's a strong snake, so much stronger.
00:17:20 Dr. James Bogan
And so, you know, we feed our snakes here like most places, what's simple. And so we have and what's readily available, we'll feed them rats that are commercially purchased. They're frozen. We thaw them and feed them that because it's easy. We we try to vary the diet, but you know, it's still not the same as.
00:17:40 Dr. James Bogan
Eating snakes, which is what they're doing in the wild. And if you do a nutrient analysis of what they're eating, you know a lab rat is OK in protein, but it's really high in fat and it's low in ash, which is that non digestible.
00:17:55 Dr. James Bogan
roughage is what grandma would say, right? But in the wild, they're eating snakes, and if you do a nutrient analysis on a snake as a food item high in protein.
00:18:03 Dr. James Bogan
Low in fat, high in ash. So in the wild you've got these Olympic athletes eating a keto diet. But in captivity we've got couch potatoes eating cheeseburgers, so I think they're just getting fatigued. So what we're doing to try to combat that, we we are starting a a study where we have.
00:18:23 Dr. James Bogan
Constructed some round.
00:18:26 Dr. James Bogan
Enclosures outside, so the thought is if they're in a round enclosure, there's no corners, they'll move more in a round enclosure. But I think the big thing is going to be changing the diet ideally would be feeding them snakes. I actually got across my mind that maybe I should. Maybe I can breed other snakes to feed these snakes.
00:18:44 Dr. James Bogan
And maybe we can breed.
00:18:46 Dr. James Bogan
copperheads, since that's their favorite flavor, we can do copperhead snakes.
00:18:49 Dr. James Bogan
I currently have 148 snakes on property and they eat twice a week, so I would need to produce 300 copper heads a week to feed these guys week in and week out. That's not logically feasible, so instead of that we worked with a veterinary nutritionist and we formulated a diet.
00:19:09 Dr. James Bogan
They're making sausages that have the same nutrient analysis.
00:19:14 Dr. James Bogan
As a snake.
00:19:15 Dr. James Bogan
 if the snake was a food item. So we've created these little sausages and we did a year long study along with West Liberty University.
00:19:25 Dr. James Bogan
Looking at how readily they took the the sausages and they had no problem, they.
00:19:30 Dr. James Bogan
Ate them fine.
00:19:32 Dr. James Bogan
And we measure their blood values for a year and there was no difference between the sausage population and the non sausage population. So that gave us the first pilot type of analysis that this is probably good to go long term. So we're entering our second phase where we're going to feed some young snakes, nothing but sausage diets.
00:19:52 Dr. James Bogan
And follow them through breeding seasons. When they finally get enough to breed.
00:19:57 Dr. James Bogan
And see if there's a decreased rate of incidence of egg binding or dystocia. More to come for that.
00:20:05 Laurie Crocker
When we think about conservation, we often picture wide open landscapes, protected forests, and efforts to save wildlife. The conservation is just as much about the spaces where people live, work and build their futures. It's about how we use land. And here in Central Florida, land use is at the center of some of our biggest challenges.
00:20:27 Laurie Crocker
Land prices, real estate and the growing challenge of attainable housing are shaping the future of our region, with 1500 people moving here every week, the pressure on our open spaces is undeniable.
00:20:41 Laurie Crocker
Growth is inevitable, so how do we understand and plan for this through the lens of conservation? And that brings us to sprawl. Sprawl is what happens when development spreads outward. Something that's happening here in Central Florida sprawl brings opportunities, new homes, new businesses.
00:21:01 Laurie Crocker
And new infrastructure, but it also raises important questions about how to balance progress with sustainability. How do we build in ways that support both people and the environment? To explore this concept. let's listen in on a conversation with someone who not only has deep expertise in this area.
00:21:20 Laurie Crocker
But also dedicates his time, resources and leadership to it.
00:21:25 Jay Exum
My name is Jay Exum. I am a wildlife biologist by academic training. I have a PhD from Auburn University that I got way back in 1985. I moved to Central Florida shortly after that and I've been a private consultant since then with several different companies over the last decade or so I've had.
00:21:45 Jay Exum
My own firm Exum Associates.
00:21:48 Jay Exum
And I've done work for local governments and water management districts and nonprofits and natural resource agencies with a particular focus on natural resource planning, resource based conservation.
00:22:04 Laurie Crocker
So let's start with a definition. What is sprawl?
00:22:09 Jay Exum
Yeah, you know, I guess my my two word definition would be uncontrolled growth where.
00:22:16 Jay Exum
and to a certain degree unplanned and uncontrolled growth, you know, I might by definition just use Orlando as sort of the is the quintessential example. If you think about downtown Orlando.
00:22:31 Jay Exum
Even though most of the millions of people who come to Orlando don't even know that there is a downtown Orlando.
00:22:40 Jay Exum
But in the past, cities grew from that urban core and.
00:22:46 Jay Exum
Agricultural natural resources, that of large scale were were way out from the urban core. But what's happened in Central Florida and in many other cities across the United States, in part because of our freedom to travel independently with
00:23:07 Jay Exum
Automobiles.
00:23:10 Jay Exum
Development has sprawled out many, many miles from the urban core. In many cases, people may be working in Orlando, but they're driving 3, 4, 5, 10, 15 miles out to where they live, so residential development has followed that.
00:23:30 Jay Exum
That path along roadways that that have the automobile connection to downtown or or core job centers or wherever, and the infrastructure, road infrastructure, sewage infrastructure, water, fire, police has expanded as well. So you have, yes, you have.
00:23:50 Jay Exum
Cities, whether it's Altamonte Springs or Maitland or Winter Park or Clermont, those cities have their own urban cores. And what's happened is the subdivisions have grown in between them. So you have two and a half million people in Florida or in the Orlando area now sprawled over 5 different counties.
00:24:09 Jay Exum
And encompassing dozens of square miles, the the example that's frequently used is in Europe. Instead, agricultural areas exist along the edges of the city, and they are protected just as much as as the most important national parks, so agricultural areas.
00:24:29 Jay Exum
To find the boundaries of the city and the city grows within.
00:24:32 Jay Exum
The urban core.
00:24:35 Jay Exum
That's not our model here. And so we have this sprawling residential development that that is characteristic of Central Florida in general and or in specific in Florida in general.
00:24:50 Laurie Crocker
Why is sprawl, all this development this uncontrolled development, why is this a problem? Playing devil's advocate here. Of course, some people are going to say we want to grow here. How would you respond to that?
00:25:03 Jay Exum
Yeah. So let me take it in sort of two different aspects. One would be direct impacts of sprawl.
00:25:11 Jay Exum
So you have vast areas of long leaf pine habitat.
00:25:18 Jay Exum
Or scrub and sandhill habitat that are unique to Florida and how some of the most unique species, some of which are endemic, that is only occur in Central Florida or Florida.
00:25:31 Jay Exum
Florida and because of all this sprawl, those areas of intact.
00:25:38 Jay Exum
Habitat that are so unique to our to Central Florida have been decimated, so the scrub habitat I'm talking about is on the on the ridges. The high points all the way out to the Lake Wales Ridge and habitat along US 27 and in.
00:25:55 Jay Exum
Polk and Lake County and Orange counties and vast areas of of pine.
00:26:02 Jay Exum
Longleaf pine pine flatwoods extensive areas of intact habitat along the eastern portions of Central Florida.
00:26:11 Jay Exum
So sprawl has directly impacted the habitat of thousands of species of plants and animals just by paving over the the its historic condition.
00:26:25 Jay Exum
And then there's the secondary impacts.
00:26:29 Jay Exum
I'm on the board of the Friends of the Wekiva River and we are constantly looking at the health of the Wekiva River from both water quality and water quantity and all those sprawling development has, and actually this is just the new growth. But everyone that that moves in consumes.
00:26:50 Jay Exum
Water and that water is drawn from the Florida aquifer. The Florida aquifer feeds the springs that feed the Wekiva River.
00:26:58 Jay Exum
So we see a reduction in flow in those springs that feed the river as an indirect impact of sprawl. It's because people use water from the deep back or for not just for drinking and showering, but also the water and lawns. So all that sprawling development is also has with it.
00:27:19 Jay Exum
Large lawns with people frequently.
00:27:22 Jay Exum
Using at least 50% of their water just to irrigate their lawns. And there's also water quality impacts that come from that as we use fertilizers on those lawns, it's causing nutrients to accumulate in the in Wichita and Rock Springs and other water water bodies across the.
00:27:42 Jay Exum
Say one of the things that is kind of a hot topic these days is or wildlife corridors, and there's a the state has designated one and called it the Florida Wildlife Corridor and it's about the ways that habitat is connected across the state.
00:28:02 Jay Exum
Sometimes people think of it as as a corridor, as though animals.
00:28:05 Jay Exum
Are moving, migrating across these corridors and with birds. That's the case, but for the most part that is just how habitat is connected so that the genetics flow across the ecosystem or animals can go from 1 wetland system to another in case that wetland is too dry or too wet or.
00:28:26 Jay Exum
Or what have you. So if we're not careful, we're going to sever some of those important corridors that still exist today before we have time to protect them.
00:28:39 Jay Exum
And you know that's that's in addition to what we talked about that's there could be. First of all, there could be far more greater impacts to direct impacts to wildlife, more water consumption, more of the things I already talked about. But also we could we could forever restrict or limit the ability for those corridors.
00:29:00 Jay Exum
Be intact across the across the state, Panthers are the iconic species that.
00:29:07 Jay Exum
You can and and this is one of the reasons why Panthers have been used in that Florida wildlife corridor sort of campaign because you can understand this. The Florida Panther population, there's there's, let's say, 250 individuals of of Florida Panther, almost all of them are South of the Caloosahatchee River.
00:29:28 Jay Exum
And there had been no recent breeding of of. There's no females that have had young north of the Caloosahatchee River until a few years ago, where it was documented.
00:29:40 Jay Exum
We know males have gone back and forth and crossed the river and gone back and forth, and they've been seen sporadically across Florida, but no females. So now they've got females north of the Caloosahatchee River and they are breeding and so there's this whole idea now that what if the Panther had the ability to move
00:30:00 Jay Exum
Freely all across the state and establish a a viable population in in these large expanses of habitat called the Florida Wildlife Corridor.
00:30:13 Jay Exum
You know it's it's about many other species than Florida Panther, but it becomes very tangible when you can think about how a Panther might move and and.
00:30:24 Jay Exum
a breeding pair of Panthers might move two counties north and have young, and then those young expand. And you, you can. You can literally see Panthers being much more viable than 250 individuals living only in the extreme SW portion of the state.
00:30:43 Laurie Crocker
And just to connect why that matters other than we, we don't want anything to go extinct. We don't want, you know, to lose species. But Panthers, I'm assuming, are a species that keep other species in check.
00:30:59 Jay Exum
They.
00:31:00 Jay Exum
They do, even though I think that's a that's a very slippery slope when we start trying to justify an animal's existence through some humanistic perspective. So sure, you could say that Panthers take the weakest or the when deer populations get too high, Panthers.
00:31:20 Jay Exum
Keep them from impacting habitat so.
00:31:22 Jay Exum
There's some. There's some validity to that, but the main thing is that life would not be as good without Florida Panthers, would it? And and that's the reason to protect them. And I would say that for every listed species, there's also a sort of an ecological philosophy that says something like, if you don't have, if, if you don't understand how the system works, then don't.
00:31:43 Jay Exum
Go tinkering with its parts. How do we know whether the Florida Panther or the sand skink or the red cockaded woodpecker doesn't have some influence that might shake up the entire ecosystem?
00:31:57 Jay Exum
That's that's one reason to protect listed species. The other is just because it would be a tragedy or a shame if we had the ability to protect them and then didn't.
00:32:07 Laurie Crocker
Your support clearly goes to active support, where you're volunteering and giving your time, and lending your expertise. And then I know, if you're comfortable sharing that you are also a philanthropist in your own right, you give to some organization.
00:32:23 Laurie Crocker
Have you felt like you're giving has changed over time, or how you give or who you choose to give to? How do you make those decisions? How do you engage in that?
00:32:33 Jay Exum
It's a personal decision for everybody to make personal in terms of whether you believe your money is going to an organization that aligns with you and it's a question of whether you think you're giving is going to be affected. And I I think about both of those about.
00:32:52 Jay Exum
Is the organization that I'm that I'm giving to.
00:32:57 Jay Exum
Aligned with my personal beliefs and can. Can I really make a difference? And but you know my thoughts about this and I've told my kids this. When you give to an organization, if you have the ability to also be involved in some way it leverages your.
00:33:18 Jay Exum
Investment.
00:33:19 Jay Exum
Your philanthropy, and that doesn't mean getting on the board for 20 years. It means can you participate as a volunteer? Can you meet the leaders? Can you engage with the organization in a meaningful way that has been important to me. And, then, having having money with
00:33:39 Jay Exum
The Central Florida Foundation, too, has allowed me in the past to.
00:33:44 Jay Exum
To set aside money at a time that maybe was the right time financially for me, and then find the right opportunity to direct that money to an organization that needs it for something specific. And I just directed some money recently to I'll say to Orange Audubon Society for an initiative that they've got and trying to build a visitor.
00:34:04 Jay Exum
center at Lake Apopka. You know the timing is right for them to try to do that and I was able to or am able to direct some money to to meet the schedule that they have.
00:34:16 Laurie Crocker
Don't you love when a guest gives you perspective and takes you out of the weeds for a moment? While we're a podcast focused on finding and understanding complex issues. Sometimes the simplest of responses mean the most isn't life better with Panthers in it? It makes you take a step back and realize that well.
00:34:36 Laurie Crocker
Yes, we love data and reason. There's also something special about the simplicity of why we care in the 1st place. As a recap, sprawl is the outward expansion of development, sometimes uncontrolled and or unplanned.
00:34:52 Laurie Crocker
And on one hand it creates new homes, businesses and infrastructure. But on the other, it can lead to the loss of open spaces, increased traffic and a growing strain on natural resources. Adding to this, the effort to create a wildlife corridor here in Florida and this issue becomes even more complicated.
00:35:12 Laurie Crocker
Let's move now to another person who is a champion of Florida Nature and who focuses on land acquisition, A tricky business in our region and one that is a crucial step though to preserving as she puts it, wild Florida.
00:35:31 Traci Deen
So my name is Tracy Dean. I'm the President and CEO at Conservation Florida. Conservation Florida is a nonprofit statewide land conservancy focused on protecting Florida's water and wildlife and wild places and connecting what's called the Florida Wildlife Corridor. So we're saving land.
00:35:48 Traci Deen
Personally, I'm an attorney and mom and a dog mom, and I'm just. I'm wild about our state and so I'm very lucky to serve in a role that allows me to do what I love
00:36:00 Laurie Crocker
Every day. So OK, let's jump into a couple of topics that we had talked about before we hit record. So two things and I'll let you kind of guide where we go and when we go. But but first, I know that you work with land acquisition for conservation purposes. And secondly and this might align, so you might.
00:36:20 Laurie Crocker
Touch it all on one answer, but the.
00:36:24 Laurie Crocker
High level of development, the influx of people constantly moving to specifically Central Florida. What's your work in that space? What could you share in that?
00:36:35 Traci Deen
Space. Oh my goodness. Yes, great question. Great question. No, and it's something I love talking about, so.
00:36:37 Laurie Crocker
A little broad.
00:36:43 Traci Deen
Look, Florida is growing by about 1000 people sometimes more a day. And to put that into perspective, that's a city the size of Orlando coming to our state every single year. So a new Orlando in Florida every year and that's just that growth is, is.
00:37:00 Traci Deen
Monumental. And with that growth at that pace, we're seeing a lot of our rural and green places being transitioned into more urban and intensive uses. And so that comes with the loss of habitat that comes with a loss of water recharge for our fresh water, for our drinking water that comes at a loss of places that.
00:37:20 Traci Deen
Keep our air clean and and places where we like to get out and recreate.
00:37:25 Traci Deen
So Conservation Florida is we're a land Conservancy. What we do is conserve land that is our primary role as as a nonprofit and we work from Pensacola to the Florida Keys and we do our work entirely by looking at the data that we have and.
00:37:44 Traci Deen
The science available to us, and that science shows us that with the growth that we're experiencing.
00:37:51 Traci Deen
And some of the the sprawl that we've all seen.
00:37:55 Traci Deen
That land, conservation, strategic and science based land conservation is the winning.
00:38:03 Traci Deen
Solution to keeping our state healthy long term.
00:38:07 Laurie Crocker
Can you can you share with me when you say you know science facts? Yes.
00:38:12 Laurie Crocker
What does that mean? Like, is that going into your decisions on where to look for land?
00:38:18 Traci Deen
That's exactly right. So thanks to science teams across the state from the University of Florida to Florida State University and many others involved in, in crunching the numbers out there, we have.
00:38:31 Traci Deen
Of some super data layers that influence where we protect land. So we're looking at things like migrant, you know, migration, we're looking at places like land with the highest water recharge. So lands that clean fresh water the best.
00:38:51 Traci Deen
We're looking at lands that connect or build on current conservation lands we're looking at.
00:39:00 Traci Deen
I'm talking dozens of of different data layers that tell us what properties in the state would serve the state the best to conserve, and so for us, at Conservation Florida, we're not anti development. We're not saying that there aren't places that we.
00:39:19 Traci Deen
Should or could develop. We're saying that we have to protect the green places that are really important.
00:39:27 Traci Deen
And that includes agricultural lands for the future of our state in order to have a healthy, thriving Florida for future generations. And the science out there is guiding our work so we know where to save land. We know exactly how much where, why, in order to achieve.
00:39:47 Traci Deen
Just significant and long term results for our state.
00:39:52 Traci Deen
And and that's. Yeah, that's what's driving us.
00:39:53 Laurie Crocker
Wow, thank you for explaining that. So in this work that you do and your organization does, what are some of the common challenges or obstacles that you're up against? Obviously, we have the big one of development. So that that is you know and and I appreciate you saying you're not anti development.
00:40:12 Laurie Crocker
Of course, there's a balance, right? Yes, but maybe outside of that or within that, what are some obstacles or challenges?
00:40:20 Traci Deen
Absolutely. So I I'd say the the biggest
00:40:23 Traci Deen
Challenge is funding.
00:40:25 Laurie Crocker
MHM.
00:40:26 Traci Deen
Right. Real estate in Florida is not cheap and and we are in the land game, right? So let's say a 2000 acre property, it goes up for sale. Let's say there's evidence that Florida Panthers utilize it and other endangered species.
00:40:46 Traci Deen
Let's say that this property connects current conservation lands and builds on a landscape that is really important to protect. Well, that it's also maybe 20 miles outside of city center and.
00:41:00 Traci Deen
And might be really attractive for future development plans. We are facing the same price tag, right? So we're competing with any other buyer. But you know, as a land Conservancy, we do have other tools in our tool belt that we can talk to a landowner about including.
00:41:20 Traci Deen
What's called a conservation easement.
00:41:22 Traci Deen
And.
00:41:24 Traci Deen
So.
00:41:25 Traci Deen
There, there are certainly large challenges the the pace of development for sure and the price tag on lands that are are being lost every day are our primary ones.
00:41:38 Laurie Crocker
Can you share me? Can you tell me what a conservation easement is?
00:41:42 Traci Deen
I can. A conservation.
00:41:44 Traci Deen
Easement is a legal agreement, a voluntary legal agreement between a landowner.
00:41:51 Traci Deen
And a nonprofit like Conservation Florida or a government entity that permanently protects the conservation values on a property. Another way to say that would be that the agreement permanently restricts some forms of development. It may restrict subdivision, for example, and it may restrict other types of uses that would be detrimental to conservation.
00:42:15 Traci Deen
Values we see conservation easements as a really.
00:42:19 Traci Deen
Good option for a lot of land owners out there who maybe want to continue owning their land, but they and they want to pass it down and and someday they may even want to sell it. But who want to see it stay green or or stay wild.
00:42:40 Traci Deen
And in some cases stay in agricultural production.
00:42:42 Traci Deen
00:42:43 Traci Deen
Beyond their ownership.
00:42:45 Traci Deen
So if we have a property that is really important habitat and really important for water and just you know again connects this landscape and the family is interested in conserving it, but maybe doesn't want to sell outright or selling outright is an option, but that they'd really rather hold on to it, selling a conservation easement.
00:43:06 Traci Deen
Or donating a conservation
00:43:07 Traci Deen
easement is often a really, really viable option that they're interested in exploring and Conservation Florida works with land owners across the state on looking into the different paths to protection.
00:43:17 Laurie Crocker
So let's say that you acquire land. What does it look like to maintain that land?
00:43:23 Traci Deen
So that's another good question and we do we have two preserves here in Central Florida.
00:43:28 Traci Deen
My the one that I'll I'll talk a little bit about is called D Ranch Preserve. It is just outside of Sanford and it's about a 35 minute drive from downtown Orlando to get there about 500 acres and it is extraordinary we see bald eagles and black bears and endangered.
00:43:49 Traci Deen
Orchids and critters. I mean it is just it takes my breath away. It never ceases to amaze me. And but the the upkeep is is tough and you know we conduct what's called prescribed, burns out there and in order to.
00:44:05 Traci Deen
The habitats to make sure that they are going through the natural cycles, we also treat it for invasive species and so if we get an invasive grass or something in the preserve and we make sure to take care of that as well. But the good news is that we are committed to that keeping.
00:44:25 Traci Deen
Properties that we own and manage and wild and and as natural.
00:44:31 Traci Deen
And thriving as possible. And so when you know when you're supporting conservation in Florida, not only are you supporting statewide land conservation, but you're also supporting the management of of properties that are in need of love and upkeep. For sure, we are going to be opening up the preserve to the public.
00:44:51 Laurie Crocker
Oh, cool. OK.
00:44:51 Traci Deen
Here this spring and so be on the lookout for an invite and A and a grand opening so that everybody can get outside and explore D Ranch preserve, but in the future there will also be a Nature Center out there and that's available to the community. So we'll have hopefully some really great updates on that forthcoming.
00:45:11 Laurie Crocker
So far, we've heard about the three core focus areas of conservation in Florida, plants and animals, water and land. And as you may have already noticed, none of this exists in a silo, and conservation efforts are never about just one or the other. In the same vein, efforts are rarely about just one organization.
00:45:33 Laurie Crocker
To a person working to solve an issue, we believe that collaboration and partnership is a key indicator of whether an effort will be successful or.
00:45:42 Laurie Crocker
Not. And if you're not new around here, you know that working across sectors, meaning that independent, public, and private sectors captures a powerful trifecta of potential. So let's now lean into how collaboration has driven efforts in conservation.
00:46:01 Traci Deen
So yeah, I think there's a ton of power in partnership, right? And like I mentioned, we have a lot of work to do in.
00:46:08 Traci Deen
A lot of good land conservation to achieve, and that's going to mean that we need all hands on deck. This is not a, a, a siloed issue. This is an everybody issue, right? If you love Florida, if you like fresh water and clean air, if you like our wild spaces, if you like to boat or fish or walk outside.
00:46:30 Traci Deen
This is an issue for you if you love Florida. You support land conservation and so we need everybody from artists to our, you know, to philanthropists, to changemakers, to our state leaders, to.
00:46:45 Traci Deen
You know Cowboys to 1st graders, right? We need everybody talking about this and everybody saying I want to do something about this. This is meaningful to me and then get involved because time and again we've seen that when Floridians know that wild Florida is in jeopardy.
00:47:05 Traci Deen
We stand up and say ohh no, no no, this is this is Florida. We love the beauty here. That's it's paradise. And together we need to protect our paradise.
00:47:09 Laurie Crocker
Hmm.
00:47:16 Laurie Crocker
So when you are working on a.
00:47:19 Laurie Crocker
A project I guess you would call it like the Florida Wildlife Corridor, are there. I know you're statewide. So are there other, maybe more localized nonprofits or government agencies that you work closely with?
00:47:33 Traci Deen
Most definitely there are land trusts across the state, land conservancies across the state. Some are national, some are very, very and look, you know very.
00:47:43 Traci Deen
Very local and they're all incredible. And they're all working. We're all working together. We can't do. We can't have enough of us working in this space. And then there are also local county and state and federal agencies that are all involved in land conservation as well. Some of our our strongest partners are the state of Florida and you know, one of our.
00:48:03 Traci Deen
Absolute favorite partners is the Department of Defense, so there are some characters involved that you know the average Floridian doesn't know is is very deeply rooted and involved in the conservation movement in Florida. So collaboration.
00:48:19 Traci Deen
Is key. There is a ton of power in partnership. We cannot do this work alone and we need everybody involved in order to save this place that we love.
00:48:30 Dr. James Bogan
There are several ways you can be involved. Course we'll always take money, you know, that's.
00:48:36 Laurie Crocker
Can't deny the money.
00:48:38 Dr. James Bogan
So there's that, but you can be involved. You know there are. You can go to your local zoo that, especially if they're supporting the safe species, if you're looking at eastern indigo snakes, they're safe.
00:48:49 Dr. James Bogan
If they're at your local zoo, you can volunteer at that zoo if you see if you're in the area.
00:48:57 Dr. James Bogan
Where these snakes may live. So you're living in Florida or southern Georgia or Alabama. In Florida, there is a rare snake sightings page on FWC, so if you go to FWC's website, there's a rare snake sightings and you can.
00:49:15 Dr. James Bogan
Log that you've seen Easter indigo snake with GPS coordinates that helps us determine.
00:49:21
Mm-hmm.
00:49:21 Dr. James Bogan
Population density and population.
00:49:24 Dr. James Bogan
In general, so that's helpful. You can help us.
00:49:29 Dr. James Bogan
Virtually monitor are released snakes, so we do have camera traps that we set out, but we need these photos to be gone through and we do have a staff that goes through it, but it's daunting. We literally have millions of photos and so there is a citizen science project that is available.
00:49:50 Dr. James Bogan
It's called snake watch.
00:49:52 Dr. James Bogan
You can log on and look through photos and see if you see a snake or if you saw a field mouse or you saw whatever bird and we collect that data and you have to worry about getting it wrong because the algorithm requires at least 10 people to have agreement on something before it gets uploaded.
00:50:10 Dr. James Bogan
Now.
00:50:12 Dr. James Bogan
Some of these, like, uh, it's an indigo snake. And if we do have enough agreement on indigo snakes, then our staff can go through these photos and look at.
00:50:19 Dr. James Bogan
The.
00:50:19 Dr. James Bogan
Scale patterns and many times we can identify that snake because we take mug shots. Not only do they have microchips, we take mug shots of these snakes.
00:50:28 Dr. James Bogan
And most of them have unique enough features that we can identify through photo which snake it is.
00:50:40 Mark Brewer
So so one of the things that we talk about at the foundation a lot is this vision of having a vision, right? So if you have no vision for what you want Central Florida to look like in 15 years, it'll look like that.
00:50:56 Mark Brewer
Because it'll just happen to us as opposed to us doing it. I I think at some point everyone talking about what do we want this place to look like?
00:51:04 Mark Brewer
And who do we have to accommodate to get that done? And does that mean that we don't want 1500 people a week moving here? Maybe we only want 700 or?
00:51:12 Mark Brewer
Maybe we want.
00:51:13 Mark Brewer
3000 people a week moving here, whatever that is, you have to have a vision and then you have to work toward it with all of these things in mind, I I while you were talking earlier, I was thinking about there's a an eye care.
00:51:24 Mark Brewer
Commercial on TV.
00:51:26 Mark Brewer
Where it's got an owl and an eye doctor, and the eye doctor's telling him. Just move your eyes. Don't move your head, he said. He says that to him three times and the owl keeps moving his head and and then the doctor says I don't think you understand what I'm saying. And the owl says, I don't think you understand how owls work. And and. And I think that that literally is the issue, right. So if you say, oh, my God, we're not going to develop this real estate.
00:51:28 Laurie Crocker
Oh yeah.
00:51:47 Mark Brewer
Because some owl might be displaced.
00:51:48 Mark Brewer
Well, maybe you need to better understand what that OWL brings to the party.
00:51:52 Laurie Crocker
That's so true. That's such a good point.
00:51:55 Laurie Crocker
So I guess I'll wrap this up by asking you that what you just said that we should be asking.
00:52:01 Mark Brewer
Right.
00:52:02 Laurie Crocker
What do you what do you think or what's your vision? What do you what do you envision for Central Florida or Florida at large in 10 to 15 years or whatever?
00:52:15 Mark Brewer
So the the three things that are on my mind constantly are do we know where we're going? Do we know where we want to go and do we have the patience and resources to bring everybody together to figure out how to do it as opposed to waiting for something to happen.
00:52:34 Mark Brewer
Of Florida since the 1500s has been a place where people just waited for something to happen, and then many times they weren't happy with what happened. I was. I was thinking about this. I wrote this.
00:52:44 Mark Brewer
John James Audubon came to Florida in 1831 to find birds for the third edition of his Birds of America group of books, and in the book he wrote, reader, if you have not been in such a place, you cannot easily conceive.
00:53:05 Mark Brewer
The torments we endure doing this. So if you think of Florida in 1831, long before air conditioning.
00:53:12 Mark Brewer
And way before we had any kind of transportation system, this was not a very friendly place. People came here and they turned it into what it is because they didn't want that torment. At some point we have to figure out we're going to have some torment.
00:53:24 Laurie Crocker
MHM.
00:53:30 Mark Brewer
If you're going to live in a hot, humid place that thousands of people come to every.
00:53:32
Mm-hmm.
00:53:36 Mark Brewer
Because they think.
00:53:36 Laurie Crocker
Such a good point.
00:53:36 Mark Brewer
It's.
00:53:37 Mark Brewer
They think it's warmer than Minnesota and their taxes are lower. When I was a little kid, I would visit my grandmother, who lived on the West Coast of Florida, and she lived in a house with no air conditioning. And she drove a car with no air conditioning. She rolled the windows down, and I, whenever I think about those times.
00:53:55 Mark Brewer
I was never really uncomfortable. It was just a different way to live than I lived today.
00:53:57 Laurie Crocker
Yes.
00:54:01 Laurie Crocker
Totally. Totally yes. I think about how adaptable our children are.
00:54:07 Laurie Crocker
You know, and how they really. Unless you complain, they're they probably won't complain. They'll probably just go. OK, we're going to adapt. And as adults, we we.
00:54:12 Mark Brewer
Right.
00:54:16 Mark Brewer
We don't adapt.
00:54:17 Laurie Crocker
We don't. We're unwilling to adapt.
00:54:19 Mark Brewer
We we want to force the world to be what we want it to be, and that has been the disadvantage of Florida for thousands of years, right? People come here from other places wanting to turn this into the place they came from. Only warmer. And by the way, if you look at at survey results from just last year, the primary reason people give for coming to Florida.
00:54:41 Mark Brewer
Is lower cost of living, lower taxes, warmer weather well, so I I think you've heard many things in the podcast that would give you inspiration to do something. But I think paying attention and thinking through what you want to do and trying not to be too myopic.
00:55:01 Mark Brewer
About it, right, so trying to save a single species of some animal in a developing world is complicated, because if you could do it, you'd have to change a bunch of other things that you might not be happy about changing. So you have to make those decisions. Those are values, decisions. And so I I would just ask people to have a broad.
00:55:20 Mark Brewer
Kind of thought process in this and to think through where they think they can make a difference and and not be too single minded about what that thing is. I mean if you just want to conserve real estate and you've got enough money to do it, go for it. But on the other hand there are plenty of organizations that cross Human Services.
00:55:41 Mark Brewer
In the environment to try to solve problems for people that there would be a place for you to engage with to make a difference.
00:55:47 Laurie Crocker
Mm-hmm.
00:55:52 Laurie Crocker
As we wrap up this episode, as promised, here are three takeaways you can take with you into your day #1 when thinking about conservation, you can organize the focus areas into 3 broad but interconnected areas. Planting animals, water, and land. We looked at the example of Eastern.
00:56:10 Laurie Crocker
Indigo snakes with the OCC and finally the opportunities and challenges that come with land acquisition for the sake of nature conservation, #2 nonprofits working in this space are collaborative and innovative in nature, which are critical elements when working on these challenging issue.
00:56:28 Laurie Crocker
Looking at Doctor Bogan and his team's approach to solving egg binding through snake diet and exercise to working across sectors, especially nonprofits and government partnerships, and finding solutions, partnership and critical thinking are necessities. #3 when engaging with organizations, working in this space.
00:56:48 Laurie Crocker
Consider all the ways you can make an impact, volunteering, financial support, and education are all pathways that are viable and not mutually exclusive. As Jay shared, volunteering and getting to know an organization can be just as crucial as financial support.
00:57:07 Mark Brewer
Thank you for listening to the podcast. First You Talk as an engaged listener of this show. We encourage you to check out our podcast website at cffound.org/podcast to learn more about the complex issue. There you'll find more context to the voices that you've heard today.
00:57:27 Mark Brewer
Links to any supporting materials mentioned during the episode and resources to help you explore additional perspectives to draw a fuller picture of the issue at hand through curiosity and collaboration, we can all make our community an even better place to call home.
00:57:45 Laurie Crocker
A special thank you to Dr. Bogan, Jay Exum, and Traci Deen for making this episode of the First You Talk podcast possible.
00:57:53