Wild World S2E13 - Watching Whales in Southeast Alaska with Heidi Pearson

Alaska is a place of superlatives. It’s by far the largest state in the US. It’s home to the highest mountain in North America, and more than 27,000 glaciers. In the winter, it gets dark and cold– the record low was -80 degrees Fahrenheit.

But because Alaska is so big, there’s a big difference between regions. While the far North extends well into the Arctic Circle and is home to polar bears and caribou, and its southern end, Alaska has a much milder climate. Southeast Alaska, which extends along the Western edge of the Canadian province of British Columbia, has dramatic coastlines carved by glaciers where mountains covered in dense forest plunge down toward the sea. This is a land where brown bears hunt for salmon making their way upriver to spawn, as bald eagles soar overhead. There are also over a thousand islands, ranging in size from just a few rocks to as much as 90 miles long. The Pacific Ocean winds its way from north to south, forming a marine maze known as the Inside Passage.

The waters off the coast of southeast Alaska are some of the best places in the world to see whales. Whale watching has become a big business, drawing hundreds of thousands of tourists each year. But it’s also a pretty ideal place to be a biologist that studies whales.

And that’s exactly what brought my guest here. Dr. Heidi Pearson is Professor of Marine Biology at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau. She has a Bachelor's degree in Biological Anthropology and Anatomy, and Biology, from Duke University and a PhD in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences from Texas A&M University.

This episode of Wild World was produced by 3WireCreative with support from the Rice Alumni Traveling Owls and National Geographic-Lindblad Expeditions

The Rice Alumni Traveling Owls program offers exciting intellectual itineraries to destinations across the globe. Traveling Owls trips serve as a catalyst for lifelong learning and strengthen bonds between Rice University alumni and friends. But you don’t have to be a Rice alum to participate in Traveling Owls programs. I’ll be hosting a Traveling Owls trip to southeast Alaska in August 2026 on a tour organized by National Geographic-Lindblad Expeditions. We would love to have you join us! Visit alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls for all the details. You can also call (713)-34-TRIPS or email travelingowls@rice.edu to ask questions or sign up!

Help support this podcast and future episodes by checking out Autio, the perfect travel companion app for more engaging road trips. Autio is a network of stories, told by master storytellers like Kevin Costner, Phil Jackson, and John Lithgow, with the power to bring the landscape, its people, and its history alive as you pass through it.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Autio is a network of stories, told by master storytellers like Kevin Costner, Phil Jackson, and John Lithgow, with the power to bring the landscape, its people, and its history alive as you pass through it. Professionally edited and narrated, the audio...

Watching Birds in New Zealand with Brent Stephenson

New Zealand is famous for its epic landscapes. It’s become a favorite place for filmmakers who want dramatic scenery. But New Zealand is also known for having unique and unusual wildlife, particularly its birds. There are more than 370 species of birds that can be found in New Zealand, about a quarter of which are found nowhere else on Earth.

Brent Stephenson knows New Zealand’s birds better than just about anybody. He’s an ornithologist with a Ph.D. in Zoology from Massey University who has led birding expeditions in New Zealand and around the world. At one point he held the record for the most birds seen in New Zealand by a person in a single year! One species, the New Zealand storm petrel, was thought to be extinct until Brent spotted one in 2003. Brent is also a photographer and author of the book, Birds of New Zealand: A Photographic Guide.

Join Wild World host Scott Solomon on a trip to New Zealand with the Rice Alumni Traveling Owls! The Traveling Owls program offers exciting intellectual itineraries to destinations across the globe. You don’t have to be a Rice alum to participate in Traveling Owls programs. Scott will be hosting a Traveling Owls trip to New Zealand in December 2025 on a custom itinerary by International Seminar Design, Inc. Visit https://alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls/new-zealand-wonders for details or call ISDI at 202-244-1448 to sign up!

More info about New Zealand birds:

https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/birds/

https://www.expeditions.com/expedition-stories/stories/slideshow-the-birds-of-new-zealand

More info about New Zealand

https://www.britannica.com/place/New-Zealand

This episode of Wild World was produced by 3WireCreative with support from the Rice Alumni Traveling Owls.

Help support this podcast and future episodes by checking out Autio, the perfect travel companion app for more engaging road trips. Autio is a network of stories, told by master storytellers like Kevin Costner, Phil Jackson, and John Lithgow, with the power to bring the landscape, its people, and its history alive as you pass through it.

Mentioned in this episode:

Traveling Owls New Zealand v2

Discovering the Natural...

There are more than 1,500 active volcanoes on Earth. But rather than being spread evenly across the planet, they tend to be clustered in particular locations. A cluster of active volcanoes occurs in east Africa, in what’s known as the Great Rift Valley, which runs through the continent of Africa from Ethiopia in the north to Mozambique in the south.

Like other places where volcanoes are clustered, such as the Pacific Ring of Fire, the Great Rift Valley is a place where the boundaries between Earth’s tectonic plates meet. In some places, like the Andes of South America, the plates are moving toward one another, causing one plate to be forced below the other, which leads to the formation of tall mountains as the plates buckle and fold. But in East Africa, the plates are moving away from one another. In the gap between them, depressions are created that form large valleys, or lakes as water accumulates. But in a few spots, the separation of these massive plates creates an opening where magma from deeper in the Earth can make its way up to the surface. Where that happens, you get a volcano.

Dr. Kayla Iacovino is a geoscientist who has studied volcanoes all over the world. She has a Bachelor’s degree in geology from Arizona State University and a Ph.D. from Cambridge and her current position is Senior Research Scientist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. She has also done fieldwork in Antarctica, Costa Rica, Chile, Italy, North Korea, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Her work has been featured on numerous documentaries, including a BBC documentary about her work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The DR Congo, or DRC, is the second largest country in Africa and is located in the center of the continent. The Congo river flows through it, surrounded by the world’s second largest rainforest. The eastern edge of the country, near the border with Uganda and Rwanda, has rugged mountains. This is where the country’s two active volcanoes are located, Nyiragongo and Nyamulagira. In 2002, an eruption of Nyiragongo devastated the nearby city of Goma. Kayla Iocovino was part of the research team that visited these mountains along with the BBC film crew. I watched the documentary and my jaw was on the floor when I saw how Kayla and her team literally rappelled down into the crater of Nyiragongo, at the bottom of which was a massive lava lake– the largest in the world.

To learn more about Kayla Iacovino’s research on volcanoes, visit her website: https://www.kaylaiacovino.com.

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Wild World is produced by 3WireCreative.

Help support this podcast and future episodes by checking out Autio, the perfect travel companion app for more engaging road trips.