and
I didn’t take the typical scientists
route yeah Wow
exploration is something that’s really
deeply embedded in your soul and it’s
something that you almost carry as a
gene and I’m tangled up in its work
farrakhan’s oh what a sad thing if
rather than becoming a part of science
books nice and strong they become a part
of history books and we’ll never get to
see these amazing animals the coolest
thing about this is that this is an
absolute first that’s what really
motivates me is if I do something to try
and help protect these animals in these
wild places that they’re going to be
around for for generations to come
tonight I’m gonna basically be walking
you through through the journey that is
my life which can get pretty crazy and
wild at times and about to get wilder as
Jeff mentioned with the twins I didn’t
take the typical scientist route as you
can see in this image I’ve actually
spent more than 15 years now working in
the field with animals with National
Geographic 10 years of shooting wildlife
documentaries all over the world working
with leopards sharks giraffes you name
it and and it’s been a really amazing
journey but and my mom loves that I’m
using this picture now my upbringing I
should have never been here really my my
parents were Cuban and very
overprotective and as I refer to them my
three mothers pictured here my
grandmother my mom and my aunt very
strong-willed very feisty women and I
was there their precious little doll who
they expected to grow up to be you know
very girly girly ish as I was writing
this book I started inquiring more and
more about my family history I realized
that the the fruit doesn’t really fall
that far from the tree my mother here is
it’s from a newspaper clipping and
that’s why the quality is so bad on that
image but she was stepping on one of the
first boats that was leaving Cuba and
she was leaving everything behind
possessions everything she knew
everything she loved the country she was
born in medical school everything and
leaving with absolutely nothing didn’t
even look back at the island she says
just looked forward to where she was
going because she had to leave
my grandmother witnessed quite a lot of
atrocities in Cuba when during the
beginning years of the Castro regime and
was working in a in a volunteer sugar
cane concentration type camp and these
are really strong women my grandmother
who made the decision overnight to leave
this country that she had known her
entire life and leave her a place they
didn’t speak the language had nothing
new no one and they embarked on this
journey themselves bravely so I think I
inherited that not knowing because we
never really took many trips when I was
a kid but I inherited that Explorer gene
from them I’ve always loved animals at
the house I basically had a zoo growing
up dogs cats pet chicken named Maggie
that’s a fake alligator for those of you
wondering and you name it I had it and
if I was walking home from school and it
was within a certain mile radius it you
know it came home with me so I spent a
lot of time although growing up in a big
city sort of just attracted naturally
pulled to nature gets a bit of a tree
hugger and in that sense now
it was in in college I decided I wanted
to become a lawyer and I was a double
major in English and Philosophy and I
was well on my way when suddenly I
realized I was short of science credit
to graduate and the women’s biology
course that I wanted to take was full so
I looked down the schedule and I found
this class called anthropology and I
decided to take that to fulfill the
credit and it changed completely changed
the course of my life when I started
asking about different primates there
weren’t even photographs of these
animals and yet they were listed as you
know two of the the top five and ten
most endangered primates in the entire
world and I thought what a sad thing if
rather than becoming a part of science
books they become a part of history
books and we’ll never get to see the
amazing animals and I really felt this
this compelling need to go out there and
do something and I’m not sure I knew
what to do at that time in fact I know I
didn’t but I wanted to do something now
there was a catch I I said I was raised
you know very overprotective family in
fact I wanted to join the Girl Scouts so
bad when I was a little girl and I
wasn’t allowed because my mom said it
was far too dangerous
so I had never been camping I’ve never
done any of these things and I wanted to
go to one of the most remote and
unexplored regions at that time in South
America in Guyana where it really was
impenetrable forest I mean just deep
jungle that you read about like the lost
city of Z and that’s what I wanted to do
never have them been camping on top of
that I was a cheerleader for the NFL at
the time now why is that funny
but not exactly what you’d imagine
Charles Darwin doing in his spare time I
realized so there were all these odds
stacked against me all these
expectations of what I should be when I
grow up and all these paths that I had
already kind of chosen for myself based
on those expectations and now everything
had changed and I really wanted to go
out there and study these animals you
know when I saw Dian Fossey out there
with with these amazing creatures these
majestic animals I knew that that’s what
I wanted to do more than anything else
in my life and so I decided right then
and there to change career paths almost
start school over again so that I could
become an anthropologist a primatologist
a scientist and go out there and explore
these wild places and study these wild
animals I wrote up my first grant and I
headed off to South America in this
ridiculous looking outfit with nothing
more and I kid you not because it was a
very small grant with nothing more than
a backpack a tent which I learned later
was the absolute wrong choice because
there’s so many venomous
poisonous snakes in in South America so
you don’t want to sleep on the floor
know that now I had to buy a hammock and
just to this little teddy bear backpack
in a notebook and that’s all I left with
to venture out of course I had to pick
up a machete once I was there but I fell
in love with with the forest I fell in
love with the local people and all of
the things that I was learning from from
the villagers out there I got to see
animals that again nothing was known
about them they were very endangered
found new behaviors that had never been
documented before and I just that was it
it was that was the bug that got into me
when I realized that exploration is
something that’s really deeply embedded
in your soul and it’s something that you
almost carry as a gene and there was no
turning back from there so from that
trip I decided I wanted to up the stakes
a little bit in a sense I I’d spent many
months in South America
but there were those lemurs that I
showed you in that that Time magazine
article that I really wanted to go and
study and so my next expedition was to
Madagascar which is the island off the
east southern coast of Africa and for
scientists this there’s really no richer
place on earth for biodiversity the
amount of different species and how
threatened really the force the habitat
where these species live which makes it
a recognised hotspot and one of the top
if not the top hotspot it’s this
beautiful just majestic looking just
beautiful island and I fell in love the
minute seriously the minute I stepped
off the plane I felt like I was home I’d
never been there but I really felt like
I was home again the people are
amazingly friendly and warm and walking
me in welcoming so on top of the beauty
of the place there was the people
yeah and then the animals I mean talk
about this magical land of beautiful
creatures lemurs were there found
nowhere else on earth but this island
and at the time that I began studying
there there were about 30 species known
to science
some of them looking very dr. Seuss ish
like in their characteristics all very
sort of weird with with funny
adaptations like these long fingers and
I mean that doesn’t even look like a
primate that’s related to us it’s really
amazing place but now there’s over 90
species of lemurs recognized and that’s
how little we still know about our
natural world which is a motivator to
keep going back to them as far as
expeditions go I always say you plan and
you plan and then you know Africa
happens it’s just everything that could
possibly go wrong along the way what’s
happening actually I have a quick clip
of to give you a sense of what these
expeditions are like
which means we’re gonna have hundreds of
pounds of rice and beans and vegetables
and can prove anything our porters can
manage to take up with us we need to buy
beans rice okay we need to buy
vegetables garlic potatoes onions and
roll for the parts and also for the
porters to build this is a major
exhibition with 10 guides and a filter
it’s a lug and all these supplies will
need about 30 40 up with over 200 pounds
of rice tea coffee who drives meat we’ve
got a ton of food to carry was a really
serious expedition Smith is not an easy
climb or an easy hike and all the
equipment and all this we’re gonna be
carrying up is gonna take its toll on us
and we’re trying to decide where the
best part of the river is to cross
a weather front moves in what started as
a shower on top of arrival turned into a
torrents running through hand
although said in this storm set in and
the wind was just roaring the waterfall
was roaring the river was coming up just
the spray from the waterfall alone was
tearing up the tarps and water was just
pouring through everywhere
too much drama this kind of thing happen
there it is in an office
this is the
clothes I’ve had and the strain is
starting to take its toll
my ankle is killing me
don’t kid yourself there is no food in
this
so how many of you want to go with me on
the expedition now that happens a lot
running out of food not finding enough
water but that was just to give you a
little bit of an idea of what it’s like
out there and the challenges of getting
to some of these places this one is
definitely one of my favorites that’s me
I know and I’m hanging on to this little
tiny frail rope 14,000 feet up trying to
rappel down into the sinkhole that
apparently several explorers had tried
but had failed and partly because they
had run out of food getting there
because it was just impenetrable forest
even getting to that point and then well
the logistics and all that and we
finally had made it and we get here and
I’m hanging by this road no again I’ve
never been climbing before it’s like
geographic just thought it would be fun
no they actually paid for climbing
lessons which I took in Maryland in an
indoor place
for two days with like 40-foot walls and
a padded floor and then I get here and
I’m like really but anyway I knew how to
tie a knot but I want to show you a
quick clip of just this amazing journey
into this sinkhole it’s a pretty nice
sleep down there yeah and besides why
Yossef who has an enormous sinkhole
hundreds of feet deep that’s virtually
unknown and hey-zeus and I were going
down there
I’ve never climbed before yeah alright
hey Zeus I’m really coming down
keep your legs shoulder-width apart
if anything goes wrong if the anchors
come out the rope phrase we’d have no
recourse
so I look down again
above the clouds the ropes had been set
and we could move into position it’s
beautiful all discrete no wonder you
can’t have spiders and snakes and
whatnot in this place wow talk about a
room with a view
oh yeah hook your daisy-chain on this
one this one in this one only not this
one we had finally arrived at the wall
camp but it’s a Ledge three feet wide
was a precipitous drop below us
we’d sleep in hanging tents attached to
the rock face with a single steel pin
little clip is gonna hold both of us up
we should have had less dinner
I’m above the clouds that’s so cool
his colors so here we were in this place
I had virtually not been explored and it
was just one of the most beautiful
things I had ever seen when I woke up
that morning now I have to tell you that
falling asleep in that hanging tent was
a totally different story and I was you
know I kept looking up at this pin
thinking oh is it going to hold us
finally I fell asleep and my my
colleague Hasty’s thought it would be
really funny to shake it yeah I will
miss him but this place really holds
true like why I do what I do as a result
of this this journey several new frog
species were named we were able to
uncover different areas that we learned
later had never been explored and as a
consequence National Geographic
explorers have have gone back and again
discovered more species and this is yet
again another favorite it’s really
people ask me what’s your favorite
expedition and I gave him an hour talk
but western lowland gorillas and this
animal should look familiar because of
course it’s a species of gorillas that
you generally see in zoos but in the
wild they’re one of the least known Apes
and they’re of course very endangered
and there’s a lot of poaching going on
especially in the Congo where they’re
found we’ve been following this one
group of gorillas when suddenly the
teenager being a teenager just started
annoying dad I mean annoying dad to no
end and the father you could see he was
he kept like you know pushing him off
pushing him off like okay you’re really
good and finally the dad lost it I mean
completely lost it
and here comes the next scene right the
mom comes in and just starts yelling at
the dad and telling him off and grabs
the yet does this sound familiar and
grabs the youngster and walks off with
him and the male is left you know the
Silverbacks left you’re like yeah yeah
yeah whatever
you know just I’ll change the channel
now you know and then days past and she
didn’t come back and that does not
happen with these gorillas they always
sleep together they don’t stray far from
the silverback didn’t come back and it
was actually so pathetic him crying I
know it was like they were going through
gorilla divorce and I just I just
thought oh gosh if she could just see
him she’d know he’s so sorry and then
there was that scientific fear that wow
this could really just end a 14 a
project that took 14 years to launch
which is a very very scary thing the
next day we got a call and they had
busted poachers in the surrounding area
and I went with my heart literally in my
stomach to see if these were in fact the
animals we had lost and when I get there
I see this basically what looks like a
barbecue pyre with gorilla parts and you
could smell burning flesh as if it was
yours or mine and it was just one of the
most horrible moments I had ever
experienced out in the field and it
turns out it was a female and a
youngster and I just thought oh no this
is I mean on top of it just being awful
period these were the animals that I’d
been following for you know for weeks
and people had been following for years
and we talked to those locals and found
out that of course these hands are being
used as ashtrays and who’s buying them
but foreigners and their meat is being
sold for less than five dollars a pound
and I’ll tell you now that it wasn’t
them so that’s the the happy ending is
that the group was reunited the
youngster went to college they lives
happily ever after no but they really
did I mean they got back together they
worked it out he bought her diamonds I
don’t know but they worked it out this
little thing is what anybody not a mouse
lemur and this one in particular is one
that I discovered with my colleague dr.
ed Lewis in the field and this was a
huge thing for me at many levels every
scientist dreams of discovering a new
species I never thought it would happen
for me I was I was that cheerleader I
never thought I’d discover any species
well it happened and I want to show you
a quick clip of of a very special moment
when we captured it I am flying over to
the scene
this is it possibly our tiniest relative
oh nothing
a new species of primate never seen
before outside of Madagascar
this little guy will become an
ambassador photos and film will be shown
around the world and hopefully help get
Madagascar forests protected
after a week of searching it all comes
down to one busy morning a photo shoot
with a new star and of course before we
release it a whole lot of science
now what that clip doesn’t show you is
that it was a it was obviously late at
night when we captured it so I had to
take it back to my tent overnight and we
were going to do all this the scientific
measurements and the the taking of the
little blood for genetic samples all
that we were going to do that in the
morning so I took it back to my tent in
this net little bag and I kept staring
at it and looking at it and then he
really wanted to come out so I took him
out and then I couldn’t catch him and he
was running around my tent and I thought
this is like the only one we have and
we’d been there weeks and we finally
found it and anyhow all night I looked
for this thing in my tent I thought how
do I tell the producer that I’ve lost
this mouse lemur and the next morning as
I was going to put on my shoe I decided
to look in it and there it was so that
was lucky and and I’m not squeezing it
too hard but it’s had a little bit of
drugs at this point but the amazing
thing about this tiny little creature
that fits in your pocket you know weighs
less than two ounces is that it became a
huge ambassador for all things wild in
Madagascar and I think that was the most
exciting thing for me I mean the
scientific significance and discovery
that was pretty amazing
but what what this little guy did for
all things wild in Madagascar I could
have never anticipated ah then I met
Tarzan except not so much but I did
spend a lot of time out and you know in
the wilderness and that sort of thing
and like my mom had dropped for me I too
wanted to start a family and I met this
wonderful person that I married and soon
we had our first little daughter named
Emma
this is where I’m gonna tell you a
little bit about my family life because
explorers have families too and it’s
important for me to always share that
message especially when I when I talk to
young women who think they have to make
a choice between the two I think it’s
very important that they know that that
balance and life is very important and
very achievable and I definitely got
balanced at this point with this little
one but I was missing the wilds so I
decided when Emma was nine months old to
take her to Madagascar and share these
amazing animals and places with her and
you see her interested in that snake
well I mean she was mesmerised by lemurs
but I really think there’s a little
budding herpetologist in her because she
she’s loved everything like frog
chameleon snakes which I’m okay with
that’s okay but the the funniest part is
I picked up a snake because it was on
the road and it was about to become
roadkill as so many of the snakes there
do and she was crying and fussy so I
picked her up to know I’ve got this this
toddler or this infant and this this
snake and well she was teething right
and all of a sudden I see the locals
were terrified of snakes by the way
jumping up and down waving their arms
and I’m like it’s okay
it’s a snake it’s fine and I look down
and she’s using it as a teething ring
and so that was uh anyway just another
cool use for snakes I guess but didn’t
hurt the snake didn’t seem to even be
bothered her care and she was happy so I
let her fly then soon I had Ava and so
me I had these these two little girls
and I really there came a point where I
thought am I being selfish going you
know because I was still leading
expeditions and leaving my my little
girl behind and now I had a second one
you know was I being selfish and it was
my own mom who you know didn’t want me
in the beginning to go on these
expeditions
additions in fact you know she’d cry
every time I had to walk out the door
who said to me you can’t stop doing who
you are basically you know you’re an
explorer and you’re not going to be
doing your your kids any favors by not
being who you are and I took that as
permission but I listen to those words
very carefully and I realized that she
was absolutely right
I would be out miserable I I can’t live
without the wild I can’t live without
going out there and exploring and you
know I said I wasn’t a allowed to be a
Girl Scout when I was little so sad but
I just want you to know that I recently
I spoke to a huge group of Girl Scouts
and they made me an honorary member and
and I’m not sure I’m going to be allowed
back but it was fun it was really really
fun
but this is really my message and that’s
a you know save the lemurs but that
could blank that out for any animal any
wild place you know do your part be
informed come to these talks and be
inspired and I thank you for coming very
much thank you
you
I didn’t take the typical scientists
route yeah Wow
exploration is something that’s really
deeply embedded in your soul and it’s
something that you almost carry as a
gene and I’m tangled up in its work
farrakhan’s oh what a sad thing if
rather than becoming a part of science
books nice and strong they become a part
of history books and we’ll never get to
see these amazing animals the coolest
thing about this is that this is an
absolute first that’s what really
motivates me is if I do something to try
and help protect these animals in these
wild places that they’re going to be
around for for generations to come
tonight I’m gonna basically be walking
you through through the journey that is
my life which can get pretty crazy and
wild at times and about to get wilder as
Jeff mentioned with the twins I didn’t
take the typical scientist route as you
can see in this image I’ve actually
spent more than 15 years now working in
the field with animals with National
Geographic 10 years of shooting wildlife
documentaries all over the world working
with leopards sharks giraffes you name
it and and it’s been a really amazing
journey but and my mom loves that I’m
using this picture now my upbringing I
should have never been here really my my
parents were Cuban and very
overprotective and as I refer to them my
three mothers pictured here my
grandmother my mom and my aunt very
strong-willed very feisty women and I
was there their precious little doll who
they expected to grow up to be you know
very girly girly ish as I was writing
this book I started inquiring more and
more about my family history I realized
that the the fruit doesn’t really fall
that far from the tree my mother here is
it’s from a newspaper clipping and
that’s why the quality is so bad on that
image but she was stepping on one of the
first boats that was leaving Cuba and
she was leaving everything behind
possessions everything she knew
everything she loved the country she was
born in medical school everything and
leaving with absolutely nothing didn’t
even look back at the island she says
just looked forward to where she was
going because she had to leave
my grandmother witnessed quite a lot of
atrocities in Cuba when during the
beginning years of the Castro regime and
was working in a in a volunteer sugar
cane concentration type camp and these
are really strong women my grandmother
who made the decision overnight to leave
this country that she had known her
entire life and leave her a place they
didn’t speak the language had nothing
new no one and they embarked on this
journey themselves bravely so I think I
inherited that not knowing because we
never really took many trips when I was
a kid but I inherited that Explorer gene
from them I’ve always loved animals at
the house I basically had a zoo growing
up dogs cats pet chicken named Maggie
that’s a fake alligator for those of you
wondering and you name it I had it and
if I was walking home from school and it
was within a certain mile radius it you
know it came home with me so I spent a
lot of time although growing up in a big
city sort of just attracted naturally
pulled to nature gets a bit of a tree
hugger and in that sense now
it was in in college I decided I wanted
to become a lawyer and I was a double
major in English and Philosophy and I
was well on my way when suddenly I
realized I was short of science credit
to graduate and the women’s biology
course that I wanted to take was full so
I looked down the schedule and I found
this class called anthropology and I
decided to take that to fulfill the
credit and it changed completely changed
the course of my life when I started
asking about different primates there
weren’t even photographs of these
animals and yet they were listed as you
know two of the the top five and ten
most endangered primates in the entire
world and I thought what a sad thing if
rather than becoming a part of science
books they become a part of history
books and we’ll never get to see the
amazing animals and I really felt this
this compelling need to go out there and
do something and I’m not sure I knew
what to do at that time in fact I know I
didn’t but I wanted to do something now
there was a catch I I said I was raised
you know very overprotective family in
fact I wanted to join the Girl Scouts so
bad when I was a little girl and I
wasn’t allowed because my mom said it
was far too dangerous
so I had never been camping I’ve never
done any of these things and I wanted to
go to one of the most remote and
unexplored regions at that time in South
America in Guyana where it really was
impenetrable forest I mean just deep
jungle that you read about like the lost
city of Z and that’s what I wanted to do
never have them been camping on top of
that I was a cheerleader for the NFL at
the time now why is that funny
but not exactly what you’d imagine
Charles Darwin doing in his spare time I
realized so there were all these odds
stacked against me all these
expectations of what I should be when I
grow up and all these paths that I had
already kind of chosen for myself based
on those expectations and now everything
had changed and I really wanted to go
out there and study these animals you
know when I saw Dian Fossey out there
with with these amazing creatures these
majestic animals I knew that that’s what
I wanted to do more than anything else
in my life and so I decided right then
and there to change career paths almost
start school over again so that I could
become an anthropologist a primatologist
a scientist and go out there and explore
these wild places and study these wild
animals I wrote up my first grant and I
headed off to South America in this
ridiculous looking outfit with nothing
more and I kid you not because it was a
very small grant with nothing more than
a backpack a tent which I learned later
was the absolute wrong choice because
there’s so many venomous
poisonous snakes in in South America so
you don’t want to sleep on the floor
know that now I had to buy a hammock and
just to this little teddy bear backpack
in a notebook and that’s all I left with
to venture out of course I had to pick
up a machete once I was there but I fell
in love with with the forest I fell in
love with the local people and all of
the things that I was learning from from
the villagers out there I got to see
animals that again nothing was known
about them they were very endangered
found new behaviors that had never been
documented before and I just that was it
it was that was the bug that got into me
when I realized that exploration is
something that’s really deeply embedded
in your soul and it’s something that you
almost carry as a gene and there was no
turning back from there so from that
trip I decided I wanted to up the stakes
a little bit in a sense I I’d spent many
months in South America
but there were those lemurs that I
showed you in that that Time magazine
article that I really wanted to go and
study and so my next expedition was to
Madagascar which is the island off the
east southern coast of Africa and for
scientists this there’s really no richer
place on earth for biodiversity the
amount of different species and how
threatened really the force the habitat
where these species live which makes it
a recognised hotspot and one of the top
if not the top hotspot it’s this
beautiful just majestic looking just
beautiful island and I fell in love the
minute seriously the minute I stepped
off the plane I felt like I was home I’d
never been there but I really felt like
I was home again the people are
amazingly friendly and warm and walking
me in welcoming so on top of the beauty
of the place there was the people
yeah and then the animals I mean talk
about this magical land of beautiful
creatures lemurs were there found
nowhere else on earth but this island
and at the time that I began studying
there there were about 30 species known
to science
some of them looking very dr. Seuss ish
like in their characteristics all very
sort of weird with with funny
adaptations like these long fingers and
I mean that doesn’t even look like a
primate that’s related to us it’s really
amazing place but now there’s over 90
species of lemurs recognized and that’s
how little we still know about our
natural world which is a motivator to
keep going back to them as far as
expeditions go I always say you plan and
you plan and then you know Africa
happens it’s just everything that could
possibly go wrong along the way what’s
happening actually I have a quick clip
of to give you a sense of what these
expeditions are like
which means we’re gonna have hundreds of
pounds of rice and beans and vegetables
and can prove anything our porters can
manage to take up with us we need to buy
beans rice okay we need to buy
vegetables garlic potatoes onions and
roll for the parts and also for the
porters to build this is a major
exhibition with 10 guides and a filter
it’s a lug and all these supplies will
need about 30 40 up with over 200 pounds
of rice tea coffee who drives meat we’ve
got a ton of food to carry was a really
serious expedition Smith is not an easy
climb or an easy hike and all the
equipment and all this we’re gonna be
carrying up is gonna take its toll on us
and we’re trying to decide where the
best part of the river is to cross
a weather front moves in what started as
a shower on top of arrival turned into a
torrents running through hand
although said in this storm set in and
the wind was just roaring the waterfall
was roaring the river was coming up just
the spray from the waterfall alone was
tearing up the tarps and water was just
pouring through everywhere
too much drama this kind of thing happen
there it is in an office
this is the
clothes I’ve had and the strain is
starting to take its toll
my ankle is killing me
don’t kid yourself there is no food in
this
so how many of you want to go with me on
the expedition now that happens a lot
running out of food not finding enough
water but that was just to give you a
little bit of an idea of what it’s like
out there and the challenges of getting
to some of these places this one is
definitely one of my favorites that’s me
I know and I’m hanging on to this little
tiny frail rope 14,000 feet up trying to
rappel down into the sinkhole that
apparently several explorers had tried
but had failed and partly because they
had run out of food getting there
because it was just impenetrable forest
even getting to that point and then well
the logistics and all that and we
finally had made it and we get here and
I’m hanging by this road no again I’ve
never been climbing before it’s like
geographic just thought it would be fun
no they actually paid for climbing
lessons which I took in Maryland in an
indoor place
for two days with like 40-foot walls and
a padded floor and then I get here and
I’m like really but anyway I knew how to
tie a knot but I want to show you a
quick clip of just this amazing journey
into this sinkhole it’s a pretty nice
sleep down there yeah and besides why
Yossef who has an enormous sinkhole
hundreds of feet deep that’s virtually
unknown and hey-zeus and I were going
down there
I’ve never climbed before yeah alright
hey Zeus I’m really coming down
keep your legs shoulder-width apart
if anything goes wrong if the anchors
come out the rope phrase we’d have no
recourse
so I look down again
above the clouds the ropes had been set
and we could move into position it’s
beautiful all discrete no wonder you
can’t have spiders and snakes and
whatnot in this place wow talk about a
room with a view
oh yeah hook your daisy-chain on this
one this one in this one only not this
one we had finally arrived at the wall
camp but it’s a Ledge three feet wide
was a precipitous drop below us
we’d sleep in hanging tents attached to
the rock face with a single steel pin
little clip is gonna hold both of us up
we should have had less dinner
I’m above the clouds that’s so cool
his colors so here we were in this place
I had virtually not been explored and it
was just one of the most beautiful
things I had ever seen when I woke up
that morning now I have to tell you that
falling asleep in that hanging tent was
a totally different story and I was you
know I kept looking up at this pin
thinking oh is it going to hold us
finally I fell asleep and my my
colleague Hasty’s thought it would be
really funny to shake it yeah I will
miss him but this place really holds
true like why I do what I do as a result
of this this journey several new frog
species were named we were able to
uncover different areas that we learned
later had never been explored and as a
consequence National Geographic
explorers have have gone back and again
discovered more species and this is yet
again another favorite it’s really
people ask me what’s your favorite
expedition and I gave him an hour talk
but western lowland gorillas and this
animal should look familiar because of
course it’s a species of gorillas that
you generally see in zoos but in the
wild they’re one of the least known Apes
and they’re of course very endangered
and there’s a lot of poaching going on
especially in the Congo where they’re
found we’ve been following this one
group of gorillas when suddenly the
teenager being a teenager just started
annoying dad I mean annoying dad to no
end and the father you could see he was
he kept like you know pushing him off
pushing him off like okay you’re really
good and finally the dad lost it I mean
completely lost it
and here comes the next scene right the
mom comes in and just starts yelling at
the dad and telling him off and grabs
the yet does this sound familiar and
grabs the youngster and walks off with
him and the male is left you know the
Silverbacks left you’re like yeah yeah
yeah whatever
you know just I’ll change the channel
now you know and then days past and she
didn’t come back and that does not
happen with these gorillas they always
sleep together they don’t stray far from
the silverback didn’t come back and it
was actually so pathetic him crying I
know it was like they were going through
gorilla divorce and I just I just
thought oh gosh if she could just see
him she’d know he’s so sorry and then
there was that scientific fear that wow
this could really just end a 14 a
project that took 14 years to launch
which is a very very scary thing the
next day we got a call and they had
busted poachers in the surrounding area
and I went with my heart literally in my
stomach to see if these were in fact the
animals we had lost and when I get there
I see this basically what looks like a
barbecue pyre with gorilla parts and you
could smell burning flesh as if it was
yours or mine and it was just one of the
most horrible moments I had ever
experienced out in the field and it
turns out it was a female and a
youngster and I just thought oh no this
is I mean on top of it just being awful
period these were the animals that I’d
been following for you know for weeks
and people had been following for years
and we talked to those locals and found
out that of course these hands are being
used as ashtrays and who’s buying them
but foreigners and their meat is being
sold for less than five dollars a pound
and I’ll tell you now that it wasn’t
them so that’s the the happy ending is
that the group was reunited the
youngster went to college they lives
happily ever after no but they really
did I mean they got back together they
worked it out he bought her diamonds I
don’t know but they worked it out this
little thing is what anybody not a mouse
lemur and this one in particular is one
that I discovered with my colleague dr.
ed Lewis in the field and this was a
huge thing for me at many levels every
scientist dreams of discovering a new
species I never thought it would happen
for me I was I was that cheerleader I
never thought I’d discover any species
well it happened and I want to show you
a quick clip of of a very special moment
when we captured it I am flying over to
the scene
this is it possibly our tiniest relative
oh nothing
a new species of primate never seen
before outside of Madagascar
this little guy will become an
ambassador photos and film will be shown
around the world and hopefully help get
Madagascar forests protected
after a week of searching it all comes
down to one busy morning a photo shoot
with a new star and of course before we
release it a whole lot of science
now what that clip doesn’t show you is
that it was a it was obviously late at
night when we captured it so I had to
take it back to my tent overnight and we
were going to do all this the scientific
measurements and the the taking of the
little blood for genetic samples all
that we were going to do that in the
morning so I took it back to my tent in
this net little bag and I kept staring
at it and looking at it and then he
really wanted to come out so I took him
out and then I couldn’t catch him and he
was running around my tent and I thought
this is like the only one we have and
we’d been there weeks and we finally
found it and anyhow all night I looked
for this thing in my tent I thought how
do I tell the producer that I’ve lost
this mouse lemur and the next morning as
I was going to put on my shoe I decided
to look in it and there it was so that
was lucky and and I’m not squeezing it
too hard but it’s had a little bit of
drugs at this point but the amazing
thing about this tiny little creature
that fits in your pocket you know weighs
less than two ounces is that it became a
huge ambassador for all things wild in
Madagascar and I think that was the most
exciting thing for me I mean the
scientific significance and discovery
that was pretty amazing
but what what this little guy did for
all things wild in Madagascar I could
have never anticipated ah then I met
Tarzan except not so much but I did
spend a lot of time out and you know in
the wilderness and that sort of thing
and like my mom had dropped for me I too
wanted to start a family and I met this
wonderful person that I married and soon
we had our first little daughter named
Emma
this is where I’m gonna tell you a
little bit about my family life because
explorers have families too and it’s
important for me to always share that
message especially when I when I talk to
young women who think they have to make
a choice between the two I think it’s
very important that they know that that
balance and life is very important and
very achievable and I definitely got
balanced at this point with this little
one but I was missing the wilds so I
decided when Emma was nine months old to
take her to Madagascar and share these
amazing animals and places with her and
you see her interested in that snake
well I mean she was mesmerised by lemurs
but I really think there’s a little
budding herpetologist in her because she
she’s loved everything like frog
chameleon snakes which I’m okay with
that’s okay but the the funniest part is
I picked up a snake because it was on
the road and it was about to become
roadkill as so many of the snakes there
do and she was crying and fussy so I
picked her up to know I’ve got this this
toddler or this infant and this this
snake and well she was teething right
and all of a sudden I see the locals
were terrified of snakes by the way
jumping up and down waving their arms
and I’m like it’s okay
it’s a snake it’s fine and I look down
and she’s using it as a teething ring
and so that was uh anyway just another
cool use for snakes I guess but didn’t
hurt the snake didn’t seem to even be
bothered her care and she was happy so I
let her fly then soon I had Ava and so
me I had these these two little girls
and I really there came a point where I
thought am I being selfish going you
know because I was still leading
expeditions and leaving my my little
girl behind and now I had a second one
you know was I being selfish and it was
my own mom who you know didn’t want me
in the beginning to go on these
expeditions
additions in fact you know she’d cry
every time I had to walk out the door
who said to me you can’t stop doing who
you are basically you know you’re an
explorer and you’re not going to be
doing your your kids any favors by not
being who you are and I took that as
permission but I listen to those words
very carefully and I realized that she
was absolutely right
I would be out miserable I I can’t live
without the wild I can’t live without
going out there and exploring and you
know I said I wasn’t a allowed to be a
Girl Scout when I was little so sad but
I just want you to know that I recently
I spoke to a huge group of Girl Scouts
and they made me an honorary member and
and I’m not sure I’m going to be allowed
back but it was fun it was really really
fun
but this is really my message and that’s
a you know save the lemurs but that
could blank that out for any animal any
wild place you know do your part be
informed come to these talks and be
inspired and I thank you for coming very
much thank you
you
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