The National Audubon Society is best known for their bird identification guides, but what are they doing about climate change? Robyn Shepherd, the Communication Director of Climate Change Advocacy at Audubon guides us through her work with Audubon, what it means for her to be a “woman in climate,” how climate change is impacting birds, and what we can do to help. This episode of our Women in Climate series is hosted by Cayla Romano, a University of Florida master’s student studying agricultural education and communication with specialization in communication.
In the episode, Robyn mentions this Audubon Climate Action Guide. Visit the link here: https://www.audubon.org/climate-action-guide
The National Audubon Society is best known for their bird identification guides, but what are they doing about climate change? Robyn Shepherd, the Communication Director of Climate Change Advocacy at Audubon guides us through her work with Audubon, what it means for her to be a “woman in climate,” how climate change is impacting birds, and what we can do to help. This episode of our Women in Climate series is hosted by Cayla Romano, a University of Florida master’s student studying agricultural education and communication with specialization in communication.
In the episode, Robyn mentions this Audubon Climate Action Guide. Visit the link here: https://www.audubon.org/climate-action-guide
Cayla Romano
Welcome back to the podcast series Boundless Science brought to you by Streaming Science, a student driven program that connects you with scientists learn how science impacts us in our everyday lives. My name is Cayla Romano, and I'll be your host during this podcast episode. I'm a master's student here at the University of Florida studying agricultural education, communication, and specializing in communication. Joining us today is Robyn Shepherd, the communications director for climate advocacy at the National Audubon Society. You get to learn more about her the work she does Audubon, and even some of her personal interests during this episode of bound the science.
Cayla Romano
Hey, Robyn, thank you so much for joining us today on the streaming Science Podcast episode. I'm so excited to talk to you today, and I can't wait to learn more about you and the work you do at Audubon. So for our listeners who aren't too familiar with who you are, could you take a moment to introduce yourself?
Robyn Shepherd
Sure, and thanks, Cayla. Thank you so much for inviting me on this. It was actually really thrilling to get that invite and you know, the comms folks don't usually, we're not usually this interview subjects. So it's it's nice to kind of be on the other side of things. My name is Robyn Shepherd. I am the Communications Director for Advocacy at the National Audubon Society. I live in New York City, and I have a rabbit and a cat who may make themselves known throughout this recording. And yeah, so, yes, communications director. So my role in climate since this is it women and climate podcast is that I help the climate team not only figure out how we want to talk about climate issues, how the National Audubon Society in particular plays a role when there are so many other groups, and also how we get the met those messages out into the wider world. So I work with the scientists and the policymakers to make their issues understood.
Cayla Romano
I love that, you know, communications is so important. And as a communicator, I feel like sometimes a lot of scientists forget about us or like there's that, you know, there's the research, but then, like, who's distributing the research and who's doing the outreach? So I feel like communications is definitely so important. So it's so cool to be talking to you as like, a real person who does communications and is not the college students,
Robyn Shepherd
Not behind the curtain. Thats where we usually are.
Cayla Romano
Exactly. Also, love to hear about your bunny. For our listeners who don't know, we both have bunny. So this is two bunmoms on the recording today.
Robyn Shepherd
Yeah the pre interview is dedicated to a lot of inner introducing our values to each other.
Cayla Romano
They deserve their time behind the curtain as well. So for those of our listeners who aren't too familiar with Audubon, could you just like explain a little bit about the organization in general?
Robyn Shepherd
Sure. So the National Audubon Society is one of the longest serving conservation groups in the country. We were founded actually in 1905. And it's kind of an interesting origin story. It was a bunch of primarily women who were just regular people who wanted to lobby against the feather trade because 1905 they had big feathers in their hats, it was a thing. And lots of birds were getting killed for those feathers. So these these women banded together and formed this society that actually there but as a result of their efforts, one of the longest standing conservation rules, which is the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the MBTA was passed into law because of their efforts. So John James Audubon is who was named after he had nothing to do with the society. He was long dead. By the time these these primarily women picked this picked him name. It's just that because of his association with birds, because he was a leading naturalist and cataloged all the birds in America and made all the paintings. That's why we're named Audubon. There are some issues now I'll let you Google it about that name. But it's been our name since 1905. And it will be our name until it's not our name. Anyway, that's all I have to say about that. But he did not found the organization. Yeah, it was these It was these ladies.
Cayla Romano
I love that I love women in charge. Women doing things.
Robyn Shepherd
Right and in those ensuing 100 plus years, it's birdwatching organization. If you've heard of us at all, that's probably how you know us. We sell bird feeders. We're very all about the birds. And about 1520 years ago, I guess they decided to get more into advocacy and policy than they had been and we have a pretty robust climate program so while you might while you might not think of us is like the green pieces and and the leading climate groups who are great, we do have our own role in that. And that's where I fit in.
Cayla Romano
Well, that's great. I actually, speaking of the birds in the hats, I think I learned one of my wildlife classes it was the great egret right? That I think it was it was almost extinct and and that's why it's the logo of Audubon.
Robyn Shepherd
Yeah.
Cayla Romano
But now they're doing good.
Robyn Shepherd
The great egrets yes, they're doing well yeah, they're a success story bald eagles also a success story. So you know, there's there's there's happy stories to be had in the environmental world if you know where to look for them.
Cayla Romano
Far and few between but happy to hear about them. Well, that is so cool. I didn't know is formed by women that makes me even more proud to be a woman birdwatcher. Women were a part of it from the start.
Robyn Shepherd
The power of advocacy man.
Cayla Romano
So before you started at Audubon, like what were some of the other things that you did?
Robyn Shepherd
Sure. So I've done essentially the same role that I do now. But for very different organizations. I got my start in Washington DC working for a group that their their stick, they're called interaction, which just messes up your search engine optimization all to hell, but they, because so many things interaction, but they are an umbrella organization of US based groups that do work overseas, but they did a whole lot of things. So HIV AIDS, when the pandemic was flaring in Africa, then that that we were very involved in that there was the tsunami. So disaster relief refugees, the Iraq war was still happening. So we had quite a bit to do on the periphery of that. And it was a big crash course for me, because that was not my background, it was just now you're going to write about all of these things, which is sort of how it bounced around in my career, I then went to New York and worked for the ACLU. And initially, I was on him more human rights and like, how a foreign affairs and how the United States works with other governments because of my background, and then they threw me on LGBT rights repro rights and religion rights, and I'm like, I'm for all of those. But that was, that was the extent and then I had to learn how to talk about that. Then I worked for Amnesty International for five years, which was also a cornucopia of just the most horrible things in the world, and how we should stop them. And it came to Audubon about three years ago. Wow. you've communicated about a lot of things. Yeah. You know, it's instead of grad school. I just, I'm a professional dilettante. What are we talking about now? cool. Let's do it.
Cayla Romano
That's just crazy. Like your brain can just switch from one thing to the other.
Robyn Shepherd
Sometimes. I mean, that can be tiring. I mean, that's sort of what I like about my job here at Audubon. Now, it's climate and birds. Occasionally that get pulled into some other side things, but it's much more focused than the other places that I've worked, you know, which was intellectually stimulating, but ultimately, really, really exhausting.
Cayla Romano
I'm sure climate can be exhausting as well, because it's like, anotehr negative thing.
Robyn Shepherd
Oh, don't worry about that. It's still like the edgy part of Audubon. Oh, it's just one big bad thing. Great. Let's let's roll. Let's do it.
Cayla Romano
Yeah, I if I was you, I'd probably have a drink after every workday. Come home and relax...
Robyn Shepherd
For some years, some years were harder than others. That's all I'll say about that.
Cayla Romano
So you know, you've had a few different paths that like led you to where you are today with birds. But do you think that there's a story from your childhood that like you can look back on and be like, Oh, that's funny. Funny that I ended up here today.
Robyn Shepherd
Yeah. In fact, it which is kind of a contrast to the other places I've worked where I sort of fell into it or you know, politics happened and then then I got interested but Audubon when I when I joined Audubon, my family and friends. That was the first time they were they they said to themselves, yeah, okay, this makes sense, because when I was a kid, I did really love birds. My family loves birds. We had the bird feeder, we have binoculars, we take on vacation, and we had some field guides. We had like the Peterson Field Guide to birds was the first one I remember putting my little hands on. We did also have the Audubon guide to birds, the Peterson gun important distinction. Peterson was drawings and Audubon was photographed. So you needed both sometimes to see what you were looking at. And I was so taken with the Peterson Field Guide to birds and just looking at all the colors and to the extent that I could understand what was written there. I could have been in nursery school I think I'm a so I must have been like four or five for show until it took in the Peterson Field Guide to birds. And was trying to get all these four year olds like really hyped about you know, Arctic turns and how far they could fly. And the kids were not getting as hyped as I wanted them to get hyped, but, I did my best, like, tried to show them that book. Their beak is two different colors. It's awesome. And, nothing, but I tried.
Cayla Romano
I can just picture it like a four year old, "Hey, guys get a load of this. Yeah. Birds."
Robyn Shepherd
They're Big, they're small, they're colorful, they swim, they fly, check it out. No, nothing? Okay.
Cayla Romano
They do it all, you know?
Robyn Shepherd
They do it all!
Cayla Romano
That makes a lot of sense. So you know, we talked a little bit about like your job as a whole. But in an average day at Audubon, what would you say that you do?
Robyn Shepherd
Sure. So an average day, the mornings are just reading a lot of stuff. A lot of climate News, I'm on a ton of lists serves that I finally had to say no more list serves them good. I can kill I can kill a morning now. And I just look on what I'm looking for is not only big things that probably everyone will be talking about, like with the Biden administration's passing some major legislation in the status of that, but also smaller stories about how things are affecting wildlife.You know, what's happening in some of the states what's happening with certain certain landscapes that Audubon also is involved with protecting, like, the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge, or clean energy, any developments in that because which we'll get into or not, but uh, we have a lot to do with clean energy and birds. And you might have heard some narratives about clean energy and birds, and some of them are accurate, some of them really aren't. So just try to see where there's opportunities, then you like, do these readings? Are you looking for specific states? Or do you read about every state, sometimes I'll skim them and see if anything kind of jumps out at me, if we're doing particular work in a state, we did have more of a state focused climate model for a while we've gotten away from that since it's become so you know, all encompassing, but you know, for example, we have a South Carolina office, we have a North Carolina office, and the North Carolina office has also been very involved in some offshore wind projects. So if I see something on that, I'll tune in on that. Or if there's a particular sanctuary of all, I'll zero in on that. If it's one of the you know, if it's fire season, or the Colorado River, we do a lot of work with, we actually have a separate comms person for Western water because it's such a big deal and the drought there and how we're managing that. But I paid, I also try and pay attention to what my colleagues cover just in case one of us is out or sick or busy. And we have to get thrown in on another project. So I try and be at least a little bit literate about what's happening out there, too.
Cayla Romano
Oh, yeah, wow. The work never stops, there's always something going on. Yeah.
Robyn Shepherd
Yup.
Cayla Romano
Wow.
Robyn Shepherd
Unfortunately, yeah.
Cayla Romano
Yeah, okay. So that's an average day. So are there days where things that not so average happen? Like maybe you're out of the office? Or like you've gone places you didn't think you'd go before?
Robyn Shepherd
Sure, yeah. And the other part of my day is not just reading, but the meetings and like, what are we talking about, and how we're going to talk about it. And you know, that just that keeping the strategy going, but I do at least pre COVID, I did travel quite a bit. I was with Audubon for all of nine months before everything hit the fan. And then we nobody went anywhere. But in those nine months, I traveled a lot to our climate states. So when I go there, I visit with our state offices, if they have a comms person, we kind of compare what they need from us at the National Office and how we can support them. And also, you know, if they have any information that we should be lifting up, sometimes they get, you know, like anyone else, you get so busy, you forget to, you know, amplify your own work. So I try and see if there's connections, and if there's connections that can be made for what one state is doing with another state and how we can tell that story. Occasionally, we'll go on like actual bird walks or bird outings, which is nice. You know, that's a nice kind of field trip. And yeah, and that's sometimes we meet with partners. We, like for example, in New Orleans, New Orleans passed an ordinance. Well, now it's a few years ago, feels like a second ago to me, but they're they're going to try and reach 100% clean energy. And in 2019, we went down there and worked with local groups and community groups to try and hammer out like who how we want to get that across. And that coalition was successful. So that was another success story.
Cayla Romano
Wow. Sounds like there's always so much going on. That's so cool that you get to travel and like talk to other people and see what they're up to.
Robyn Shepherd
Yeah, I'm hoping we get to do a little bit more now that things are fingers crossed, knock on whatever, a little bit safer to travel. But yeah, hopefully we'll get back to that.
Cayla Romano
That is super cool. And just engaging with other people who love the environment and birds and get to talk to more people thats so fun. So you talk to a lot of people in Audubon, it sounds like you also do some stakeholder engagement and like outreach, so what does that look like and could it ever become controversial? Because, you know, climate change is a big topic and something so, you know, I think a lot of people have some opinions on it. So I wonder how that could go?
Robyn Shepherd
They sure do. So yeah, we work with a bunch of different groups that you maybe not would think that we would work with not just other green groups, but we work with, like agriculture. So farmers and ranchers, how they can manage their land more sustainably. So it's not just good for birds, but also good for carbon storage and sequestration and water filtration, there's actually we have a Audubon conservation ranching ACR certificate. So some ranchers can get that and you can look for like bird friendly beef in Whole Foods, if that's your jam. So we work with them. And we work with politicians, especially on my side and advocacy organizations. And I say this coming from the ACLU and Amnesty International, where if you know anything about them, and even though we would say all the time, no, we're nonpartisan? Yeah, you could put us on a political spectrum. And you'd probably be right, there were some lawmakers who would not let us in the front door just by virtue of who we were and our reputation preceded us. And it didn't matter what we were talking about that it was just a no go. autobahn. However, you know, we're more fluffy and safe. It's, it's the bird group. I called the Trojan bird. So we can get into some rooms with some lawmakers at some parts of the spectrum who might be a little resistant to climate, talking about climate and the environment, but they let us in because we're the bird. And then once we're in, say "Hey! So you like birds a lot. Shame if something would happen to them." And then we talk about it. But it's it's a tactic, man, and and we actually get some very fruitful and unlikely partnerships. And one of the things about this work is we all are humans with, you know, opinions. And, you know, if you're engaged all the world, you have some kind of political affiliation, whether you want to or not, but when you're doing this work, you kind of have to check your own ego at the door, and you might work with somebody who I probably would not vote for you. But we need your help on this or you work or you represent a an area that is particularly vulnerable. And your people picked you. So I have to honor that. That that is not up to me. So we you kind of have to take all that into account and work with some folks to get stuff done. That's that's just that's just how the game goes. So yeah, those are things and then clean energy can sometimes be more controversial on a local level than you need it to be. And you'd go in and talk to people about how we work with energy producers to do things responsibly. Because our line on clean energy is if you don't do it, billions of you know, because cleaner drinking wind kills birds, okay? Any infrastructure kills birds, like your buildings and windows and cars and kill far more birds than any wind turbine. But that's we still take things into consideration, you want to cite things responsibly. So if there's, you know, a particularly vulnerable species, or if it's a particularly active flight path, or there's technology that's being developed that can help detect when some of the bigger birds are nearby, and they can actually shut the turbines down. There's things you can do. So we work with communities, and also we want to make sure that the communities are safe, too. So we want to work with everybody and make sure it's a holistic approach to do things responsibly. Because if you don't do it, millions of birds are going to die from climate change. If you care about the birds, if that's where you're coming from. People do but more people sometimes people respond more to the birds. Fine, I'll meet you there if I need to meet you there.
Cayla Romano
Does everybody want the good of the birds, would you say? Or, is there pushback?
Robyn Shepherd
Mostly, I mean, sure there you know, nobody, no, one person's a monolith. But it does. Even my like third day at Audubon, I had to fly out for our convention. So it was like a crash course. Like meeting everybody and I got in the cab and Milwaukee and the guy asked me what I was there for and it became very clear he does not he's not sold on the whole climate change thing. And we're just fine. We were talking and then But then in the next breath, he says "Let me ask you something. How come I haven't seen many Cardinals in my feeder lately?" And I thought to myself well you're gonna hate this stuff but... it does strike a chord with people even if they don't think it does. You know birds are everywhere and no matter where you go if you if you are able to travel to like a lake region and you hear a loon like you you associated with that or robins in many areas are the first side of spring even though they're now sticking around a lot longer. But you know, people who don't even think they have an affinity to nature sometimes if you ask there is some kind of bird story there are some bird affinity that they have you know, it's not universal, but it gets you into hearts and minds a little more than you'd think.
Cayla Romano
Suddenly want to ask people what their bird stories. I feel like I'm sure everybody has some sort of bird story.
Robyn Shepherd
"Yeah I hate birds, except there’s this one bird..." I almost always people that are even like oh my god, they're scary and pigeons are gross, but oh my god one time I saw this Eagle and yes, so yeah, push hard enough you're gonna find a bird story.
Cayla Romano
Yes. Because, like why wouldn't you like birds? I don't know.
Robyn Shepherd
Yeah, also pigeons are not gross for the record. That's what I actually volunteer at, at an animal shelter that helps rehab wildlife including pigeons. So I want to make that very clear. No, I do not think pigeons are gross. But that is a sentiment that you hear.
Cayla Romano
Yeah, especially people in New York. My friend was from Brooklyn. She'd always be like, don't look at the pigeons that gross. I'd be like they are just little guys. Little Bird guys hanging out, you know?
Robyn Shepherd
Trying to do their thing, just like we are.
Cayla Romano
Yeah, exactly. You know, we've talked about a few, maybe tough conversations that you have at work, and then you get home. What's something that you like to do after a long day at work to maybe decompress?
Robyn Shepherd
Yeah, besides volunteer with more permits, which is true. Birds rule everything around me. Yeah, I actually was sometimes going birdwatching is a thing I do, especially during migration season. So sometimes I will happily take my work home at the end of the day. But I'd like to, I mean, just, I think the fact that I jumped, not jumped around, but like, I've worked on so many different issues in my career. I'm curious, just as a human so I have a lot of very disparate hobbies. Like, I have friends who are musicians. So I go see a lot of live music at like little clubs in New York, which is a lovely thing that we can do. I bake, I cook, I watch my rabbit hop accross the room. She just did that It distracted me. I also like do things like I sail where we're in New York City, we're surrounded by water. I do not have a boat. Let me be very clear. But have you join a club so that you can use their boats. So I can do that in the summer, I watch football and yell at large strangers to get out any kind of, you know, there might be some projection ism there. Working in politics. I'm from Philadelphia, it's also comes pretty naturally to us to yell at the large strangers on the football field. You know thats a thing. That that kills time in the fall. And sometimes the winter if you're lucky.The yelling happens. Yelling happened and then the yelling stop. Now we will wait till September do some more.
Cayla Romano
Yeah, yeah. And maybe you know, next year will be your year.
Robyn Shepherd
We'll see. We'll see. I'm just tired right now. I'm ready to get sailing.
Cayla Romano
That's so cool. You know, you sailed and you know, wind in your sails. The ocean breeze.
Robyn Shepherd
Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's uh, you know, if you can, if you could find somebody that has a boat that you can use, which is tricky, but I somehow have cracked that code. So I do do that in the summer.
Cayla Romano
Yeah, that must be nice. My. So I am sure maybe our audience doesn't know. I'm from Long Island, so I never got to sail. I knew some people did. But my mom recently like started hanging out with her friend who sails more after I left and now she tells me about like, they go to their yacht club and then they go sailing. And then when you did this now after I'm gone, all those years that we could have been sailing?
Robyn Shepherd
Like come on mom!
Cayla Romano
Its fine, I'll survive without the sailing.
Robyn Shepherd
Or make a friend who sails that's usually the way you do it. And then you don't have to pay anything. Ad you're their guest. Yes. That's how you that's how you run that scam.
Cayla Romano
Like the joke where its like you want a friend who has a boat. So you never have to have a boat. But then, and then you can be on the boat.
Robyn Shepherd
Exactly. Like I've no desire to own my own boat.
Cayla Romano
Yes.
Robyn Shepherd
Because then that's all you're doing. And then I won't don't have time to birdwatch. We got to balance it.
Cayla Romano
Yeah, we need a friend who owns a boat so we can do the birdwatching and they can drive the boat.
Robyn Shepherd
Exactly.
Cayla Romano
Yes, that would be perfect.
Robyn Shepherd
Yes, because can confirm it's hard to do both at the same time even though I have tried.
Cayla Romano
Binoculars in one hand steering wheel in the other.
Robyn Shepherd
You're like "Oh! Oh wait..." As you're going off course.
Cayla Romano
To get back on track to you know, our climate change things.
Robyn Shepherd
Sure. Oh yeah climate change.
Cayla Romano
So as we you know, our topic is women and climate and you're clearly a woman and climate so what does that like for you? And like being a woman in this position and advocating for our climate? I'm sure it has its challenges or its ups and downs.
Robyn Shepherd
Sure. It does. I mean, I've been fortunate that my little corner of the nonprofit world has been a bit more diverse than perhaps other sectors and other professional sectors and diverse not just from you know, male, female, but also a you know, across the gender spectrum and people from all different backgrounds and countries so I've been pretty lucky in that. You know, I sometimes I hear stories from outside the sector where you're like, oh, gosh, but, but people are people and things do happen. And you do have to contend with things like not being taken as seriously sometimes or you say something. And then a male colleague says the same thing. And everyone says, "Great point!" And you're sitting there thinking, "wait, I just... what?" So that happens also, you know, balancing, you know, I mean, I am single, and I don't have kids, but both women who have kids and women who don't have kids have their own issues in the workplace about either you, if you don't have kids that you get feel like you can get taken advantage of to work extra late or do extra projects. And if you do have kids, it's just a frickin nightmare to try and balance everything out and get the particular health coverage that you need to. And then there's just stuff that's universal, I think, like, when you're just starting out, it's like, you get asked to, like, clean up after meetings and order the food a lot. So and you look across, and you see your male counterparts who are exactly your age, not doing that. So these are like little trip wires that you need to kind of, you know, be aware of, but it's also good because most of my team members are also women. And not that it's you know, better or worse one way or the other. But it is sort of nice to have, like all female teams sometimes and who kind of understand where you're coming from. And, you know, both in at work and outside work. So you know, there's good things as well as challenges to being a woman in climate.
Cayla Romano
That makes a lot of sense. I work with a team of science communicators, I work at the UF/IFAS Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants. And there's a team of four of us and we're all like, in our 20s. And so it is very nice, like working with other girls who are around your age, and you kind of get the same things like at work, and outside of work, where you can come in and like have that nice camaraderie with the girls, the women. Women at Work women in STEM.
Robyn Shepherd
Yeah
Cayla Romano
That's really cool. I'm upset to hear about some some of those challenges.
Robyn Shepherd
I mean, some things are just real. And you know, some sometimes it's worth, you know, making a stink about it. And sometimes it's you just kind of, is it worth your energy or not? And sometimes it is, and sometimes you're like, you know what, this fool is not worth my time right now. I just need to get my stuff done. Let's just move along.
Cayla Romano
Yeah.
Robyn Shepherd
But yeah.
Cayla Romano
It's real. It's real.
Robyn Shepherd
Yeah.
Cayla Romano
Women things. Thank you for sharing that.
Robyn Shepherd
Sure!
Cayla Romano
I, you know, that can be little bit more of a personal question. So maybe we'll go back to the birds now. And I'll ask you a few more things about the birds, you know, switch back and forth between your personal life and the birds in general.
Robyn Shepherd
Sure!
Cayla Romano
Could you tell us a little bit about how climate change is impacting birds?
Robyn Shepherd
So birds, because they are just about every environment on Earth are really great indicator species for how climate is affecting certain areas. I mean, we use the canaries in a coal mine metaphor to death. But it actually is true. If you see what's happening with the birds and their habitats, that translates on a much larger scale. So within the United within North America of so we did a study in 2019. And the findings are still valid that unless we slow the rate of global temperature rise, and try and keep it below the 1.5 degrees Celsius rise over pre industrial levels that we all want to keep it up. If we fail to do that two thirds of North American bird species will be vulnerable to extinction. That's a lot of birds.
Cayla Romano
Yeah.
Robyn Shepherd
Yeah. And we've seen things like ranges start to shift northward. So you know, birds that you were accustomed to seeing it like in Florida, or showing up you know, in Delaware or and what's happened in there. I think there's somebody found a brown pelican in Delaware, or somewhere with their brother brown pelican was not supposed to be in because they're trying to find those cooler regions. Yeah, so. And it's not just the temperatures, it's the climate threats, the more frequent wildfires and more severe wildfires, you know, wildfires are part of nature, but not this frequent, and not this severe and extensive. And the flooding, also, you know, there there are natural processes, but the problem is that they're happening way more often and way more intense. And birds can't evolve fast enough to cope with it. Like yeah, evolution is real. And if this was happening at a regular rate, then what would it be you might be able to cope with it, but they can't. And you're gonna have situations where birds are migrating north and then there's other birds like eating all the other birds food supply, and you know, there's trickle down effects for that. So we do that is kind of the foundation for our entry into this space. It's not just that Oh, we love birds because they’re pretty and we like them. We see how these are all kind of connected and how a lot of the places that habitats that are key to bird survival. Key bird habitats are also great for carbon storage and sequestration. In the marshes and the forests and the grasslands. So, you know, it's a data point among other data points when we work with other groups and community groups and, you know, environmental justice groups, which is also an important factor, because you know, we want to save the birds, sure, but not at the expense of humans. And how can we balance this all out? So the science that our climate team does, really underlines all of that.
Cayla Romano
Yeah. It's like from the beginning, it started with bird advocacy, and that the birds were threatened. And even still, now we're doing the same thing. It doesn't change. It just changes into different threats.
Robyn Shepherd
Yep, the stakes change in the context change. But you know, it all comes back to the birds.
Cayla Romano
So what is Audubon doing right now, that is possibly helping these birds in these climate change situations?
Robyn Shepherd
I mean, I speak mostly from the policy angle, which I know is not like the most fun, it's not like being out in the field. But the legislation that was just passed the the so called Inflation Reduction Act, which, hey, man branding, again, whatever gets it over, even though we can argue one way or the other one that actually has to do with inflation, but what we do know is that it is the most significant climate legislation that has passed in the decades, it's, it's so that was something that we really pushed to get included. And it has funding for Western water, it has funding for wetlands and grasslands it has has a bill like that there's no one thing that it does, because, you know, it's just too big. But it has a lot of smaller components that admit it, sometimes they were they were actually bills unto themselves that we were working on, there was one we called Growing Climate Solutions Act, which helps farmers and ranchers and foresters and producers, you know, get access to resources to help make their land more sustainable for carbon storage and carbon sequestration. And that was a whole big bill and of itself. And now it's any bitty part of the of the inflation Reduction Act, but it passed, who cares? Great. So now, from the policy side of things, it's getting all those programs actually funded, now that they've been committed so that we're working on that more in the field, we have people that do studies like the Salton Sea in California, or we have Audubon Alaska, working in various like the Tongass National Forest to make sure that the logging roads, or like the road permit was recently rescinded, so that you don't have to worry about roads going through. That's an oversimplification of that issue. But you know, they're doing that. Yeah, so and then there's less big huge movement, building things and more community based like educating about you know, how to be more sustainable in your home. And what you can do locally, like a lot of our local chapters are really good at that, and having programs and free workshops for people to come and learn about how climate affects the birds in their area and how they can help. You know, plant native plants is another big thing that you could do easily, in your own home to help both birds and climate.
Cayla Romano
So that was actually one of the other things I wanted to ask you. So this is a great segue into that is like, what can we do at home to either become more environmentally friendly, or become advocates for our climate?
Robyn Shepherd
There's a lot that you can do. I mean, there's the obvious things like you know, recycle, turn your lights off, reduce your waste. If you still want to carry metal straw, good for you. Sometimes I remember mine, sometimes I don't. But also, just following local news and green groups for action alerts. There's, there's sometimes things that happen in your own community, like you could like just plant native plants outside you like municipal buildings that both attract pretty birds, like if you like a hummingbird, they love native plants, and people love hummingbirds. So you know, it's that but it also helps the ecosystem. It's a small and it might feel like a small thing, but it's really not. We actually have a whole program where we can help people try and pass either proclamations or resolutions or ordinances in their own towns that help, you know, make these more bird friendly communities. Turning lights out during migration so that birds don't get diverted or flying to Windows as much. That's a big thing we're doing in cities. And just simple things like just go outside. Park programs and community centers are almost always having some kind of program where they're just a guided tour, or it could be pegged to a certain bird or could be pegged to like spring is here. Because I feel like even if you live somewhere forever, on I had this experience. I loved birds and I've lived in New York City for 13 years. And it wasn't until I joined Audubon and did some of the bird walks where I actually saw species that I never saw before. Never thought I'd see before and they've been here the whole time and these park park employees and these programs help you kind of see the world in a bit different way and once you kind of know what you want to try and save and you see it it helps kind of motivate you. And then also just because I'm calm, so you can also write letters to the editor. That's a big thing that we help people do. Just especially if you live in an area like a mid to smaller sized city, where they might not be covering these things like you could be the coverage and just write and say like, Hey, this big climate bill that just got passed is really great. And here's why. And that might be the only thing that newspaper ever says about it. But you helped me find out.
Cayla Romano
Wow, well, it sounds like there's so many different things that you could do. And I like love all the native plant stuff we do a lot at the University of Florida, where we have a lot of like extension programs, and we have the Florida Friendly Gardening Program where it helps people like you can go to the website and see what area of Florida you're and like what native plants you can plant. And I think I'm some sort of advocates, I'm always reposting things on Facebook to like my 12 followers.
Robyn Shepherd
I feel that
Cayla Romano
you know, if my sees it and like maybe she'll plant some milkweed, then you know, we did something.
Robyn Shepherd
Yeah. And I just a short plug a lot of these things a few years ago, but it is still valid, because these things are still valid. If you to put into Google just Audubon Climate Action Guide, I won't give you the whole URL, because that's crazy. But Google Climate Action Guide, Audubon, and there'll be a bunch of resources that can help.
Cayla Romano
I love that. That is perfect. And you know, many of our listeners, I'm sure, I will check it out as me myself, but hopefully our listeners will too.
Robyn Shepherd
Also, the graphics team did a really good job with it. So just it looks pretty.
Cayla Romano
Oh, that's really even more of an incentive to go look at it. Well, thank you so much. We have covered so many different things. I loved learning all about you and about Audubon, and of course talking about birds, my favorite things to talk about. But I really appreciate your time and for being here with us on Streaming Science.
Robyn Shepherd
Sure!
Cayla Romano
This has been amazing. And you're such an inspiration for us girls.
Robyn Shepherd
Oh stop! That makes me that makes me blush. But I appreciate that this is it. This has been really fun. Like I said at the beginning of the program, people don't interview we're prepping the other people to get interviewed. So it this was kind of a treat to talk about what I do and what my teams do. And you know how, you know even if you don't like birds, you should pay attention to what's happening to them because it effects all of us.
Cayla Romano
The following episode was made in partnership with the University of Florida Department of Agricultural Education and Communication. Thank you for joining us on today's episode of Boundless Science. We hope you listen with us on the next episode. To find more episodes from the series visit streamingscience.com. We look forward to bringing more science to you.