Transcript
What inspires you from WFSU Public Media? Here's this week's Voices That Inspire. I'm Julie Raithmel. I'm the Executive Director for Audubon, Florida. Audubon focuses on using science to drive good, common sense policy solutions to environmental challenges, and it's a great space to be in. One of the things I enjoy about birds is seeing the change of seasons in them. I joke that in Tallahassee where I live, it's not truly summer until I've heard an eastern Kingbird, a common nighthawk, and a least turn all on the same day. Mother's Day means protonitary warblers to me, kind of that glowing egg yolk yellow bird in the deep shadows of a cypress swamp. Swallowtail kites and Mississippi kites overhead are the kind of the dog days of summer. And gosh, winter, you know, we have more species of birds in Florida and the winter than we do in the summer. So while the rest of the country is scratching around for a cardinal or two, we are spoiled with riches. One of the things that inspires me most about Audubon is that, you know, we're under 22 years old this year and we were founded by ordinary citizens coming together to end the persecution of waiting birds in the plume trade, people wearing feathers on their hats, which were driving waiting birds to extinction. One of the really interesting parts of that story, I think, is that many of the folks working towards that end were women and they were ultimately affecting the passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act at a time when women didn't even have the right to vote. And so I love the idea that conservation and Audubon is about people coming together to engage on the issues that they care about and that it's a place where everybody can have a voice. Julie Raithmal, Bird Nerd, Floridian, and Executive Director of Audubon, Florida. You're listening to voices that inspire.