Tarzan meets Darwin in conservation and evolution with conservationist and evolutionary biologist Dr. Fred Bercovitch

The PrimateCast

This episode of The PrimateCast: Origins is taken from CICASP's International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field.
The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories told by experienced researchers in primatology and related fields. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program at Kyoto University. We are releasing the audio from these lectures right here on The PrimateCast: Origins.
For anyone interested in viewing the video versions of these lectures, head over to the CICASP TV YouTube channel, where you can also watch them live as we stream our Zoom feeds there.
For the 21st international primatology lecture we invited Dr. Fred Bercovitch to share his origin story with us. This lecture took place on May 10, 2023.
Fred was a professor with us in CICASP from 2010 until his retirement in March 2017. He was a key mentor for me and played a big role in helping our international program mature.
Starting his career studying primates and particularly the sexual behavior of baboons at Gilgil, Kenya, Fred's career meandered through developmental biology and reproductive neuroendocrinology of rhesus macaques at Cayo Santiago , mating behavior in Koalas in Australia, social structure of Giraffes in Zambia, and many more topics and species around the world.
Fred also forged a career integrating work at zoos and in the wilds, having spent time at San Diego Zoo's Conservation Institute. After leaving Japan, he helped launch a non-profit for giraffe conservation called Save the Giraffes, and is now a Board Member with the Anne Innis Dagg Foundation, also tackling giraffe conservation.
Two books that defined Fred's journey were Edgar Rice Burroughs'Tarzan of the Apes and Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. He weaves these into his life's work describing how he went from the 11 year old boy whose essay on the need to save our planet - part of which he reads in the show! - was not selected by his teachers to be read at graduation, to the renowned wildlife biologist and conservationist he is today.
Key topics that come up along the way are:

• the importance of understanding Darwin's ideas on evolution for conservation
• baboon and koala sex
• giraffe social bonds and behavior
• Listing of endangered species in IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species - and getting giraffes on it!

It was great to have Fred back in touch with us, and I'm happy to share his wise words with all of you on the podcast. For other episodes of The PrimateCast where Fred appears, check out #2 with the CICASP team and #63 with Chia Tan.
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The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski.

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