Humane Nature

Ep 6: Wildlife Warrior Betty White *Mini Episode*

January 12, 2022 Stacia
Humane Nature
Ep 6: Wildlife Warrior Betty White *Mini Episode*
Show Notes Transcript

The late Betty White was not only a sensation on television and film but a hardworking wildlife warrior as well. Let's discuss how Betty lived her life as both America's hilarious grandma and fighter for animals and wildlife.

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Betty & Friends: My Life at the Zoo book*
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Betty White Wildlife Fund – Morris Animal Foundation
https://morrisanimalfoundation.salsalabs.org/bettywhite/index.html?sl_tc=2021mafPR123121&_ga=2.129049676.1389865725.1641529798-587391744.1641529798

Sources

Betty White: Charity Work, Events, and Causes. Look to the Stars. 2022. Web. https://www.looktothestars.org/celebrity/betty-white 

 Chang, Rachel. Betty White’s Love for Animals Began as a Child. Biography. 17 January 2020. Web. https://www.biography.com/news/betty-white-animals-charity 

 DogTime. Betty White, zoos, and animal advocacy. Dogtime.com. Web. https://dogtime.com/dog-health/general/6040-betty-white-zoos-and-animal-advocacy 

 “”KOKO” – To look into the eyes of a 300 pound – Great American Country.” YouTube, uploaded by Butto, Eric C. Jr. 23 December 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIbx9BW7ktc 

 Morris Animal Foundation Remembers Betty White, A Tireless Champion for Animals. Morris Animal Foundation. 31 December 2021. Web. https://www.morrisanimalfoundation.org/article/morris-animal-foundation-remembers-betty-white 

 Reeder, Jen. One of Betty White’s greatest legacies is helping animals. Today. 31 December 2021. Web. https://www.today.com/pets/betty-white-animal-lover-rcna10067 

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humane nature is an animal tourism podcast with discussions about animal abuse, injury and medicine, listener discretion is advised. Welcome back, everybody to human nature. I'm Stacia your host, thank you so much for joining me again. And I know two weeks in a row crazy. I'm on it, guys. Okay, so if you didn't read the title of today's episode, we are going to be talking about America's grandmother, Betty White, who very sadly passed away just a couple of weeks ago, you know, just from natural causes she was days away from her 100th birthday. But unbeknownst to me, she was a true wildlife warrior during her life. So we are going to be talking about her life and how she impacted both wildlife and our pets for good. But to start, we are going to talk about some animal or some wildlife news. And I'm going to keep it all positive today because we're celebrating the life and legacy of Betty White, so let's keep it positive. First, a lowland gorilla has been born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Virunga National Park, which is so exciting. The lowland gorilla is a critically endangered species and this new baby bumped up their population to seven gorillas in this park. And the Virunga National Park is the oldest national park in Africa, and is a historic sanctuary for the lowland gorillas. Second, we have a badger foraging for food in northern Spain uncovered 209 Roman coins in a cave, which is just nuts, like little badger running around looking for some food after a heavy snowfall ended up in this cave. And these coins date between the third and fifth centuries from ancient Rome. And this is the largest trove of Roman coins ever found in a Spanish cave. So this is an extremely rare find, and historians are thanking this little badger for that. Finally, new inventions and devices are being used to clean up trash that are found in our waterways around the world. And I'm going to name a few of them because they're really cool, really ingenious. And of course, they've got some pretty stellar names as well. The great bubble barrier is a wall of bubbles, that pushes trash to the side of the river in Porto, Portugal, and allows fish and other wildlife to swim through it unharmed, which is super cool. I have been to Porto, Portugal, their river there and their waterways are absolutely stunning. So they're doing a really great job. Of course, in the United States, we have Mr. Trash wheel, which is a conveyor belt system powered by current and solar energy. This is found in Baltimore in the United States. And if you look up pictures of Mr. Trash wheel, he of course has some giant googly eyes on him. So he's pretty cool. And finally, the waste shark is an aqua drone. So high tech, that preys on plastic. This is due to showcase this month in Las Vegas, so later in January 2022 in Las Vegas, and those are just three of them. There are many, many more out there, but those are three of the coolest ones that I had found. Alright, let's get started talking about Miss Betty. But just a forewarning. I am recording this in my living room this time instead of my office. So if you hear Mr. Loki in the background, he's in an oddly playful mood right now instead of wanting to nap. So you may hear him trying to play with me while I'm recording this. I also have my my elderly rabbit Chappy in the background. So if you hear her, you know, drinking away on her water bottle. That's her so you can see pictures of both of them up on my Instagram. Okay, so let's talk about Betty White. Betty White, who most who most famously played Rose Nylund on the Golden Girls was an avid animal lover. She says quote, I've always thought you can tell by someone's hands if they truly love animals, the way they pet or don't pet them. You see it with the zookeepers in spades." So I've always thought the same thing that the way that someone you know, says hi to my animals when they come over to my apartment for the first time, or, you know, that's a big way that I used to kind of test my dates, you know, if they met my animals or met, you know, dogs and things that we would walk past how they would greet other animals. And you can always tell how a person how how empathetic they can be, by the way that they they treat animals. So Betty supported more than 26 charities and foundations and throughout her life, including the American Humane Association, Helen Woodward Animal Center, Morris Animal Foundation and PAWS of LA. And this is just a few of them. She also supported many, many charities and foundations that didn't pertain specifically to animals. She was a big supporter of the AIDS crisis, like helping people through the AIDS crisis in the United States, LGBTQ people, and especially helping them through, get like getting into acting and everything like that. So she's supported a lot in a lot, a lot, a lot of charities and foundations throughout her life, but especially with animals and wildlife. She partnered with the Morris Animal Foundation to create the Betty White wildlife rapid disaster, or sorry, Rapid Response Fund, which dedicates funds for research and aid to animals in natural disasters and emerging diseases. And this was founded in 2010. So I had absolutely no idea that Betty had her own wildlife Response Fund that is amazing. So in 2010, this fund was built as a response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and researched the spills effect on bottlenose dolphins. And back in 2020, if you guys remember this of all the craziness that happened in 2020, the Australian wildfires that really devastated the country, her Foundation provided a million dollars to support the rescue, rehabilitation and release of animals after those wildfires. So the Morris Animal Foundation is a pretty big deal. They're really, really great. They also pay for health research for animals. So researching for different vaccinations, researching how animals respond to medications and things like that. And Betty was a really big part of working with them to research veterinary pain management. So she was a really integral part of developing anesthesia and pain management for our pets. So if you, you know, take your dog or your cat in to get spayed or neutered, or they need some other kind of surgery, their pain management, you can thank Betty for that she was a big, big part of that. And she also says, quote, I'm not into animal rights. I'm only into animal welfare and health." which I completely agree with, I am that way as well. A lot of the times in animal rights movements, you get lost in the you're treating animals as people. And when you focus on animal welfare and health, you identify these animals as different species, you identify them as individuals outside of, you know, human emotions and human reactions. So you focus on what they actually need versus what we would need in their place, if that makes sense. So she served as trustee, board president, donor, donor, and spokesperson to the Morris Animal Foundation, and she was on their board when their research developed three major

vaccines:

the feline leukemia vaccine, the parvo virus vaccine, and potamack horse Fever vaccine. So I worked in a veterinary ER for years, I was always put in the kind of puppy Parvo isolation ward because I didn't have a dog of my own back home. And parvo virus is extremely contagious and extremely deadly. And it killed a lot of puppies, a lot of puppies before the vaccine was developed. And it still is, is around and very deadly. And it's why you want to get your puppies in as soon as they're old enough to get that first vaccine because that first vaccine that your puppy gets is for parvo virus and distemper and some other pretty nasty diseases. So Betty was on the board for that, as well as feline leukemia. That's a really big one too. And she also helped sponsor more than 30 studies with the foundation. Outside of the Morris Animal Foundation, she sat on the board at the LA County Zoo. She began working there in the 1960s but she didn't Start working there because she thought it was great. She began working there one because she lived in LA, and two, because she felt that the zoo could drastically be improved. She says, quote, "it was hard to believe that a city like Los Angeles would have such a poor Zoo. I've never been one to stand outside and join critical demonstrations. I wanted to get inside and get involved." So she did. So she began working there and donating there in the 1960s and ended up on the board. And now the LA Zoo is one of the best zoos in the world. It's fantastic. She worked personally with Jane Goodall to develop an ethical gorilla and chimp habitat, which is one of the first big projects that she did there. And after this, she received the 2009 Jane Goodall Institute Global Leadership Award for Lifetime Achievement for her work at LA Zoo. So yeah, that's absolutely amazing. I would die if I met Jane Goodall. She is an absolute legend. Betty also became an honorary zookeeper by the Los Angeles chapter of the American Association of zookeepers in 2013, which was a dream come true for her. She wanted to be a zookeeper ever since she was a child. And she decided to go into show business rather than becoming a zookeeper because she felt that her her true talent was in show business is what she said. But at the time, remember, she was born in 1922 Female zookeepers weren't really a thing. female scientists weren't really thing. Now we see a lot of the Animal Care Animal Sciences, you know, almost completely run by women. But at the time, it was not really heard of so she she went into show business instead. And she says, quote, "zoos don't only exhibit animals, they do a lot of wonderful conservation work." And I'm so glad that she recognizes that she doesn't hate people, or really try to argue with people so much who are against zoos she understands. But she wants people who don't like zoos to really look further into them and think about why they don't like them. Is it anthropomorphic? Do you not like zoos Because you wouldn't want to, you know, be in captivity. Or when you think of zoos, do you not think of an AZA accredited Zoo? Do you think of kind of like a roadside attraction zoo where the animals aren't treated very well, and they've got the small cages and you know, so she's a full supporter of AZA accredited zoos and the conservation work that they that they help us do. Her late husband Allen Ludden has a plaque at the koala pavilion at the LA Zoo. And Betty would frequently visit his plaque to kind of visit with him and talk with him. Like it was his gravesite almost. He loved the LA Zoo as well and fully supported Betty's work with wildlife and animals. She assisted with dozens of expansions and projects with LA Zoo while she worked there. As a child, her parents fully instilled her love of animals and she thanks them for instilling her love of animals as a child. She said, quote,"they'd go for a walk, and they'd come home with a dog or cat. "He followed us home Betty, can we keep him?"" so her parents were just as bad as me, you know, I go around, if I find a stray cat or stray dog, or rabbit or rat or whatever, I'm going to want to take care of it, you know, the best that I can. And then she also says, quote, "My mother always told me that if Toby (which was their orange tabby cat) didn't approve, I would have to go back" to her being born. So her mother took their cat Toby into account when Betty came into the world, their family would take in pets that others could no longer care for during the Great Depression. So you gotta remember guys, Betty White was born in 1922. So she lived through the Great Depression. She lived through World War Two she lived through so much so many changes in the world. She also says quote, "My folks also taught me to discriminate between the good zoos and those other places that displayed animals for all the wrong reasons and sent you home feeling sad." So Betty gets it. Betty was an honorary forest ranger by the Forest Service and enjoyed helping when she could. So Betty White legendary Betty White not only did all the show business that she was doing, she ran her own foundation. She sat on the board for the Morris Animal Foundation. She sat on the board and worked with LA County Zoo. She was constantly visiting other zoos all around the world. And she was an honorary forest ranger and would help wildlife through the forest service. She also was a really big supporter of seeing eye dogs and she helped sponsor dogs and helped donate to different companies and foundations that provided the services to blind folk. So she made quote "very generous gifts each year since 1986", and attended events for Guide Dogs for the Blind. So Guide Dogs for the Blind is a huge foundation that helps people who need one get a seeing eye dog and they help train the animals as well. She also made public service announcements to gather support, and offer dinner with herself as a bidding item each year for the seeing eyes annual fundraiser. So she supported both the Guide Dogs for the Blind and the seeing eyes. So those are two big organizations. And she also co authored books about seeing eye dogs to raise money and awareness and she co authored it, co authored them with a friend of hers who went blind as a child, so she was very, very involved. She was involved with the American Humane for 70 years, which is nearly half of its 145 year existence. So she was very active with the American Humane foundation American Humane Society for almost half of its existence, which is absolutely nuts. She was honored with the National humanitarian medal and the Legacy Award in 2012 from American Humane. And while Betty was traveling around for work and filming, she would visit major zoos in every city that she traveled to. She says quote, "no matter where it may be, I will never come away from a zoo visit without having seen something or learn something to remember." She also said quote, "good zoos find themselves taking on the role of protectors or or better yet conservers rather than merely collectors of wildlife." So this is so true. Good zoos AZA accredited zoos are typically nonprofits. And they pride themselves in protecting these animals, not just the individuals but the species as a whole, and participating in conservation efforts to help not only their animals, but animals all over the world. They don't see themselves as just collecting animals for people to see. Alright, so we're gonna take a short break. And then after this, I will talk to you about her book, Betty White and friends. And we'll talk about that which is absolutely amazing book. 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That's over $2,000 worth of travel miles. Where will you fly for free with your miles welcome back. Thank you for listening once again. Those ads help support this podcast and help support my blog stumble Safari. And by clicking the links in the description. You do help keep this podcast and my website running and at no extra cost to you. So those affiliate links will help help bring me a little income for these companies that I fully support with no extra cost to you. So let's talk about Betty White, Betty White's book, Betty White and friends. It's an absolutely incredible book detailing Betty's love of zoos and wildlife and the good that they provide. So I did sit down and read this book. You can find it on Amazon. I did read it through, you know, Kindle air. It's a pretty short read. But it's very funny. Of course, it's very funny, Betty White wrote it. And she discusses the history of zoos. She very briefly discusses the history of zoos and how far that they've come. She also discusses individuals, both human and non human that she has met while working with zoos in her life. So she talks about her friends by name, and she names her friends as both humans and animals. So she'll talk about, you know, my friend, Koko, the gorilla, who's a very famous gorilla, the one who knows sign language you may. You may know, Koko from the very famous video with Robin Williams. Betty White was also a friend of Koko's. She talks about some of her like zookeeper friends by name and other animals. So she also identifies major conservation successes from zoos. So she identifies an individual things that they have accomplished over the years. She discusses positive reinforcement training and why zoos do it. And this is something that I am also incredibly interested in. I did study animal behavioral psychology in school, and that's what my degree is in. So if you guys ever wanted me to sit and talk about the differences in types of training, and why we train animals certain ways, but for example, she talks about in the book how she watched, I think it was a tiger may have been a lion, how it was trained to put its paws underneath, like its cage. So that or a shoulder up against the cage on command. By using positive reinforcement in order for its zookeepers to give medications you know, do do physical checks and everything like that without having to sedate the animal which can cause a lot of sickness and can even cause injury if it falls incorrectly while it's being sedated. She discusses how we study wildlife in zoos versus how we study them in the wild and the big differences between them and she even has a section for quote unquote misunderstood animals and why she loves them which I love it. I love that section so much you know from last week I talked about snakes and and how much I love snakes and you know, the psychology of maybe why people don't like snakes and the implications such as the Sweetwater rattlesnake roundup on what happens when we don't appreciate snakes and love snakes for what they are. So and I did tear up a few times both from just it's such a happy book, I highly encourage you to read it, you can find it super cheap on Amazon. It's a tear jerker, for sure, especially knowing that Betty is gone now. So finally, I wanted to end this rather short episode with two things. First of all, if you weren't aware already, January 17, which is coming up would have been Betty White's 100th birthday. So there's kind of a celebration in her honor for her birthday, where kind of the the Betty White challenge is what it's being called the challenge is to donate $5 Just$5 to an animal rescue an Animal Foundation in Betty White's name, to support her legacy and, and to celebrate her birthday in a way that she would have absolutely loved. So you can donate directly to the Betty White wildlife fund if you'd like I will have the link in the description. And they do have this section where you can put in memoriam or, you know, make a donation for somebody else. So you could donate directly to Betty White's fund for her or I will probably end up donating my$5 to the Seattle Humane Society, the local humane society where I live where I rescued my baby Loki who I'm sure if you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, you've seen many pictures and video of him. He is my best friend and they paired me up with him earlier this year and I couldn't be more grateful to them. So I highly encourage you to participate in the Betty White challenge on January 17. And when you do take a screenshot and tag me in it, I'd love to see I'd love to see your donations, tag me in on Twitter or Instagram at stumble Safari for both. I'm also on Facebook if you'd like to share they're also at stumble Safari. So and to end this episode today I want to just share A short interview that Betty White did about Koko the gorilla. And it's very, very sweet and I hope you enjoy. Oh, right. The Betty they just, they're best friends. You know, I don't know how to put it. It's it's lovely. To come closer lips, yeah. To look into the eyes of a 300 pound gorilla, and have her tell you what she's thinking is truly humbling. She's right into my eyes and I'm right into hers. There's a connection, like an invisible connection between you that at that moment, nothing else around you exists. You're just enter that moment because it's someplace you've never been before. It's a new country. And this connection is Koko's gift to the world. I know it sounds crazy, but I've seen it. It's like seeing the humanity of a different species by communicating in a human language to express your needs. Or to be able to respond to a sad film just like we do. Koko forces us to realize that a gorilla is so much more than just an animal. Coco. Originally. There's footage of this when I asked her who she was, like me there. Okay, that is you said she thought it was her a fine gorilla animal. And then later I asked her, you know, who are you? And she said she was a fine person, gorilla. So her concept had shifted. And just like Koko's viewpoint has shifted. So has ours, it opens up Pandora's box, because suddenly it's clear, we humans are not unique. Animals can be just as special. And because of this, we have a responsibility to protect and care for them. Doesn't mean you can't love children. You can't love people. You can't. But don't shortchange paying attention to the animals too, because it's a whole other world. All right, darling. Bye, bye. kisses, kisses. Oh, I appreciate that very much. Bye. Bye, honey. I'll see you later. Oh, that was wonderful. So I don't know about you guys. But that just got me. I will link to that YouTube video in the description as well. So you can actually see Koko's reaction to Betty and how they're interacting and the conversation between Betty and the keeper and Koko as well. So you can follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at stumble Safari. I will be posting some really fun pictures of Betty White with with her wildlife friends when this episode comes out and also again on January 17 To celebrate Betty White's birthday and I highly encourage you guys once again to participate in the Betty White challenge and make that small donation in her name. And thank you guys so much. I will see you in two weeks and we will actually be finally talking about my favorite snake destination. I know I was supposed to be doing that this week but with Betty White's sudden passing and I wanted to get some awareness out there about how amazing she was and and some awareness for the Betty White challenge as well if you guys wanted to participate you can find sources for today's episode in the description. Thanks for listening