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Transcript

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0:01Who are the characters behind science? This is Science Behind the Glass, illuminating the human side. In this podcast, we unveil the human side of laboratories and science. Scientists share personal experiences and we discuss their meanings from different perspectives and fields of research. Welcome to Science Behind the Glass, illuminating the human side. The podcast that traces the unexpected life paths behind today’s science and conservation work. History. shows that service and science often walk the same road. During Second World War II, British naval officer Sir Peter Scott steered night convoys, then returned home to co -found the World Wildlife Fund and sketched its iconic panda logo. Across the channel, Scott’s guardsman, David Maxwell, survived commando training at D -Day. only to swap his raffle for a notebook and inspire generations with his author studies on a remote Scottish island. Their journeys echo the words of writer Carlos Castaneda. All paths are the same, leading nowhere. Therefore, choose a path with heart. Our guest today follows a similar path through rainforest canopies and military checkpoints. Raised on Australia’s mid -north coast, Nick Snail. First learned to wander from koalas and dolphins. Later, he shouldered a pack on overseas patrols. Now his compass points

1:35back to the animals he never stopped admiring. From war zones to rainforests, Nick’s stories remind us that every detour can still lead to one purpose -filled track, if the path has heart. His own… His own path began to take shape at ten, when his family left the sun -bleached paddocks of western New South Wales and resettled in Port Macquarie. There, tied back, Eucalyptus leaned towards the Pacific, and headlands pressed close to the sea. For a boy who could once count the local trees on one hand, this new landscape felt impossibly lush. Koalas napping overhead, dolphins coursing along the surf, forest slopes spilling almost onto the sand. The contrast was so stark it rewarded his senses of wonder. Even as an Australian, for me, a koala was something that you saw in wildlife books or you saw on documentaries.

2:45And that first house we lived in in Port Macquarie, we backed onto some forests. And we’d only been there a few months. And there was koalas sitting on the back fence, just sitting there. To me, that was just amazing. And this is probably true of everybody. You don’t really appreciate where you’re from if it’s all you know, because it’s just the background. Like many self -made naturalists before him, think of Gerald Durrell collecting lizards in jam jars, or Jane Goodall sketching back jar birds. Nick didn’t begin with a research grant or a lab coat. He began with wonder. That fence -topped koala, the surfing -riding dolphins, the southern green abundance along Port Macquarie’s headlands, all of it fused into a childhood conviction.

3:40Nature was not just a scenery. It was the main story. And he wanted a lifelong seat on the front. Nature for me was massive. Even before, so I, well, we as a family, we moved to Port Macquarie when I was about 10 years old. Before that, we’d lived out in Western New South Wales, very open country. I can probably count the number of trees I remember on one hand, just lots of grassland and farmland. But my parents’ family were all from Sydney in the Blue Mountains. So for us, I guess, going to see my grandparents in the Blue Mountains, which is for anyone who’s been to the Blue Mountains will know how spectacular that part of the world is. And then going back to Western New South Wales was quite, I don’t want to say devoid of nature, because nature, if you want to find it, nature is everywhere.

4:41We all know that. But I think what it did do was it really kind of created this sense of longing because It was such a novelty, I guess, you know, forests and hills and things like that. So then moving to Port Macquarie, which is so lush, you know, it’s on the coast. The mountains come quite close down there, going from open grasslands where really all you can see is a few kangaroos, sheep, cattle and wheat to subtropical rainforest coming down to the beach. Koalas everywhere.

5:15It was just a really stark sort of comparison. His father’s naval service was a closed chapter, spoken of without fanfare. A lesson in quiet professionalism. Years later, as global conflicts dominated headlines, the young man sought that same clarity of purpose. Firstly, like my dad was in the Navy, but he’d left the Navy before he met my mum. So that was kind of in his past.

5:51But he was quite open and honest about military service. So it wasn’t the sort of thing where he… talked it up as this amazing thing. He didn’t sort of say it was bad. Very honest. Never pushed just any of us down that path, but we were very aware of it. And the other thing, a very real sense of professionalism. Being from Australia, where we don’t have a massive army, we don’t sort of have conscription or anything like that. Everyone who joins the Defence Force does so voluntarily. They do so because they want to. And in my experience, and this isn’t true for everybody, I had been surrounded by people who were very good at what they did and seemed to be doing it for the right reasons.

6:41Experiencing the military forces allows him to explore and find nature everywhere, even in places he never thought about. And in places where nature is not accessible to people. These places are particularly where wildlife thrives. And as a part of Nick’s adventures, this was leading his path. I don’t know if it was a real driver for me to join the military, but it was certainly one of the reasons that kept me in for quite a long time as a reservist, was you got to see parts of the world that civilians don’t get to access. And one of those things we did was we were in Malaysia and we were doing some work in the jungles up there and proper dark rainforest.

7:29It was an area where… Despite the fact that we were on a training exercise, no real threat in terms of, you know, army things. But we were surrounded by wildlife that was potentially dangerous. So we were in tiger territory. We were in leopard territory. And we were doing a patrol through a section of this rainforest. And we were using a creek line to sort of hide our tracks as we were sort of getting to our objective. And it was me and one of my mates and we were leading our platoon patrol and we came across a pig carcass and it was still very warm and had only recently been ripped open. And he was a farm boy and I was a bit of a wildlife nut and we sort of thought, okay, well, he had killed a number of pigs so he knew exactly what a predated pig looked like.

8:28And I had a fair idea on what it would look like. And we thought, okay, this has definitely been killed by something quite big. And we put it through the tune and we sort of started having a look around. And as we moved further up this creek line, we started finding tracks in the sand. Now, if anyone who’s been in Southeast Asia in the wet season knows that it rains every day. And so tracks don’t stay in sand for long. And the tracks we found were definitely some sort of large cat. suspect it was a leopard and given that there was a very warm kill and some very fresh tracks we knew that it wasn’t very far away and as we continued for that period of time and we were only out there or this section of the patrol was about 24 hours and as the sun went down the people at the back end of the platoon started noticing because as they’re looking back someone caught a sign of its tail as it jumped across the track so it actually started following us purely out of curiosity because, you know, there was about 30 of us, so a leopard isn’t really going to be doing anything to 30 people with rifles. But there was this very real sense of this isn’t a documentary, this isn’t a picture in a book, like there’s a leopard here and we can’t see it, but the signs are there. And I think that was probably one of the most exciting, out of that entire four months that we were in Southeast Asia, that is still one of those things I just went, this is amazing. Between 2001 and 2021, Australia sent around 39,000 women and

9:59men, regulars and reservists, into the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan under the Operation Slipa and later Operation High Road. Most rotated in 6 to 12 -month blocks, guarding patrol bases in Uruzgan or mentoring Afghans units around Kabul. 41 Australians never came back home. Reservists like Nick often fill specialist roles, convoy security, combat medics, explosive detection dog teams, plugging into regular army platoons on the same gritty task. So when I deployed to Afghanistan, not a lot of wildlife in that part of the world where we were. Quite an urban area on the western side of Kabul. Lots of birds of prey, golden eagles and things up there. But, you know, the political landscape was really the dominant threat factor there. We were doing a lot with dogs while we were there in Afghanistan, mostly with explosive detection dogs, because our biggest threat was improvised explosive devices.

11:03And the dogs were quite good at detecting those. So most of the tasks we did, we would take a dog with us. And part of my role within our team was as a combat first aider. So we were the first point of medical intervention. when things went wrong. So we were trained to stabilize human casualties from the full range of things that can happen in a war zone, whether that be gunshots, explosions. Humans aren’t the only members of the team. That dog is a member of the team, same level of care. So when we got into Afghanistan, we had a veterinary officer come out and we did a short training on how to do basically everything that we would do on a human casualty, how we would do that on a dog. And as much as I love human medical intervention, I find that it’s hard, but very, very fulfilling. I really like doing it on the dogs. I found it so fascinating.

11:55And there was this sort of this wasn’t a switch. The switch had started to turn in my brain where I sort of thought, OK, maybe that stuff that excited me as a 10 year old has not gone away. And maybe I need to sort of embrace that a little bit more. And that was there. Bomb blasts crack the silence, city’s chiefs’ hands. Yet, in the falls of Afghanistan’s high country, something Asian keeps breathing. Camera traps set in the Wakan corridor still flash at night. Catching of snow leopards, at least 30 individuals recorded in 16 separated valleys despite two decades of war. In the cedar shadows of Nuristan, field rangers still lock fresh scats from Asian black bears, proof that the species clings on even as forest splinters for firewood. Wolves, ibex, and golden eagles ride the same rich lines where cool elysium patterns once scanned for ambush.

12:52Between mortar smoke and roadside dust, most soldiers seldom glimpse the parallel fight for survival unfolding behind the guard. Yet, a few, naïve among them, notice that what remains invisible to others. Those fleeting encounters whispers a lesson he carried home. Violence rarely pauses, but wildlife doesn’t either. It endures quietly, waiting for eyes willing to see. We were providing security for a library that they were going to be opening. Now, the thing is when you’re opening…

13:35a public building like that, you have lots of very important people in one location, that becomes a very tantalising target for people who want to do bad things. So our role was to go out there and make sure that nothing bad happened as I was setting up for this opening. It was late afternoon, so the sun was starting to set on the mountains there. Now, for anyone who has never been to Afghanistan, for all of its problems, it can be an incredibly beautiful country. Up in those mountains is… quite breathtaking, especially on that edge of winter as the snow starts to come in, can be quite distracting in how beautiful that place is. It really is a shame what’s been done to that place because it’s just, it’s another literally in terms of what I’d grown up with. And so I was pushed out to the corner of a bit of an intersection and there was a little ditch that ran alongside that road. And as I was sort of just scanning my arcs and looking.

14:34whatever, might be coming. I noticed in the ditch that there was these little mammals and they were very small, little rodents, tufted tails. I’d never seen anything like that before in my life. I didn’t know what they were. Obviously, I was doing quite an important job, so I wasn’t like I could run over and have a look at them. So I sort of spent a few glances where I could looking at them and they were just hopping around in amongst the rocks doing whatever they were doing. There was about half a dozen of them and then went back to what I was doing. But as that task wrapped up, like they were just, They were burnt into my brain. For whatever reason, these tiny little rodents were burnt into my brain.

15:08And we got back to our camp and we had internet access, you know, so that we could contact our families when appropriate. And I just started trying to work out what the hell these things were and couldn’t really work out what they were. I have managed, they were probably some sort of jerd. Most of the species that were living in that area, there was a few sketches from, you know, some… Russian and British naturalists had been through and a few pictures from Islamic scholars and things. But, you know, drawings, but no photographs. You know, Afghanistan has been pretty unstable for the better part of 40, 50 years. And a lot of those species are just so understudied. And I just thought that was such a shame because there is so much there that not only does the rest of the world not see, but the locals don’t get an opportunity to appreciate.

16:02Because they’ve got some really big issues to deal with. You know, when you’re not sure if you’re going to make it to school the next day, what do you care about some small rodent? It’s just not on the top of your priority list. For the rodent, and this was probably the first thing and the thing that has really stuck with me and did have an impact on what I did next, they have no idea what’s going on. They don’t care. You know, there’s this massive geopolitical… disaster happening around them. And they’ve got no idea.

16:35It’s incredibly consequential to them, but fundamentally meaningless. And that started a change in my perspective on geopolitics as well. Because as consequential as it is, at the end of the day, it is largely meaningless. It’s all made up. It’s all things that we’ve decided matter. But the world will go on. The environment will go on, regardless of who controls what. That started to change my perspective on service and purpose from serving my country to there are bigger issues than any one country. And I wanted to be a part of that solution and to give some of my time and energy and effort to trying to make those problems a little bit less. Nick admired the mission -driven peers around him. people committed to do something larger than themselves. Yet, when his own military service ended as a reservist, the transition felt organic. My transition was better than most, I think. One, being a reservist and having my foot in both worlds, I think it wasn’t as stark of a change as it would have been if I’d been a full -time soldier for that eight years. The other thing, I had support when I got home. Having family who understood that world, you know, having a father who kind of

18:06got what the military was like and having uncles who’d been in Vietnam. Even before I got back from Afghanistan, I knew there was something to step into. I knew there was a path to follow and that gave me purpose. A realization crystallized during deployments. Environment outlasts every human conflict. Borders change. ecosystems, and Europe. His definition of service expanded beyond nations. I wanted to mend problems bigger than any flag. The camaraderie he cherished, those incredible humans striving together, has shown him the power of collective action. Now, he craved to wield that energy for life and nature. I was getting a bit older. When I say older, I was in my mid -twenties, late twenties. So I’m not old, still a baby. But, you know, I was infantry and that does take a toll on the body. And, you know, I wanted to do something a bit bigger than that. And the only reason I got out of the military really was because there was something else that I wanted to do that was more alluring. And I think I’m incredibly blessed really to have had two careers that were really fulfilling. One that satisfied me immensely, and now to be in one that is even more satisfying. I know so many

19:39people who have still never had a job, but they liked. Incredibly grateful for that. Port Macquarie’s Koala Hospital became his sanctuary plus deployment. A place of retirees and rare staff. They welcomed him anyway. Soon, he was racing into wildfire ravaged lands, rescuing koalas from infernos. So when I got back to Port Macquarie, when I got back from Afghanistan and was spending time with my family, I knew that I was going to be doing wildlife stuff. I had no idea how that was going to happen or what that was going to look like. But I knew that that was probably a really good place to start. So I went down, I put in an application to volunteer. And my application was accepted. And immediately I was made to feel really welcome, even though I was just so different to almost everybody else there.

20:35Like, you know, well, I was 26 year old infantry, fresh back from a war zone, no experience doing anything with wildlife with all of these people who’d spent decades catching koalas and fixing koalas. I think that made a massive difference. not only for my professional development, but mentally and socially, because I felt like there was this place where I was really being taken under all of these wings. And everyone there had something to teach me, you know, whether that was the clinical director, Shane, who, you know, was doing amazing things there. Any of these, you know, predominantly women in their 60s and 70s, some of them in their 80s, you know, and just… showing you how to do all of these things, which was just so far out of my wheelhouse.

21:26You know, like I obviously knew how to do clinical interventions for all of these animals. I didn’t know how to syringe feed a koala. I didn’t know how to get a koala down from a tree. Like, how do you get a koala 20 meters up a tree? But Nick’s curiosity didn’t stop at Australia’s shores. Eager for new challenges, he headed to Africa. Trading koala gauntlets for the raw power of lions, elephants and other masters of the savannah.

21:53Immersed in their world, he discovered whole new lessons in resilience, behavior and the delicate balance between humans and wildlife. I love koalas. They are such a calm animal to be around when they’re relaxed. Don’t get me wrong. Going from that to lions and elephants. who really don’t want you anywhere near them, is a learning experience and very humbling, very quickly. Because they know that they’re the big dog in that relationship, you know, especially something like an elephant.

22:35They’re so smart. They’re so emotionally attuned. They know how big they are. But behind wilderness, dirty secrets are hidden. In South Africa, raw power brawls behind fences. Some 8,000 captive -breed lions are housed on more than 300 breeding farms. Cops are bottle -fed for tourist selfies. Then, so long for guaranteed kill -can hunts once they outgrow their cobbled venue. Public outrage is finally nudging policy. In 2024, a ministerial task team recommended shooting the industry, and in July 2025, the government began drafting a national -wide ban on any new captive lion facilities. That pipeline is what the Kevin Richardson Foundation tries to interrupt. The sanctuary where Nix spent his first weeks in Africa caring for lions, leopards, and his hyenas, rescued from the cane hunting chain. When he arrived, Those cats were no longer trophies in waiting. They were patients, subjects in Dr.

23:45Jessica’s Burkhardt studies on oxytocin and social stress. Against the backdrop of an industry that turns apex predators into paper -shot commodities, Nick’s daily chores, feeding, observing, drawing blood samples, felt like quiet resistance, proof that a different path for these animals is possible.

24:16And in the process of volunteering there, I met an American neuroscientist who was doing some research. Now, the research she was doing, and her name is Dr. Jessica Burkhart, and she was looking at oxytocin and its effect on social behavior in large cats. The reason she was doing it with cats was because lions are very social.

24:43Leopards are not. And so it provides a really good study of two animals, same genus, very similar biology, socially very, very different animals. So what effect does this social oxytocin thing, the love, what effect does that have on these animals between a solitary animal and a social animal? The end result of what she was trying to identify, what effect does that have on the brain? And what applications does that have for humans in terms of post -traumatic? And it had really positive results. What was happening was we could take, for example, an object, introduce it to a pride of lions, see how they would interact.

25:32Are they willing to share that object? No. If we give them a dose of oxytocin, are they now willing to share that object? And for the most part, yeah, they become a lot more chilled out. And they start to develop these more positive interactions with these stressful interactions. And we saw the same thing with leopards as well. Opportunities did pour down in South Africa. and nearly every task needed the exact skills Nick had honed in uniform. Wildlife pet teams immobilized lions, leopards, or rhinos by darting from low -flying helicopters, then rushed into feet -tracking collars or saw off horns before poachers arrived. Calm cockpit drills radiated brevity. It felt like a bushfire met evac or an Afghan dust -off. Only the patients now weighed 200 kilos and had teeth. Nick’s infantry training, navigation, first aid, working in tight uniforms translated seamlessly into these high -stake captures, turning military muscle memory into foreign line conservation. So Dr. Jessica Burkhart knew a veterinarian who was looking for an assistant.

26:52And the criteria that he was looking for was people who had wildlife experience, ideally… who were comfortable being in dangerous situations because he was working around animals that had the potential to be poached and therefore the team had the potential, which is in that part of the world, not unlike dealing with some parts of Afghanistan, I guess you could say, was comfortable working around helicopters in stressful situations.

27:28All of the things I’d done in the military, all of the things I’d done with the Kuala Hospital and the exposure I’d had volunteering in South Africa all came together to sort of tick these boxes for what he was looking for. I remember when I was in high school and a teacher asked me what I was going to do. And I said, I want to go and join the army. And he said, what do you want to do in the army? And I said, I want to join the infantry. And he said, don’t do that. There will be no transferable skills. It’ll get you nowhere. You’ll learn nothing of value doing that. And I still respect him because he was being honest in what he believed. But if I ever run into him, I can’t wait to tell him how completely wrong he was, that all of those things were actually super helpful. And they got me where I am. Without all of those random little skills, there’s no way I’d have been flying around the savannah in a helicopter, chasing lions. Like, there just wasn’t. For someone who has patrolled conflict zones, hauled koalas from burning forests, and held dart rhinos from a helicopter, Neith could easily sound larger than life. Instead, he talks about his journey with the ease of a neighbour encountering weakened plants. His modesty anchors every story and reminds listeners that big impacts often start with a small act of saying yes. that

29:02I’ve been able to say yes to that sets me apart. I don’t think I’m special in any way, shape or form. I’m just a little bit lucky. And my network has been the big player. Anyone out there, you don’t have to be the smartest. You don’t have to be the fittest. You don’t have to be the best looking. You’ve just got to surround yourself with really good people. That’s what’s going to get you where you’re going. This myth of the independent, I did it all on my own. No one has done it on their own. We’re all doing it as part of a team and I wouldn’t be anywhere without all of those people who have supported me and lifted me up. War sounds bushfires, helicopter dust. Nick’s story reminds us that the skills we gain on any path can be repurposed for good.

30:05A map that once guided a patrol can guide rescuers through a burning eucalypt forest. A battlefield tourniquet becomes a koala’s lifesaver. Service, it turns out, isn’t bound to uniforms. It follows the heartbeat of purpose. And nature keeps the beat. Snow leopards pad across Afghan ridges long after troops withdraw. Lions rescued from Ken Hunt’s relearned trust. Koalas sink their nightly grounds in trees that already sprout after black summer’s flames. The lesson is simple but urgent. Ecosystems endure, yet they endure better when we lend our hands, our training, and our imagination. Science Behind the Glass is independently produced and edited by your hosts Linda Hernandez -Duran and Daniel Esguerra.

30:55with our technical magic behind the scenes from Rafael Giordano and original music by our colleague and friend Bernardo Aguirre. Remember, every detour can lead to the same place if the path has heart. And sometimes the path wins from camouflage to conservation, from mortal smoke to marsupials. Until next time, keep looking behind the glass and keep choosing the work that lets you serve something larger than yourself.