National Park After Dark - Not Finished Yet: Hwange National Park

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

When conservationist Dr. Greg Rasmussen is flying the skies alone above Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe his ultralight plane experiences a malfunction causing him to crash land in the open African bush. Severely injured and without any food, water or emergency kits he must survive his injuries, the elements – and the predators. Just when he is about to give up, the thought of saving the very animals who could end his life gave him the will to live. For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!Miracle Made: Use our link and code NPAD to save over 40% and get 3 free towels.Microdose Gummies: Use code NPAD to get free shipping and 30% off your first order.Embrace Pet Insurance: Use our link to sign up for pet insurance today!BetterHelp: National Park After Dark is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off.For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Monday AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. They live inside Monday.com. So they see the full picture, my work, my team, the whole company. And I don't have to worry about the data. It's safe, which means I'm free to focus on the big stuff,

knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. Girl, winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang on the patio sundress.

Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear up on that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. Thankfully, very few of us will be put into true life or death situations. Circumstances where we will have to fight tooth and nail for our own survival.

Whether it be an accident of some kind, losing our way in the wilderness, being cast to drift at sea, or stranded without aid, all of these people will eventually have to make a choice. In a life or death situation, there is no middle ground and no levels of severity, no sliding scale or happy medium. You are either going to live or you are going to die. In times like these, people will often call upon their preferred deity, a supreme being of which they plead to be spared.

A final attempt and a shout into the void in hopes of reaching whatever or whoever is out there for assistance or for a good curse out. But there comes a point where begging yields no results and a choice must be made. to accept demise or to dig in your heels in rebuff, a mental refusal that can potentially make all of the difference. In the famous words uttered by serial 4L, there is only one God and his name is death, and there is only one thing we say to death.

Not today. Welcome to National Park After Dark. So this is a death episode. This is a survival episode. Oh right, not today, not today. Not today, death. Not today. Do you know who that is? Of course not. It's a famous character in, well, he had kind of a short stint in the series, but it's a Game of Thrones character. Oh, okay. I have seen, I have seen Game of Thrones. He's the one, he appeared in earlier seasons. He is the one who teaches Aria how to sword fight.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, anyways, this is. This is. not a Game of Thrones podcast, nor is it a true crime podcast. We don't know what we are, but we're talking about a survival situation today in Africa. Nor are we a survival podcast. But here we are. We're going to be talking about a survival story, which, taking a page out of your book for this one and changing it up a little bit. I do love a good survival story. Yeah. And I chose this story to come out at this time because we are gearing up in the next like a handful of weeks to go to Africa. So I really wanted to cover an African continent-based story.

So even though we're not going to be in this national park, we're going to be really close to it. So I wanted to do this story. Who knows where our adventures might lead us? I know. We do have like 10 days between South Africa and Madagascar, which is still to be determined. Who knows? So maybe we'll come here. We know we will not be flying home.

That's right. Yeah. All right. So we are going to be going to Wangy. National Park. And this park is located in the northwest corner of Zimbabwe, about two hours south from Victoria Falls. Oh, Victoria Falls is so high on my list. Continue. Tell me more. So I feel like we'll be going there. That's what you're saying. Yeah. All right. Named after a local chief, it was first occupied by the Nahanzwa people. They were driven out by a rival tribal group and a

Southern African King used this land that is now the National Park as his royal hunting grounds in the early 1800s. Due to the decimation of wildlife due to overhunting by the 1920s, the area was sanctioned for wildlife conservation and designated as a game reserve an effort to preserve what was left, which was not much. And it kind of has done a complete 180 in regards to wildlife, which is awesome. But at this point in time, it was deemed unsuitable even for agriculture because of the poor soil quality and scarce water supplies. It was just like, it was kind of like a wasteland that no one really wanted. Okay. Later, it was established as a national park in 1930. It is approximately 14,650 square kilometers, which is roughly half the size of the country of Belgium. And it's the

largest national park in the country of Zimbabwe. So it's huge. The park has a semi-arid climate being on the edge of the Kalahari Desert, and it has a largely flat landscape containing hardwood forests and is habitat for her gazelle, kudu, rhinos, leopards, lions, giraffe, zebras, and a whole host of other African wildlife from big to small. A smorgish board, if you will. A smorgish board. A smorgish board. A smorgish board. That's a fun word. Sorry, a smorgish board. Like, kind of like a a charcutory board. But it's a smorgish board. How do you even smell that? That's a really good question. Is it a real word? Yes. Yeah. I'm looking it up right now. Where does it originate from? It's not spelled how I thought it would be. And it says it's a buffet offering a variety of hot and cold

meats, salads, hors d'oeuvres, etc. Or a wide range of something, a variety. Oh, it's Swedish. That makes sense. Schmorgish board. Yeah. Okay. That was my Swedish accent. I apologize to anyone Swedish listening to me. I know, they're like, please. They're like please. Don't continue. Never come to Sweden. Thank you.

One of these animals on the smorgish board is the African elephant. And when Wangu was first established, there was less than a thousand elephants, African elephants remaining in the entirety of the park. And thanks to various efforts, including the drilling of boreholes to provide waterholes throughout the park for the animals. Today, it is home to one of the world's largest populations of them, and they're coming in at roughly about 30,000 individuals in the park today. Despite its thriving wildlife populations with over 100 mammals and 400 species of birds,

the rangers here commit a large portion of their time to anti-poaching efforts, which remains a huge problem throughout the park. Visitors enjoy world-class wildlife viewing and can stay in various bush camps within the park boundaries, particularly during the dry months, which is between May and October. And it's this beautiful park that the main character of our story today, Greg Rasmussen, fell in love with. And I'm going to tell you his story. And I will say some people may perk up a little bit because you may have heard of it before. And I did when I was like, so after school, when I was in like elementary and high school, or middle school,

I would come home and watch, you know, whatever was on cable. Except for the summer that, this is a total side note, there was a summer that my mom and my stepdad were like, we're not doing cable. Like, you need to get outside and just like not have a TV.

And so they just did basic cable. I love that. I had like three channels. How old were you? I was, I want to say I was in middle school at some time. They're like, no more Lizzie McGuire for you. Get out. Yeah, they literally like cut me off. I was like, how dare you? But there was one show that was on like one of the handful of stations. I don't know if you remember this one. Supermarket sweep. Do you remember that? No, I don't. God. It was so addicting. It's like jokes on you because I actually now love supermarket suites. It was a show where you had to like, okay, the details are fuzzy. But basically there was all these people like with shopping carts at the supermarket. And they had.

like a certain amount of time. There was like a timer on that they had to go throughout the grocery store and fill up their cart with the most expensive items and whoever had like the biggest hall, like grocery hall won or something. So people would go after like formula and diapers and, you know, really expensive stuff. And that was the whole base of the show. What did they win? I don't, I feel like they either won what was in their carts or some sort of cash prize or like

a vacation or something. It was like one of those like weird. It sounds like a show you could get into, especially the anxiety of like winning. Yeah. And the timer would go down. It's like, oh my God, I get that last like bundle of stuff. Grab the stakes. Grab the stakes. Seriously. It was wild. So anyways, when I got cable back and I was allowed back into the world of, you know, I wasn't sequestered into being shunned outside all the time. Yeah. I could watch TV again. Our child. I know. Well, you know, when you're an angsty, like, middle schooler, you don't want to be forced to do, like, anything.

No. And coming home from school and just vegging out on the couch was a priority, and I didn't get to do that. But anyway, so when I got cable back, I would do, there was always a haunting on, like, on TLC or whatever. And there was also, I shouldn't be alive. And I loved that show. I've seen that show. And Greg Rasmussen was on season one. So his story was highlighted in season one of I Shouldn't Be Alive. I believe it was episode six. I rewatched it when I was doing research for this episode.

But yeah, if you want to watch him tell his own version of this story, his story, you can go find that in the YouTube archive somewhere. But you're here now. So I will share it with you all. This episode is brought to you by Prime. obsession is in session and this summer Prime Originals have everything you want steamy romances irresistible love stories

and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice off campus every year after the love hypothesis Sterling Point and more slow burns second chances

chemistry you can feel through the screen your next obsession is waiting watch only on Prime Greg was born in April of 1957 in London, but moved to Zimbabwe with his family when he was 11. It didn't take long for him to become enamored with the African wildlife and wild spaces of Africa,

and he spent most of his time outdoors and amongst the laboratories of the Natural History Museum growing up. He went on to study at Falcon College, which is an independent boarding school in Zimbabwe, before he went on to join the British Royal Navy. While he was in service with the Navy, he continued his studies at the Warsaw Navy. College, but also took a big interest in research. In 1978, he received an award for his work on ocean currents in the Atlantic and went on to make a couple journeys to both the North and South Poles. He made his way back to the African continent and started work as a herpetologist, dead set on making his career centered around reptiles. But as a young biologist, just starting out

his working career, he was eager to jump on any opportunity that presented themselves, whether it had to do with reptiles or other species of animals. So when he heard that there was news of a painted dog research team who was searching for additional help on one of their upcoming trips, he eagerly signed up and jumped on that opportunity. And this trip pivoted his entire life. He fell in love with the African painted dogs, and after witnessing a surprising interaction between PAC members,

he and his team were observing, he knew that he was going to dedicate his entire life to them. He still has a space in his heart for reptiles, but the African painted dog really took the spotlight for him. According to an interview that Greg gave this special moment that he described that really changed his mind as far as his area of study focus is when on this trip, he heard a scuffle between the pack that he was following and a lion.

And when he got into the bush, he discovered that there was a severely injured African painted dog laying down. He couldn't even lift his head. He was obviously significantly injured. And Greg was pretty sure that the animal would soon succumb to its injuries and there's probably going to pass away, you know, in the near future. Knowing there was nothing to be done and obviously not wanting to interfere because he's there strictly as a biologist to study and not interfere with anything, he made the difficult decision to leave the dog so nature could take its course. And the next morning, he returned to the area and the dog was not there. It was missing and there was drag marks

seen from the spot where he last saw it. And he assumed hyenas or other predators had found a free meal essentially. But after he followed the drag marks, to his complete surprise, he found that the dog had been dragged into a thicket by the rest of its pack members. And over the course of a few months, the pack proceeded to feed the injured animal and ate it in its recovery, literally licking the dog's wounds until he regained his strength and the animal made a full recovery. That makes me want to cry. That is so sweet. I'm also like a little emotional this time of the month. So just rip at my heart strings and let me eat some chocolate. It is really sweet. It was really sweet. And this whole instant really intrigued him. And,

And he was like, you know, there's more to these animals than meets the eye. And he really wanted to dedicate his life into studying them and advocating for them. And in this interview, he said that the dogs were simply too fascinating not to study. And when he told his mother about his change in his area of study and his focus, she wasn't immediately thrilled. Like many others, she had grown up believing that these animals were vicious killers. but an early interaction Greg had with them began to ease her mind a bit. So Greg had another incident with the dogs.

And it was one day he was out camping and he was sleeping about 50 yards away from a pack of about 11 of them. And the next morning he wakes up. He goes to relieve himself and finds himself he was completely surrounded by them. Like he wasn't aware of their presence at first and he realized that he's completely surrounded. But instead of being, you know, torn apart, like these vicious animals are portrayed to be, he says that he felt like he was being studied. Like they were just pretty curious about him and just simply watched him for a few moments before they moved on without doing any harm. So it was becoming more and more clear to him that the African painted dog had gotten a very bad rap over the years and that he had a pretty special opportunity to study them and to share their story in hopes of becoming a positive voice.

for their entire species. And before we move on, just because a lot of this is going to have to do with the African painted dog, I just wanted to talk a little bit about them because it's not an animal that we've ever talked about before. And they, I feel like, don't get the spotlight when you think of African wildlife species. You think of the Big Five. And, you know, but they're really cool animals. And you should look them up because they are the cutest things I've ever seen.

Of course they are. They, maybe you shouldn't right now because you might cry if you see baby one because they are So cute. I'm Googling immediately baby painted dog. A baby painted turtle comes up as a... Not as cute, arguably, the turtle. Oh, my heart. Oh my God, they look like little German Shepherd puppies.

Look at their ears. They're big ears. They're like giant circles on their head. They look like satellites. Yeah, they do. Their ears. They hear really, really, really, really. Well, that's right.

Wow, they're so cute. I want one. Not really, but, you know. If not friend, why friend shaped, you know? Right. Well, honestly. So you may have heard of these animals being referred to as the African wild dog, and that's how I had heard of them growing up.

But there's actually a movement to kind of remove that from the vocabulary because it contributes to an already hugely misunderstood species. So that's why it's being kind of. slowly replaced with the painted dog. And their appearance is consistent with their scientific name, which translates to painted wolf. They literally look as if someone threw a bucket of brown, yellow, tan, white and black paint on them. They're very splotchy looking. It kind of gives them this irregular model-looking coat. It's very unique. They have large satellite-shaped ears. They weigh roughly 40 to 70 pounds and live in habitats ranging from deserts, forests, and grasslands

throughout parts of Africa. At 30 inches tall and 30 to 56 inches in length, they aren't big animals, but their strength lies within their pack structure, which can range from about 10 to 40 animals on average. 10 to 40, that's a big range. Yeah, I know. They're highly social animals. They live, play and hunt in family groups, their entire lives, their whole lives are focused on their family. They are opportunistic hunters who prey on medium-sized animals, usually going for like gazelle-sized prey. And when in full-out sprints, their long legs can reach 44 miles an hour. Wow. Interestingly, unlike other dogs who have five, they actually only have four toes on their four feet.

So that's a cool way to like differentiate their prints. That's cute. Threats to the painted dog are numerous. Habitat loss remains a significant issue, along with human wildlife conflict in the form of a lot of different things. Automobile accidents, which I looked up the stats for Wangy National Park, and they see an average of about three dog fatalities and four individuals with broken legs due to car crashes each year. There's poaching, being killed by farmers and ranchers, and even well-meaning people can have a detrimental effect. It's been documented that the presence of film crews or ecotourists who seek out the dogs on safari have inadvertently caused them to move, which disturbs their feeding habits and their den sites. This not only leaves the young in dens more open to lions and hyenas if the adults in the pack are disturbed and have to move away from the den site, but pups are sometimes lost simply by falling behind when the pack moves den sites.

Oh, okay. So that's something that, you know, isn't really at the forefront of threats to a species. You know, you think of like obviously poaching and things like that. Climate change, whatever. Right. Right. And even if the casualties and injuries caused by these activities don't sound like much on paper, you know, like three or four individuals, getting hit back cars every year, the incidents are majorly impactful on a highly social animal,

such as the painted dog. Similar to the gray wolf in a lot of ways, their social behavior, their influence on their environment, impact on other species, and their pack behavior in hierarchy are almost mirrors to one another, the gray wolf and the painted dog. It's really interesting. And part of this behavior, this includes when a leader of the pack dies, say it gets hit by a car or poached, the entire pack is at risk of collapse. Additionally, any loss is a big one when speaking about an endangered animal. The African painted dog is one of the world's most endangered mammals listed as endangered on the IUCN list. According to the World Wildlife Fund,

there's only an estimated 1,400 of them remaining in the wild. With a dwindling population an increasing number of threats to their continued survival, Greg went full steam ahead in his work studying the dogs, establishing the painted dog conservation project in the year 2002. And although his life was primarily centered around this animal, he was never one to turn down helping other species of animals. And that came into play in June of 2003 when a rhino was in need of help. More specifically, Greg's friend was in need of help to find this rhino. The good news was that the animal was tagged and was able to be tracked. But the bad news was that wangie is expansive and covering that amount of land, roughly half the size of Belgium, through the ground,

through a ground search would take a ton of time. And it was unclear if the rhino had been poach, had died from other causes, or had simply wandered off. So they really had no starting point of where to even start looking for this animal. And Greg was called upon as he was one of the only pilots in the area.

Using his one-man ultralight plane, he would be able to search from the air and cover a lot more ground. Greg agreed to help in the search without a hesitation saying that when an animal or a friend needed help, he was on it. Deciding to get an early start on the day before temperatures got too hot, Greg hopped aboard his plane and took off. Scanning the savannah for signs of the missing rhino,

he was also listening for it. The animal was equipped with a tracking device that sent signals out regarding its location and Greg had the receiver. Not only could this piece of equipment give its location when in range, but it would also send out signals indicating if the animal was alive or dead. GPS trackers have come a long way in the two decades since this time, because remember, this is literally 20 years ago, 2003, and they can provide a wide range of data,

but Greg simply needed to know where the animal was and if it was still alive, and then report back to his friends. After only about an hour in the sky, he got what he needed. His GPS signal alerted that it had located the animal and it was alive. Although he didn't have a specific visual on the animal below him, He didn't spot it with his own eyes. That information was enough to report back. He had the general coordinates and, you know, the signal it was alive.

So he circled the plane around to make his way back to headquarters. And when he did, his plane shuddered. An experienced pilot, he understood immediately what was happening. The plane was experiencing what is called a wing stall, which occurs when an aircraft wing stops producing lift. So essentially, only one wing of this small plane was flying, which was a huge, problem. He went through all the correction measures to solve the issue, but nothing worked. I have to stop you for a second because I feel bamboozled. I thought we were going into a survival story with animals and you turn around and this is going to be a plane crash. Okay. I can see

and you're back on another plane crash episode and I was just not prepared. I mean, I'm sure that there's more to it, but I just had no idea going into this episode that you were back in plane crash episode. I really didn't realize that until right now either. So I am equally a surprise. I didn't even think about it because it is usually when I do plane crash stories, I guess, no, that's not true because there are survivors, the ones that I talk about. Yeah. Okay. I knew. It's a minor part. You said a like a couple episodes, you're like, I'm not doing a crash story for a long time. And here we are. I'm just, I'm shocked. I'm pleasantly surprised, but I'm just shocked because I was like, we're in Africa, painted dogs, while.

life. He's going to survive some crazy animal encounter. And now you got him in a plane. Tell me more. Tell me about the plane. We know it's going down. I should have known something was happening because I kept looking up at you when I was reading my notes and you had the biggest shitting, eating grin on your face. I'm like, what? Like, I, I just, I like plane crash episodes and I just wasn't, I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know either. I'm excited. I'm currently watching. hijacked on, it's not a plane crash show, but hijacked on Apple TV. I've been preferably watching it while in a plane traveling recently to add to my anxiety of flying and how we'll be flying soon again. And we got a plane crash. It's just love it. I'm sorry. I am sorry.

I didn't know. I didn't realize. I'm not even being sarcastic either. I actually do like plane episode. So please. I'm ready. Well, he's in a plane. It's crashing. It's currently. And he's in a full-blown spiral downfall, plummeting through the sky, towards the ground. Uh-huh. And very fast. The next thing he knows, he's on the ground. Dust is flying everywhere. Sounds about right.

He has just crashed his plane. Yep. There it is. And he didn't want to open his eyes because he was afraid of what he may find. At first, he didn't know if he was alive or if he's dead. And then he realized, okay, I'm alive. but now I'm afraid to open my eyes because he knew it was bad. Mm-hmm.

He just didn't want to face it quite yet. It was scary. Yeah. And so finally, he starts to open his eyes because he felt droplets on his face. The skies had been clear moments before when he was flying. So there was no way that it was rain. But then he started to smell it. And then he started to taste it.

And it was petrol. So he was blinking his eyes open and discovered that he was coated in this. gasoline from his plane. And the panic set in almost immediately. He feared that he was going to be incinerated in an explosion. And he knew that he needed to get out of the tangled mess of metal and far away from any flames that it could produce at literally any moment. I mean, I feel like you see that in every movie especially with like cars, like car crashes and chases and they end up exploding. And so he's thinking that this thing is just going to like, explode at any given moment.

So he's attempting to wiggle out of his crumpled spot that he's in in this wreckage, but he realized that his legs wouldn't move. With the anxiety of the plane exploding without warning, gnawing at him, he used his upper body to drag himself, scooting away on his butt out and away from this leaking wreckage. After an exhausting and panicked drag, he made it to a single tree nearby. But almost as soon as he dragged himself to safety, he realized he needed to call for help through the radio on the plane. But he was petrified because he kept envisioning the plane exploding into this big fireball and consuming him. And he was dreading being burned alive and unable to run away because his legs still aren't functioning.

However, the seriousness of his situation was abundantly clear. He had only planned for a quick flight. As a result, he had no food, no water, and no survival. supplies of any kind. And bonus, he was 70 miles away from the nearest road and no one knew where he was. Hello. Once again, he dragged himself over to the plane to access the radio to send out a distress call, but his heart sank when he reached for the equipment only to find it completely fried from the crash. The crash had short-circuited everything and none of his equipment was functional. Deflated, he made the arduous journey back out of and away from.

the wreckage. Breathing heavily and assessing his situation, it hit him. A pain like nothing he had ever experienced. The initial adrenaline had now worn off and the pain started to seep throughout his whole body. And he began to look himself over and superficially he was fine, only some minor scrapes and bruises, but the problem was his legs. They were broken in several places, causing them to dangle and drag like jelly. The pain was coming from them, but more specifically from his ankles. He said it felt like they were on fire, as if they were exploding from the inside. Leaning against a thorny tree and an extreme pain, he knew he needed to get his boots off. The pain was coming from broken bones, but also from his feet swelling. And his concern was that

the swelling would lead to gangrene. And out of fear of losing his feet, he knew he had to had to get his shoes off and he needed to get them off now. But the problem was he was so badly injured, he could barely reach down to get to his feet, let alone reach all the way to his feet to take off his boot. So he's leaning, he's sitting on his butt, he's leaning his back against the singular tree. And he reaches out for a branch that looked like it had a little bit of a natural hooked end in hopes of using it to loosen up his tightly laced boots. And he maneuvered the stick between the loops of his laces and he was successful in untying them. But unfortunately, the loosening of the laces led to the loosening of the shoe, like slowly as he was doing like row by row,

the shoe would slowly and like bit by bit loosen up. And that space was immediately filled by unchecked swelling. So he was getting like nowhere. Greg had to remove the laces from each individual islet on both of his shoes with this hooked end of a branch, like one by one by one. As his feet are just swelling as he does it. Oh, that sounds awful. Then came the excruciating task of actually removing his shoes. He remembered seeing a movie in which someone was undergoing a painful process and they had

put a piece of leather strap in their mouths and hoping to like bite into it and alleviate some of the pain. And I think that's like a classic thing. It's in a lot of, especially like old. Western movies when they're like, we got to take your leg. They just like put a piece of like. They're like bite on this leather and scream. Yeah.

Yeah. So he remember that, recalls that. And he reaches over and gets a piece of the tree and puts it in between his teeth and used the other branch in his hand to kind of wrench off his shoes. And he ended up biting down so hard that the piece of wood completely disintegrated and it was full of termites. And they flooded his whole mouth all over his face. It gets so much worse.

Perfect. The process was so painstakingly slow that in all, it took him two and a half hours to get his shoes off. Wow, that's awful. And his face is filled with termites. As Greg was fighting with his shoes, Peter Blinston was at work. Peter was one of Greg's best friends and closest colleagues and had a similar story that led him to Africa. Peter first learned of the painted dogs in grade school while living in English. after watching them on screen in a nature documentary.

He knew that that was where his life was headed as soon as he saw them on film. Peter and Greg worked side by side at the nonprofit called Painted Dog Conservation, and that is where he received the phone call that no one ever wants to get. Norman English, the local warden, called Peter to inform him that Greg was missing. And the duo immediately started organizing a search effort. Back to Greg. It's now approximately noon and the sun was high in the sky above him. Temperatures were soaring well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

And not only did Greg not have any water on him in the plane, he didn't have any water at all that day. He had left early in the morning and the location that he took off from had no water as elephants had recently destroyed the water pipes. No. And it's very hot here too, right? It's over 100 degrees. Yeah.

It's noon. hasn't had a sip of water all day, and now he's broken in the middle of the open savannah. He could feel himself literally roasting in the sun, the single tree not providing enough shade for him. Plus, he was out in the open without any form of protection from predators. It wasn't exactly the predators that worried him at first. It was his complete inability to do anything in defense. Like I said, his legs felt like jelly, and they were completely useless, making him essentially a sitting duck in a landscape teeming with carnivores, always on the search for food,

who would jump at the opportunity for an easy, defenseless meal. Glaring over at the wreckage yet again, he knew he had to utilize it. Setting aside the fear of a fire, he had to seek shelter from the spaltering sun and the prowling predators. But after a traumatic crash landing, dragging himself back and forth, being exposed to the red lightless sun and his hours-long shoe ordeal, Greg was completely spent. He tried as hard as he could to drag himself again,

but his upper back strength was nearly depleted. So remember, because he was scooting on his butt backwards, so he's using a lot of his back muscles during that. Like your shoulder and back of your arms kind of thing. Exactly. So his thoughts went to the animal kingdom. And thinking of how some species move more efficiently while they're on their stomachs,

he knew his best chance would be to roll over and to slither on his stomach using his body strength in a different way. The issue was maneuvering onto his stomach. Looking around at what he could use, he had his stick and two shoelaces. So looping one end of the shoelace and tying it around the end of the stick, he hooked the stick underneath his leg and wrapped the remainder of the shoelace around his leg, gathering an end of it in his hand. And as he lay there, staring up at the sky, dreading what was about to happen next,

anticipating the pain before it came, he finally gathered his courage and pulled the shoelace with all his might, which pulled his leg up and over his body to flip himself over onto his stomach. And as his body flopped over, so his face is now facing the ground, he heard a snap just as he had rolled over. And so he thought at first it was because it was a large stick he used kind of as like a splint thing to roll himself over. It wasn't the stick. It was his pelvis. Oh my God.

This poor guy. So he now has a fractured pelvis. His legs are completely shattered. But he still, the sun is just so intense that he needed. It was like he had this laser focus. He had to get under some sort of shade. So he crawled inch by inch back to the plane with more broken bones than he could count in temperatures now reaching 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

He was almost to the plane when he heard the sound of footfall. And growing up in and now working within the bush gave him this extreme intimate knowledge of who called the land home and what they sounded like when they approached. Each species creates a unique sound as their feet hit the ground. And Greg was experienced enough to know who was approaching far before they even came into his vision. Painted dogs. Nope.

Oh. In this situation, that was both a blessing and a curse. He knew who was coming before their large gray bodies came into his line of sight. They were elephants. And he froze, knowing that this could go very, very badly. A herd was headed straight for him. And Greg knew if they noticed him too late, or if they were startled in any way by his presence, that they could become agitated in stampede.

He has nowhere to go. he's literally just laying there. His luck is just... It's not going well at this point. Termites, broken pelvis, swollen feet, and now stampeded by a herd of elephants. And a plane crash. Right. Don't forget that. Yeah. It's just not a good day.

After what seemed like an eternity, the herd moved on and away from him. So whether they saw him or ignored and ignored him or just didn't realize he was there, he's not sure. but it was a close call and it was just too close for comfort. So he knew he had to get into the plain area wreckage, not only for its shade, but now for its protection. Mustering all his strength, he made it back to the wreckage and crawled underneath it, welcoming the relief it provided from the sun. As soon as he made it, he felt something sticky on his mouth. Sputtering in the dirt, coughing and trying to catch his breath, he realized that his lower

lip had turned into the consistency of rubber. It was literally liquefying as he fried in the sun. Part of it had detached and shot into the back of his throat. Horrified that he has now quite literally swallowed a piece of his lip. Greg wanted to cry. Valid. That cry, Greg. This is totally valid. But even if he wanted to cry, he couldn't. His body was so dehydrated. It couldn't produce tears, let alone shed them. This is reminding me of your Yossi Ginsburg episode where he was out. And just bad things after bad things kept happening. I feel like this guy is experiencing something very similar. Definitely, yeah. I would say Yosey probably had it a bit worse, like overall. I mean, he did take a stick up the butt. Yeah. Apple's to oranges, you know. Right.

to compare. At this point, it's about 4 p.m. and now about 8 hours after his initial crash has passed, and his mental state was starting to deteriorate. Just as he was starting to spiral, he heard a call. A high-pitched purring, and he instantly recognized it. It was a lioness calling for her cubs, and her footfall was moving through the brush directly towards him.

drawing from his deep pool of knowledge of the animal kingdom gained from the thousands of hours in the bush as the lioness approached he lay still and quiet many animals rely on startling their threats as a form of a defense mechanism in hopes of scaring them away and gregg was praying that this would work he waited until she came right into sight he grabbed a piece of the wreckage and abruptly banged it onto the metal portions of the plane clanging it around and his tactic worked. It was enough to spook the lioness away and she took off. So Greg breathes a sigh of relief and he can rest for a little while. Meanwhile, Norman and Peter had gathered help.

They called in a pilot from Victoria Falls to fly his Cessna around the park. Their first thought was to track the rhino because if they could locate this rhino, they could potentially find Greg because that animal was his target. The only problem was the only tracking device to locate the rhino was taken by Greg. So the pilot took to the skies hoping to get lucky in this over 1,000 square kilometer search area. As daylight was starting to fade, Greg heard another sound, the unmistakable rumblings of a plane. Temporarily elated, he waved his arms and wanted to shout at the top of his lungs, I'm here, I'm here, but his hopes were dashed when the sounds began to fade.

the pilot hadn't spotted him. And when it flew away and silence fell, Greg was absolutely deflated. The near rescue was heartbreaking, but he was very aware that he needed to get it together. As the sun was dipping below the horizon, the most dangerous time was drawing near the night. He knew he was about to have to survive the most dangerous time in the African bush. Obviously, at night, the predators come out to play. Despite knowing he needed to pull himself together, if he had any hopes of surviving the night, he suddenly wasn't sure if he even wanted to.

Badly injured and on the brink of death, on the open plains of Zimbabwe, he began to seriously contemplate whether or not he wanted to live or if he wanted to die. And he started to review his life, and he was really proud. He had lived a full, good life and achieved a lot of great things. He recalls a sense of peace washing over him. himself, the life he led, and the situation he was even now in. Like he met his demise with this, like, peaceful acceptance. He had this sense of contempt, pure acceptance, like, this is how I go.

I led a really good life. I'm proud of what I've done. And he recalls having no fear of the dying experience. He thought of the tales of hunter-gatherer societies where elders would literally walk off into the bush alone to die so they wouldn't be a burden to us. other members of their tribe. But then he had a thought, or rather a visual, came to mind. It was a splash of black, tan, and white with big round ears and intelligent eyes. He thought of the African painted dogs. His heart ached for them and all that he could do for their species

if he could only pull through. Shit, he thought, there's so much work still to do. And that was it. The spark he needed to keep his fire for life going. I love that. Back at the paint a dog conservation center, which was now functioning as a makeshift search base camp. The chatter about Greg was starting to bubble with doubt regarding if he was truly alive or not. Like, what are the chances that he's still going to be alive? It's been a while. It's really hot. There's no plane around. Yeah, a lot of things working against him. Right. People were questioning like, hey, he could have died on impact. No one knows where he is. And even if he did survive the crash, he has no food. emergency supplies. He has little to no water to their knowledge. He's essentially a sitting duck.

If the crash or the exposure to the elements didn't get him, the predator surely would and may have already. I mean, now it's the night time and he took off around seven in the morning. So this is now about 10 hours after Greg's crash. And despite the odds, Peter refused to give up on his friend. He conceded with the concerns coming from other people in the group, obviously, of course, all of those things could be at play. And at one point, he even hoped that if Greg did survive the initial crash, that he actually had died so that he wouldn't have to endure the bush alone at night. Despite the pressure to call off the search from pretty much everybody else around him,

Peter pleaded for at least one more day. Everyone needs a friend like Peter. I know. Peter is a real one. And honestly, it's like, yes, those are all very valid concerns. But thinking about it, it really is only day one. Yeah. You know what I mean?

It's not like, hey, we've been searching for six days, seven days. There's no sign. It's like not even 24 hours later. It's been 10 hours and they're like, nah, let's just go home. It's like, come on. Yeah. Put in a little bit more effort, please. And that was Peter's line of thinking.

As night fell, Greg was having nightmares, but he wasn't asleep. He was having these waking, anxiety-ridden, just terror-filled visions. and it was surrounding one species in particular. And he had this scene like playing over and over in his mind. And it had to do with hyenas. One of the fiercest predators and most cunning scavengers around, Greg knew all too well what they were capable of. He actually knew someone,

a fully grown and able-bodied man who had died by their powerful jaws. He had been asleep around a campfire when he was grabbed from behind and dragged off into the bush to be consumed. I can't wait to go to Africa. I know. Africa 20203, here we come. Yeah. If that could happen to someone who had the ability to fight back, Greg knew he was completely defenseless and hopeless in this situation. He was being tormented by the thought and he was too frightened to fall asleep. He was praying for the sun to rise, but just before it could, around 4 a.m., he heard footfall again and his fears were realized. It was hyena. Every cell in his body, was on high alert as it approached in the darkness. Greg reached over and grasped the item he used before to scare off the lioness and was bracing to do the same thing when the footfall began to fade, hyena interaction avoided.

He was like, oh my God, I can't take this. The anxiety, it's just like one thing after another. You can't relax at all. As the sun began to rise at the conservation center, Peter's plea for another day of searching was granted. His call for help was answered not only with the pilot help again, which was great news, but 15 additional volunteers joined on the ground. At 7 a.m., 23 hours after Greg's crash, the search crews took off and fanned out.

Norman took to the skies, Peter confident that if anyone could find Greg, it would be him as he knew the area better than anyone. At roughly the same time, Greg was both relieved and crushed to see the sunrise. The night was behind him, thank God, but the day brought its own set of risks. He doubted he'd be able to survive another day of intense heat with no water. He reached for the global positioning unit, and it was useless in this situation. He couldn't tell anyone where he was. So this was the thing that he was using to track the rhino.

Because remember, his radio is fried, but he has it. It's like he's in this desperate state, so he's grabbing it, and he was turning it on and off. And as he would do that, it would display his coordinates and the time at which he was turning the unit on. And he was doing this until he realized that he was essentially keeping this morbid sort of record of what he believed were about to be his final hours. So his worry was that his friends or whoever would stumble across his remains eventually in the crash site that they would go through it and realize like when approximately he died, like when he stopped. using this unit and it stopped recording the time. So he was kind of just going through what am I going going to leave people with of if I got here 20 minutes sooner, an hour sooner. I just missed him. I could have saved his life. So he eventually turned off the unit and never used it again because

he was really afraid of causing this like internal guilt and strife within somebody who would eventually find his body. That's very thoughtful of him in a time where he's trying to survive. Yeah, exactly. He's always thinking about, you know, others, whether it be the painted dogs or, you know, other people who are going to eventually come by him. So he turns off the unit and focus on trying to scavenge any resources around him. As he was unable to move much, he grabbed a nearby piece of broken windshield from the

plane and was licking it in hopes that it had collected some. some sort of moisture or condensation. And as he's like mid-lick, he hears a sound and it was a plane. After several hours of searching on a hunch, Norman had decided to fly back towards what would have been the start of Greg's initial route to find the rhino. And he was flying right by him. Greg knew that the radio was non-functional, but he couldn't resist trying in a last ditch desperation attempt. And he used his last effort to click the radio. He was uttering his name,

his location, and Mayday, Mayday into this broken piece of radio, hoping it would send sort of even like a weak signal of it even trying to click on. He just wanted something to hopefully catch the attention of this nearby plane. He then grabbed a piece of wreckage and was waving it in the air, hoping it would reflect the sun and grab the pilot's attention. His hopes were soaring and then dashed again, and the plane took a sharp turn and flew away from him. No, not again. Greg was sure of it now. His life was now reduced to its final hours. But unbeknownst to him, Norman had spotted him. Well, not him exactly, but his wreckage. His hunch had paid off, despite going 40 miles south of the main search area. It wasn't safe to land the plane there. So he had radioed back to the base,

informed everyone that he had located Greg's wrecked plane, and he dispatched the ground team immediately to that location. So even though he did take off, he's coming back. There were people coming. There were people on their way. And at this point, everyone is cautiously optimistic, because who knows what they were about to come across. Sure. He could have died on impact. He could have been like, you know, scavenged by lions or hyenas. His body could be really wrecked. They could be essentially coming across a bloodbath. They had no idea. Yeah. Or he could not be there at all. Maybe he had survived the plane crash and got up and walked away and tried to search for help and now he's like not there at all. There's so many possibilities. Regardless of the outcome, Peter was going to

be there for his friend, ready to face whatever lay in wait and jumped into one of the vehicles headed straight for the unknown. At 11 a.m., Greg was nearing his final moments. He was in and out of consciousness and roasting in the midday sun when he heard football once again. But this time, it didn't belong to threats. It belonged to his salvation. The football quickened and voices raised when the team approached,

realizing that Greg was alive. He blinked his eyes to see Peter and a team of volunteers rushing towards him, faces he recognized and others that he didn't. And in his interview in the I Shouldn't Be Alive episode, Greg tearfully recounts that exact moment. Remembering the water dripping on his lips from the canteen of a volunteer that to this day he has no idea who they were. Peter's reassuring voice and the hand of a stranger on his shoulder accompanied with, quote, you're in safe hands now. Greg had survived. After his rescue, his journey was far from over. He underwent over 100 operations in the years following his instance. incident to save his legs. And through the operations, he actually lost three inches on his height,

but through sheer determination, he learned to walk again and now does so completely unaided, which is an absolutely wild accomplishment. He had always treated life as if it was a precious gift, but he came out of this experience treating it even more so as a gift. Throughout his long and arduous healing journey, all he did was dream of going back to the African bush to continue his important work in wildlife conservation, especially with the African Painted Dog, and so he did. After his accident, Greg continued his education journey, earning his PhD from Oxford. His research is today one of the longest studies ever conducted on the African Painted Dog. He currently serves as the founder and executive director of the Painted Dog Research Trust,

which operates in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa. And the organization is so cool. Like I really urge people to look into it because it does a lot, but just to highlight a couple things. It provides training, mentoring, field work opportunities and financial support to graduate students, as well as rangers and biologists who wish to contribute to the protection of Zimbabwe's wildlife, all in hopes of inspiring a new generation of conservation biologists. The Research Trust today works day-to-day with the dogs, collecting and monitoring, Baseline Information on Genetics to monitor population health.

They fit and analyze data from satellite collars to determine how packs are using their landscape and to gain more insight to pack territory and movements. They also fit the dogs with anti-snare collars, which are riveted and reinforced to prevent them from choking to death when they're caught in poacher's snares. And Greg is all hands on deck regarding his conservation work. He believes in a holistic approach to conservation that encompassed. campuses everyone, including farmers, school children, and local communities. Working under the belief that people will conserve what they love, Greg frequently travels

throughout Africa and overseas to villages, ranching areas, schools, and more to raise awareness for the painted dog. He is also an accomplished author and has several publications. He works with local governments and communities to further advocate for the protection for the dogs and their habitat. And Greg spends several months a year overseas on an annual Painted Dog Awareness Fundraising Tour, where he, well, fundraises and raises awareness by doing different presentations at universities, zoos, sanctuaries, and for different news outlets and papers and magazines.

In an interview he gave in 2019, 16 years after his plane crash, when asked, What natural world insight would you like to leave us with? he responded, conservation has seemed at many times like a lost cause, but I truly believe that we can reverse the mess we have made. We can only do this if we work together. We have to support each other and help each individual to make a difference. What's more, we all have to be conservationists. If the public decides that conservation is important to them, then the politicians will follow. This is how things work. In Africa in particular, empowering women in conservation is of vital importance. Women are flocking to study the field of environmental science here, and all the better,

as we need as many voices as we can get. It's not a coincidence that we refer to our planet as Mother Earth. What we need in conservation is education and a critical mass of conservationists. It doesn't have to be someone with a biology degree, just someone who cares about their environment. This inspiring attitude has shown through in many of his achievements, including but not limited to winning the Wild Invest Continuation Award for conservation. at the Whitley Awards, which I had no idea what those were, but they're kind of known as the green Oscars of the conservation world.

Like, it's a big deal to win this award. But when asked about his proudest moments, none of them have him at the center, but rather the animals. For example, he points to the pride he felt when after extensive study, his data proved that the dogs were not largely responsible for cattle killing in Zimbabwe. The finger was pointed at them, and the animals were taking the blame.

But due to his and his team's hard work, that negative stereotype was completely dispelled when the data revealed that less than 2% of cattle losses could be contributed to the painted dog. Dr. Greg Rasmussen survived a plane crash and the pain and fear that followed alone on the African bush, endured hundreds and hundreds of hours of physical therapy and rehabilitation, and went on to continue his difficult, often thankless work,

all to be a voice for animals. By sharing his story, I hope I did him proud by sharing it with you. And hopefully after all of this, while everyone else is looking for the big five, you're keeping an eye out for the African painted dog. And if you ever spot them, you can send a little love their way. And like I said in the beginning, you can find Greg's story on season one, episode six of I Shouldn't Be Alive, where he tells his story himself. And if you're interested in following his continued work, learning more about the

dogs or if you want to make a donation to the painted dog research trust you can find a link to their organization in the show description and it's just like so weird because i had a full circle moment because i was looking into this organization obviously for the episode research and they have different ways that you can support them and one of them is through snare art and what they do is they a lot of their efforts have to do with anti-poaching efforts snares are a way that poaching is done a lot of the times with these dogs. So rangers for the park, the national park, or through this organization, will go out and collect snares that are placed illegally.

And they're like this wired, obviously wired in the snare. And they'll take it and they'll make art out of it in the shape of African painted dogs and sell it. And the proceeds will go against anti-poaching efforts. It's like a creative FU to the... It sure is. Yeah. And I have a, I forget who gave it to me. I'm pretty sure someone gave it to me or I got it at some sort of zoo somewhere.

And I'll try and find a picture of it because I know I posted it on Instagram a long, long time ago. And I think I archived it or deleted it. But it's a magnet of the African painted dog with beads through the snares that look like an African painted dog. And it was the snare art. And it was a magnet. And I had it on my fridge of my first place I had.

when I lived out in Colorado in 2014 when I moved here. And I had no idea. Like, I knew it was about the African-painted dog, but I didn't know much else about it. Like the history behind it. Right. Yeah. So when I saw that on their site, I was like, no shit. So I'll link that to if you're interested in learning more.

If you want to gift some snare art, some F-U snare art to someone, that would be great. But yeah, that's it. That's all I have on Greg and his story and some African-painted dog knowledge. Very cool. Well, that turned into a very unexpected feel-good story at the end of it. I told you it was fine. It was going to be back. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely a heavily, heavily based plane crash episode, which still threw me for a loop for sure. But that turned out a lot happier than I imagined. And I'm glad Greg made a full recovery and he's doing so much great stuff with his life and for conservation and obviously for the painted dogs. It was a cool episode. I'm glad you chose it.

Me too. And I really like encourage people to look him up and even watch part of his story on that episode because he's just like this guy that exudes like passion and love for like what he's doing. And you can just tell. Like he's just so happy to be here and like so happy to share his passion with other people. And you see him. Like he was just at like the Tulsa Zoo this last year and like he's all over the a place like doing different lectures and obviously still this field work but big part of his work now is spreading the word and it's just really cool to watch someone with so much vigor and like passion for animals and the environment to like do something about it in such a big way so i was really happy to cover his story even though he went through some shit he came out the other end so yeah

Yeah, you certainly did. All right. Well, are you ready to go to Africa now? Sure am. Sure am. I'll look for some painted dogs for sure. If we see painted dogs, I will lose my mind. I will be so happy.

The big six. We're coming for you. The big six. We're coming for you, Africa, South Africa. All right, everyone. Well, thanks for joining. We will see you next week. In the meantime, enjoy the view.

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