Stay Tranquilo - Ron Magill: Wildlife, Zoo Miami & Why the Flamingo Should Be Florida’s State Bird 🦩

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

Ron takes us back to the early days of Zoo Miami, shares the story behind his iconic Hurricane Andrew flamingo photo, explains how zoos have evolved from attractions into conservation institutions, and opens up about how his upbringing and his father shaped his lifelong passion for animals.We also dive into Ron’s push to make the American flamingo Florida’s official state bird, why he believes the flamingo represents the entire state, the conservation success story behind its return to Florida, and the ongoing work to restore the Everglades.Plus, Ron shares:🦁 How Zoo Miami has changed over his 46-year career🐘 Why elephants are the most incredible animals he’s experienced in the wild🌎 His perspective on climate change and the next generation of conservationists💰 Why chasing money alone won’t make you happy❤️ The wild story of how a crocodile bite eventually led him to meeting his wife🦩 Why Florida needs the flamingo as its state bird🌴 His favorite Cuban food😎 And what it means to truly Stay TranquiloA conversation about following your purpose, protecting the natural world, appreciating what really matters, and doing what you love.Subscribe to the Stay Tranquilo Podcast for more conversations with the people shaping Miami, South Florida, and beyond.0:00 The State Bird Debate0:45 A Legend in Conservation2:21 The Evolution of Zoo Miami4:00 A Crocodile and a Love Story6:24 The Greatest Scam in the World10:58 The Squirrel That Changed Everything24:33 The Campaign for the Flamingo#RonMagill #ZooMiami #StayTranquilo #Miami #Florida #Flamingo #Wildlife #Conservation #Everglades #Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We're here in the state of Florida. There's, you know, we've been known to have the mockingbird as the bird of the state. You know what? We haven't been known because you talk to 20 people out there. No, they didn't even know. It's funny. I was going to bring that up. You'd be lucky to get two of them who says, it's the mockingbird. Everybody's going to go, oh, it's the flango. No, it's not the flamingo. It's the mockingbird. And here's the problem. Here's the problem. The mockingbird is the state bird of Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas. I did not know that. Yeah, well, now you know that.

And let me ask you something. What are the first three letters of the first three letters of the, the name Flamingo. F-O. F-L-A. Yeah. Yeah, that's the abbreviation for Florida. So these are things

people need to keep in mind. All right, welcome back to another episode of Stay Tranquilo. Today we have a very special guest and Mr. Ron McGill, a legend here in Miami, a legend in alting animal conservation.

So, Ron, thank you so much for taking the time coming here to the studios and having a conversation with us today. I appreciate it. It's a beautiful studio. I'm not a legend. I'm just a fossil.

I'm just old. Just old. Listen, I always go back, I saw it recently with the picture of Hurricane Andrew, right? The flamingos in the bathroom. Yeah, it became an iconic photograph. It's funny because back then there was no internet or anything, so it didn't go viral. Right. But it was picked up on the wire services, and I got clippings of that photograph on papers in Kenya, in Brazil, all over the world. So that picture did get a lot of play.

That, I mean, I remember Andrew, obviously, I was not alive, but I remember obviously the... Wow, now I'm really feeling old. Holy cow. I was freshly born a little bit after, but my parents were one of the people that lived. I was trying to remember the neighborhood yesterday, and I meant to ask her. Country Walk.

There you go. There you go. Right down the street from the zoo. Yeah. So she was down there in Country Walk. I mean, total loss with the home. And obviously, Andrew, one of the most impactful hurricanes here in the city of Miami. Well, Andrew created the rewriting of the building code for.

Absolutely. Totally rewrote the building code. Yeah. No, definitely. And I want to kind of talk on that iconic picture. with the flamingos, right, because I want to tie it back to, you know, a project that you're trying to work on here in the state of Florida. Yes, go flamingos! I don't know if you saw my pants.

I'm looking at this. This guy's in style here. I got my flamingo pants on. I don't wear them often, but I'm like, you know what? If there's a day to wear them, today's the day. Today's the day. Today is the day. So. But yeah, talk to me about the legacy of Zoo Miami, right? Obviously, during that time, everything that happened there, but kind of the growth of what the zoo has become. Listen, I started at the old Cranon Park Zoo in Key Biscayne before Zoo Miami was even built. It was originally Miami Metro Zoo back then. And, you know, it was a small 30-acre. There's a beautiful little park on Key Biscayne, but it's really a terrible little zoo, tiny little cages, bars, concrete floors, one of those archaic-looking zoos. And when we moved out to Miami Metro Zoo at the time,

I mean, we're coming into a plot of land at 740 acres. And it's surrounded by a Pine Rockland habitat, which is the most endangered habitat in all of Florida. So we're kind of very privileged to be in this area, be surrounded by this beautiful native habitat. And we were one of the first what they call the caged lozus. You know, where you took away the bars, you took away the concrete floors. We're out there on moated exhibits, animals on natural islands. We focus on animals that are basically from this type of climate. You're not going to see polar bears and penguins at Zoo Miami. But, you know, we've got a lot of the equatorial animals from Africa, from Asia, from, you know, South America. So it really is a beautiful park. And I think, gosh,

we've had thousands and thousands of animals born there. I've got hundreds of species displayed there. It really is a beautiful place to go as a park, just as itself. A lot of people go for the animals, but a lot of people even go for the plants. We have a botanical garden. Our horticultural team is unbelievable. You know, where the trees are all labeled, the plants are labeled. So there's a lot of great reasons to go there. It's a great first date. It's a great first date. It's a great first date, but one of my first dates with my now fiancee. We did go to the zoo. Well, that was my first date, so to speak, with my wife. Wow. Yeah, you know, I don't know if you know how I met my wife, I got bitten by a crocodile pretty badly. And I had to be rushed to the hospital. I had some

surgery on my hand, emergency surgery. And after surgery, now this is going to sound terrible. Okay, but I'm just going to be honest with you because I was a 20-something year old guy. And I'm thinking myself, I want to have a hot nurse. Take care of me. Okay. This guy has had to have a couple doctor visits and he's always like, dude, I just want the hot nurse. Exactly. I was waiting for a hot nurse. And I'm in the area of surgery. I got a big cast all the way up to my elbow. I'm laying down in the bed, fast asleep, shaking and waking up. I'm thinking, this is my nurse. I'm waking up. My nurse is a guy. And then the, the, and the nurse is a guy. And then the, the other guy, he looks at me and go, what do you want?

He goes, you got to take this pill. What's the pill for? It's a sleeping pill. I was sleeping. So I'm thinking, this is not happening very well. But then I go down to physical therapy. And I'm in the physical therapy unit there. And I'm waiting for my physical therapist to come in. Dude, I don't know if you've ever looked at a woman. And all of a sudden, you hear nothing except like, oh, there she was. She was the only thing in focus.

Everything around was blurry. She came up to me. She goes, hi, I'm going to be your therapist. And I went, thank you, God. And you're later. I married her and now I get therapy for free. Wow. Yeah. A year later. So yeah, you really knew. Oh, no, no. I knew right away. She did. She did. She was not very, yeah, she was not very attracted. And was she someone that, obviously, once she kind of started to figure out what it was that you did for work,

what was her kind of thoughts on that? Well, that's funny because she and I are opposites. She's a very classy blue blood young lady. She was born in Los Angeles. She grew up in Pacific Palisades. You know, her family is royal blood or uncles or ambassadors or father, grandfather was a diplomat. It comes from a very distinguished family. I'm a Wahido. I grew up on a farm with my dad

and growing mangoes and raising horses. So we're opposites that way. She went and got her master's degree and physical therapy. I'm a zookeeper. So when she found out I worked at the zoo, she goes, oh, did you need to go to school for that? I went, no, I did go to school?

I didn't not necessarily for that, you know. And I try to enlighten her about the profession of zookeeping. It's a lot more than a lot of people think. You know, the old misconception is just a janitor with keys picking up poop and, you know, throwing out slop. It's not that at all. So slowly but surely I think she kind of, I grew on her. Let's put it that way. I mean, you're very passionate about what you do, right?

Listen, I got the greatest scam in the world going on. When you get paid to do things that people pay to do, I think that's a scam. Listen, I've traveled all over the world. I've set foot on every continent on this planet. I grew up in a small apartment, New York City, son of immigrant parents with really nothing. Now, the credit to my parents is, I never wanted for anything.

You know, I felt like I was just so lucky in everything that I had. Looking back, I really had nothing. I mean, for Christmas, my dad literally was a carpenter. He made us our toys. You know, he would make us things. So in retrospect, I'm thinking, wow. But my parents did such a great job of making us feel happy making us feel, you know, my father's Cuban and, you know, that's old Cuban saying,

I swear to me. That's what they do. They make things work. Absolutely. And my dad was a genius. My dad only had a fourth grade formal education, smartest man I've ever known. So, you know, it's a transition for her to get used to me. I'm very used to her, but, you know, she moved over here to be with another guy.

So that was another thing, you know. I'm not going to get too much into this personal stuff. Yeah, yeah. Ron found the way to smooth them a little bit. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I actually was dating someone else at the time when I met her, but I met her. And I was like, wow.

You just knew? Oh my gosh. Yeah. She's just, she's a goddess to me. That's amazing. 38 years has been married. Congratulations. We're lucky.

That's amazing. Life partners, they make a huge difference in your career and everything. No, they are the reason for my career. I mean, she is the reason I've been able to do the things I've been able to do. Absolutely. So you talked about how you grew up kind of being like a Guajito, right? Your dad grew up on the farm, the mango trees. Right.

It reminds me a lot of my. grandfather. You know, my grandfather came from Cuba, actually escaped from Cuba on a raft with his two brothers and they didn't know how to swim. So that tells you obviously a lot about the climate of what the situation is in Cuba and all that. But I say that because when he, when he moved to New York, he's opened the carpet store, right? So very entrepreneurial coming over here with nothing and kind of building a life here in the States. Then he moves to Miami and he buys a home right off Sunset and 97th Avenue, right? Where a lot of like horse country. And it was like a huge thing for them.

And my mom grew up in that home. But he used that land to, you know, to create, basically. I mean, he had banana trees, mango trees, avocado trees. Then he ended up growing tomatoes. So it reminds me a lot. My dad bought five acres in what is now Kendall and built the home because he became a contractor, self-taught contractor.

Wow. My mom drew her dream home and my dad built it. Wow. You know, a beautiful, you know, 4,000 square foot home. on five acres of property, built stables, got his horses, had mangoes, avocados, you know, Nisbeiro, every freaking Cuban fruit you could ever think of he wanted there because he wanted to recreate that life that he had.

Absolutely. And you talk about the impact that your father had for you, right? Because I want to kind of lead that into where you are with your career. But I remember my grandfather, right? He would, my youngest or my middle brother, I have a younger brother now, but my middle brother, he would always go to my grandparents' house after school, right? So he'd be there in the backyard with my grandfather planting plants and out there.

And my grandfather was also a huge animal lover. Any animal that ended up in that backyard, he kept dogs, cats. There was a, I'm trying to remember the name of the bird, but there was a bird that he had there that he basically made it his pet, right? So it would always be there. He'd feed it. So my brother grew up around that. And he became such an animal lover through my grandfather.

So much so that with the lizards, he'd get the lizards and he'd... Like earrings. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And my brother would be walking around the house, like the coolest guy. My father loved animals except for snakes. He could not stand snakes. I remember we're out there building the house on the five acres. And I hear, oh my gosh, there's a shot.

I go back to he's got a 12-gauge shotgun. I go, Poppy, what are you doing? He goes, on snake. It was a little ringneck snake. I mean, the thing must have been seven inches. He used a 12-gauge shotgun on. I go, Papi, por a word. That's a little.

ring their snake. Let me tell you something. The only good snake is a dead snake. And I took a while, but I finally convinced him to understand that snakes are not bad. Right. You know, but it's this. And the funny thing I said, in Cuba, there are no venomous snakes. What are you? No, no, no, no. No, no. No, no.

You know, the stories, all the stories and exaggerated beyond belief. But I got him to finally understand that snakes are not so bad. Absolutely. Yeah, I remember my brother thought he was Steve Irwin in the backyard. Yeah, anything and everything he was trying to catch. But obviously that played an influence in your life, right? Absolutely. When was it that you realized, okay, obviously you grew up around the bit,

I want to actually make a career out of this. Listen, I always knew I wanted to work with animals, and it started really in New York City as a young boy. I got bullied a lot. I was called all kinds of ethnic slurs. I went to a school that didn't have one single Hispanic in it. My first language was Spanish, so I went to school learning English, and it was really tough on me because I got ostracized by kids.

They called me McGillow-Gurillo, they call me lurch, they call me all kinds of names. And I remember in the school yard in New York, which was not grass or anything, it's an asphalt school yard. At lunchtime, I had peanuts that my mom put in my lunchbox for me, and there was a squirrel. A squirrel would come down and eat these peanuts out of my hand

and sit next to me. Okay? Now, I'm not advocating. You shouldn't be feeding these wild animals, but there's a seven-year-old kid. I was doing it. And this squirrel sat there, and I said to myself,

the squirrel's not judging me. The squirrel is my friend. And I said, I'm always going to help out. That's kind of what planted the seed in it. I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian. until I took my first chemistry course at the University of Florida. I said, no, no, plan B, this is not going to work.

And then I said, I want to work with conservation. I knew I wanted to work with animals in some facet, and I wanted to work where I would be able to go outdoors. If I had to put on a suit and tie every day to go to work, that banker's stuff that goes on, I'd lose my mind. And I knew that. You know, and people always told me, listen, Ron, you're not going to make a lot of money.

But my father was one of these people that always, and my mother, too, both of them infringed. I mean, listen, do something that makes you happy. money alone will not make you happy. You can make all the money in the world. If you're at a job that you hate, you're going to be miserable. And they were right, you know. Quick story, I had a roommate in college that loved animals like I did, you know.

He said, no, but my dream was to have a black Mercedes. I want to have a house in the Hamptons. I'll never forget, we had a reunion a couple years ago, like a 40-year reunion, comes up there, drives up in a big black Maybach, right? And I'm saying, oh, my gosh. Now, this guy and we both played ball at University of Florida. his body was his temple, right? He steps out of the car.

He looked like he gained 40 pounds. He's smoking a cigarette. He looked terrible. But he drove up in a Maybach, and I heard that he had a house in the Hamptons. He comes up to me, he goes, everyone, how are you doing? I go, man, you look not so good, brother, what's going on? He goes, I go, but you got your Maybach. I heard you got a house in a hampsons.

And he looked at me, I'll never forget. He goes, I would give you everything I own to switch places with you and do what you do. And it really hit home to me. Man, this guy's, he was like on his third marriage. It was just the stress of his life that it took him to get that money to get the things that he thought were going to make him happy. Absolutely not worth it. And that's what he told me.

He said, Ron, I'd switch everything. I give you everything I have that I could do what you do. And that kind of set me straight. You know, it made me realize all the things that my parents told me, pick a career doing something you love to do, and the money eventually will come. It might not be millions, but it's enough to pay the bills. And more importantly, it's more to keep you happy.

Happiness. Yeah, it's all about happiness, man. Money, I've seen money really screw up people. 100%. Yeah, you hear the slogan, the pursuit of happiness, right? And what does that really mean? At the end of the day, it's really achieving something in your life that aligns with purpose, right? Absolutely.

And to me, that's something that I'm a huge advocate of. I don't know if you know the concept, I've heard that, yeah. So it's basically your, it's the intersection of your life skills with your purpose and what makes you money. Right. And if you could find the intersection of that, it's the sweet spot, right? Because obviously, money is important in the fact that it's transactional and it's a tool, right? Like you said, you got to pay your bills, you got to live in a home, right, all these things. But at what cost, right? You talk about your friend, he, you know, he had the car, he had the house, all these things, but he was not happy. And that ultimately, there is no price on happiness. Nope. I agree with it. So I'm very, very thankful to my

parents for their guidance that way because they always really drill that into my head. They were not like, Be a doctor, be a lawyer. No, be what makes you happy. That was it. Definitely. So 40 plus years with Zoo Miami, right? 46. 46 years.

And now recently retired. The Zumae Foundation, I retired from the county. Right. And listen, I'm very appreciative of all the opportunities the county gave me over those years. At the end of the day,

working for government can try your patients. It really can be. There's so many layers of bureaucracy. Right. You know, getting something simple done is not simple. Working now for the foundation,

and being able to do the things that I really love to do without these, you know, following standard operating procedures to go to the bathroom for Pete's sake. It's ridiculous. So, yeah, I'm really happy because now I'm doing the things I love to do. I'm speaking at schools, I'm leading travel programs. We've got this great into the wild travel program with the zoo. And just being a storyteller is basically my job. Like, I don't go out and ask for money.

But I tell a story and then the money askers come in and hopefully that, you know, I've kind of teeted up for them. Yeah, no, definitely. I mean, kind of going back to our last conversation, right, the money is important for the changes that you want to be able to implement, right? But there's got to be a purpose behind it, right? And I think you obviously do a phenomenal job of leading by example, right, someone that uses their voice to do the good. I've always tried to do the right thing. And, you know, listen, everybody's, I've made mistakes.

Everybody makes them. But at the end of the day, I think I'm very happy that I've always kind of try to stay true to myself. Sometimes it's got me in hot water. water. I don't have much of a filter and I don't have patience for, you know, there's an old saying that says you can't fix stupid. And when I see stupid, sometimes I just don't have the patience for it. I try to be, you know, understanding and such, but after a while you just, so I was kind at that point. And that's why I said, I want to retire. It's going to be great. And now I've got this great opportunity where, you know, we got all these great events going on. I get to speak about the events.

I get to talk about things. We've got, you know, this big zoo run coming up now. The zoo run, yeah. The zoo run is, I'm going to tell you something. It is the best run anywhere in South Florida. And I'm going to tell you why, because, you know, you can run up and down, brickle, you can run any kind of road. You can go down, even old color road.

There's no place you can run where you can see giraffe, where you can see lions, you know, where you have this incredible safe place. You're not dealing with cars. And we've got a marathon this year, half marathon. We got a half marathon this year, along with the 10K, 5K and the kids dash. It's all fantastic. It's November 17th, I think? 14th.

14th. It's November 14th. That's what it is. November 14th, I got to tell you, we've got over 1,000 people come out there and run, and it's a fantastic event

where you're running through the zoo, you're running through these beautiful pine rocklands, and it's just surrounded by great natural beauty of South Florida and a great ambiance. No, absolutely. I think the zoo does a phenomenal job of bringing an experience to people that ultimately would be very difficult to, you know, to experience anywhere in Florida.

Absolutely. You know, there's so many. different events that we do. You know, our big signature event, of course, is the Feast with the Beast that comes out in March every year. But we got a good event coming up now. We got an incredible that's called the Wild Fork. It's a meat and seafood fest. You've ever eaten the food at Wild Fork, it's just the best quality meat ever. Yes. They do, they're doing this thing where you come out, they're going to have all kinds of vendors, all the premium meat and seafood you can eat and all the beer and wine you can drink included for 75 bucks a person for an adult. Come on. And the great thing is,

It's not just, you know, a feast with the beast is an adult only thing. But this is going to be for families, too. They're going to have things for kids to do. So there's a kids price I think it's $25 for kids. There's nowhere in this town where you can go and eat all the premium meat and seafood and drink all the beer and wine for $75. $75 will be your bar bill for three drinks on the beach. At the minimum.

Okay. So it is just a great, and you'll be able to have some animal encounters they'll have out there, special encounters. But it's a zoo in the evening. you watch the sunset out there. I got to tell you, if you haven't been at the zoo at night, you haven't had a totally different experience. Yes. So this wild fork, October 3rd, it is a fantastic thing, 5 to 9 p.m.

You can go online, zoom Miami.org. I can tell you that I have been to every event of zoo's ever done. This is going to be one of the best, and the best value for the dollar. Absolutely. Yeah, I've done Feast with the Beast. I've done the 5K at the zoo. Just great experience. You feel like when you're on property, you're kind of transported into another.

place, right? You don't, you don't feel like you're in Miami, you feel like you're in a, I don't even know where I feel like, but it's like, I feel disconnected from like, you know, that's the goal of the zoo. The goal of the zoo, you step off a walkway in Miami, you talk to a walkway in Africa, in Asia and South America. So you're transported to those places. Yeah, definitely. With the, work that you've done over the last 46 years, I mean, what, what evolution have you seen as far as people becoming more aware, right? Like, what changes have you seen? Well, I think, you know, when I first started working at the zoos, zoos were more of an attraction. Now they're really conservation institutions.

They're trying to educate and inspire. Get people to understand. We've got to protect this wildlife. At the end of the day, I'm going to say something that's probably going to be contradictory for what I do. But at the end of the day, in a perfect world, we wouldn't need any zoos. I would never, ever support taking an animal out of the wild

and putting it in captivity unless it's the last ditch effort to save that individual animal's life or to save the species that it represents. And we've been able to do that. There are species like the California Condor, the Arabian oryx, black-footed ferret, golden-line tamarin. These species would be extinct today, were it not for zoos.

So zoos kind of act as an insurance policy against a very uncertain future in the wild. Another thing is that zoos, as a kid growing up in New York City in a small apartment with immigrant parents, I would never have the opportunity to go to Africa to see an elephant walking across the plains, go to the Arctic to see a polar bear on the ice. I went to the Bronx Zoo.

And the zoo offered me these windows into that world that planted a seed in me that grew into this passion that I have for why. life, you know? So that's a huge, huge role that zoos play is to provide these windows into that world to get kids especially connected to care. There's an old saying that says in the end you protect what you love, you love what you understand, and you understand what you're taught. That's what zoos need to do. But it can't stop just there, because for too long, zoos have kind of ridden on that. Well, we're educating. We're inspiring. No, zoos have got to start putting money back into protecting

these animals in the wild. Because at the end of the day again, I know I say the end of the day a lot, That's a horrible habit that I have. But the bottom line is this. If the zoo is the last place we can see these animals, zoos have failed and what should be their number one priority. And that's to ensure that we can protect these animals in the wild where they belong. So if a zoo is going to be spending millions of dollars to build a big fancy habitat for an animal, they better be putting a significant amount of that money into protecting them into the wild.

Absolutely. Yeah. And you've seen some species of animals that are now starting to become extinct. Absolutely. And it's like, okay, well, they're at the zoo, but what are we doing outside to break? Because it's very sad if that's the only place it can be is this year. Yes, absolutely, absolutely.

And I guess, like, what's your thoughts on kind of like what the future looks like, right? Where obviously you hear terms like global warming, right, and all these things that affect, you know, mother nature. Climate change is affecting everything. It's a huge domino effect. It's affecting migrations of animals. It's affecting, you know, the blooming of plants, available nectar to feed animals. the grasses, what you're having now,

people hear the term global warming, that really is not, I think, is correct the term as climate change. Because climate change, what's happening is, it's not necessarily that things are getting warmer. If things are getting more extreme, we have more extreme colds, we have more extreme heat, extreme drought,

extreme flooding, extreme storms. Things have gotten extreme. And that's a result of climate change. As we start changing these things, that domino effect, it's hard to predict what it's going to be down the line. But I'm telling you right now, it's not good. It's not good.

So we need to understand. I'm very positive in that, believe it or not. I know a lot of negative Nellies out there, but I feel that kids today are much more focused on that than I was as a kid. My generation didn't do a very good job of, you know, acting as stewards of the environment. When I was a kid, I tell people all the time, I had a car, a hot rod. That thing got probably six miles to the gallons, but I was cool back there. You drive a car like that, now you're going to get dirty looks, right?

Your carbon footprint is horrible, right? You're cool now if you drive a Prius or an electric car because you're being environmentally sensitive. I never heard of recycling as a kid. Just do everything out, you know? Composting, those types of things. So, and just in schools, environmental clubs, I never had an environmental club as a kid.

You see that all over the place now. This generation is making a big difference. And I feel confident that they're going to do the right thing, that they're going to influence our legislators to hopefully make the right decisions right now. it's a little tenuous, but I'm a firm believer that when the people lead, the leaders will follow, and this generation

of kids is really focused on saving the environment, doing the right thing. I feel very optimistic about it. That's incredible. I remember we interviewed a gentleman here that he put it upon himself. I'm trying to remember his name now. I mean, it was a little while ago, but he goes into Keepa Skandin and he just picks up trash. Like tires.

I mean, the things that he's pulling. I mean, the things that he's pulled out is insane. And that's just, I think, to your point, the sentiment of the next generation feeling a lot more inclined to be a part of this. Well, you know, there's another old saying. I'm full of old saying. But one of it is that we've not inherited this earth from our parents. We're borrowing it from our kids. So we have a moral obligation, you know, to protect this environment, make it as good or better than when we came into this world. And this generation, this young generation is holding us to it. Yeah, no, definitely. All right. So I know big thing that I really wanted to talk about, right,

We're here in the state of Florida. There's, you know, we've been known to have the mockingbird as the bird of the state. You know what? We haven't been known because if you talk to 20 people out there. No, they didn't even know. It's funny. I was going to bring that up. You'd be looking at two of them who says, it's the mockingbird.

Everybody's going to go, oh, it's the flamingo. No, it's not the flamingo. It's the mockingbird. And here's the problem. Here's the problem. The mockingbird is the state bird of Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas. I did not know that. Yeah, well, now you know that.

Wow. Why are we sharing that bird with? four other states. Not only that, the species name is actually the northern mockingbird. Why is the northern mockingbird the state bird of the southernmost state in the country? Okay? And let me ask you something. What are the first three letters of the name Flamingo? FL. A. Yeah, that's the abbreviation for Florida! So these are things people need to keep in mind, right? First of all, it's a conservation success story that's still being written. We used to have flamingos here as a native species in the 1800s by the thousands throughout the state.

They were killed off of their plumes and for their meat. People ate them. So they were extirpated from the state back in the 1800s. Now, since then, they would occasionally be making stops because they're coming from Mexico, from Cuba, from the Bahamas, and they have like a stopover in Florida, and they leave again because it wasn't that great. Lately the last few years, they're staying.

They're not leaving. But it's been kind of an alignment with the whole Everglades Restoration Project. All the wetlands restoration that's going on in the state right now, the single most expensive environmental restoration project in the world, in the history of the world is what we're doing here in the state of Florida. And the fact that the flamingos now are not leaving, that they're staying, is nature telling us, hey, you're doing a good job. That's a great reflection on this restoration project.

So that's, for me, that's what really drives me. We're a state that is working to save our environment, and nature's telling us we're doing a good job. Plus, Florida is the only state in the entire country that can claim the flamingo is a native species. So that's important. I think we should have an iconic. species that represents us and nobody else in the state. This is an iconic state.

There are some people who say, well, what about the scrub jay? Okay, that's another bird, right? That's only found here. It's an endemic bird, only found in the central part of the state. We're taking care of that because the bill that we're going to introduce for the legislature in March is naming the American flamingo as the official state bird and the scrub jay as the official state songbird. So they're both together in the bill throwing the songbird people of bone, the scrub jay people abone. It's all going to be one of the same. Two birds that can't be found in any other state. Listen, from the conservation standpoint,

alone, it's great. But if you put that aside, there are people, oh, I don't care about the conservation, you know, I don't care. What's it in for me? The economic standpoint, the tourism, the merchandising with flamingos, the icon representing the state.

You ask people in Europe anywhere around the world, what do you think of the state of Florida when you think of birds? Flamingos. And it's not just South Florida, it's the entire state. If you go up to Tampa International Airport, that has a huge flamingo sculpture

in the middle of the Concord, There's so much positive about this. So the last two years, it died. It didn't pass, okay? But the last two years, I wasn't allowed to advocate. As a county employee, I was told you're forbidden. You can't say anything. So I had to zip it up.

They've let, they've released the cracking now. And I'm going, everything I got to make this thing happen. I really, if it doesn't happen, I'm just walking away. I'm done. I'm done. Because this is such a win-win situation for the state. And it doesn't cost anybody any money. Right.

It's not like we're voting on taxes or land or anything like that. Just say the Flamingo, and people will have it all over the place. It's the greatest merchandising mechanism you can have. And what's the pushback? I'm going to be honest with you. The pushback is there's some people in North Florida that don't want to support anything that has to do with South Florida. And they think the Flamingo thing is just a South Florida thing.

And it's not a South Florida thing. There are flamingos in Tampa. There are flamingos up in Merritt Island and Cape Canaverville. That's what I've got to. That's the narrative. I've got to change this. This is not just a South Florida thing. It's a Florida thing.

And you go anywhere, it benefits Florida. If you look at Miss Florida just in the Miss USA contest, her costume was a flamingo. She says, I want to represent our native beautiful flamingo. It wasn't a South Florida thing. It was a Florida. She's Miss Florida. She's not Miss Miami.

She's not Miss South Florida. She's Miss Florida. Yeah. I'm sorry. A little jealousy, I guess, of the people down here. I don't know. It's a win-win for all of us, man. I think two interesting points that you bring up,

One is, I don't think many people even knew that the flamingo was a native bird. Right. Well, that was thanks to our own biologist in Audubon, Florida. They did the research and were able to change FWC because FWC had listed them as native until only a few years ago. Wow.

And all the research that our biologist and people from Audubon, Florida did, that's when they convinced that, oh, you're right, okay, they're native species. Oh, right? You see, like that, I knew obviously they were affiliated with the state of Florida, but at what capacity, native species.

And then to the mockingbird, right? I was having this conversation because we were talking about that. You were going to come on the show. We were talking about the advocacy for bringing the Flamingo as the state bird of Florida. And they didn't even know that the mockingbird was the state. Most people don't. There's that element of it. And I also have, you know, my own gripe, I guess, with mockingbirds.

Because they dive bomb you, right? Dude. I know. I was on a run. This was maybe like two years ago. And I'm there just jogging down the block. And I see this mockingbird kind of flying low. And I'm like, okay, that was weird.

And I turned back. and this thing is just noise, nose diving at me. And I'm like, holy cow. So now I'm here in the middle of my street like this. Yeah, yeah. And cars are driving by, they probably like, this guy looks like a crazy man. But I'm like, you know what?

And then since then, every time I go for a run down my buck, I see the mockingbird fly and I'm like, is he coming after me? Well, they do it when they're nesting. Yes. When they're nesting, if you're anywhere near their nest, they'll come at you, man.

Yeah. My sister hates them because they always nest right in front of her house. You can't get out of her house. Yeah. She has to go through the garage. Because they get, they get aggressive? Oh yeah. And they made a bleed. They'll hit you in the head. They'll make you bleed.

Oh, trust me. This thing was coming right after me. I was a little worried. But yes, I do think that the flamingo just makes obviously a ton of sense here. And like for your point, right, obviously the economic side of it, right? Like, I don't know if this is the right word to use, but like the flamingo's sexy, right? It's sexy. It's iconic. Yeah. Florida lot. What's the symbol of the Florida lot? True. Not the Miami loto. The Florida lot is the flamingo. You can see so many corporations companies use the flamingo as the.

their logo here in Florida. I've yet to see one to use a mockery. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And you talked about some of the efforts, right, that the state of Florida has done on the conservation side with the Everglades, right? We actually were on an airboat talking to one of the doctors that are part of the Everglades Foundation. And he was kind of talking about how, you know, water levels were low and how they're trying to funnel some of the flow of the water and then like the impact that the sugar cane factories have had through the, you know, through the state. But what changes, I guess? guess have you seen that are impacting the growth of the Everglades?

Well, look at what they've done just on Tamamiami Trail, that project of creating the bridges to lift it up so all the water can go underneath. Getting the water to the right places is so critical in the health of the Everglades. So that's a big thing in and of itself. I think, you know, working with the Miccosukees, working with the Seminoles, these are the first residents of this state. We need to listen to them more on how these things are taken care of. You know, they live off the land.

Absolutely. So I've seen a lot of, you know, they've made some progress with big sugar on the runoff and the phosphates and the fertilizers and things like that. So it's baby steps, but it's making progress. And I feel very optimistic about it. I mean, the fact that it's the largest spending project in the world. It is. In the history of the world. In the history of the world.

I did not know that. Well, before we kind of wrap up here, I want to ask them like fun kind of rapid fire style questions here. being a world traveler at this point, is there an environment or a species that really stands out to you in the globe? Elephants. Elephants, you know, I've had the privilege of being in the middle of a herd of 100, 200 elephants

in Africa, and when you watch the dynamics between elephants and the way they communicate with each other, it'll move you. It'll just, it makes you understand how intelligent they are. You know, you close your eyes. They communicate also, through subsonic sounds that we cannot hear, but if you close your eyes, you feel it in your chest.

Your chest rumbles as they're communicating to each other. So elephants to me are a magical, magical animal. They're just something that, you know, if you didn't know they existed and someone just drew one, you'd think, what kind of drugs are you doing, bro? Because that thing is kind of like ridiculous, okay? But look at an elephant. It's fantastic animal.

That's incredible. That's definitely one animal that I would love to experience in its true natural, yeah, true natural environment. All right, being from Miami, do you have a favorite Cuban dish? For me, a churrasco, um panisado with maduro's. That's it, right there, baby, I'm done.

I'm not a Congri guy, which my father used to say, you know, you know, you're not a Congrii guy. But the madurasco, a panisal, oh. Delicious. Hell yeah. That honestly, Cuban food is, Yeah. It's up there at the top.

And then one question I always ask every guest. What does it mean to stay tranquil? Just do what you love. You know, don't sweat the little things, man. I think we get so caught up in the minutia of life that we forget to look at the big picture. You know, it sounds so cliche, but listen, if you got your health, you've got everything.

And as I get older, as I was starting to approach 70 years old, I'm thinking to myself, whoa. But I feel good. I mean, I lost my hair. I got a pop belly. I'm thinking, so what? You know, now, if I lost my hair when I was 20, I might have been going, oh, God.

But, you know, I've got a beautiful wife. She loves me bald. It's okay. I've learned to just appreciate the things that make a difference in your life, not little things, like the car you drive or the house you live in. Man, you got your health, you got your family.

You can put food on the table. You're a lucky person. Amen to that. I love it. I love it. Well, Ron, thanks so much for this. I mean, a beautiful conversation. And honestly, I could talk for hours probably with you because there's...

It's been my pleasure. Yeah. One more quick plug. Yes. Monster Masquerade, man. I forgot to plug that. That's the big, huge, wonderful Halloween party that they had. Let me tell you something about a monster masquerade at the zoo.

It's adults only. It's a little freaky. It's a good one to be at because people, you know, they put on a costume. They think they can do things that they normally wouldn't be. Yeah. Alter egos come out. Yeah. So let me get the date on that because that's a monster masquerade is October 17th, 7 p.m.

to 11 p.m. baby, oh, that's living a dream. Some incredible costumes, great food, great drink, great entertainment. It's a fantastic party. Love it, I love it. Be there. We got a lineup of events. You got the Zoo 5K run, Meats and Seafood Festival at the zoo.

A Wild Fork. And then the Monster Mash. Monster Masquerade. Monster Masquerade. There you go. Well, thank you guys always for tuning in, and we will see you on the next episode. Cheers.