5 min readFor some, a visit to the Okefenokee Swamp in southeastern Georgia — where giant alligators slide through dark water and the air hums with life — might feel otherworldly. For a wildlife ecologist like Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, co-host of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom Protecting the Wild, exploring such wilderness is just another day on the job. But while filming in the area for season three of the popular nature series, she recently found herself in unfamiliar territory. For once, she wasn’t the expert, but the student.
A group of middle and high schoolers from a nearby small town — trained by scientists at the University of Georgia Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant to monitor gopher tortoises in the area — were showing her how to build a burrow by hand. “I’ve never made a tortoise burrow before,” she says. “So I really had to rely on these students to teach me exactly how it was done.”
The teens weren’t shadowing researchers for a day. They were doing fieldwork — measuring tortoises, tagging them, returning them safely and, in some cases, creating new burrows to give the threatened species a better shot at survival.
“There was no way we could have filmed without them being on camera showing me exactly what to do,” Wynn-Grant says. Watching their confidence and leadership in a place often overlooked by the outside world left her with more than optimism. “I get to see it. And that way I know that we’re in good hands.”
In 2026, at a time when headlines about climate change and biodiversity loss can feel relentless, Wynn-Grant’s hope isn’t rooted in denial or wishful thinking. It comes from something concrete: the knowledge that scientific solutions exist and that the next generation is stepping up to carry them forward.
As a wildlife ecologist, Wynn-Grant spends her days alongside researchers who don’t just document environmental crises — they work methodically toward solutions. She says the body of knowledge behind solving them is immense.
“They have steps 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,” she says of fellow scientists.
The sticking point, she acknowledges, isn’t always discovery. “The barrier really is getting policy makers to put them into practice,” she says, but even so, her work on the show and in the field gives her reason to be hopeful.
The students she met in Georgia are part of a broader shift she’s witnessed across the country: young people stepping into meaningful conservation work.
Wildlife conservationists, she notes, are often an “invisible labor force,” working quietly behind the scenes to protect species many people will never encounter in person. “Most people don’t see or know of any wildlife conservationists,” she says. “But we are here, we are out in the thousands, saving your favorite endangered species from extinction every single day.”
What struck her in the Okefenokee wasn’t just the students’ technical skill, but their leadership. Many come from small, rural communities that rarely draw attention. Yet they are embedded in real research partnerships, contributing data that shapes how endangered species are managed. “It was amazing to see so much fortitude and knowledge and leadership from them,” she says. Encounters like that leave her certain that conservation’s future won’t depend on a single generation.
As someone who grew up watching the original Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom on TV, Wynn-Grant is keenly aware of the role she has to play in bringing kids and teens from all backgrounds and walks of life to the table. As the first Black woman to host an original wildlife series, she also understands that some of those she’s inspiring may not otherwise envision themselves in such work.
“I take it very seriously,” she says. Messages arrive daily from viewers who say they didn’t realize a career in wildlife science was possible until they saw her on screen. “My daughter wants to do this work. And I didn’t know that it was possible until we found you,” some have written.
For Wynn-Grant, expanding the face of conservation isn’t symbolic; it’s necessary. “We need every single type of person from different backgrounds and perspectives to be active and activated in those solutions,” she says. The environmental challenges ahead require not only scientific expertise but a diversity of lived experiences — people who understand different communities, landscapes and ways of thinking. Broadening who belongs in the field, she believes, strengthens its ability to solve complex problems.
Still, some of her most powerful reminders come much closer to home.
Wynn-Grant is the mother of two daughters, ages five and ten, and she sees in them a generation being raised with tools she didn’t necessarily have at their age. She marvels at their “zero tolerance policy for unkindness” and their ability to acknowledge strong feelings like anger, discomfort and embarrassment constructively, without causing harm. She recalls once finding her oldest daughter punching pillows in her room — she wasn’t losing it; she was using a coping strategy she learned in class to deal with anger.
Perhaps most encouraging, she sees that her daughters’ kindness extends beyond interpersonal relationships. Her younger daughter will point out litter and tell the person responsible for it that it’s “unkind to the earth and to the planet.” Children, Wynn-Grant observes, often feel empowered to act immediately when they see something wrong. Where adults may grow overwhelmed or numb, kids are quick to believe their small interventions matter.
When she considers the world her daughters will inherit, Wynn-Grant is clear-eyed. “We don’t know how it’ll turn out,” she says. Scientists can model multiple possible futures for climate and biodiversity — some dire, others hopeful. “We, as human citizens on this planet, essentially get to decide which path it’s going to be.”
“Right now we have options,” she says. “Knowing we have not only options for which path we go down, but also the playbook for how to get there, that’s what gives me optimism.”
In the swamp, that optimism looked like teenagers digging burrows in the heat. At home, it looks like daughters who refuse to tolerate unkindness — to one another or to the Earth beneath their feet.
“There’s kind of a butterfly effect,” she says. “Every tiny thing makes a difference.”
