Welcome to The Wild Spectacle Podcast, a flash-cast series with host Janisse Ray about ongoing and meaningful participation in a world that matters.
Episode #5 | Sally Ray Murphy | Under the Sea
Biography
Sally Ray Murphy is the author of the memoir, Turning the Tide, which tells her story as founder of a highly successful sea turtle restoration program in South Carolina and as an international leader in sea turtle protection. When Sally graduated with a Masters from the University of South Carolina, loggerhead sea turtles were dying at horrible rates—for example, In 1980 alone, 600 died in South Carolina. Sally was the first woman nongame biologist hired in the Southeast, and she spent her career studying sea turtles and working for them—nest protection, migration research, exclude devices on shrimp boats. Now retired, she lives in coastal SC.
Highlights of the Story
3:45 Sally tells how she got to the Great Barrier Reef of Australia.
5:23 She can’t forget the dangers of sharks and sea snakes.
5:45 She lists the reef’s beauties.
6:45 “It’s very disturbing to know that what I saw then may not be around in the future.”
8:20 Why snorkeling in the southern US is difficult.
8:30 Sally recommends wading bird rookeries.
8:40 Plan a visit to a rookery in downtown Port Royal, South Carolina.
10:00 Sally’s one suggestion on beginning to re-wild: “Just watching a nature show won’t do it.”
11:30 She recounts a transcendent experience with a nesting sea turtle whose shell becomes Turtle Island.
“Think about epiphany. Think about change. Think about the moments that make your face burn, your fingers tingle. Wild Spectacle is about those shocks, encounters that shift the way we see the world and ourselves in it…If the water we drink is maybe older than the sun, then ancient magic pounds inside our skins, too. So speak it. Tell it forth. Cry aloud and call it back home.”
-Joni Tevis, author of The Wet Collection and The World is On Fire
Thank You
Thank you for listening.
If you like what we’re doing here, give this show a thumbs-up, post it on your socials, and/or forward it to your friends.
My book Wild Spectacle: Seeking Wonders in a World Beyond Humans inspired the podcast. If you’d like a copy of the book, visit your favorite bookstore or library. Or you may order at my website.
Find me on Facebook at “Janisse Ray, Author” and on Instagram @janisseray_writer.
Thanks to Axletree for their beautiful music, “Clothe the Fields with Plenty,” an orchestral piece inspired by a traditional Hampshire folk song, “The Painful Plough,” from Axletree’s project “Music from a Hampshire Farm.” Thanks to the Free Music Archive.
We’re eager for new voices on the show, so if you’d like to come on and tell a story, be in touch.
Go See Some Nature
If we’re going to make a dent in changing our world, we have to understand what kind of amazements it contains. So many people begin to work on behalf of the planet because they see a natural phenomenon, large or small, that infuses them with admiration and wonder. So get out in nature. Take a friend with you. Especially a child. Go see a wild phenomenon. Amaze yourself. Connect yourself. Let’s get wild!
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