Make Way for Elephants
(They always have the right-of-way.)
The endangered Asian elephant may be a conservation success story as its rapid decline appears to be stabilizing. But this has created a new set of problems. With little remaining habitat, these elephants have nowhere left to go but into roads, farms, and cities. The seventh season of the Smithsonian’s flagship podcast Sidedoor opens with a look at what happens when wild elephants go urban.
The Office of Communications and External Affairs and Smithsonian Digital Studio are excited to announce the return of Sidedoor, the Smithsonian’s flagship podcast, for a seventh season. Every two weeks, the show will share behind-the-scenes stories from every corner of the Smithsonian that listeners cannot find anywhere else.
Season seven kicks off with host Lizzie Peabody voyaging through the Smithsonian to understand what is going on with the rogue herd of Asian elephants roaming through China; their impact on businesses, farms, and villages; and how India dealt with this issue in the past. Finally, she discovers how we can peacefully coexist with wildlife to avoid their extinction.
Listen now:
More upcoming episodes will feature a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship and National Museum of Natural History story about bloodsucking leeches that also happen to be performance artists, offer facts about natural wild ginseng from Smithsonian Folkways, and do a deep dive into the Arts and Industries Building’s “FUTURES” exhibition opening Nov. 20.
Sidedoor launched in October 2016 and has been a hit with listeners ever since. It was one of the top podcasts on Apple’s podcast chart, and it reached No. 1 on the Government and Organizations sector. It has a 4.5-star rating from listeners and was named one of the top 50 podcasts by The Atlantic magazine in 2016 and 2017. In season six, it received a feature on NPR One for “Reservation Mathematics: Navigating Love in Native America.” With more than 9 million listens to date, Sidedoor is in the top 1% of podcasts as measured by average downloads.
The podcast is a collaboration between the Smithsonian and PRX, a public media pioneer that brings listeners iconic audio programming, including “This American Life,” “The Moth Radio Hour,” “Latino USA,” “Snap Judgment,” “The World,” “Air|Space” from the National Air and Space Museum, “Portraits” from the National Portrait Gallery, and the Radiotopia podcast network.
New episodes of Sidedoor are available every other Wednesday on Apple Podcasts, everywhere podcasts are available, and streaming on si.edu/sidedoor. To learn more about how episodes come together, follow @SidedoorPod on Twitter and Instagram and sign up for the newsletter at si.edu/sidedoor.
If you have a story that Sidedoor should tell, the team would love to know about it! Send suggestions to sidedoor@si.edu.
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Posted: 11 October 2021
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