Filmmaker Doug Shultz has worked with NATURE for a few years, first with the award-winning Silence of the Bees, and recently with The Loneliest Animals, which addressed concerns of critically endangered species and population recovery options.

1. What was the hardest endangered species story you’ve had to cover–hardest emotionally?

Tough question. I became really attached to the Sumatran rhinos, and between seeing the massive deforestation in Indonesia and knowing that those big, beautiful creatures are being wiped off the planet just for their horns…it really is infuriating. Similarly, lemurs are a favorite of mine, and when you see whole forests disappearing so quickly from Madagascar to make room for mines or to be turned into charcoal, you know countless irreplaceable animals are disappearing with them. It’s extremely frustrating.

2. Were there stories/species for ‘Loneliest Animals’ that you wanted to do but couldn’t facilitate, or didn’t have anything you could film in conjunction with them? (I’m thinking of animals like the saola–where there are hardly any, but no one can find them?)

Yes, there were actually many animals like this. One was the Javan rhino, which is extremely rare. From camera traps we know there are a handful in Vietnam, and there is a small protected population in Ujung Kulon National Park in Indonesia. They are rarely seen, though, so it would have been very difficult for us to film them. In any case, there have been repeated instances where the rhinos have learned to avoid camera traps and several times have destroyed them. Apparently, they don’t like to be photographed.

3. What is considered a sustainable population for an endangered species? Is there a different figure for birds, mammals, etc?

This is a tough question and not everyone agrees on the answer. Scientists have suggested that anywhere from 50 to 500 individuals are required to have a viable population, but of course this varies from species to species, depending on the frequency of their breeding cycles, number of offspring, dependency on the mother, lifespan, etc. In many cases, this number is irrelevant anyway as conservationists are forced to work with what we have left. I haven’t met anyone yet who is going to give up just because they think there are too few survivors to save a species.

4. There’s an obvious nature vs. nurture debate with the activities of reclaiming endangered species. In your observations and research, how much do most species retain, hard-wired, of their own survival mechanisms?

This is an ongoing and very interesting debate. Are captive-born and raised animals suitable for release into the wild and do they require “training” to survive? Again this varies from species to species. Some animals learn important skills from their parents, like which predators to avoid, how to find food, etc. The National Zoo had a very successful program to build up and release a population of golden lion tamarins in Brazil, and they had a kind of “boot camp” to teach the captive-born primates to survive in the wild. However, they quickly determined that the boot camp was unnecessary and the tamarins seemed to take to life in the wild without any problems. The Duke Lemur Center also did a test release of black-and-white ruffed lemurs and they also were pretty successful. One of the most amazing examples of hardwired behavior was when the female rafetus turtle was put in the male’s pond in Suzhou. This male is 100 years old, has lived alone maybe all his life and has possibly never encountered a female. But the minute he detected a female in the water, he knew exactly what to do.

5. Did you encounter any species that have to be managed in zoos because they simply wouldn’t/can’t survive in their former environments?

Yes. One example is the Panamanian golden frog, which is kept in captivity now because almost all of its former habitat is either being cleared or is infested with a frog-killing fungus called chytrid. Right now there is no place for this frog to live other than in captivity. Another example is the kakapo in New Zealand. They’re big, flightless birds that are kept in isolation on an island off the southern coast. They have an intensive breeding program going year-round to keep this species alive, but these birds evolved without any defenses against cats and other species humans have introduced to the main islands of New Zealand. So the program is keeping the birds alive, but without serious protection there is almost no chance they could survive outside their protected island.

6. What is the most promising method you’ve seen for recovery of an endangered species to a manageable size?

Fish and Wildlife Service’s black-footed ferret program has been very successful in terms of rebuilding a population from very few animals. The California condor is another success story, and in the Galapagos, a captive breeding program restored the Española tortoise from 14 animals to over a thousand. So, a combination of intensive captive breeding with increased protection and awareness of the animals’ natural environment can definitely work.

7. You also have covered population collapse. Are we seeing more of this?

Population collapse in general? Yes. The forests are still shrinking, prairie and swamplands are being converted for agriculture. The more the human population explodes, the less room there is for everyone else. If you’re referring to colony collapse disorder of bees, yes we’re still seeing this. Many of the studies on CCD have revealed a wealth of new information about bees and the various factors that may be causing the collapse, but so far no one has pinpointed a single cause.

8. A lot of organizations have different plans for bringing back endangered species…like the zoo species survival plans and EDF’s ‘Back from the Brink’ plan. Have you noticed a particular method or organization being more successful than another?

The Species Survival Plans (SSPs) for different species utilize the expertise and facilities of many different zoos, and some of the work they’re doing is extremely impressive. I can’t say one organization is more successful than another, but we were all very impressed with the work being done at the National Zoo’s captive breeding center. They’re doing artificial inseminations on everything from black-footed ferrets to Przewalski’s horses to clouded leopards. It really is a high-tech Noah’s ark.

9. What do you see as the key or crux action (or, rather, first action) to slowing the number of species that go extinct? Is it environmental protection or sequestering populations?

Without environmental protection there really is no hope for these animals. No matter how many we produce in captivity, if they have nowhere to go, they won’t survive.

10. What are your opinions on the idea of, in the future, if technology develops to this point, cloning from the tissues of extinct animals?

Well, I certainly hope it doesn’t come to that. There is already a tissue bank in England where they are storing samples from endangered animals for this very purpose. Again, if we don’t stop destroying the last wild places on Earth where these animals evolved and where they need to live, bringing them back to life in a lab won’t serve any purpose other than to create curiosities for humans to gawk at. It won’t be about creating sustainable populations. I mean, I’d like to see a living woolly mammoth as much as the next guy, but do we have room on the planet for them?

11. Of the stories you had in “Loneliest”, which was the most heartening/hopeful? Can you make any comparisons between ‘Bees’ and ‘Loneliest’?

One of the most heartening things was seeing the spirit of stewardship that has taken over in the villages around the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary. Seeing the kids sing songs about the Sumatran rhino and performing Sumatran rhino dances — this is a direct result of the outreach work the Sanctuary is doing. And it gave me hope that the kids in this region are going to grow up with a real appreciation for the rhinos and will want to help ensure their survival.

Comparing ‘Loneliest’ to ‘Bees’, people related to ‘Silence of the Bees’ because first of all, few people realized how complex and fascinating bees are but also no one was really aware of how important they are in terms of what we eat. When you tell people no bees = no food, they pay attention.

In the case of ‘Loneliest Animals’, it’s easier for people to say well, extinction is a natural phenomenon, and besides, how does the loss of lemurs affect me? It’s a much harder personal connection to make, because it’s much more complicated.

12. Since you wrapped filming on ‘Loneliest Animals’, have there been any new developments?

Yes. The eggs that many suspected Lonesome George had fathered turned out to be infertile. So he may have made himself a little less “lonely” with one of the females in his pen, but so far, no offspring. Also, my favorite lemur, Titus, died of cancer in October, so there are no more golden-crowned sifakas in captivity. On a brighter note, the turtle crew in China discovered that the female rafetus’ diet before coming to Suzhou was nutritionally poor, which may be the reason that about half of her eggs were too brittle to survive. Since last summer they’ve been feeding her a much better, calcium-rich diet, and they plan to reintroduce the male and female in May. Everyone is pretty optimistic that by the end of summer, we’ll have a new generation of baby giant Yangtze soft-shell turtles.

13. Are you going to continue to follow the stories you have already produced films on? Are
you working on other stories in the same vein, or do you need a break from this topic?

I would like to keep working on other projects along this same vein, because there are so many similar stories and they’re fascinating and complex. We’ve received such an overwhelming reaction to ‘Loneliest Animals’ already, and I think it’s because people expect conservation-oriented films to be boring. It’s nice to be able to surprise people by giving them adventure, science, natural history and conservation all at once.

Read an earlier interview with Shultz here, from when he shot Silence of the Bees for Nature.