Section Branding
Header Content
Georgia Today: Endangered Species Act anniversary; Stories you may have missed in 2023
Primary Content
LISTEN: On the Thursday, Dec. 28 edition of Georgia Today: Some Georgia species have rebounded significantly since being listed as endangered or threatened under the now 50-year-old Endangered Species Act. Plus, we'll look back at some interesting stories you might have missed throughout the year.
Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast from GPB News. Today is Thursday, Dec. 28. I'm Peter Biello. On today's episode, some Georgia species have rebounded significantly since being listed as endangered or threatened under the now 50-year-old Endangered Species Act. Plus, we'll look back at some of the interesting stories you might have missed throughout the year on this edition of Georgia Today.
Story 1:
Peter Biello: A judge has approved new Georgia congressional and state legislative districts, some likely to retain Republican majorities. U.S. District Court Judge Steve Jones, in his order Thursday afternoon, found that the Legislature did comply with the court order requiring the creation of Black majority districts where vote dilution was found. The plaintiffs had argued that the maps did not increase Black voting power. But Jones argued federal judges had no license to, quote, "reallocate political power." He also declined to compare maps the plaintiffs preferred to the maps approved by the Legislature, saying the courts must defer to lawmakers even if they do not make the, quote, "optimum choice."
Story 2:
Peter Biello: Today marks 50 years since President Richard Nixon signed into law the Endangered Species Act. GPB's Orlando Montoya reports, Georgia wildlife managers say its successes aren't just measured in species populations.
Orlando Montoya: Alligators and bald eagles are just two of the well-known Georgia species that have rebounded since being listed as endangered or threatened under the act. But some species have gotten healthier, even without being listed. Conservation manager Matt Elliott of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources says just the threat of being listed prompted a statewide partnership that helped double populations of the gopher tortoise, our official state reptile.
Matt Elliott: We've had a number of partners that took place in that conservation initiative, and we all sort of agreed that we needed to protect more land that had tortoises.
Orlando Montoya: Many challenges remain, most notably with the Atlantic right whale. Overall, 80 Georgia species are listed as endangered or threatened under the act. For GPB News, I'm Orlando Montoya.
Story 3:
Peter Biello: The natural world needs human help to survive. That's the spirit of wildlife conservation and the Endangered Species Act, which turns 50 today. Wildlife conservation can mean working for years without ever seeing the end of your work. But as GPB's Grant Blankenship reports, sometimes conservationists do get to see the mark they leave on the Earth.
Grant Blankenship: The Flint River is hidden and dark in the predawn hours below the entrance to Sprewell Bluff Park in Upson County, where people with birding scopes and sturdy shoes have gathered some from hours away.
Nathan Klaus: Get ready to move out. Let me get your attention.
Grant Blankenship: A couple, like Georgia Department of Natural Resources senior biologist Nathan Klaus, spent the night in the woods nearby.
Nathan Klaus: You know, you all know how much I value, hopefully, the role that you played, each one of you in getting us to this place.
Grant Blankenship: Most of the people gathered here have played some role in helping Klaus accomplish a goal he's been driving toward for 20 years: the release of six federally endangered birds, red-cockcaded woodpeckers, in the pine savannah just downhill from here. It took 20 years to get these birds here because first Klaus and others had to sculpt the right forest. Joyce Klaus is Nathan's wife. She's a wildlife scientist, too. And she says when he first brought her to places like Sprewell Bluff, they weren't much to see, at least to the ecologically informed eye.
Joyce Klaus: Oh, yeah, yeah. When Nathan and I were first dating — it would have been 17 years ago — some of the places he brought me to that he was working on, I was just like, "Oh, that's nice, honey."
Grant Blankenship: Nathan Klaus.
Nathan Klaus: The first photograph I have, it's a wall of sweet gum.
Grant Blankenship: Sweet gums are hardwoods that crowd out pine trees and red-cockcaded woodpeckers absolutely require mature living pine trees for nesting. So Klaus got to work with a very old tool. He and his team brought the fire. It had been here for hundreds of years prior, either set intentionally or left to run its course by indigenous people before Europeans suppressed it. So every other year for the last two decades, Klaus and a crew under his direction would set fires like this one recorded in 2019, on the other side of the Flint River from where we are today. As woodpeckers need pines, pines need fire to kill those competing sweet gums and other trees, and so they can open their pine cones to release seed. That's the science behind prescribed fire. But Joyce Klaus says, to burn a forest well takes more than science.
Joyce Klaus: But it's a lot of art, too. And it's kind of like being a landscape artist, which is pretty cool.
Grant Blankenship: This year, U.S. Fish and Wildlife said the landscape was finally right and OK'ed the capture of six birds from their old forests at the Army's Fort Stewart in South Georgia. They were driven through the night to get here yesterday, which is why Nathan Klaus asked us to quietly sneak down the gravel road to the release site.
Nathan Klaus: You want to give them their space. They've already been through basically an alien abduction.
Grant Blankenship: So why subject an endangered bird to this in the first place? Bob Sargent is another Georgia DNR biologist.
Bob Sargeant: This is a case of not all your eggs in one basket, right?
Grant Blankenship: In this analogy, the eggs are birds and the basket is South Georgia, where most of the state's red-cockaded woodpeckers live.
Bob Sargeant: With concerns about issues such as climate change. Now we have, you know, an increase in the number of hurricanes, for instance, coming up through the Gulf.
Grant Blankenship: Like Hurricane Michael in 2018.
Bob Sargeant: You can lose a lot of cavity trees and a lot of clusters all at once.
Grant Blankenship: That's why red-cockaded woodpeckers may be safer further north in the future. All manner of lenses trained on Klaus and Luann Craighton of the Nature Conservancy. They hold ropes running up the trees, to metal screens over the woodpeckers' holes. When they pull the ropes, the holes are opened to the rising sun and the birds bolt out of sight. Like the others, retired DNR biologist Jim Moser only caught a glimpse of the woodpeckers. But a glimpse was enough.
Grant Blankenship: I mean, did you ever dream you'd see?
Jim Moser: I dreamed it, but I didn't think I'd see it. You know, I dreamed a lot of things that I didn't think I'd ever see.
Grant Blankenship: When Nathan Klaus returned to the site weeks later, the birds were still here. Another cause for celebration. For GPB News, I'm Grant Blankenship in Upson County.
Story 4:
Peter Biello: As we wind down 2023, we're bringing you some of our most noteworthy stories from the past year. Today, we bring you this story about a new historical marker in Savannah that honors the first Black woman to serve on the Republican National Committee. GPB's Benjamin Payne has the story.
Benjamin Payne: A new historical marker in Savannah celebrates Mamie George Williams, the first Black woman in the country to ever sit on the Republican National Committee. She did so in 1924. Now, nearly 100 years later, visitors to Williams' hometown can read and learn about her, just south of downtown Savannah at Dixon Park. That's where a dedication ceremony recently took place.
Velma Thomas Fann: There was a time when African Americans and African American children were not welcome at this park. There was actually a city petition written that said, "We do not want the Negroes here," but we're here, and Mamie George Williams is here.
Benjamin Payne: That's historian Velma Maia Thomas Fann, speaking to a large crowd of Savannah residents and community leaders. She spearheaded the effort to raise a historical marker to honor Mamie George Williams. Williams led a massive voter registration drive of 40,000 Black women in Georgia shortly after the 19th Amendment was passed in 1920. On paper, that amendment granted all women the right to vote. But in reality, Black women were still largely shut out of the political process. It took trailblazers like Williams to bring them in.
Velma Thomas Fann: That's what Mamie George was about. She was an African-American Republican. When she held her own meetings, she said, "The Republican Party has to look like everybody." So she had men, women, white and Black in her delegation. She lived on this street, so we thought we'd put this here so that maybe could watch over it and hold this as a sacred spot.
Benjamin Payne: That sacred spot was then unveiled as a representative from the Georgia Historical Society gave a countdown to lift the cover of the marker.
Crowd: One, two, three! (Cheers)
Benjamin Payne: Before the reveal, Thomas emceed a ceremony just across the street at Carnegie Library. The library was originally founded by and for Black residents when racial segregation was the way of life in Savannah and across the South.
Velma Thomas Fann: Just a little bit about the library: The Woman Suffrage Club of Chatham County was organized here in this library June 13, 1919. Mmmm! And Mamie George Williams attended several of the meetings. So we have a lot going on here and a lot to be thankful for about this tremendous and wonderful branch.
Benjamin Payne: Also at the library was Chasity Malloy.
Chasity Malloy: As of two days ago, I am the first African American president of the League of Women Voters of Coastal Georgia. And I can certainly acknowledge Mamie for her contributions in the past for getting us to this point today.
Benjamin Payne: Williams' power as a political organizer ran aground during what historians called the Lily White movement. It was an effort by white Republicans to oust African Americans from the party, especially from positions of power. And so while Williams was the first Black woman in the country to sit on the Republican National Committee and later the first woman ever to speak on the floor of the Republican National Convention, she was eventually ousted from GOP leadership in 1932. But although her national influence came to an abrupt end, her activism for voting rights endures. So says Shirley Jackson, publisher of the Savannah Tribune, a historically black newspaper.
Shirley Jackson: I understand who she is. Who she is, not who she was. If Mamie did it during the times when she was alive, with all of the obstacles and the roadblocks and everything that was in her past, what does that say to us today? We have those same obstacles, roadblocks in our past today. If Mamie did it, we can do it. If Mamie did it. We can do it.
Benjamin Payne: The new historical marker for Mamie George Williams joins over 50 others across the state that make up the Georgia Civil Rights Trail. For GPB News, I'm Benjamin Payne in Savannah.
Story 5:
Peter Biello: GPB senior health care reporter Ellen Eldridge filed this story on Sept. 23, HIV Awareness Day, about how a diagnosis of HIV is not a death sentence.
Ellen Eldridge: In the early '80s, when the virus first emerged, there were few options for treating it, and thousands died of its late-stage illness, AIDS. Now doctors have treatments that can help those with HIV live healthy lives. Georgia is one of the top states in the country for new HIV infections, and 1 in 8 people who has the disease does not know it. So experts say communities need more testing, early intervention and treatment. Dr. Laura Cheever is with the HIV AIDS Bureau of the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration.
Dr. Laura Cheever: There are a lot of great prevention strategies, including PrEP, pre-exposure prophylaxis, which means someone at risk for HIV can take either one pill once a day or get an injection either once a month or once every two months to prevent getting HIV. So we have what we need today to end this epidemic.
Ellen Eldridge: She says the Southeast accounts for about half of all the new HIV cases in the U.S. For GPB News, I'm Ellen Eldridge.
Story 6:
Peter Biello: Last May, South Georgia's only four-year medical school celebrated the graduation of its inaugural class. GPB's Sofi Gratas has the story.
Sofi Gratas: 53 students in the inaugural class will graduate with a doctorate in osteopathic medicine. It's the first class of future physicians to finish at the school's campus in Colquitt County, which opened in 2019. Interim dean of the school, Robert Lloyd, says after graduation, students are heading in a variety of directions.
Robert Lloyd: Things like anesthesiology, general surgery, orthopedic surgery.
Sofi Gratas: And also primary care specialties.
Robert Lloyd: Family medicine, pediatrics, OB-GYN. And I know the students are very excited. This is a milestone for them.
Sofi Gratas: Lloyd says 13 students from the inaugural class will stay in Georgia for medical residencies, with nearly half placed in rural hospitals. Peckham Moultrie is the only medical school in South Georgia. For GPB News, I'm Sofi Gratas in Macon.
Story 7:
Peter Biello: In November, GPB's Kristi York Wooten spoke with Micky Dolenz, the only surviving member of The Monkees about his visit to Athens, Ga., and his new EP of R.E.M. songs.
Kristi York Wooten: So let's talk about Athens. I want to first know kind of what you were expecting before you got there. I'm sure maybe you been to Athens before or never had been?
Micky Dolenz: No, no, never had been. And what I was expecting originally was kind of a small, little intimate meet-and-greet at the record store. One of my assistants, Jody Ritson, who helps with promotion and works for me on a bunch of different things, She, after we announced that the record with the EP was going to be released and she saw the cover and you know, we got Wuxtry record store to — to agree to be on the cover. And then she's the one that came up with the idea to do an old-fashioned in-store. And you — to be honest, I didn't even think record stores even existed anymore. But it obviously it does. And so it was her idea. And she said, "you know, let's just show up." Well, you know, have a little dinner with the Wuxtry people and whoever else wants to show up and, you know, sign a few autographs and and sign some some merchandise, some of the EPs. A little photo op, shall we call it, in front of the store, which is the cover of the EP. Well, all of a sudden it just snowballed. Jody started getting an enormous amount of feedback and responses from from fans in the area who wanted to be there, and the record store started to get inundated with phone calls and pretty soon it just exploded. And Jody called the mayor's office and to inform them that I was going to be there. And he turns out to be a big fan and wanted to give me a key to the city. And then it just snowballed and got bigger and bigger and bigger. But I knew it as we were going along, but still nothing really could have prepared me for the that kind of, I don't know, turnout. It was, you know, quite, quite wonderful. And — and of course, you know, the wonderful participation of the guys from R.E.M. That was a wonderful, wonderful, you know, experience.
Kristi York-Wooten: One of the things that captivated me when I wrote, you know, when I was there on the day and wrote about it, was that you don't come across too many moments like that anymore in music that have a spontaneous feel. Obviously, it was pre-planned, like you said, but had this kind of spontaneous feel where just the — the feeling of the music and everything kind of takes over. And my theory was that a lot of people, especially in — Athens isn't super rural, but you've got a lot of folks who don't live in Atlanta or don't live in big cities and never got the opportunity maybe to see the Monkees in recent years or, you know, just remember the Monkees from childhood. But to have these two things converge with R.E.M. and you being there was — it's like almost the town couldn't handle it.
Micky Dolenz: Well, as you say, it was kind of a spontaneous plan, I guess. I mean, the plan was just to show up at the record store and for a photo op, basically. And there I am, Micky Dolenz, shot in front of the record store where the members of R.E.M., Michael and Peter, met and it started the ball rolling for R.E.M. And that was it. I mean, that was the plan. And, you know, and but in my experience, when things like this do happen, you can't buy this kind of promotion and publicity when things happen from sort of, I guess you say a grassroots, you know, feeling. But that's kind of how I've always operated. You know, I in my, basically, my entire career, I've never been one to, you know, beat a drum. Various, mildly, so to speak, no pun intended.
Kristi York-Wooten: Right.
Micky Dolenz: Or — or flog a dead horse, you know. Also, I've just that's just the way that I've always sort of done business. And, you know, you just can't buy this kind of thing that happened spontaneously. And I have found in the past — and yes, I mean, maybe I have tried, you know, to promote stuff. And you do — I mean, I have a publicist and I do promote stuff. But, you know, you — you know, and you hear and you see people that have obviously spent thousands and or millions or whatever trying to promote something and create a buzz that really just isn't there.
Kristi York-Wooten: Right.
Micky Dolenz: And that's I guess, just intuitively, that's the kind of thing I've always — I've always done. And I maybe some of that comes from the fact that I was born and raised into a showbiz family and in a family that was not your typical. My mom and dad were both actors, singers. They met doing a play here in Hollywood, but neither of them or our family was — was into the, I guess you'd just say typical Hollywood Beverly Hills showbiz world in the '40s, '50s and '60s. We lived out in the valley. We had horses and a ranch and chickens. My mom — my mom was from Austin, Texas, very down to earth, and my father was off the boat from Italy, literally, and so very down to earth. And I, you know, I grew up in that kind of environment. There was no showbiz stuff and friends and people around the house. When I did my first series, Circus Boy, in the '50s, I was 10 years old, and when I would do the sit — the show, I'd be filming all day on location, shooting the television show, and on the weekends I still had to clean the pool, you know? So — so I think that you add all that up and, you know, that kind of answers your question. I don't know. I can't even remember what the question was.
Kristi York-Wooten: No, no, totally does. And I think that's what was so charming about it all was just — just how it was just spontaneous. But I did want to talk to you a little bit about the R.E.M. songs themselves and on the EP and kind of do you have any memories of when you first heard R.E.M.? Back, I don't know it would have been in the '80s, I presume. But like, just, you know, when you first?
Micky Dolenz: Oh, I'm not I'm not that old. My mother loved R.E.M. That's a joke. No, of course. Of course I do. Yes. I've actually I was living in England and at the time when they were huge and they were beginning, but they had, you know, a couple of records there. And of course, I remember. I don't know, I guess in an order of I remember s**t, I would say "Losing My Religion," of course. "Man on the Moon," then eventually. But you know, of course I — but I was not into music in, in England. I was producing and directing television shows and films and commercials and music videos. So I was a full-blown producer director since then, from the mid '70s until late '90s — sorry, late '80s, about 12 or 15 years. And I really wasn't doing much music. You know, I was listening to, you know, I'd listen to BBC Radio, you know, occasionally. But no, I wasn't really much into music. But of course, I'd heard of R.E.M. — who hadn't, you know? But I couldn't tell you exactly, you know, a date or time. Time stamp it, you know, when I first heard their first song.
Kristi York-Wooten: How did you choose the songs for the EP?
Micky Dolenz: Well, it started with — well, it started actually, interestingly enough, with the original creator and producer of The Monkees named Bob Rafelson, who went on to, of course, as you may know, became an incredible film director of Five Easy Pieces, King of Marvin Gardens, all Jack Nicholson films. Well, Bob was the original creator of The Monkees. He and his partner Bert Schneider. And Bob was kind of the creative force behind it all. Anyway, we did The Monkees, but we kept in touch over the years. And over the years, I had heard through the grapevine that R.E.M., particularly Michael Stipe, there'd been some sort of an influence, some sort of appreciation of The Monkees. And, you know, I kind of take that stuff with a grain of salt, unless I'm hearing it from the horse's mouth, so to speak. But over the years, I had heard that. And then a few years ago, before Bob passed away, he sent an email out to all of us. And it said, I just heard this or read this great article that Michael Stipe had done, saying how The Monkees had been an enormous influence, and particularly on "Shiny Happy People."
Kristi York-Wooten: Mmm.
Micky Dolenz: And I, like I said, heard rumors about that. And I remember going, "wow, this is — that's very cool!" you know, and there was another mutual friend of of of mine named Gary Strobel, an associate who called me up. He read the article and he said, "Mick, you know, this is very cool. You should re-record this song, 'Shiny Happy People.'" This was a number of years ago, a few years ago. And I said, "you know, it's a great idea, but I don't have a record deal right now. And I'm not, you know, focused on that right now. And just to do a one-off is kind of tricky and where's the distribution" and blah, blah, blah. And kind of left it at that. Well, I got involved with this record company, 7a Records, who I've done a couple of projects with now. And we'd done the Dolenz Sings Nesmith album. I don't know if you've heard of it or heard of it,
Kristi York-Wooten: Mm-hmm.
Micky Dolenz: But that was a couple of years ago, produced by Christian Nesmith, Michael's son,
Kristi York-Wooten: Right.
Micky Dolenz: And it got — it was very well-received, this album — and again, kind of a grassroots thing. It just sort of took off. And 7a Records approached me during that period and said, "Listen, we should follow up with something. What do you have in mind?" And a few — a few ideas were bantered about, and one of them was R.E.M. To — to cover some R.E.M. tools — um, tunes — because he'd heard — the head of 7a Records, Glen Gremlin — he'd heard that about R.E.M. and The Monkees and "Shiny Happy People" and all that. And so we started to listen to, to stuff and the first names that came up to produce was Christian Nesmith because of his ability to re-envision material, which he did, I think, in an exemplary way on Dolenz Sings Nesmith. I don't know if you ever heard any of those tracks, but there really are some amazing versions of Nesmith's tunes that are that are quite different from the original but still work. It's not just different for the sake of being different, but really work. And it's difficult to do with especially with songs that are very, very well-known. But Christian, I think, did an incredible job on on the Dolenz Sings Nesmith album. So I went to him because when I do cover material — and I have over the years — I don't just want to do a karaoke cover version. Even though some songs — like, there's so many Beatles songs I would love to cover. But how the hell do you cover a Beatle tune? I mean, it's — it's very seldom been done successfully. And the two times that come to mind were both Joe Cocker. You know, it's very difficult when it's such — such an enigmat — I mean, it's so well-known. But went to Christian and he said, "well, of course I know who R.E.M. are. Let me start listening." So he started listening to songs. I did, and so did Glen. And we kind of came up with a shortlist, maybe 10, 12, and that got narrowed down. And then in the final analysis, I basically left it up to Christian once I made my — my suggestions of my short list. There's an old saying in England that I learned when I was there directing and producing. "You don't keep a dog and bark yourself." And it just means you don't kind of micromanage. And that's one of my business principles when I am producing something: is you — you hire somebody and you give them their instructions and you give them their head like you give a horse. You know that term. You — you give them a lead and — a loose lead — and you let them get on with it and you don't keep a dog and bark yourself. And so I left it up to Christian, mainly, to make the final choices and then to go away and come up with his ideas. And he did. And he came back to me with some demos, just guitar, you know, clipped track demos of what he had in mind for a few songs. And that got narrowed down. And then, you know, basically he went off — this was, you know, tail end of COVID — so he just went off and worked by himself, which which here he is wont to do. I think he works very well just by himself because he plays every instrument you can think of. And he went off and came back with these wonderful, wonderful tracks that we listened to and tweaked. And then — and then I went in. Well, and he had the backgrounds done — back, background tracks and vocals, background vocals. And then I went in and and did the lead vocals for — over a period of time. And there you go.
Peter Biello: And that's it for this edition of Georgia Today. If you want to learn more about any of these stories, visit GPB.org/news. And if you haven't yet subscribed to this podcast, do it now. We'll be back in your podcast feed tomorrow. And if you've got feedback, we would love to hear from you. Send us an email. The address is GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.
---
For more on these stories and more, GPB.org/news
Secondary Content
Author
