Oct. 3, 2026

Tim McGraw Songwriter Helps Rescue Nashville Foxes

Show Notes
Transcript

Tim McGraw Songwriter Helps Rescue Nashville Foxes as Bison Return to Mexico Reserve
Johnny Mac shares five good news stories: 48 bison were reintroduced after 200 years to the El Santuario Wildlife Reserve within Mexico’s Cuatro Ciénegas Biosphere Reserve, where their hooves, coats, and dung help break compacted soil, spread seeds, and fertilize the desert oasis ecosystem. In Nashville, 78-year-old songwriter Jerry, who has had songs recorded by Tim McGraw, has spent seven years trapping foxes suffering from a worsening mange epidemic and bringing them to Walden’s Puddle Animal Rescue; by September the rescue rehabilitated over 60 foxes, surpassing last year’s 44. Three Harvard students created Rumble Rims, an infrared eye-tracking headset that provides a 2–3 minute concussion assessment with real-time results on a coach’s app. In London, 934 of 1,188 people set a Vulcan salute record for Star Trek Day with actor Martin Quinn attending. Linda regained the Guinness record for largest matching salt-and-pepper packet collection with 754 pairs.

00:10 Bison Return Restores Desert
01:09 Songwriter Saves Sick Foxes
02:39 Headset Detects Concussions Fast
03:30 Vulcan Salute World Record
04:23 Salt Pepper Packet Champion
05:15 Wrap Up And Farewell

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Calaroga Shark Media. Hey there, I'm Johnny Manc with five

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good news stories. For 200 years, the Cuatro Cienegas Biosphere

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Reserve in the desert of northern Mexico had no bison.

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That reserve is one of the most ecologically unusual places

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in North America, a desert oasis fed by ancient underground springs,

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home to species found nowhere else on Earth. Biologists treat

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it like a living museum of what the continent used

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to be, but for two centuries, no bison. Well, good news.

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Last year, 48 bison were brought to the El Centroario

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Wildlife Reserve, a protected core area within the reserve's 324

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square miles. What happened next gets ecologists excited. You see,

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bison hooves are dense and hard, and when they move

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across desert soil that has compacted over generations, they break

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it open. allowing water and seeds to reach depths they

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couldn't before. A bison's coat acts like a traveling seed bank,

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picking up plant material in one part of the landscape

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and depositing it miles away. The dung fertilizes soil that

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had gone unfertilized for two centuries. You do all that,

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and things start to grow. Jerry is a songwriter in Nashville.

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He's had some of his songs recorded by Tim McGraw.

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He's 78 years old, and for the last seven years,

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he has spent a big portion of his time driving

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around Nashville... trapping sick red foxes. Apparently Nashville is fighting

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a mange epidemic and it's getting worse. Mange is caused

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by skin mites. In a single fox, pretty treatable. The

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problem is mange spreads rapidly between animals living in close proximity.

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And with development in Tennessee, the foxes are getting increasingly crowded.

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Development has shrunk their habitat. And rat poison, used against rats, well,

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weakens the immune system of the foxes, making them more

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vulnerable when the mites arrive. So Jerry tries to trap them.

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He works in neighborhoods across Nashville, sets traps, checks them.

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And when he finds a fox, he brings it to

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Walden's Puddle Animal Rescue, which can help the foxes. He

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told the Tennessean, mange is treatable. If we catch them,

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they can have a healthy, happy life. This is not

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a part-time hobby. In August, he logged 234 volunteer hours.

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Do some math. There's 168 hours in a week. And,

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you know, you sleep and you eat and you go

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to the bathroom and you do other things. So that's

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a lot of time, right? 234 volunteer hours. I mean,

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if you work a 40-hour week, you worked 40, 80, 120, 160,

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maybe 180 or so. So that's a lot. By September,

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Puddle Rescue had rehabilitated more than 60 foxes this year,

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surpassing last year's total of 44, and we still got

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a couple months to go. Nice job. According to the CDC,

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approximately two and a half million American high school students

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experience a sports-related concussion every year. The challenge on the

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sidelines is that assessment is largely subjective. You know, you

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got a trainer, a coach asking questions. You watch how

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a kid moves. You make a judgment call. I've been

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a volunteer coach. Yeah, I've been there. It's really hard

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to do. And the kid will always tell you they're fine.

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The kid always wants to go back in. Well, three

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Harvard students set out to change all this. They have

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built a headset called Rumble Rims. Rumble Rims use infrared

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light to track eye movements during a series of oculomotor tasks,

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like following a moving target. Holding a fixed gaze, making

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rapid directional shifts, the eye movements reveal what the brain

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is doing in a way that a concussion reliably disrupts.

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The test takes two to three minutes. The results appear

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on the coach's mobile app in real time. You can

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make the right call. Nice job there. For Star Trek Day,

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a group gathered at the Science Museum in London to

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attempt the Guinness World Record for most people performing a

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Vulcan salute simultaneously. You would think the Vulcans would hold

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this record, but no. If you don't know what this is,

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This is from the original Star Trek. Basically, you separate

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your fingers into two pairs and extend your thumb. So

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you have to have like two of your fingers and

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a gap on the other two fingers. It's kind of

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hard to do unless you learn how to do it.

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I'm a Trekkie, so I figured out how to do

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it at some point. Guess how many people did the

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Vulcan salute? Wrong. 1,188 people attended. 934 of them successfully

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did the salute. So 934 out of 1,100 and change.

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That'll show you. It is not that easy to do.

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Martin Quinn, who is the current actor playing Scotty in

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Star Trek Strange New Worlds. He was there. Fans noted

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for an attempt lasting only 60 seconds. There was a

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lot of excitement. And congratulations to Linda. She got her

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Guinness World Record back. The record is for largest collection

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of salt and pepper packets. I don't know. Maybe I

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should go upstairs and check my junk drawer. I might

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be able to break this one without even trying. Linda

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doesn't throw hers away. She has 754 matching pairs, which

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means there's 754 sets where the salt packet and the

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pepper packet are from the same source and design. I

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feel like I might have that upstairs. She first won

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the title in 2024 with 494 pairs. Then this other guy, Sonny,

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broke the record. He had 594. So Linda got back

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into it. and is now back on top by a

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margin of 160 pairs. She's been collecting these for years.

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The habit started with a single pair from Arby's. Her

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current favorites in the collection are the Hawaiian shirt-themed packets

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from Hawaiian Airlines. She said, I find collecting very interesting

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and fun, and have a goal of a world record title,

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makes this hobby even more fun and interesting. And those

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are your five good news stories for today. Have a

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great day.