Just one phone call can completely change the course of your life. For Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, that phone call was one from Mutual of Omaha, asking her if she wanted to be a guest expert on the pilot season of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom Protecting the Wild.
“I was like, Mutual of Omaha, Wild Kingdom? Are you kidding? With Peter Gros? Absolutely,” Dr. Rae said.
A national speaking tour had brought Dr. Rae to Omaha, Nebraska, where she shared her research and expertise on bears. What Dr. Rae didn’t know was a representative from Mutual of Omaha was in the audience who thought she’d be a great fit as a guest on a new TV show.
Dr. Rae joined the Wild Kingdom team in Washington state to film the pilot episode of Protecting the Wild about a pair of black bear cubs who had been injured in wildfires the year before and were being rehabilitated at PAWS Rehabilitation Center.
“Their paws were burnt. But what’s really cool is the team at PAWS kept them very wild,” Dr. Rae said. “They weren’t indoors after their surgeries. They were kept outdoors with no human contact. If you keep them wild, they have a chance to go back to the wild.”
On set with Protecting the Wild
Dr. Rae meets Peter Gros
The episode filmed first just outside of Seattle where Dr. Rae and Co-Host Peter Gros talked about the temperate rainforest ecosystem. It was the first time the two wildlife experts had met.
“He was so polite and so kind and welcoming,” Dr. Rae said about Peter. “He was in the middle of a several weeklong travel journey, filming every day. And despite all that, he was kind, calm and such a pro.”
Dr. Rae knew of Peter before their meeting, having watched Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom as a child and seeing Peter with Host Jim Fowler. But she later realized, Peter was on an earlier TV show that had a big impact on her — “Reading Rainbow.”
“He brought a tiger and he and LeVar Burton interacted with it,” Dr. Rae said. “It was a core memory for me. When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a nature show host, particularly because of tigers and gorillas. I thought the only people who hang out with tigers and gorillas in the wild are these nature show hosts, and Peter Gros was one of them.”
“’Reading Rainbow’ was specifically a kid’s show, so when Peter Gros showed up with a tiger on that, I was locked in,” Dr. Rae said.
Filming ‘Bear Cub Rescue’
After Dr. Rae and Peter filmed near Seattle, the crew traveled to Eastern Washington to film more of the episode. As a black bear expert, Dr. Rae is well versed in black bear ecology, but filming this episode was a bit different than her previous research experience that was focused on data collection for the population of black bears and their habitat. This time, she saw the entire journey of two individual black bears with a focus on conservation.
“To experience the rescue and rehabilitation, that’s not something that people like me do. It’s what veterinarians do,” Dr. Rae said. “It was really cool to have access to something like that. It felt very once in a lifetime.”
Perhaps the most inspiring moment from the episode, “Bear Cub Rescue,” is watching the bear cubs return to the wild. Filming this moment required careful planning. But Dr. Rae had it covered.
“I remember explaining to the camera operators who had never done a bear release that it’s going to go really quick. We’re not going to get them back. We’re not going to see them again. So, set up your cameras in a way that you’re guaranteed to get the shots you want,” Dr. Rae said.
Fortunately, the crew positioned their cameras in the right spots, getting the perfect angle to see the bear cubs sprint off into the forest.
Watch the episode to see this incredible moment.
Dr. Rae joins Protecting the Wild
“I remember really giving it my all,” Dr. Rae said of filming the episode. “I said, ‘I’m going to be energetic. I’m going to be charming. I’m going to really know my place, defer to Peter all the time. I’m just the guest, not the host.”
While driving to the set with a representative from Mutual of Omaha, Dr. Rae made sure to emphasize how she’d love to be a guest expert again, if the opportunity arose.
“I think I said several times, ‘I think you guys are going to make it. Who wouldn’t want to host Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom on their network?’” Dr. Rae said. “’And also, you know, I’d be happy to come back.”
The episode filmed in 2022, and Dr. Rae kept in touch with the Wild Kingdom team. And in early 2023, she got another call.
“They asked if I would consider co-hosting with Peter and that absolutely blew my mind,” Dr. Rae said. “Not as a guest, not a tiny little occasional role, but actually being a part of it all the time. It was really awesome. It was a dream come true.”
It was the moment she’d been working toward since she was a young girl watching Wild Kingdom, from college, graduate school and research jobs, she’d finally made it as a nature show host.
“If I had told me at grad school at 25, me at 30 trying to find my footing of my first real job, ‘hey, we’re right around the corner from making our childhood dreams come true,’ I think that version of me would have been in disbelief,” Dr Rae said. “I think my 20-, 30-year-old self would have been really, really shocked and in awe and so grateful.”
