With a Side of Knowledge is a podcast produced by the Office of the Provost at the University of Notre Dame. It brings listeners informal interviews with fascinating scholars and professionals from both Notre Dame and elsewhere that take place over brunch.
The seventh episode of the show’s third season, “On Lions and Tigers and ... Okapi?” was released Thursday, Oct. 24, and features Josh Sisk, executive director of the Potawatomi Zoo in South Bend, Ind.
Just a four-mile drive from the Notre Dame campus, the Potawatomi Zoo is home to a collection of animals and conservation programs one might not expect to find on 23 acres in northern Indiana. It has been continuously accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) since 1987 and received its most recent five-year accreditation this fall. Less than 10 percent of wildlife exhibitors licensed by the United States Department of Agriculture meet the more comprehensive AZA standards.
Sisk and host Ted Fox traded in the podcast’s standard brunch format for a walking tour of the zoo on a drizzly August morning. Their stops included visiting two kings of the jungle, four tiger sisters, and the closest living relative of the giraffe. It was all part of a broader conversation about how the zoo is working to protect endangered and other at-risk species while educating the next generation of conservationists.
You can visit provost.nd.edu/podcast to learn more about With a Side of Knowledge, which is available through Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher or by searching “With a Side of Knowledge” in your favorite podcast app.
You can also listen to the episode with Sisk using the player below.