University of California, Davis launched its Pod of Orcas podcast when the pandemic canceled a slate of live events. Our first season exclusively looked at endangered killer whales. Our current season has featured the Salish Sea ecosystem and the environment more broadly. We developed the podcast to maintain a long-form conversational connection with our audience, and it struck an immediate chord. We produce the whole thing in-house and leverage our strong scientific reputation in the Pacific Northwest to book top-tier guests. The show is recorded, edited, and promoted using standard tech tools we researched on the fly. That presented challenges, but we overcame them and created a valuable outlet in the process: Episodes get thousands of listens, and the format allows us to pursue questions and topics beyond even our immediate research projects. This has frequently led to donations in support of our work.
From the Judges
This entry stood out, as it was a story that only this organization could tell. We liked the chronological format that made the listener feel like the story was unfolding in real time. The podcast had a high production quality, even though the organization spent no additional money on creating it. It is a podcast that is easily digestible by a diversified audience.
