News and Stories

The 90-Second Naturalist Thane Maynard Shares Bite-Sized Portions of the Big Picture

CINCINNATI, OH (August 27, 2012) – If you give him a minute, he’ll give you 90 seconds.  These are the words that the host of The 90-Second Naturalist Thane Maynard has lived by for the last 25 years.  Maynard’s popular nationally syndicated radio series, dubbed the “World’s Wildest Radio Show,” shares bite-sized portions of the big picture of the natural world. 

The 90-Second Naturalist first aired August 27, 1987 and has recorded more than 6,500 broadcasts to date on stations across North America.  As a result of the shows growing popularity and Thane’s role as the face and voice of the Cincinnati Zoo, he began to appear on TV and radio shows nationwide.  These include appearances on Disney Channel, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, CBS This Morning, and Kids America on NPR.

“Conservation is not just about saving pythons, penguins and pandas,” said Maynard. “It’s about saving ourselves.  And that is why every single person should be interested in learning more about our wild world.”

Thane was inspired to start the show after listening to a lecture by E.O. Wilson, the legendary Harvard biologist, in the spring of 1987.  Wilson encouraged his crowd of researchers, professors and grad students, to not only discuss biodiversity with one another, but with the whole population.

“Sitting in the back of this standing room only crowd, I realized right then that I would never grow up to be a research scientist, but I knew I could tell stories about animals,” said Maynard.

The 90-Second Naturalist has covered some pretty obscure & interesting topics, such as… Gender Bender Bugs, Owl Cell Phones, New Peccary Discovered, Turkeys & T-Rex, Fruit Eating Carnivores and Greater Asian One Horned Rhino! Thane Maynard has written and narrated thousands of 90-second audio segments over the past 25 years and hasn’t even come close to running out of things to say!

“It takes a strong commitment to produce a daily radio program for twenty five years. Cincinnati Public Radio congratulates Thane for his dedication to sharing of the good news of our natural world with listeners, not only here on 90.9 WGUC and 91.7 WVXU, but also on radio and Internet stations that reach across the country and around the world. We are proud to produce and distribute the program and look forward to learning about the wonders found in the plant and animal kingdoms for many more years to come,”    Richard N. Eiswerth, President and CEO of Cincinnati Public Radio.

With the average person’s attention span at an all-time-low, these bite-sized broadcasts seem to fit perfectly in everyone’s lifestyle.  Thane’s minute-and-a-half show can be heard locally daily at 8:59 p.m. on 91.7 WVXU and at 7:40 a.m. and 6 p.m. on 90.0 WGUC.  And, played as podcasts here.