“Talking Animals”: Co-creators discuss new digital series profiling women protecting wildlife across the globe; all-female production team, too

This show was presented in direct acknowledgement of Women’s History Month…Jocelyn Stokes and Katie Schuler—co-creators of “In Her Nature,” a new digital series carried on the YouTube channel for the longstanding PBS program, “Nature”—retrace the path that led each of them toward their present filmmaking careers, specializing in natural history documentaries.

Over the course of sharing their histories, they each recount a pivotal project early in their movie-making trajectory: For Stokes, it was in the rainforest of Borneo shooting a film about sun bears, while for Schuler, it was an enormously emotional flick about a spider, featuring Philip Glass music.

This dovetailed with my tongue-in-cheek assertion that folks don’t go into documentary filmmaking as a get-rich scheme—and responding to my companion observation that, instead, they’re typically driven by a passion to tell a story they think needs to be told, expose an injustice, give voice to the voiceless, shine a light on an underappreciated person, or organization, or cause….

An observation that clearly applies to Stokes and Schuler, and the work they’ve done. In terms of their collaboration on “In Her Nature,” Stokes recalled that she conceived the series, and one of her first steps was inviting Schuler to join her on the project.

The pair address how they located the extraordinary women profiled

in “In Her Nature,” telling their stories of protecting wildlife across the globe, often involving species that are endangered or whose population is in peril.

One notable example, featured in the first episode: As viewers, we find ourselves in Chitwan National Park, in Nepal, where we’re introduced to Doma Paudel, the country’s first female nature guide.

Her duties include helping to significantly increase the wild tiger population in Nepal, while additionally protecting rhinos there. (That’s part of Paudel’s complex, personal storyline—no spoilers!) And, “In Her Nature” makes clear that Paudel has influenced a number of other women to become nature guides.

Stokes and Schuler, leading an all-female production team, indicate they identified so many exceptional women—cut from much the same cloth as Doma Paudel—that there could easily be a second season of

“In Her Nature,” and there will be!