The Atlas Obscura Podcast · Wednesday, August 5, 2026
Brad Riant credits his grandmother for instilling in him a love for nature, recalling childhood memories of her taking him to local parks to find crawdads and frogs. This early exposure to the outdoors significantly influenced his career path as a wildlife veterinarian.
“So, we were very close in my childhood.”
“I give her complete credit for planting those seeds in my mind to go out into nature, to find communion with nature.”
“She was the grandmother who would do those things with me, who would get in the stream at our local state park and look for crawdads and frogs and minnows and that I became a wildlife veterinarian.”