#36: Damon Tighe - Fungi, Mushrooms, and Community Science (Mycology)

Regular episodes return next Monday with a fascinating interview that delves into an ecological mystery that unravels a connection between a threatened butterfly, cars, cows, and soil ecology. You don’t want to miss this one!
As for today, THANK YOU for a wonderful 2021. The podcast really took off this year, with each month surpassing the previous month, usually by hundreds of listens.
But I have a big announcement. Don't worry, the podcast will remain!
The short story: I'm leaving my Silicon Valley tech job in April so I can focus on conservation full time. My path isn't entirely clear, but I have some solid options and my next few steps are clear. I've developed a personal vision, and will start executing on that in 2022.
I'm ecstatic to pursue my dream, but leaving the salary, benefits, and certainty of my day job is uncomfortable, to say the least.
For that reason, I’ve launched a Patreon page to give you, my listeners, an opportunity to help me achieve this dream. If you choose, you can support the production costs of the show by becoming a monthly contributor.
There are four option levels, and each level offers fun perks, including access to exclusive content, die-cut stickers, special access to learn about future guests and ask questions in advance of episodes, and occasional AMAs (Ask Me Anything), where we can chat about anything - show ideas, questions about how I use iNaturalist, favorite nature encounters, the latest field guide I’ve added to my collection - whatever!
You can check out my patreon by either checking the show notes for the link, going to podcast.naturesarchive.com, or patreon.com/naturesarchive.
If you are unfamiliar with patreon, many creators use it to support content production. My goal right now is to simply cover my production costs. My costs are about $75 a month, and will grow to about $150 a month with my 2022 plans. You may wonder what costs go into producing audio content? Well, my recurring costs include paying a podcast hosting service, website hosting, domain names, and software licenses for editing and production.
I hope you will consider becoming a patron!
And again, I want to thank everyone for their support in listening to and sharing the show. I am constantly surprised at the reach of the show. It’s been fun and surprising to get emails and DMs from strangers discussing episodes or suggesting topics. More and more I also encounter listeners at various nature events I attend!
And if you don’t want to contribute through patreon, please take a moment and rate my podcast on apple podcasts, spotify, amazon, and/or podchaser. Better still, share your favorite episode with whichever nature groups you are part of.
Thank you again for a wonderful 2021 and I look forward to even greater things in 2022.