CNN10 2022-04-01




CNN 10

Resignations Are At Near-Record Levels; Efforts To Conserve Jaguars. Aired 4-4:10a ET

Aired April 01, 2022 - 04:00:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: Fridays are awesome. I'm Carl Azuz.

People are quitting their jobs. There are jaguars in Belize. If this weren't an explainer show, we could end it right there.

But it is, so we're going to start by explaining the ongoing great resignation. It's happening in the U.S. and beyond, and it concerns people voluntarily leaving their jobs in droves. This February, 4.4 million people in America quit what they were doing. That's according to new information from the U.S. government. It's not quite a record. That occurred last November when 4.5 million resigned.

But the elevated quit rate does continue a trend set last year when a record was broken. Throughout 2021, almost 48 million Americans decided to leave their jobs. They weren't laid off or fired, and that was the most in a year since the government began keeping track in 2001.

This doesn't mean they stopped working altogether so they could watch TikTok videos. For one thing, there are a lot of jobs open in the U.S., almost two positions for every person who doesn't have a job. So, experts say because there's an increased demand for workers, at least in some fields, people are more confident that if they quit what they're doing, they'll be able to find something else and something better.

There's a labor shortage in several industries: retail and restaurants, hotels and healthcare, manufacturing, education and transportation. Many employers in these fields have increased their pay and offered additional benefits to attract new hires. The resignation rate isn't across all industries. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says in stable, higher paying fields, there's less movement.

But for those where there are lots of quits, analysts say there are several reasons why in addition to pay. Some workers want more flexibility. They like working from home after COVID spread, so they want a job that won't require them to come back to the office full time. Some employees have left their jobs to care for elderly relatives or because they had trouble finding child care.

Last year, some said their employers' COVID vaccine requirement was a reason they'd leave, and many have said they want a job that's more personally fulfilling. One analyst interviewed by CNN said he expects resignation rates to stay high for a while.

This isn't just happening in America. Resignations have increased from the United Kingdom to Australia. That nation's government says the rate of people changing jobs is percent higher than it was before the pandemic spread and France saw a record number of resignations during the third quarter of last year. But one employment studies expert says the quit rate in Europe was also high in the early 2000s, so it may not be as extensive overall as it is in the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ (voice-over): Ten-second trivia:

Which of these civilizations existed in ancient Belize?

Maya, Inca, Aztec or Indus?

In the Central American nation of Belize, as well as parts of Mexico and Guatemala is where you'd find the Maya.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ: And we're headed to Belize for our next story this Friday. It's the only nation that has a jaguar preserve and that's located in a Mayan region of the central part of Belize.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature considers jaguars to be a near-threatened species, meaning that without efforts to preserve them, they could become threatened in the years ahead. The IUCN believes that jaguar numbers have decreased by 20 to 25 percent over the past two decades, but there are people working to ensure the species has space to thrive.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL WEIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Growing up surrounded by forest in rural Belize, Reynold Cal heard stories of an animal sacred and fearsome.

REYNOLD CAL, MANAGER, RUNAWAY CREEK NATURE RESERVE: I'm a Kekchi Maya, one of the three Maya tribes in Belize. So, I would go in the forest at a very young age and when I saw those big jaguar tracks, it usually gave me a fear in my heart.

Now, Cal's job is to track and protect these animals. These are ancient Maya drawings. The jaguar is the symbol for strength and might.

WEIR: It's a passion that's more than skin deep.

CAL: These tattoos are from actual jaguar patterns. This one is from a jaguar that we call Romeo. It has a hardship. It's part of me now.

WEIR: Cal is the manager of Runaway Creek Nature Reserve in Central Belize. It's part of a crucial wildlife trail called the Maya Forest Corridor which connects protected habitats in the north and south of the country. Corridors like this offer a lifeline for far-roaming jaguars, to more prey, mates and territory.

Today, Cal's working with Emma Sanchez of Panthera, a global wildcat conservation organization and they are on the prowl for jaguars.

Conservation experts say that jaguar populations are declining across their range from Mexico to Argentina. But not here, says Sanchez.

EMMA SANCHEZ, BELIZE JAGUAR PROGRAM COORDINATOR, PANTHERA: We consider Belize a stronghold for jaguar population because they're found in all of the protected areas and even outside the protected areas.

ELMA KAY, MANAGING DIRECTOR, BELIZE MAYA FOREST TRUST: Populations of wildlife need genetic diversity to be able to survive. You get that by having mixing of jaguars from the northern part of Belize, with jaguars of the southern part of Belize. And that means that wildlife need to find their way through that tiny sliver of forest.

WEIR: Once surrounded by jungle, the Maya forest corridor is now a bottleneck less than six miles wide.

Over the past 10 to 15 years, biologist Elma Kay has seen much of the forest chopped away.

KAY: Imagine you're getting squeezed on both sides, right? It's mostly due to large-scale, mechanized, mono crop or agriculture that's taking place.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The last remaining gateway for those animals --

WEIR: Kay has been working with a coalition of local and international supporters to buy up patches of Belize for conservation.

KAY: We are here at the Cox Lagoon wetland which is actually a very critical and important part of a 30,000-acre parcel of land that we have just purchased to protect in perpetuity for the people and government of Belize.

WEIR: Thanks to this effort and existing conservation sites like Runaway Creek, Kay says just under half of the Maya Forest Corridor is now protected.

KAY: Hope is the last thing to keep you standing. We have to get up and do the things that we want to see happen.

WEIR: She is hopeful that one day, this whole precarious patchwork of jaguar habitat will be safe from destruction.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(MUSIC)

AZUZ: In 2005, Pink Floyd did something off the wall. He flew the coop from his enclosure at a Kansas Zoo. Pink Floyd's a flamingo. He's been on the loose for the past 17 years, but on March 10th, on the Gulf Coast of Texas, wildlife officials say a flamingo was captured on camera wearing leg band number 492. That's a match for the fugitive Pink Floyd. In a Facebook post, the Texas agency says it looks like he returned from the dark side of the moon.

Looks like he's joined the beach boys, the birds, the sandpipers, the turtles, Herman's hermit crabs and the rest of the animals working out all the kinks to go on supreme safaris without a need for a Jefferson airplane. The searchers may go on around the Atlantic, but you know you'll always find the flamingos singing surf rock.

I'm Carl Azuz.

Swansboro High School gets today's shout-out. The Pirates are watching from Swansboro, North Carolina. We hope your weekend ain't just for the birds.

END
