Fresh Air Weekend: Elephant Poachers; 'Mistress America'; A Teenage 'Diary'

Fresh Air

Published August 15, 2015 at 8:03 AM CDT

Baby elephants are a welcome sight in Zakouma National Park in Chad. Thanks to stepped-up enforcement, the park hasn't lost an elephant to poachers since 2012. Without the stress of poaching, the elephants started breeding again and more than 40 calves have been born.

Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:

GPS Trackers In Fake Elephant Tusks Reveal Ivory Smuggling Route:Some 30,000 African elephants die each year as a result of poaching. Journalist Bryan Christy wanted to see where their tusks were going, so he ordered fake tusks and fitted them with trackers.

'Mistress America' Offers A 'Zippy' And 'Delirious' Screwball Farce:Director Noah Baumbach's latest comedy is set in New York and Connecticut, but mainly it unfolds against the perilous terrain of contemporary young adulthood. Reviewer Justin Chang calls Mistress America an "uncommonly sharp dissection of female friendship."

A 'Diary' Unlocked: A Teenage Coming-Of-Age Story Put On Film:When she was 15, Phoebe Gloeckner lost her virginity to her mother's boyfriend. Gloeckner wrote about the experience in The Diary of a Teenage Girl, which Marielle Heller adapted into a film.

You can listen to the original interviews here:

GPS Trackers In Fake Elephant Tusks Reveal Ivory Smuggling Route

A 'Diary' Unlocked: A Teenage Coming-Of-Age Story Put On Film