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Portugal. The Man and The Endangered Album: A Conversation with MN Zoo's Tara Harris

  Play Now [6:05]

May 14, 2014

Portugal The Man Sumantran Tiger
The rare and disintegrating vinyl from Portugal. The Man.
Album Cover Art

The Morning Show's Steve Seel sat down with Minnesota Zoo's Director of Conservation, Tara Harris, Ph.D., to discuss a project she's a part of to bring awareness to endangered tigers.

The Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and National Zoo joined forces to launch the Endangered Song Project, an analog-meets-digital awareness campaign to spread the message that there are only 400 Sumatran tigers left in the wild.

The National Zoo partnered with Portugal. The Man to distribute a previously unreleased song titled "Sumatran Tiger." The song was lathe-cut onto 400 custom polycarbonate records designed to degrade after a certain amount of plays. With no other copies in existence, 400 participants are tasked with digitizing and sharing the song through their social channels with the hashtag #EndangeredSong.