Ologies with Alie Ward - Carnivore Ecology (LIONS, TIGERS, & BEARS) with Rae Wynn-Grant

Episode Date: February 9, 2022

Ah, charismatic megafauna! Teeth, claws, fur, hibernation, bear hugs, hiking, cougar attacks, nature preserves, and living your childhood dreams with Alie’s longtime -ologist crush, Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant. The large carnivore ecologist, researcher and TV presenter tells us all about her field work, what it’s like to stuff a baby bear in your coat, how carnivore plasma may one day save your life, balancing a few different stellar careers at once and the launch of her own PBS podcast, Going Wild. Also: how to revive a bear you’ve given ketamine and surprises she’s found in the woods. We love her. Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant’s website, Twitter, and InstagramListen to Dr. Wynn-Grant’s podcast, Going WildFollow Tsalani on Instagram for beautiful bear, wildlife & nature picsA donation went to Black OutsideMore episode sources and linksSponsors of OlogiesTranscripts and bleeped episodesSmologies (short, classroom-safe) episodesBecome a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a monthOlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, masks, totes!Follow @Ologies on Twitter and InstagramFollow @AlieWard on Twitter and InstagramSound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam MediaTranscripts by Emily White of The WordaryWebsite by Kelly R. DwyerTheme song by Nick Thorburn

Oh, hey, it's that little burp that just congratulated you on taking fish oil. Hey, well done. Allie Ward. Vac, oligies, carnivore ecology, meat eaters. What's their deal? What's this oligist's deal? Well, I begged her to be on. She said yes.

And then a few days before we recorded, a little thing called SARS-CoV-2 appeared like a little dream stomping pixie. And so also she had a brand new baby and like 15 jobs. So we were like, let's rain check. I was like, I get it. We will have you on anytime you're ready. But meanwhile, we did the two-part Ursinology Bear episodes without her, but talked about her work in them.

I visited a public library in Missoula, Montana, and happened upon a life-size poster of her. And I stared longingly, just mumbling to no one. I almost know her. I love her. Then a few weeks ago, the proverbial bat phone rang. It was time. She had time. I freaked out.

I got a sweat mustache. I poured through the hundreds of questions submitted via patreon.com. You too can join first little of the dollar a month, just saying. Then I talked to this California-born genius and media queen. She got her undergrad in environmental studies at Emory, got a master's at a little startup called Yale, and then became a doctor in ecology and evolutionary biology at Columbia University. And she is an active working carnivore ecologist. She's a carnivore coming from the Latin for flesh devouring.

And her job involves tromping around grasslands and forests and prairies and jungles, tracking charismatic beasts, like she's in a children's book or a fever dream. And she is a National Geographic Explorer and a research fellow. She's an affiliated researcher at UC Santa Barbara's Brent School of Environmental Science and Management. And then when she's not doing that or being on the board of several science organizations, you can find her on camera, hosting things like Crash Course Zoology on YouTube. She also has her own PBS podcast now called Going Wild.

You may have also seen her in the PBS special American Spring Live, where she was cradling tiny baby bears while snowflakes fell softly past her radiant smile. And on to, once again, tiny baby bears she was cradling in her arms. So the first question I wanted to ask her was like, are you even a real person? Because you're perfect. So let's just meet her. But first, thank you to everyone who tells a friend about this podcast, the I Heart Radio Podcast Awards were this week, and y'all, we were nominated for Best Science Podcast.

And we won. We won. I was watching the live stream from my kitchen this week, and I was just munching on crackers. The moment it was announced, I was just face full of crackers, absolutely shocked. So thank you to everyone who has built us up just by listening and telling friends and writing and reviewing. Each week, I read a fresh review just to prove that I see every single one. And this week's was from For The Love of Blood, who very sweetly described the show as phenomenal

fungi in a field of dung, a five star audible experience. Thank you, Love of Blood. And wow, Love of Blood, perfect timing for a carnivore episode. I'm keeping an eye on you. That's weird. So big hugs to type one science teacher. You know why. So get ready for flim flam, hibernation, cuddling, predator attacks, weird sleep schedules, career

juggling, and why you should show some restraint and an all you can eat sushi buffet. Plus lions, tigers, and of course bears with Explorer, media icon, and my longtime oligist crush who texted back large carnivore ecologist Dr. Ray Wynn Grant. Hello. Oh, hi. Hi, Dr. Gray. Oh, my goodness, it's finally you, or I should say it's finally me, honestly. It's us.

Oh, my God, how are you? I am really happy to be speaking with you, Allie. So happy. I can't, you know, we've never met ever, ever, ever, and so, you know, I don't know you know you, but I, of course, admire you very much. And we have, you know, like, acknowledged each other a zillion times on social, and, you know, it's just, it's just, I feel like we need to be friends. Likewise, I feel like I'm such a breathless fangirl about you.

I continued to fawn over Dr. Wynn Grant for an additional three and a half minutes here until I was like, Ward, get it together, cut this out, ask this woman some damn questions. This is uncomfortable. So let's get to it. So let's do it. Let's hit it. Okay. So I have known you as a carnivore ecologist, and can you explain exactly what is that

and what even is a carnivore? Because there are carnivores that are omnivores, correct? Oh, absolutely correct. Okay. Absolutely. Yes. So I am a carnivore ecologist and just break it down. An ecologist is a type of scientist that does ecology.

Okay. What's that? Ecology is a study of organisms and how they interact with their environment. And I think that's like really distinct because it's a field of biology, but biology is just kind of like the study of living things and ecology is special and I just love to emphasize it. It's the study of organisms and how they interact with their environment. And then I'm a carnivore ecologist, which means I study carnivores and essentially those

are meat eating animals. But Ali, to your point, not all carnivores eat meat. What? Yeah. How does that work? Yeah. So, you know, I have to say I used to get like confronted with this so much, especially in graduate school, you know, I'd take all these tests or oral exams and professors would

be like, yeah, but our bears really carnivores. So essentially the reason that we call carnivores carnivores is because of taxonomy. You know, as scientists, we fall back a lot on taxonomic trees and just where we have placed species and our understandings of them compared to each other. And so in taxonomy, we have an order taxonomic order called carnivora. And there's over 280 different species of mammals and carnivores. Okay. So you can just call a vegetarian animal or an omnivore a carnivore.

How? Why? So carnivora is an order of mammals. And it's defined by these animals that have super sharp teeth and typically very long claws and ferocity, like they're these kind of ferocious animals that are able to hunt and kill and they all have digestive enzymes or basically like a gut microbiome that is able to process meat. And therein, I think lies the clincher because it doesn't mean that a carnivore has to eat

meat, right? They don't have to, but they could if they did. And okay. So they have the microbiome, but also the enzymes to support the microbiome that can break down meat. And so this can be surprising if you take something like, and I'm probably going to talk about bears a lot here, but if you take something like a panda, right, which is one of the eight bear species, it eats bamboo all day, but it's in the order carnivora.

And it has the teeth, it has the claws, and it has the microbiome to process meat. So it looks like the ancestors of the pandas we have today probably at the least eight insects, like at the very least, they probably like grabbed a whole bunch of grubs or larvae or something and chowed down on them. But at the most, maybe they did more than that. Maybe they hunted prey and really ate meat. They still could technically if they wanted to. Well, which carnivores are true carnivores that eat 100% proteins and other living animals?

And then which ones are more generalist or omnivore? Or does it really depend on kind of like their proximity to urbanization? Sometimes it depends. You know, we do have what we call obligate carnivores, and those are a lot of our favorites. You know, those are the lions, the wolves, the tigers. Those animals hunt fresh prey and eat raw meat. They're not going to stroll through a berry patch, you know, and chow down very much. So we do have those obligate carnivores, even take polar bears, for example.

They hunt, they kill, they eat meat, and that is what they need to survive all the time. For those animals, their ecologies are slightly different than other carnivores because they are so driven by having to hunt. That's really how their whole lives are structured are around finding prey, finding prey, finding prey, and maybe stashing food. If they did kill something, you know, take a mountain lion, for example. If it does kill maybe a deer and it eats as much as it can, it'll also find a place to cash that prey for later so it can come back to it often enough.

Like up in a tree? Like up in a tree, yeah, up in a tree or some kind of, you know, hidden place because they have to expend so much energy just to get their prey, just to get their food. They don't have this dietary breadth that the omnivorous carnivores do. And so then the omnivores are a lot of different bear species. We find like coyote and raccoon and possum, you know, some of these mesopredators are able to definitely eat meat, but they could also scarf down a good root vegetable, tuber, you know, they love fruit, sometimes even grasses, honey, all those kinds of things

also fuel them and they're more concerned with getting fat. And so they're like, whatever will get me fat, it might be protein, you know, but it might also be carbs. And so we're like, whatever will make me fat is what they can eat. And then they have a wider dietary breadth. And that means that they can survive in many different types of landscapes. Does studying all of this and, and also the diets of all these animals, does it change the way that you eat it all, do you like make yourself like, you know, and I probably could

use more antioxidants or does it change your, your choices at all? I have literally never thought about that question. It's such a good question. I would say probably the answer is no. Okay. But at the same time, I think I find that when I'm, you know, in a place where bears are, for example, eating a lot of salmon, I think I'm way more likely to eat fish. So I probably have like a more salmon rich diet in the places where bears are eating

salmon. But honestly, it's not that different. My diet as a carnivore who is also omnivorous, like people fall into this classification as well. Oh, wow. You know, I, I feel like my diet changes every couple of years. There are years where I am like red meat, heavy, and there are years when I am attempting to be a good vegan and there are years where it's just, it's across the board.

So what fuels her from a molecular level may change, but what fuels her passions? What a hack segue, but I did it anyway. When it comes to studying this, you know, what was it about carnivore ecology that really got you? Oh gosh, you know, I am like, I don't want to really call myself basic, but I am like a little bit basic in this way that when I was a kid, I got hooked on nature shows. And in particular, what stood out to me was scientists in the jungles of Asia studying tigers.

And to this day, Ali, I still have never seen a tiger. I've never been to, you know, tropical Asia. I've, I've never, I've never done it, but it was something about tigers. It was just something about seeing tigers on the TV, learning that they were endangered, learning that they were also, you know, powerful and capable and just these supreme beings, you know, the largest cats and just, just incredibly impressive that I think that once I finally got the opportunity to start studying wildlife and wildlife conservation that I thought to myself, well, I'm going to get as close to tigers as I can possibly get.

And that landed me in this world of large carnivores. And I'm very happy here, you know, and, and it's not just because they're cool and impressive and as a society, you know, we're really interested in them. But also, you know, many large carnivores are ecosystem engineers, right? Like them being at the top of what we call food chains really makes a difference. And the conservation of these animals makes a huge difference for healthy, vibrant, balanced ecosystems. And I'm like 16 years into studying the environment.

I do it today both because I think it's awesome. I think these animals are awesome and cool and make for great stories and all that, but also because I know that starting from the top is very, very purposeful. And keeping these animals around in these ecosystems is, is worth it and it's needed. Do you ever look back on the things that influenced you as a kid to love nature and places that you wouldn't get to see otherwise? These amazing documentaries and David Attenborough and stuff like that. I know I used to park myself in front of like Discovery Channel.

Like that was my like, that was my zone. Do you ever find it lamentable that's that there's not as much of that programming on like basic cable that there used to be? Or do you feel like there is you just have to find it digitally or through different smaller channels? Oh, gosh, no, I, I miss it. I really miss it. I think of what's actually out there in terms of programming. But if I'm on the right track, I would argue that we don't have like a household name or

several household names of people, individuals who are kind of the faces of natural history content. There's a lot out there that is super educational. And I'm fortunate that I have young kids. And so they also love watching nature shows. And so much of it is, you know, the blue chip wildlife documentaries that are fascinating and they're enthralling and they always have an awesome narrator. And they're so good to explore, to observe, to understand the wider world we call the universe. So as much as I'm applauding them, I also feel very much that like putting a face, you know,

seeing an individual or two or 10, you know, in these spaces, either interacting with the animals or kind of explaining what they see on screen is something that I really miss from my childhood. We got a lot of it back then. And it's what helped me see myself as, as a part of nature or see that like, oh, there's a career, you know, that, that relates to this. And, you know, I definitely don't necessarily think that the like early to mid 90s, like fear tactics that were all over the media were necessarily what we need to bring back. Because, you know, I remember thinking like, oh, my God, the world is going to end.

Like if one more person litters, you know, that's it, you know, like we're done for. We don't need to bring that back. But there was definitely a lot of messaging going on then that wild animals are in trouble. But we can do something, you know, like we can do something. But it seems like you needed to like learn a lot to become a person who could do something. And maybe that's what hooked me was that I was like a soldier, you know, I was like, OK, sign me up, you know, I'm ready to be one of the people to tackle this problem. I remember in the 90s, when I was a kid, bald equals were like on the brink of extinction,

you know, and they were our nation's mascot and bald equals are so symbolic. And it was like, oh, my gosh, we need to figure out how we can work together to save these bald equals, you know, another like awesome meat eating animal that I think is incredible. And we did and we figured it out, you know, and like now bald equals are all over the place. And the same with, you know, with a lot of the bears I study, you know, black bears, definitely grizzly bears, you know, like they weren't doing so great. But we really kicked up conservation work and committed to a lot of things. And one way or another, we've got a lot more bears today.

Well done. You know, and that that messaging of, you know, this can work. I feel like is also not necessarily getting out there through the media today, maybe because we don't have those spokespeople that we used to have. And so anyway, I say all that, but I also really want to say that like media is better than ever. Media is awesome these days. It's going very well. And I am like old fashioned.

So, you know, that's my disclaimer. I feel like you've you've been on PBS. We've gotten to see you crawling around in the snow in a bear den and holding, cradling a baby bear with permits for science. Hi, so this is one animal, one cub. We'll sex them in a little bit. This is number two. And again, we just have to see exactly how many cubs are here with the mother.

It's at least two. It could be three for money as your job. It's television. So, you know, how is that for you to also be working on a podcast to be working for PBS? Have posters of you in libraries and to be like, oh, shit, hold on. That's me. It's completely surreal. And thank you for all those compliments.

Thank you for keeping up with what I'm doing. I aspire to do more. I have been so fortunate that science communication has become more and more valued in the world and even in like the institutions where I've been working. Because I love it. I love it. I love research. I mean, don't get me wrong.

Doing research is exciting for me. And I love science media so much. And I love that I have been, you know, embraced in science media. And I think there's some really awesome things on the horizon, including working with PBS Nature and putting out this awesome podcast that's telling stories. So it's been surreal for me. It's been really surreal. I have to say I'm like pretty bashful about it.

Like I'm a little shy, you know, and I say this as a true extrovert. You know, it's it's weird. No, you're amazing. You're amazing. Everyone loves you. Oh, no. So Dr. Wingrant splits her time as a media host and personality and a straight up field biologist.

What is a carnivore ecologist's job like? A day in the life for me is is really different each day. So I have an active research project. I'm super proud of it. It's really cool. I am studying a population of black bears and mountain lions at a nature preserve on the central coast of California. And I have a lot of reason to believe that this population of bears and lions has

very unique feeding behavior. Tell me more. And what I'm hinting at is that I think these bears and mountain lions access the coast. So they live in this beautiful oak woodland forest, you know, quite inland. But it looks like fairly frequently they make their way onto the beach and eat food from the beach. And we are finding, you know, the skeletons of seals and different penipeds far into the oak woodland forest that mountain lions have hauled in there. And we are finding black bear tracks, you know, on the beaches every morning.

And so there's a lot of questions. This research site has not had previous carnivore research done on it. So I'm the very first ecologist to do carnivore work here. It was private land for actually, you know, more than a hundred years. And it became a nature preserve just a couple of years ago. And then it was closed for COVID for actually a couple of years. And it has been open for the last five months. And I have been out there for the last five months.

And I think I will be there for the next five years or 10 or 20. And trying to figure out, you know, are these mountain lions? Are these bears relying on marine animals for their food? And if so, is that a new behavior? Are they doing that because there's a lack of food resources elsewhere? Because human pressures have forced them into this point? Or is this actually what bears and mountain lions have always been doing in this region? And it's not documented.

P.S., I look this up. I had to. And just to set the scene, this is a 25,000 acre parcel of land north of Santa Barbara. That's more than twice the acreage of Manhattan people. It's very large. That is eight miles of California coast. It's home to about a dozen endangered species. So imagine tide pools in the shadow of rocky cliffs,

which give way to rolling golden grassland. There's chaparral and scrub brush, century old oaks and pines, all mostly unaltered from evolution. So who owns this heaven? Not you. I'm sorry. So it used to be a cattle rancher's land, but in 2017, there are these two tech billionaires

that gave the Nature Conservancy $165 million to buy up the land for research and ecological observations. And I know you're thinking, a couple of bros who probably get up at like 3 a.m. to drink their own pee on a treadmill and make an app to rip off Wordle and then just write a check. But actually, it's named the Jack and Laura Dangermon Preserve. After two geographic information system or GIS map developers, they created something called ESRI, which is the Environmental Systems Research Institute that's used all over the place.

And they are in their 70s. They're cute. They're married. They're casually worth $8 to $9 billion. But they give it away to good causes, like getting a record of what is happening ecologically. You know, and again, I'm saying not documented because there's also a really strong and important legacy of Shumash.

The Santay Nez Band of Shumash Indians have their heritage from this place. And there were many people for thousands of years living in this place. And the Santay Nez Band of Shumash Indians are extremely involved in the conservation work being done in this Nature Preserve. And yet they don't necessarily have a traditional ecological knowledge that speaks to what mountain lions and bears were consuming. Their presence absolutely, you know, a lot of their other behaviors absolutely, but not necessarily their diets.

And so it's a question, you know, it's a question that all of us want to answer is, what are these animals eating and why are they eating it here? And if they are dependent on marine resources, then what does that mean for how we design conservation, you know, in the West moving forward? So I'm super fascinated by these questions. It is awesome to be working with mountain lions. This is my first time working with mountain lions. I am going to be up close and personal with them.

It's wonderful. It makes me like giddy just talking about it. And then also being able to, you know, contribute to discovery, to discover, you know, like a secret that these animals have. It's really exciting. So I'm fortunate that I get to drive to my field site, you know, so it's about an hour from where I live. For most of my career, I've been flying like halfway around the world to access my field

sites. And so it feels really good to just be able to like commute like a regular person. So that's what I do. That's like my research life. That's my data collection life, my research life, my professor life. How are you collecting your data? Is it like camera traps? Is it going out at five in the morning and looking for tracks and measuring them?

Like what records do you have to keep? Yes. Okay. Yes. Great question. It's like, what is the data? Or I should say, what are the data? Oh, right.

I do that all the time. Data is the plural of datum. And if you care about correcting people who say what is the data, then I just want to say huge congratulations on not having any other problems in your life. So my favorite way to collect data is to put a GPS collar on an animal. And that is the work that I've done for basically my entire career, working with large carnivores. And it's this interesting balance. It's a little bit invasive because it requires trapping and sedating the animal for a short period,

like 30 minutes, to get the collar on it, but then not having to interact with it again for a year or two, which is really nice. So just putting this collar on a bear or a lion and the GPS device sends a signal to a satellite and outer space, sends a signal right back to my computer and tells me the longitude and latitude point of this animal about every four hours. And so you can imagine that over the course of say a year, I'm getting many thousands of location points. And it allows me to see like, well, where is this animal spending a lot of time

when it does go from point A to point B, which pathways? And then if other animals are taking the same pathways, let's figure out how to protect those pathways. Okay. So that's the work she does, tracking lions and bears, maybe not tigers yet. But oh, boy, howdy. What a job. So them's the what's. But let's talk whys.

If we have a forest, a lot of times we think like, okay, well, forests are important for bears. And that is true, but a bear isn't going to use every square inch of a forest. There's going to be some areas that it uses all the time, maybe because it has the food it needs or the shelter it needs. And then some areas that it's going to avoid completely. It's really important to understand the differences in those patterns so that we can figure out where to put our efforts in protecting certain landscapes. We don't need to put a ton of effort into protecting a part of the forest that wild

animals never use. But we need to know that information before we make those plans. So again, conservation is very applied. It's like very practical applied work. And the ecology that comes before it is very theoretical and gives us the information we need to make really sound conservation decisions. So you can't conserve what you don't understand. And you can't understand what you don't know.

And you don't know what you can't detect. What's my point? GPS collars. Loves them. That's part of the data. That's like my favorite data that I collect is the GPS data. But also camera traps, Ali, I mean, cameras are, you know, talk about non-invasive. They're an excellent way to figure out where animals are, which areas they're moving through,

et cetera. It's sometimes you luck out with camera traps. You know, sometimes you really don't, you know, there's an element of chance to it. Like your animal could always walk right behind your camera, you know, over and over and over again. And you're getting data that shows, nope, you know, bears never use this pathway when in reality, they're just, you know, right on the other side. So there, you know, there's an element of chance for them. But for the most part, they're a very useful tool for us as humans to get way out of the way

for animals, but still be able to observe what they're doing, who's around, how many mamas with cubs or kittens and how many big males and, you know, what the timing of their movements are like. So I have camera traps set out and I have students who have been setting out camera traps all over the nature preserve where we're working and we're getting some great information. I have to say, actually, one of my students set a camera trap and got an image of a coyote recently that had a seal's flipper, like a severed flipper from a seal in its mouth and had like scavenged it from the beach and was bringing it back inland.

So, you know, so it's just a really exciting stuff that you kind of get to see from those cameras. Oh my gosh, I mean, it must be like your birthday every time you take out an SD card and you're just like, let's see what's in here or every time you're getting uploads. It's so exciting. You know, in fact, earlier this year, I was actually filming someone else's show. I had a really great time appearing on this other person's nature show. And we had set camera traps as part of the show to kind of show people how we do it. And then on camera, they captured our reactions of us looking at the results of what we saw. And I can't disclose what we saw in the camera traps, but I cried and that was not part of the

plan. It was like a serious, you know, like science investigation. But I was so moved by what we were able to capture that if when this show comes out, you'll see me like crying while just going through the data. And it was, you know, it's like you're saying it's just, it's really, it can be very magical. It can be super disappointing, but it can be really, really awesome, you know, and just reinforces a lot of that purpose, you know, for why we do what we do. Oh, back to three dimensions, though, because when can I ask someone this question, rather than almost never? Oh, actually, one follow-up question that when you have a tranquilized wild carnivore, do you, are you ever like, I hope this anesthesia works?

Is there ever a carnivore that's just for some reason, like, surprise? Like, how do you know? Oh, gosh. Oh, gosh. You know, that has not yet happened to me with, like, a large carnivore. We always have backup drugs, you know, it's one of those things where you don't want to give any of these animals very much of the sedative, you know, it won't hurt them, hurt them, but it's just not, you know, like, even for a person, like, you just want to have like the right amount, you don't need extra, it makes you groggy, it's, you know, it's a little weird. So I always have, like, a backup little syringe just in case the animal starts to wake up and I'm not done or something. But I am happy to say I've never had to actually use it. But one time, one time,

not a carnivore, but I was working with lemurs in Madagascar. And it was my first time working with a small bodied mammal. But for me, from my background, it was a small animal. And I didn't give her very much of the sedative at all, because I, you know, I just wanted to be gentle with it. But I ended up like she started waking up while I was still just collecting data from her. And, and she was going to escape, you know, because she's a, you know, a primate. She was just going to like dash off and go up a tree and it had taken literally weeks to capture her. And this is actually a story that I detail in my podcast. So this is a great place for me to plug my podcast. Episode one of Going Wild with Ray Wingrant tells this whole story of how I almost

failed miserably at my one chance to help save, you know, a population of lemurs. But I ended up having to give her a second dose of this medicine. And it was one of those decisions where I felt so insecure about it, because we were in the middle of the one of the most remote parts of the world I have ever been. And I was working with a population of primates that I wasn't familiar with. I had been, you know, gotten enough training to legitimately be there and be working on them. But I just had so much insecurity because of this little petite body of this little animal. And so I under sedated her and almost lost, you know, like this critical piece of information. And luckily I just added a little more. But to your point, it wasn't because I was in any kind of

danger. It was more that because she, you know, she was almost the one that got away. The one that got away, the lemur that got away. The lemur that got away. What a broken your heart. Well, people obviously adore you. They're very excited you're on. You're too kind. Can I lob some questions from listeners? Oh my gosh. Yes, please. Wow. Yes. They have been forewarned that the Dr. Wayreng Grain is on. They're very excited. Okay. Okay. You're hot burning questions. But first, we'd like to take money and stuff it in

people's pockets. And Dr. Ray, when Grant shows this week's donation to go to the Texas-based nonprofit, blackoutside.org, because only 1% of Texas State Park participants identify as Black or African-American. So Black Outside was founded with the simple mission of reconnecting Black slash African-American youth to the outdoors through culturally relevant programming, inspired volunteers, and connecting youth to the powerful history of Black people in the outdoors to ensure safe and equitable spaces outside. Also, their merch is the first Black-owned gear shop in the nation. And did I just buy an owl shirt from there? I did. Again, check out blackoutside.org. The link is in the show notes and that donation was made possible by award-approved

sponsors. Well, this guest is just a Ray of Sunshine and we all win when she grants us answers to your questions. Ray, when Grant, Patreon questions. Let's go. Great question. A lot of people asked. I'm looking at Yasmin Shelley, Batman Flight, Ale V, Lauren Cooper. They want to know, in Lauren Cooper's words, why does their poop smell like rotten death? Why so stinky? Is it stinky to all animals? Wow. Oh my goodness. And this is carnivores in general. Yeah. Carnivores in general. As a carnivore ecologist, I'm sure you've been around your share of wild dookie. Why is carnivore? Is it just because rotten meat? Because rabbit poop isn't something that you're like, oh my God, I stepped in rabbit poop. I'm burning my shoes.

Right, right, right. This is so funny because honestly, poop is a big part of my life. As a carnivore ecologist, part of a big part of my carnivore ecology life, I interact with poop all the time. In fact, if you were to open my freezer right now, I have bear poop in my freezer from a friend's yard where a bear came to visit. Anyway, so it's a great question. And I would almost push back and say, have you ever smelled horse poop or bison poop? Herbivores can have some stinky poop too. But I am not disagreeing. Carnivore poop smells yucky. And yeah, it's flesh, right? It's the waste that comes out of digested flesh. So it's gross. And also because some carnivores are, like we've been saying, omnivores, that sometimes this variety of foods

creates more of a stinkier poo. With that said, I have to say the poop that I interact the most with is bear poop. And it dries pretty fast. So I will say, you know, like when I come across carnivore poop, it's usually like not fresh from the butt of the animal. And so it's usually dry. And when it's dry, it doesn't smell that bad. But the bears that, you know, when it's feeding time for salmon, that is particularly fragrant. And it is particularly unpleasant because these bears just go through salmon so fast. And it's almost like, it's almost like diarrhea. You know, it's not like loose, gross, just kind of black tarry poo. Very important information to share. I don't want to get too graphic on your show, Allie, but it's like. No, this is important.

It's like, think of yourself. This is important information. I mean, who knew? Does a bear poop in the woods more like, does a bear have sushi diarrhea in the woods? Because that's really what we're talking about here. But they also, don't they have a hibernation butt plug? Oh my gosh. You know, I know you did your whole show on bears already, on ursineology, I should say. But my goodness, hibernation is just so fascinating and totally wild. Because yes, speaking of poop, bears don't poop while they hibernate. And some bears hibernate for a couple months, but some bears hibernate for like six months. And they don't poop. They recycle their own waste within their bodies. And their metabolism just really just shuts all the way down. So they're not eating,

but also like any waste just recycles itself in their bodies. And that is just like the super power that bears have that we just all need to bow down to because it's amazing. I mean, what happens with like protein breakdown and fat breakdown like ketones? Isn't that something where in humans at least, like you've got to get rid of those metabolites? Like, do they pee while they're hibernating? They don't pee. They don't pee. And you know, and I will say that like, scientists, God bless us. But like, there's some debate in the scientific community about what actually happens in hibernation. Because for the most part, we don't see it. Although people like me will sometimes enter a bear's hibernation den, I don't stay there. So we haven't really

been able to properly observe a hibernating bear in the wild at least ever. So it's a lot of estimations, educated guesses, etc. But the medical community, the human medical community is doing its best to learn a whole whole lot about how bears bodies make it through hibernation and make it through without harm to our internal organs without problems with ketosis, etc. And the medical community does think that there are some things we can learn from bear hibernation that could be very, very useful to humans in terms of metabolism and weight loss, in terms of improvements to our understanding of diabetes. You know, I will say there are some folks at University of Minnesota who are looking at the plasma in bears. So the actual blood

coursing through a bear's body changes, its properties change when it's hibernating, and they serve as these preservatives, essentially. And there's this idea brewing that there's something about the plasma of hibernating bears that could actually be useful to preserving human organs during organ transfer. You know, if you're an organ donor and unfortunately you pass away and your organ is still viable, there's only a little bit of time before it can be placed in the recipient. And sometimes it's like two hours and we actually lose a good amount of organs in transit. And a lot of people die because we just can't keep a heart or a lung alive to get from its donor to its recipient. And there's this idea brewing that maybe there's some property of bear

plasma that if we either use it or recreate it, it can preserve the vitality of human organs much longer, you know, maybe double the amount of time so that we can get people their organ transplants at a better rate. And that could really revolutionize medicine. So I have to say, I have to hand it to bears, you know, we're learning a lot about them, we're learning about them kind of slowly because, you know, we need to give them their space while they hibernate. But they might have some incredible, incredible answers to some pressing medical problems. God, that's so cool to think that there's someone who's in a lab right now analyzing some kind of bear plasma, you know, like, what a great view. I'm looking at you, Dr. Paul Iazzo of the Visible Heart Laboratory. And for

more on his work, you can just stroll through papers such as plasma levels of ursidioxycholic acid and black bears, ursisamericanus, seasonal changes. I poked around the Visible Heart Lab website and learned hibernating bears go 10 to 15 seconds between heartbeats. Your sleeping heart rate 60 to 100 beats a minute. A bear's sleeping heart rate per minute. And when they inhale, their heart shoots up 60 to 70 beats per minute, and then it slows back down. So one day, you or someone you love may have a life saved because someone studied sleepy carnivores. But carnivores, they have heart. Let's get to their brains though. We have so many great, so many great questions. Chloe, first time question asker, wants to know about carnivores, what exactly do their levels

of cognition reach? Like what kind of thoughts, emotions, situations are they fully capable of processing? Oh boy, you know, that is a tough one for me, because it's a little bit outside of my expertise. But I'll give I'll give a bit of feedback. And again, you know, I'm very bear centric here. But but most large carnivores are very smart. And I think that is obvious, because you wouldn't be asking that question, you know, if she didn't know that they're smart. Most of them are are what we as humans consider smart. And bears in particular, have one of the largest brain to body size ratios of any land mammal. So they are they are particularly like considered like some of the smartest carnivores, because they have these huge brains compared to their body size.

And it makes sense, because if you think about the circus or something, back in the day, we would capture bears and train them in the circus, because they can perform, they can learn, you know, they can perform really well, we can use them almost like our pets sometimes. And that is unethical these days. But it was useful in the past, because we could rely on their smarts. And then take others take wolves, we have these ideas that we got domesticated dogs from wolves, because there was a learning process, right, when wolves would interact with humans over time, some wolves that took certain types of risks with their interactions with humans, got certain types of rewards. And if they repeated that over and over, they became

closely tied to humans and eventually were able to evolve into domesticated dogs. So we have this idea that carnivores, you know, large carnivores, and again, this is very general, are making decisions. And a lot of the decisions they're making are fueled by instinct. And their instincts are usually pointed towards food, right? So they're like driven by hunger, for sure. What could be more important than a little something to eat? But what I think has been super interesting, especially when I used to study lions, African lions in parts of East Africa, is that if you have a carnivore, like a lion that is not hungry, studying its behavior when it's not hungry is really interesting, because they all of a sudden become way less dangerous, you know, way less protective of

territory, very, very lazy, almost kind of giving this easy life. So they're able to make choices, especially when their needs are met, they're able to think and make choices, and really kind of impress us. Now, I know part of the question was about emotion. And that's really where I'm going to kind of bow out, because there's a lot, again, a lot of debate in the scientific community about whether these animals feel particular emotion. You know, if we look at mother offspring relationships, if you were to ask me, there's there's more than just, you know, a chemical bond there. I really think there is something truly special and organic and emotional between these mother carnivores and their offspring. But I can't prove it. So.

Well, that dovetails kind of perfect and tragically with the next question that we got from Kaleila, Moe Casey, and Hannah Neust. Hannah Neust asked three questions about this, starting their third one with, sorry, another weird cannibal question. And here on our show is cannibalism most often animals eating their own babies? And Kaleila Lala said, could you please discuss animals eating their young like lionesses eating their deceased cubs? When it comes to being a carnivore, how snacky snacky on your own species or kin does it get? Yeah, there's a lot of misinformation out there, but like kind of this basic understanding. Usually, if there's any of this, let's call it cannibalism for lack of a better word.

Okay. Just a little trivia aside, the word cannibal was coined by a guy named Christopher Columbus. And this will shock you, but it has some racist origins, you don't say. So Chris, a did not know where he was. He thought the Caribbean was Asia. Oops. And he assumed that the folks of the Caribbean engaged in anthropophagia or people eating, flim flam that has since been debunked by teams of anthropologists and archaeologists and see Chris misspelled carib as canib. So the lot of oopsies there pal. So according to the 2017 book cannibalism, a perfectly natural history, American Museum of Natural History biologist Bill Shutt writes that Europeans in the 1600s would attend executions with empty cups to collect the dead's fresh blood just to

use it as a medicine. They did not have CVSs then. They had to. And the author also describes dining on human placenta, which he did. And apparently it tastes like liver. It sounds truly, truly awful, which is also an organ meat pun, which is awful. But when Ray said lack of a better word here, I wanted to find a better word. So I took a time machine to the 1981 paper, The Evolution and Dynamics of Intraspecific Predation, which was written by Vanderbilt and UC Davis Scorpiologist Dr. Gary Polis, who tragically died in a boating accident on a scorpion expedition about 20 years ago. But Dr. Polis had written this paper, he had poured through 900 animal behavior papers to find that a staggering 1,300 species from salamanders to sharks to chimps

to of course scorpions, which is probably what he was looking for. And some carnivores are known to engage in some form of intraspecific predation. So in the name of Gary, what is happening here? It is an aggressive male carrying out what we call infanticide. So let's take a male animal, we'll call it a bear, let's just stick in bear world, let's take a male bear and a female bear with young cubs. The male bears whole mission in life is to get as much of its genes in the gene pool as possible. That's what we call survival of the fittest, right? Like everyone's heard of survival of the fittest and usually we think that means like whoever has the biggest muscles is gonna win a fight and then like survive. But really survival of the fittest means ecological fitness. And I

love talking about this because I'm such a nerd, but ecological fitness is how many genes of yours are in the gene pool. And another way to say this is how many babies do you have, right? So for every species that scientists have been able to study, we are programmed to try to maximize our fitness. So the survival aspect is your genes are surviving in perpetuity if you have more kids, you know. So like after you die, you don't really die because your genes are still out there living in someone else. This exactly why your parents pressure you to get married and give them a grand baby right here. Absolutely just hounding you for a return on their gene investment. So the humbling majesty of millions of years of nature just making you swipe through hinge

on the toilet. Here we are the pinnacle of organisms doing it. That's survival of the fittest. And so if you take any wild animal, but particularly a large carnivore, let's say a bear, its whole goal in life before it dies is to have as many babies as possible. So if a male bear comes across a female bear with some cubs, that means she's nursing her cubs. And if she's nursing her cubs, that means she is not able to get pregnant right now, right? There's that little block. And this isn't always consistent with human beings. So this is not a sex ed class right now. This is not a birth control method. But in general, for animals, if a female is not an estrus, it's not reproductively ready if it is still nursing its cubs. And so the male animal, the male bear will,

in order to bring the female into estrus, will kill the little babies. And that's really hard for us to swallow because it's violent, it's sad. And again, it doesn't happen frequently enough because females are really good at staying away from aggressive males. But if the male's able to tell, oh, those aren't my offspring, then it may kill the cubs. And then eventually, because the female will stop nursing, her body will return to estrus and she'll be ready to reproduce again. That male will try to mate with the female in order to get her pregnant with his offspring. And this is a whole tactic related to survival of the fittest. So when this male kills the babies, sometimes they'll get eaten too. Sometimes it'll be not just a killing, not just a

fantasy, but also a consumption of the bodies. Again, we don't see this a lot in science. It really takes a lot to be present for this. So a lot of it is rumor, a lot of it is conjecture. I'm being falsely accused, you know that. But there are enough accounts of maybe this sometimes happening that it kind of gets into public perception and it makes us feel really uncomfortable. So to answer the question, it is rare, but it is purposeful because it's all about figuring out how to get your genes passed along in the gene pool and sometimes carnivores do it in these vicious ways. But it's strategic, obviously, and probably instinctual as well. It is, it's instinct, yeah. Bears are going to bear. They're going to bear.

But is carnivore mealtime delectable or is it just perfunctory? What's the dining experience of hot blood? A few patrons, including Allie Vessels and Paul Cerilio and Charlotte Felcagard, both asked essentially, do carnivores have taste buds? Like kind of lion think, oh, this gazelle today tasted really bad. And Charlotte said this was a question I was going to ask. Do they have like a certain craving for certain types of animals or foods? Oh my gosh, you know, I was really hoping that someone would not ask a question that I don't know the answer to. I was like, maybe I'll get off scot-free and like won't have to say I don't know. But here I am, like, I don't know if they have taste buds. I kind of want to say yes, honestly, because I can imagine,

like now I'm thinking about all the times I've watched carnivores eat things. I can imagine that a carnivore might take a bite of something and be like, oh my god, that's bad. That might happen if something is rotten. But I think more than, this is going to be my cop out to the question, I think more than taste buds, most of the large carnivores of the world have an incredible sense of smell. I mean, a really amazing sense of smell. And as people, we know that smell is very, very closely associated with taste. Scientists have been trying to study how far away a bear can smell something and we haven't been able to nail down how far because they can just always smell stuff. I mean, some scientists estimate up to five miles away a bear could smell like someone making a

barbecue. I mean, it's amazing. It's amazing. I can't smell it if I'm a block away, but imagine, you know, many miles. So I would say it's probably more smell. If I'm right, that does really influence what they do eat because they won't eat everything. You know, they won't eat something that's rotten, that will make them sick. It probably smells or maybe tastes a little bit wrong. In general, we find that carnivores, the ones that do hunt, you know, don't hunt people. They do not hunt humans. And if they do, they don't usually eat human beings. Some people think that there's something about the smell or the taste of human flesh that is not palatable. Let's say a wolf, a grizzly bear, you know, a African lion, you know, kills a person. It's

almost always in self-defense, right, as opposed to like a hunting for prey. And then usually, that self-defense doesn't result in consumption. This is a whole field of research that could take up a person's entire career. Just ask Spanish carnivore researcher Vinchenzo Pandariani, an author on the paper Humans as Prey, coping with large carnivore attacks using a predator-prey interaction perspective, which reports that over-recorded 632 attacks on humans by large carnivores, only 17% involved predation. So if you get attacked by a forest beast, there's less than a one in five chance. It's because you're tasty and maybe 83% chance that you were annoying or just right place, wrong time. So again, we covered a bunch of outdoor safety

stuff in the Orsonology episodes, but three quick tips that Pandariani writes about are one, don't hike around from dusk to dawn when large carnivores are out shopping for dinner. Two, watch your babies as the researchers more tactfully put it, parental vigilance and education for children may be key factors to reducing predatory attacks. Yummy squishy babies, watch out. Three, safety numbers, buddy system. So I hope that answers some of your questions about mountain lions stalking humans, Brianna Borca, for those big kitties experts say look big and scary. Prey runs away from them and with speeds of up to 50 miles per hour, a giant cat will win. So stay and haze it, spray it, freak it out. Also for anyone wondering about if we're the carnivores in the woods and

why and how, because we love to eat salads and cake which are not meat, you can see the 2012 Swedish paper impact of carnivory on human development and evolution revealed by a new unifying model of weaning in mammals. Speaking of salad, what is that word salad? Well, it classified our species as carnivores based on the percentage of meat typical in a human diet and how that affects how long we breastfeed. But also when the global shit hits the existential fan, meat eating species tend to die off faster because the higher up on the food chain, the more an animal relies on other animals for food. So let's loop around back to taste buds and culinary preferences. Alia Myers, Kyle O'Neill and Kevin Glover. So Dr. Wyn Grant was totally right,

carnivores have taste buds, just fewer of them as smell is much more important in finding lunch or dinner. Also Dr. Gary Buchamp, who is a Pennsylvania scientist, found that domesticated and wild cats don't have much of a preference for sweet foods, likely because some carnivores like cats and sea lions and fur seals and harbor seals can see the pinnipedalogy episode from around them and spotted hyenas have mutations on the TAS1R2 gene, which codes for sweet taste receptors. So they're like, I can't really taste it. I don't really care. Don't really like sweet. That's what a lot of carnivores are doing. Also, this led me down 10 different rabbit holes, one of which was that fruit flies and dogs taste water, dogs do it with the tip of their tongues. So water tastes

like something like delicious, which I guess comes in handy when you're thirsty and there aren't any bang energy drink machines in your vast grassland. Would that keep a carnivore up all night? Do they want that? Joe Portofino asked the question, so smart. Are there more predators out hunting at night or in the day? Are carnivores typically nocturnal or dinural or diurnal? I always say that wrong. Diurnal. And what does that mean for people who are trying to reduce perhaps encounters? Sure. Yeah. You know, what I think is so cool is that many large carnivores are diurnal. Many of them are. And it's mostly because of evolution because they evolved without any natural predators themselves, right? If you think of a grizzly bear, like grizzly bear isn't afraid of anything

because there's nothing that attacks it or eats it, right? Like same with the wolves, you know, same with a mountain lion. So they are able to be diurnal because they don't have to hide. With that said, you know, humans these days, we really impact wild animals and their ecologies. And because wild animals are usually adaptable, we often see changes in animal behavior based on what people are doing. So even in some of the places that I've studied bears, we know that, you know, black bears, grizzly bears are diurnal, right? They're awake in the day and they make these sweet little beds at night and go to sleep. It is adorable. But in some places where there's a lot of human activity, they actually shift that. And they are more active

in the evening. And again, they don't like pull all nighters, but they're a little more active in the evening because it just seems like it's a little bit safer from human beings. Then you can take some animals like take the African lion, which is just mostly sleeping, period, you know, so they sleep up to 20 hours a day. And I would say if they are active, it's usually during the daytime, but they can just be sleepy, sleepy little critters. So patron Jesse Hurlbert, who said they'd always heard that male lions were lazy. I looked it up and the male sleep about 33% more than the females 20 hours a day as opposed to 15 hours for the poor sleep deprived lady lions. So koalas, they do between 18 and 22 hours of

gentle snoozing per day, but giraffes a meager, bleary 4.5 hours a night. And in short, tiny bursts via power naps while they're standing up. And dolphins are like, hold my bottom nose, because we sleep while we're awake. That's right. Dolphins freakishly giant curly brains just dim one hemisphere at a time while they just keep swimming and being the popular kid in the ocean with the other side of their brain. Okay, dolphins, good job you win. Let's get back to terrestrial carnivores. When it's the season to bulk up before winter, a grizzly is busy out there trying to consume 84,000 calories a day, meaning it's pulling 20 hour shifts doing overtime and napping just about five hours a night when it is not actively gorging. What do bear beds look like

Oh my goodness, bear beds. So one thing I love about bears, again, I could talk about them all day, is that because they're just so big and awesome, they just go to bed wherever they want, they just sit down. At the end of the day, they just sit right down and go to sleep. Often when I'm out hiking in the wilderness looking for them, I will come across a bed before I come across them. And it's usually, you know, like, let me think of the last bear bed that I saw, it wasn't too long ago. It was in a grassy area, an area where there was some forest, but there are these little kind of grassy little meadows. And it's just an indentation, like a bear sized indentation in the grass. And you know, when they're hibernating, they obviously

stay in the same place for many, many months. But bears don't necessarily come back to the same bed every day, you know, just wherever they are, when they feel like the day's done, they just sit right down. And it is just awesome. I feel like there's a lesson in that, like for people. You know, just like, when you're ready, just shut it down. Shut it down. Can you imagine how many people are cubicles? Just be like, and I'm done. Yep. Yep. Exactly. Exactly. You know, Xavier, Veequinn, Derek, Allen, Stephanie all had questions about in your professional scientific opinion, which carnivore cub is the squishiest, the snuggliest? Do they purr? Derek wants to know, are they as soft and fluffy as they look? So does Miranda

Panda, first time question asker, Rachel J, who asked about heartwarming experiences, and patron, Kiera Sears, who wrote in bears. Why so cute if no hug? I mean, this is what happens when you're on TV cuddling a bear cub in the snow. People are going to ask you this. I know. It is just so special. Well, I don't want to burst everyone's bubble here, but they are so not cuddly. Oh my goodness. I mean, let me tell you, it makes for a great little picture, but I have these like permanent scars on my chest because their claws are just like razor sharp. You know, it's one of those things like you see a picture of a little bear cub in my coat or, you know, many, many biologists who do this work. Again, let me be clear. The snuggling

part is because these cubs are so little that they cannot thermoregulate yet. They can't create their own body heat. And so ethically, if we are going to do checkups on their little bodies, we have to give them body heat. So for the few minutes that they're away from their mother, it's our job to hold them tight and keep them warm. So that's why they're in our coats. It is adorable. And I'm super glad that they can't thermoregulate because then I get to cuddle them. I'm very, very grateful for that. But it's also, again, it's purposeful. It's part of the science. But they will rip you apart. And again, not because they're afraid, not because they're uncomfortable, but because they are wild animals with razor sharp claws that they used to defend

themselves. And so it's actually a very painful experience. And their fur is soft. Their fur is soft, but not some little manicured puppy or something. It is soft, but coarse, very, very coarse. It can be a little rough. And we're taking these little cubs directly from the den. The dens are nice and warm and nice and safe for them, but they're also full of sticks and rocks and burrs and that kind of thing. So again, it's not the snuggly, soft, cushiony experience that it looks like. With that said, it's the very best thing in the whole entire world. And I'm so lucky to be able to do it. No one needs to go out trying to cuddle wild bear cubs. Please do not. Please do not. Every time there is a picture of me or any of my colleagues with a bear cub in our jacket,

Mama Bear was sedated in advance. And that process in itself is very, very nuanced. It takes a lot of training, takes a lot of care, and is dangerous. So never do this yourself, ever. For more on just how bears are sedated, I invite you to skim the 2018 paper, The Use of Ketamine Xylazine or Butophenol Zapperone Metatomadine to Immobilize Urses Americanus American Black Bears. And also, unlike every other article I have found in the National Institutes of Health Archives, this one's title, All Caps, which lends a certain urgency to sedating a thousand pound animal who has hands like Freddy Krueger in a mouth that could literally crack a bowling ball like a Tootsie Pop. But anyway, the study explained how researchers use a ketamine preparation or a

cocktail of butophenol zapperone metatomadine, aka BAM, also All Caps. But once sedated, how do they rouse these fanged beauties once they've collected their data? Well, to reverse, BAM, they give bears naltrexone, which is also used in humans for opioid and alcohol use disorders. But to shake off ketamine, they administer yo-him-bi extract, which you can get at the mall at GNC. Yo-him-bi-bark is an over-the-counter supplement that's used as like an aphrodisiac and an energy pill and a fat-burning cural. And I know this because I took some for an article I wrote for a newspaper about Valentine supplements. In my experience, it involved having a panic attack at my work cubicle at 1am wired, trying to finish a story while also having the biggest, dampest pit stains of my life. I

looked like someone being interrogated for a crime that they most definitely committed. And if you search Reddit for posts about yo-him-bi, you will find harrowing first-person accounts such as I suffered a significant increase in libido. I also suffered unpleasant GI side effects, total clear up. Sorry, it says. Another person wrote, I started getting anxious and my heart rate shot up to 190 beats per minute. My whole workout was filled with anxiety. It was kind of like taking acid, a weird body high that felt like a panic attack. They write, overall, it was not an enjoyable experience, but I'm going to try it again. Quote, anyway, they use yo-him-bi-bark up bears, so please do not try this unless you are a sedated bear. Patron Holly Spencer asked a question that was

on all of our minds. Have you ever had a super scary close encounter with a carnivore? And Mallory Nettleton likewise asked about unexpected surprises. And on that note, Amy Leah said, what is the best protection weapon for people who want to go deep woods BLM camping but are terrified of getting stalked by carnivores? Do you have a particular cautionary training that you go through before you're out working with large animals? For example, Val McKeevy wants to know, do bear cans really work? Are there certain precautions that you need to take? Yeah, yes. For all of my work that I've done in the United States on different carnivore species, all of my training has come from the state wildlife agency. So the United States is the country it is,

and every state in our country has a state wildlife agency. So I live in California, it's called being a California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and every state has its own. And in order for me to do my own independent research on these animals, I have to get permission from the state wildlife agency, and I have to apply for permits from the state wildlife agency. And part of that permitting process is an evaluation of whether I know what I'm doing when it comes to getting my hands on these animals. And sometimes I don't know what I'm doing. And then they offer trainings. They offer trainings that are like in the classroom, and they offer ride-alongs where I get to learn firsthand how to do it from a certified state wildlife biologist.

So all of the training that I've gotten has been from other people. I didn't just like go to college and then say, great, give me a bear cub. There's a lot of these processes, but with that said, it is very possible. It's not impossible to get to this level. There are pathways for it. So if you hit the right marks, anybody can end up in this position to be able to do this cool work. And because she's trained to predict and identify carnivore behavior means she practices all kinds of safe bearing. But there are precautions. I mean, I take bear spray wherever I go. I personally choose not to have a weapon, you know, a firearm, but I have colleagues that carry personal firearms legally, you know, again, with permitting as self-defense in case they ever have, you know,

close encounter. But bear spray for me is usually enough because there's a lot of precautions we take before bear spray would even be necessary, right? So let me tell you, we are trained. There are like strict protocols with how to do this work. But in general, for a lot of the people that I communicate with, and I think probably a lot of the listeners and the folks writing in are people who will likely recreate in nature or want to recreate in nature and want to do it safely. And, you know, that really comes down to like making sure you're not attracting carnivores to you. Going for a hike is usually very safe, especially if you have two or more people with you just because these large carnivores as big and bad and bold as they are, they also are afraid

of us and don't want to be bothered. So if they hear you, they're usually out of there. But bear spray, just not having food smells that would bring anyone in, it's usually pretty easy to recreate safely in bear or mountain lion or wolf territory and have a great experience. More bear and camping advice, again, in the Double Ursonology episode, of course. Also, we need a Big Cats episode, don't we? I mean, I'd be lying if I said we didn't. What about reintroducing pumas and such? Patrons Dawn and Eric Easton and Micah Weir asked about this. Becky, the sassy seagrass scientist wondered, would all of the problems in America be solved if we just dropped a bunch of wolves everywhere? You did mention wolves and Shelby Reardon and

Allie Vessels both had some questions about Colorado. They're in the middle of reintroducing wolves. It's a controversial topic. And Kelly Shaver and Nicole S also wanted to know what you thought about carnivore restoration. Ooh, that's a good one. I'm glad that I'm being asked my opinion because a lot of this podcast has been, let me give some facts. Here, I want to be crystal clear that it is my opinion because I'm really into the idea. I'm super, super into it. I am into the idea of carnivore restoration in different parts of the country or the world, where they have been extirpated. Even where I live and work right now, we're having this discussion. The state of California used to have grizzly bears. There's a grizzly bear on our state

flag, right? I didn't know that until this year. I didn't even realize that we had them. People are like, there's golden on their heels. First things first, let's kill off the grizzly bears and then put it on our flag to brag about it. Sorry, I really lost my shit here. But for more on this, check out the Orstology episode. If you like flags, hit up the Vexillology episode. Also, patron TTS specifically about this and says, I for one, am very into this and think it's vitally important. Grizzly bears used to be all over the great state of California. Now we have zero of them. It's been about, I think even more than 100 years since we had a grizzly bear here. There's talk of, should we bring them back? That's not talk of, should we wait for them to come back

on their own, but actually bring them from elsewhere and fly them here and restore them to the landscape. I'm really into these ideas for sure. Again, there's this very purposeful nature of having top predators and ecosystems, having complete native wildlife communities enhances ecosystem function, puts us in a place for a more sustainable future. There is a lot to be said about having an intact wildlife native wildlife community in a place. It might not make us feel comfortable as humans, but dare I say, all of these animals existed in this place before human beings did. There's a lot to be said about how that's what the environment needs. A lot of my work deals with, well, what's realistic? Because we don't ever want to bring carnivores into a

space where they're going to have a crappy time. We don't want people to have a bad time, but we also really don't want these carnivores to have a poor experience because it's really hard to live adjacent to where people live or sometimes in the same places where people live. I think that it's important that coexistence is figured out and that is going to look different in every kind of place. Goodness gracious, in the human wildlife coexistence conversation, there really needs to be conversations about justice and equity and about which types of people on which places in the land are we talking about. And Ray says there are so many people working on figuring out the best ways to reintroduce these species in a way that's forward-thinking and equitable to all communities

of Earth's humans. Speaking of Earth, a few patrons had questions. Alice in D wanted to know is climate change causing more wild animals to venture into cities? And Star asked the same question, same with Felix Lacell, Derek Allen, Caitlin Chimás, Matt Secato, and Derek's words, how are human and wildlife conflicts managed and also is always a fed bear equals a dead bear? And I know that that's something that you're really vocal in terms of how not to put animals in danger. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, these are all great questions. Oh my gosh. Oh, people love it. Let me start. Let me go backwards. So is a fed bear always a dead bear? Not necessarily, but usually, usually. So when it's not the case, that is a blessing. And for anyone out there who

doesn't know what a fed bear is, a dead bear means. Break it down for me. It means like don't feed wild, don't feed the wildlife. And when it comes to carnivores and bears are a great example, you know, they are driven by hunger, right? Like eating enough food means that they live another day. It's the exact same with people. It's just people have, you know, created technology that allows us to access food way more often than our ancestors. But you can imagine if you just rewound the world to an early human life, we had to figure out how to eat every day. And we did nothing but think about how to get food in our mouths. And that's what large carnivores are doing all the time. And so feeding them or giving them kind of easy access to human

food, whether that means like the bowl of dog food you left out on your back deck, or the like extra barbecue you threw in your trash can, or actually deliberately putting food out to attract a large carnivore, those things make them access human areas more often and might habituate them to human areas. So they might like not be afraid of people anymore. And because they're wild animals, and they can technically be unpredictable, when a wild bear or a mountain lion or wolf ever shows signs of not being intimidated by humans or human presence, it means that they're technically a threat to human safety. And the state, you know, the government is always going to choose to euthanize an animal before it might attack a person.

Human safety is always going to be prioritized. And I argue that it should be prioritized if, again, this is an opinion. But my argument is that human safety is the most important. But it gets complicated if humans are messing with animal behavior to put them in situations where they then have to be euthanized. We can prevent that by not deliberately feeding large carnivores, but also not creating situations where their instincts are pulling them towards us to get food. You know, and I have to say, I'm guilty of this, even just earlier this year, I visited my sister in law, Samantha, and she moved to this great wooded area. And I got her a bird feeder so that she could watch some birds. And it was like a suet bird feeder, and literally within

like four days, she's like, well, we have a black bear in our backyard. And I was like, oh my god, it's literally sniffing under the spot where she hung the bird feeder. I got her and I was like, oh my god, I didn't even know. Is there something that you feel like is a myth that you're just like, okay, everyone, please stop doing it? You know, I have to say, Ali, I really appreciate you, you know, kind of fessing up to doing this or just like using yourself as a model because it's hard. A lot of the communication I do is like giving people the bad news that like, I'm so sorry, your bird feeder is causing a big problem. It's disrupting the ecology of wildlife, you know, it's not bird feeders are supposed to be for birds, but raccoons, possums, coyotes,

bears are attracted to it and they will come out of their the safety of the forest. Again, they can smell your bird seed from maybe five miles away. Okay, like they have this sense of smell that is unreal, and they will be line for your backyard. That's why I gave the example of dog food, you know, a lot of times we don't think about it, like, you know, your dog or cat is maybe an outdoor animal and you put it out, no, the bears can smell it. I have to tell people about their little like, their beautiful little fish ponds with coy in their gardens, you know, I'm sorry, but I have a friend down the street who I actually work with who's a scientist and has this beautiful little koi pond and found a mountain lion, you know, fishing from it recently.

And I said, I'm sorry, you know, you can have a pond, but it's got to be free of fish. It's just gonna have to be a pond on its own little decorative fruit trees or whatever it might be. And even things literally like, you know, if you grill food in your backyard, you know, please clean it off right away. And this applies to people who live in proximity to wild animals, you know, if you are in an apartment in Manhattan, go for it with the bird feeder. Do whatever you want. That's fine. But I'm really talking to people who live in smaller towns or in suburbia or any place that could attract a wild animal within a few miles. Okay, so patron Wilplua wanted some hot, hot gossip and asked what's currently controversial in carnivore ecology. And Anna

Cole wrote that they are looking going to grad school to study carnivores and they're wondering what might be the biggest hurdle with getting established in research and academia. And on that note, last listener question. And I know we've got a couple minutes before we've got to let go. Janelle Shaw had a great question. Any advice for those trying to join your field of study? Everyone says get experience, but it's often unpaid. So any advice for students who can't afford to work for free? Oh, yes. Yes. Was this Janelle? Is that the name of the person? Thank you so much, Janelle, for asking this question. Again, I'm going to offer my opinion. But I really hope it's helpful. My opinion is do not take the unpaid work. Don't take it.

Experience helps, but it is not mandatory to get into this field. Because wildlife ecology, wildlife conservation is really important. It's, you know, quite a mission driven field. Like we have some very serious problems that need solving, you know, right away. We as a field can't necessarily wait around for people to gather their experience before they join us, right? Like we would be doing a disservice to all the endangered species out there for like, I mean, she's smart. She's passionate. She has a lot of energy. She's ready for this. But she doesn't have an internship background, you know, like we would be shooting ourselves in the foot and really like losing so many important animals every day if we were basing who we bring into this

field off of volunteer work. And I say all this fully knowing that there are way too many barriers for entry into this field, you know, and I and many of the people I work with and many of the people I know are working really hard to break down those barriers. But I can truly say from my own experience that I when I was in college, when I was in graduate school, my jobs were babysitting, were being a waitress, were being a receptionist at a gym, you know, I had to work for money and I wasn't able to have internships. That wasn't available to me. And so when I did show up in the professional space, I really emphasized my passion, my innovative ideas, my energy for this work and my dedication for it. And that's what I know I look for. And a lot of my colleagues look

for when we see applicants to school or to jobs is not necessarily what you've been spending your time doing. You know, unless you've been spending your time like working for like, you know, a gas company, you know, an oil company that's like drilling into the ocean or something, then we might have some questions. But if you've been spending your time working for money, with the goal of getting yourself in a financial situation so that you can work for the environment, that's worthy. That's worthy of being being here. I give a lot of advice to young people a lot of the time, especially young people from diverse financial backgrounds. And I grew up, you know, as someone without access to financial resources, I give a lot of advice that your passion is more

important than your performance. And the best thing you can do to be a leader in the environmental field is to take care of yourself. Buckle up for a life lesson right now. Because we have to figure out some huge global problems. And having a sound mind, having, you know, your mental health in check, having some kind of financial stability, even if it's a little tiny bit, is way more important than hustling, than overworking, than stressing yourself out, or, you know, putting yourself in a vulnerable position in order to be in this field. And I really hope that more leaders in the environment are hearing this and breaking down these ridiculous barriers for entry, because we need strong-minded, free thinkers to help us really innovate how we save all of the

world's wildlife. That's such a good point. That's amazing advice. Last questions I always ask, the thing that is the hardest thing about your job or your several jobs? Okay, what is the hardest? Or the most annoying, even, whether it's tics or emails? Oh, gosh, you know, I haven't like done a lot of complaining on your show, but like, I can, there's definitely things I can complain about, because I made it sound so good. I'm like, oh, come cuddle animals with me. There's a lot that said, you know, right now, what is very hard for me is leaving home for work, because I have a six-year-old daughter who is awesome, and I have a 13-month-old baby. And leaving home for work makes me feel good. It's fun.

It's exciting. It feels like me. I like it. But leaving home for work also makes me feel terrible, because motherhood, at least for me, my version of motherhood is like a constant thing. You know, it is like a every minute of every day thing. And being an active mom, like interfacing with my children is something that brings me a lot of joy and helps me feel connected. It's like, I'll spend a week away or 10 days away and then three weeks at home. And I just do that back and forth pretty often. You know, for example, I'll be away all of next week. And I'm really excited about it. But it's a really good balance for me. And my family is finally structured in a way that it's working for the family, at least right now. And my gosh, I just feel like an incredibly,

incredibly fortunate woman. So I have a tension right now with how much I love being away and how much I love being home. So I would say like right now, and it'll change because it used to be different. I think it'll be different in the future. But right now, that's the hardest thing for me. I bet. I'm sure there's part of you too that's like, can I just be a mama bear who hibernates for six months? Oh my gosh. Can't we all just take a six month nap? Can't we all just press the pause button for half a year? Can't we just learn from the bears? Yes. Someone called on my babies. Exactly. Exactly. What about, I mean, this is me so hard, but your favorite thing. Oh gosh. Yeah, my favorite thing is that I get to physically challenge myself a lot. And I guess

maybe mentally challenge myself too. So and those things are tied in together because I have to say, I have to hike a lot for work just to get places in the field. And hiking is hard. If you're someone out there who's like, hiking isn't hard, good for you. And go have a seat. It's hard. I'm in pretty good shape, but it's still hard. And sometimes it's boring. And sometimes it's just tough. And going through that, not for fun, but for work, there's always a benefit at the end. I never finish a hike and think to myself like, I wish I hadn't done that. I almost always finish a hike and say to myself like, oh, look at me. I just did a hard thing. And it's very personal. A lot of the times I'm by myself. No one saw me do it. There's no evidence of it. But sometimes the

biggest kind of challenges and triumphs that I have are very, very personal and kind of invisible to anybody else. But I really love that my actual job offers that to me often enough. And so I get to have these moments with myself where I transform or I push through something. That's not too hard. It's not impossible. But that is just challenging enough that I get in touch with myself in a way that I really appreciate. And I really love that. Oh, that's a beautiful thing. And it's such a good reminder too to get out in nature. And if you can, whether it's hiking up a hill or being outside or challenging yourself in other ways, it never is something that you regret. Exactly. Well, thank you for being such an inspiration to future bear cuddlers,

to people who have decided to not cuddle bears and just get a rescue poodle instead. Even more cuddly, just saying. For more of Dr. Rae Wynn Grant, which we all want and need, you can find her PBS podcast Going Wild. There are episodes titled Near Death Experiences in the Field, Black, Female, Scientist, Leeches, Rice and Tampons. There's one on poachers and stories about having asthma and E. Coli on the job. And that is just the first season, people. We're trying to tee up season two, and I welcome everyone to give it a listen, give us some feedback. I guarantee you're going to love it, and I guarantee it's going to surprise you. I guarantee it's not what you think you're going to be listening to. There's a lot of surprises in there.

That's Going Wild. You can find it wherever you get podcasts. This has been such an honor. You are amazing. This is just such a highlight for me. I really appreciate it. Oh, my gosh. I was like, oh, today I'm talking to Dr. Wynn Grant. And I was like, do I put on lipstick? It doesn't even matter. She's not going to see me. I'm just excited. So ask smart people, not smart questions, because how else are you going to learn weird stuff about carnivore pee and dolphin hubris? We're all going to become fungus in a dung field, so there's no point in being a bear. Now, to find out more about this delightful person, you can see raywynngrant.com. You can follow her at raywynngrant on Twitter and Instagram.

Also, follow Dr. Wynn Grant's frequent collaborator, this incredible photographer, Tisilani Lassiter on Instagram. I love his stuff. He takes breathtaking photos, many of which have bears, and sometimes Ray in them. And he is at Tisilani, T-S-A-L-A-N-I. And I'll put that in the show notes as well. We're at oligies on Twitter and Instagram. I'm Allie Ward with 1L on both. We have merch at oligiesmerch.com, shirts and hats and totes and stuff. And thank you, Aaron Talbert, for admitting the oligies podcast Facebook group with assist from Shannon Feltes and Bonnie Dutch. Thank you, Emily White of The Wordery, who makes our professional transcripts. Caleb Patton bleeps episodes. Those are up at alleyward.com slash

oligies-extras for free. Every two weeks, we release an episode of Smologies in this feed, and they are cut down, digest, that are defilthed for all ages. Thank you, Zeke Rodriguez-Thomas of Mind Gem Media for being on top of those. Thank you, Noel Dilworth and Susan Hale for all the scheduling and behind the scenes help. Thank you, Stephen Ray Morris for all the years of editing. This show would not happen or get any awards without all of those folks, including lead editor and professional husband, Jared Sleeber, also of Mind Gem Media. For the late nights, making this show happen, I am recording this at 3.24 a.m. on February 8th, so we pull some long nights. He's asleep, but he's going to have to edit this as soon as he gets up. We're doing our

best. We're a weird world, people. Nick Thorburn did the music, and he's in a great band called Islands. If you stick around until the end of the episode, I tell you secret. This week's secret is I listened to music while I'm working, and I just switched from Spotify to Pandora Premium. I went for it, and I used to listen to Pandora for years when I was a journalist at a cubicle sweating yo-him-bay out of all parts of my body past midnight. I had to log in to my Pandora with an LA Times email I hadn't used in like a decade. But all of my music was there, and I worked on this episode listening to the Niko K station, which honestly was amazing. And it served up some Neil Young's Harvest Moon, which was nicely played. And meanwhile, it's almost four in the

morning, so we're going to finish this episode and onto the next one. Okay, bye-bye. I'm warning you. What's he do? Nibble your bum. He's got heat sharp. He can leap about. Look at the bones.