Fancy Scientist with Dr. Stephanie Manka

This week Colorado citizens voted to reintroduce grey wolves on their prey. Historically, grey wolves were all over the west, but currently they extirpated (locally extinct) through most of their range. Voters are now letting these apex predators come back. 

Given my recent cougar episodes (#29 and #30 on the viral cougar video and eastern cougars) and this new ballot proposition, I thought it would be a great time to talk about the impacts of the loss of apex predators like cougars and grey wolves on their prey – specifically the white-tailed deer. The eastern USA has been without these two apex predators for a long time now.

But the plot thickens – humans act as predators for white-tailed deer through hunting and coyotes are canids that are very closely related to wolves. In recent decades, coyotes have expanded their range from the western US into the east. Can these two predators act as apex predators? Replace grey wolves and cougars? 

Lots more goes into becoming an apex predator than just killing individuals alone – at least from a prey species’ perspective. The presence of predators can enormous effects on prey species – so much so that prey dramatically change their behavior. 

In this podcast, I talk about a study I did in 2016 looking at the relationship between coyote abundance, hiking, and human hunting on the vigilance patterns of white-tailed deer. Our results surprised us!

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• What exactly are apex predators
• How apex predators influence prey species and therefore have ecosystem-wide impacts
• What the “landscape of fear” is
• Our large-scale study across 6 states on the impacts of coyotes and human hunting on deer vigilance, a measure of predator risk in ungulates
• Our surprising results and what they mean 
• Challenges that apex predator reintroductions face
• and MORE!

Want to learn more about wildlife biology, being a scientist, and conservation? 

Order “Getting a Job in Wildlife Biology: What It’s Like and What You Need to Know” now:

Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Job-Wildlife-Biology-What/dp/B08JDYXS4G/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08FYX66GP?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420 

Let’s Connect:

Subscribe to my YouTube channel to learn about the coolest animals and get my tips about careers in wildlife biology, science communication, and more: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7KlOYUv8lxU3MG4sfxaLzA? 

I’d love to meet you. Connect with me on social media:

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For the full interview notes visit: https://stephanieschuttler.com/31-apex-predators/

This week’s episode is inspired by photos posted to a Facebook group. A user posted these photos of part of a deer carcass high in a tree. They asked what animal would cause this? I watched the responses pour in and I knew what they would be. 

Cougar. Mountain lion. Puma. These are different names for the same species (Puma concolor) and I knew people would say with certainty that this big cat did this.

But I knew it was not. In fact, I posted that there are NO eastern cougars. But I knew I would get a lot of opposition. I did.

In this episode, I talk about how I can be so certain. How scientists in general can be certain of this subspecies absence from such a large are. And also explain what people think they are seeing. 

Even if you aren’t familiar with the story of cougars in the east, you’ll learn about the evidence (or lack thereof) that scientists use for detecting larger terrestrial mammals.  

Specifically, I go over:

• Where cougars currently live and in the US, where they are starting to expand their range
• When eastern cougars were last detected
• Why the presence of individuals does not necessarily mean a population exists
• My research experience working in the eastern US in relation to cougars, specifically North Carolina and the description of large-scale studies on mammals
• Examples of large mammals with very low population sizes that are still detected by scientists
• The different methods scientists use to determine absence for large, terrestrial mammals
• Where verified cougar detections are found in the US
• What people are likely seeing when they say they see a cougar
• Explanations of real and verified cougar detections in the eastern US
• Where you can submit wild cat photos to have experts determine the species

Want to learn more about wildlife biology, being a scientist, and conservation? 

Order “Getting a Job in Wildlife Biology: What It’s Like and What You Need to Know” now:

Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Job-Wildlife-Biology-What/dp/B08JDYXS4G/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08FYX66GP?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420 

Let’s Connect:

Subscribe to my YouTube channel to learn about the coolest animals and get my tips about careers in wildlife biology, science communication, and more: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7KlOYUv8lxU3MG4sfxaLzA? 

I’d love to meet you. Connect with me on social media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/FancyScientist

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fancy_scientist/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fancyscientist/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/fancyscientist/pins/

A week ago, I made a YouTube video in response to a cougar “attack/stalking” video that went viral. But what was missing from the cougar viral video is what actually happened. That’s where I came in to get to the truth.

In brief, the video shows a cougar advancing towards a hiker and at times VERY aggressively. There is good reason why the cougar (AKA mountain lion, puma) did this, which is what I explain in my YouTube video, but when the video went viral, this message was left out by the media and viewers who shared it.

As a wildlife biologist, it is so FRUSTRATING to see these videos go viral because they are often taken out of context and the animals frequently are the ones to suffer, which is why I felt compelled to make the video. 

A few days later though, I got a Facebook message from someone I didn’t know, a man named Kyle Burgess who introduced himself as the “cougar guy.” Yes, that cougar guy! He saw my video and was interested in working with me in some way to help spread positive messages about cougars, stating he learned a lot from this experience. 

I was happy to hear this and decided to take him up on this offer and asked him to join me on my podcast to have a chat about what happened, how to avoid situations like this in the future, and how to help cougars in the wild. 

I asked him LOTS of questions. Here’s what we went over:

• Why did he record the video?
• Why did he release the video?
• What does he think people took away from the video?
• Has he learned from this encounter? Would he do anything differently?
• Would you have not recorded? Not approached?
• Why didn’t he throw rocks? Or other things?
• Did he think about the costs the mountain lion had to experience? How he impacted her?
• Did he want to shoot to kill the cougar? Or just scare it?
• Did he have any prior experiences with cougars?
• How does he feel about the comments that say the cougar should be killed for doing this?
• Does he have a cat?
• What are the biggest misconceptions or errors in the media coverage of the encounter?
• How has he taken the online reaction? 
• A lot of people – at least in the wildlife/ecology field thought you screwed up. Did he?
• Have he done anything to learn more about cougars and their threats?
• Does still hike the same trail? Is he still scared?
• What you should do in cougar country
• and MORE!

Let’s Connect:

Subscribe to my YouTube channel to learn about the coolest animals and get my tips about careers in wildlife biology, science communication, and more: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7KlOYUv8lxU3MG4sfxaLzA? 

I’d love to meet you. Connect with me on social media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/FancyScientist

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fancy_scientist/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fancyscientist/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/fancyscientist/pins/

For the full show notes visit: https://stephanieschuttler.com/29-cougar-viral-video-interview-with-trail-runner-kyle-burgess/

This is the fifth episode in a series all about how I actually studied elephants. For my Ph.D., I studied the social structure and genetic patterns of African forest elephants in Gabon. Here I follow up on aggressive elephants in the park, fun field stories, extracting and amplifying elephant DNA, and how to conserve elephants.

It may be a good idea to catch up with episodes #24-27 so you can fully understand what my field research and seasons were like:

#24 How Do You Study Elephants? The Start of My Journey

#25 Choosing a Field Site for Forest Elephant Research, and

#26 First Field Season with Forest Elephants

#27. Charging Elephants and Fresh Dung: Challenges from the Field

In this episode, I follow up on my experiences with aggressive elephants during my field work and hypothesize why what happened to me happened.

This episode is focused on my second field season and in addition to the close elephant encounters, I had another close encounter with an animal (actually lots and lots of them) that you can’t see in many places in Africa. It was one of the coolest experiences I’ve had in my whole life!

I also talk about my research after my field season – what it was like to work with the elephant dung samples back in the lab, what I did with them, and did they work? As always with science, things don’t go exactly as they planned. 

Finally, I cannot talk about elephants without talking about their current plight – that they are at risk of extinction, especially forest elephants. The problem is surprisingly massive and if we don’t work hard now, we could lose this species. We’ve already lost a lot of forest elephant range and individuals. 

Specifically, I go over: 

• Why some elephants and elephant populations are aggressive and others are not
• What I think happened to me the night elephants broke into my room
• Rare sighting with a large group of mandrills
• A scary (non-animal) field story
• How to get DNA from dung and the lab work involved
• What you can do right now to help elephants
• and MORE!

Let’s Connect:

Subscribe to my YouTube channel to learn about the coolest animals and get my tips about careers in wildlife biology, science communication, and more: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7KlOYUv8lxU3MG4sfxaLzA? 

I’d love to meet you. Connect with me on social media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/FancyScientist

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fancy_scientist/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fancyscientist/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/fancyscientist/pins/

This is the fourth episode in a series all about how I actually studied elephants. I recently gave a talk and people were really curious about how I went about this (how does one study elephants?). 

I decided this would be the perfect thing to talk about on my podcast – taking you through step-by-step of how I set it all up and what it was really like to study forest elephants. 

Before you continue, make sure you are up to date with episodes:

• #24 How Do You Study Elephants? The Start of My Journey
• #25 Choosing a Field Site for Forest Elephant Research, and
• #26 First Field Season with Forest Elephants

This week’s episode is all about studying elephants non-invasively through their dung and using it as a source of DNA. Did you know that some scientists study elephants completely through their dung? Some never even see the elephants!

When I was in the forest collecting dung, I had a super close encounter. This episode details getting too close to the elephants I was studying – and all by accident. 

Finally, something happened to me during this field season that has never happened before in all of the history of the field station (25 years!). Let me tell you, it was scary – the scariest moment of my entire life. Listen and you’ll find out what this animal encounter involved. 

Specifically, in this episode, I go over: 

• Changing plans in the field AGAIN
• Things that went wrong in the field
• Finding fresh elephant poop (spoiler alert: It was harder than I thought)
• How elephant dung could answer my dissertation questions in a different way
• Animal encounters: Chimpanzees, charging elephants in the forest, scary elephant story at the field station
• and MORE!

Let’s Connect:

Subscribe to my YouTube channel to learn about the coolest animals and get my tips about careers in wildlife biology, science communication, and more: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7KlOYUv8lxU3MG4sfxaLzA? 

I’d love to meet you. Connect with me on social media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/FancyScientist

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fancy_scientist/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fancyscientist/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/fancyscientist/pins/

For the full show notes, visit: https://stephanieschuttler.com/27-charging-elephants-and-fresh-dung-challenges-from-the-field/

This episode is the third part of a series all about my dissertation research on African forest elephants. People were really curious about how I actually went about this (how does one study elephants?), so I made a series about how I set up the research and what it was like to study them. Make sure you are up to date with the first two episodes: #24. How Do You Study Elephants? The Start of My Journey and #25. Choosing a Field Site for Forest Elephant Research.

This week’s episode is all about preparing for my first field season – all of the steps I had to take to get there, and what studying forest elephants is really like. 

The last time we left off, I was planning to work in Ivindo National Park. Now it’s time for me to get my permits, find funding to pay for my trip and lab work, and start my field work. But the first rule of science is that things never go as planned…

This week’s episode is all about these next steps. Specifically, I talk about: 

• How I sought after funds to pay my field season: my time at the research station, field assistants, and fuel. Was I successful?
• Getting permits to work in a foreign country and overcoming language barriers
• Dealing with problems right from the start
• What field work is really like – how do you actually study forest elephants in the field?
• More problems: making mistakes in approaches to research, wasting time and money on things that didn’t work, dealing with difficult elephants
• and MORE!

View the full show notes here: https://stephanieschuttler.com/first-field-season-with-forest-elephants/

Let’s Connect:

Subscribe to my YouTube channel to learn about the coolest animals and get my tips about careers in wildlife biology, science communication, and more: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7KlOYUv8lxU3MG4sfxaLzA? 

I’d love to meet you. Connect with me on social media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/FancyScientist

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fancy_scientist/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fancyscientist/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/fancyscientist/pins/

Welcome back to this series on how I set up my forest elephant research and what it was like to study them. 

In the last episode, I take you through the process of how and why I decided to study African forest elephants, and how I came up with the research questions I would ask for my dissertation research. At this point of my Ph.D., I knew what I was going to study and now I had to find where I would conduct that research. Where would I go in all of central and west Africa to study forest elephants?

Despite the huge range of forest elephants, there aren’t that many places actually where you can easily study them. I had to find a park either with large bais, natural, open clearings in the forest or savanna habitats. Although forest elephants live in forested areas, there are some forest parks that have savanna remnants. 

In this episode, I share with you my adventures in choosing a field site and how I ultimately decided which one to work at. 

In the summer of 2007, I took a trip with my advisor to scope out three different protected areas in the Republic of Congo and Gabon: Odzala, Ivindo, and Lopé National Parks. You’ll hear about the adventures I had, the animals we saw along the way, and of course the elephants. 

Specifically, I go over:

• What it was like to travel in the Republic of Congo and Gabon (one field site required days of travel involving dug-out canoe-like boats and a a flight I wasn’t too sure about
• What field sites look like in Central Africa – where did we stay and how it compared to other field sites I’ve visited
• Different animals that we saw along the way – gorillas, African grey parrots, and more!
• How I compared and assessed the field sites for my research
• and MORE!

For show notes and photos of all of the field sites, click here:

Let’s Connect:

Subscribe to my YouTube channel to learn about the coolest animals and get my tips about careers in wildlife biology, science communication, and more: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7KlOYUv8lxU3MG4sfxaLzA? 

I’d love to meet you. Connect with me on social media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/FancyScientist

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fancy_scientist/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fancyscientist/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/fancyscientist/pins/

I chose to study elephants for my dissertation research. But how does one even set something like that up? Where do you begin?

I recently gave a talk to undergraduate students in wildlife studies. I talked about my past research including my dissertation research on forest elephants, but also more recent research on camera traps. At the end of the talk though, I got a lot of questions about how I set up more elephant research. 

I thought now would be a great time to talk about that. In this episode, I talk about how I got started and why I chose forest elephants. 

Specifically, we’ll go over:

• Why did I choose to research elephants? And forest elephants specifically?
• What makes elephants so interesting? Why did I find them fascinating?
• African savanna elephant social structure and behavior
• The different existing elephant species
• How I decided my research topic when I could study almost anything I wanted
• African forest elephant social structure
• My three research questions

For full show notes, click here: https://stephanieschuttler.com/study-elephants/

Let’s Connect:

Subscribe to my YouTube channel to learn about the coolest animals and get my tips about careers in wildlife biology, science communication, and more: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7KlOYUv8lxU3MG4sfxaLzA?

I’d love to meet you. Connect with me on social media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/FancyScientist

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fancy_scientist/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fancyscientist/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/fancyscientist/pins/

In this episode, I talk with scientist and science communicator Stephanie Martin about a topic near and dear to her heart – barriers to entry in the field of wildlife biology.

A lot of people may not know this, but experience is key for young wildlife biologists. Because conservation and science both are not lucrative fields, it is common for organizations and employers to hire people without paying them. 

In fact, there are not only a lot of people willing to work for free, but there are also people willing to PAY to be able to work. This is especially true for work on charismatic species or in exotic field locations. 

In this podcast, Stephanie and I discuss these barriers to entry and what it means for conservation and science. We go over:

What exactly are the barriers to entry in conservation and wildlife biology careers (there are several)

• How barriers to entry have negative implications for conservation
• Why barriers to entry exist in the first place
• What can be done to (partly) solve this problem 
• What can you do if you are just starting out in this field
• Toxic work environments and consequences on young professionals
• What to do if you are in a toxic work environment
• How the nature of conservation and wildlife biology field work needs to change

To connect with Stephanie and for full show notes, click here: https://stephanieschuttler.com/barriers-to-entry-in-wildlife-and-conservation-jobs-with-stephanie-martin/.

I’d love to meet you. Connect with me on social media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/FancyScientist

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fancy_scientist/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fancyscientist/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/fancyscientist/pins/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7KlOYUv8lxU3MG4sfxaLzA?

Last week in episode #21, I talked about the importance of voting for the conservation of wildlife. This is the perfect follow-episode!

I interview marine scientist and science communicator Dr. Chris Parsons of the Speak Up for Blue Network. Chris has decades of experience working in conservation and knows that you cannot separate politics from wildlife. 

In this episode, we talk about Chris’ vast experience working in conservation, but also about two recent papers he authored (links in resources section) on how conservation is perceived in academia. It’s really changed a lot within the past few decades.

As scientists must go through degree programs, how does this new relationship between research and conservation affect conservation as a whole?

Even if you are not an academic, you will enjoy this far-ranging conversation. You’ll learn what conservation really looks like in practice and how frequently it has little to the science of the animals we’re studying.

Specifically, we talked about:

• Why conservation isn’t being favored by academia
• How conservation differs from scientific research
• The consequences of academia moving away from conservation
• What is advocacy and activism
• Why scientists tend to veer away from these words to describe themselves
• Why scientists should not be afraid of advocacy and activism (and many are already practicing it)

Full show notes here: https://stephanieschuttler.com/chris-parsons/

I’d love to meet you. Connect with me on social media:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7KlOYUv8lxU3MG4sfxaLzA?

Twitter: https://twitter.com/FancyScientist

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fancy_scientist/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fancyscientist/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/fancyscientist/pins/