GREAT question - and I just posted saying I would stop answering Qs, but just to start tapping into this one: spotted hyenas are generalists and super behaviorally flexible as compared to the big cats. For instance, they've been known to even eat insects and caterpillars, as well as of course refuse, despite their role as apex predators. Essentially, they can make it work. That being said, we at the IUCN SSG Hyaena Specialist Group are currently finalizing the new range maps and trying to revise the population estimates and population vulnerability of the four hyena species, including spotties. Spotties are also declining across their range, despite being so successful and behaviorally flexible. Please feel free to contact me (see the original post) to talk further about this!

Hi everyone! I had an amazing time answering your questions for the past few hours, but it's time for me to bounce. Please feel free to reach out via social media/email/website/etc. to chat more (see the original post for how to find me). Thanks again for stopping by!

~ Christine

ooooh 1) I LOVE JURASSIC PARK. I'm literally wearing a Jurassic Park shirt right now.

2. The last time I read that book was over a decade ago, but as I recall there was a big hunting scene? In that sense, yes spotted hyenas can and do hunt in groups (they can also hunt in pairs or solo), so that part was accurate. I think in the book they mentioned that the cubs ate first, or something, but that wouldn't be entirely accurate if we're talking spotted hyenas. Spotted hyenas have intricate social structures, which means that a cub could be ranked higher or lower than any given adult. So if you have the cub of an adult that is ranked lower than, say, the top female, then that cub is definitely not getting first dibs on the carcass. Rank order is critical for spotties, and you can usually determine their respective ranks by looking at how they behave toward each other.

Currently they're accepting applications for a HUGE grant in Animal Behavior and Cognition.

Also, in my opinion NGS really loves 1) meaningful conservation work, 2) storytelling that incorporates a new perspective or way of creating stories, and 3) interesting new pioneering tech related to conservation/the environment.

I don't know of any studies that have seen this sort of shift, though omnivory in Carnivora is quite common. Typically, omnivorous animals will alter their diets depending on availability of different types of items, as you've said (i.e., coyotes in wine country eating a lot of grapes), but I don't think veg loss has been dramatic enough for that to show a strong, lasting/scalable signature of any kind yet. Remains to be seen what will happen as animal ranges continue to shift.

Might be because the coyotes just have plenty to eat and places to roam elsewhere, so no need to take the risk of coming near! I would be keen to do an empirical study on the effects of human urine, though.

I'm running out of time but I answered this in a different user's question! Feel free to reach out to me via social media if you have any follow-ups.

I recommend getting your chickens a fully enclosed chicken run (with a roof, etc.). Your horses should be all set. Your barn cats and doggos (depending on size) might be at risk, but as long as you are continuing to haze, the coyotes probably will not want to take that risk to come near your property. If things get dire, make sure you have a nice tall fence with coyote rollers on the top.

Hard to say-- here in the USA, for instance, a lot of our conservation & conservation research funding comes from the hunting permits and hunter groups. Depending on the context, hunters can be a really good contingent for sustainable wildlife management- because it's in their best interest to keep wildlife around. (I'm saying all of this as a vegetarian/pescatarian, by the way). It also depends on who is making the decision - are there people who rely on hunting for sustenance or to help their families get by? How are they being involved? A great example of what *not* to do is in all of the dialogue right now about trophy hunting in Africa- a very polarized issue, but most of the anti-trophy hunting folks are actually not Africans at all and are from the Global North. They should not have any decision making power over what goes on elsewhere.

In short, to answer your Q such a decision would need to be very deeply community-involved and science-informed.

I'm willing to bet that social media has a lot to do with what we're seeing, and that most of these behaviors are not new. That being said, human changes to the environment (even subtle changes) can create new situations that animals have to adapt to or may behave differently around.

On a more philosophical note, scientists/people in general often try to put things into neat boxes, and nature doesn't operate like that! Folks might think behaviors are new just because scientists of the past have not written about them due to the behaviors not fitting into our neat boxes. A great example: all of the homosexual and gender-bending behaviors in the animal kingdom that have been poorly studied or largely just ignored or written off as flukes.

I haven't heard of nor can I endorse incorporating oneself into a hyena clan, but I do think that there's evidence social animals (particularly social mammals) are more amenable to forming some type of connection with humans. We, also as social mammals, have brains that work similarly to other social mammals- could be a factor.

As far as body language- some researchers study this for entire careers depending on the study species. I mean, take a look at what Dr. Tom Seeley did with decoding honeybee body language and social behavior- absolutely amazing!

Ooooh I have no idea. But I imagine you would have to define what you mean by "strength" first. Are we talking bite force? Pulling/dragging ability? Straight up muscle mass?

The most intimidatingly muscular animal that I frequently come into contact with is the cape buffalo. Seen death closing in a few too many times with those guys nearby.

Great question, and as with anything related to wildlife and conservation- nuanced answer..! Mainly, the answer is "it depends". It depends on the species' adaptive capacity and behavioral flexibility, their diet needs, and their space/habitat needs, as well as human-determined factors such as green space availability and habitat, attitudes and actions toward certain species, etc. Behaviorally flexible species such as coyotes, raccoons, and spotted hyenas (to name a few) can survive in urban and peri-urban areas because of their flexibility not just of behavior but of diet. A great article just came out in The Atlantic talk about diet flexibility in relation to anthropogenic food sources: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/02/wild-animals-eating-human-food-health-issues/673138/.

That being said, as you can imagine cities are not amenable to every species. And just because some animals are able to make it work in an urbanized area doesn't necessarily mean that they're thriving. For instance many scientists are asking questions about the stress hormones and disease susceptibility of urban wildlife (within cities and across different cities), to try and understand exactly what they're experiencing and how they're coping.

Yes indeed! I have served as a reviewer for the Nat Geo Level 1s twice now.

1. Make sure that the project focus that you are applying for is accurate. For instance, don't put your project under "conservation" unless you are planning to measure and evaluate specific conservation metrics as part of your project. In other words, a lot of projects span both research and conservation, but if we aren't measuring impact, then those are under the "research" focus.

2. Make sure that you do your due diligence about the need and broader impacts of the project. NatGeo likes to fund projects that will make a meaningful impact of some kind.

3. Make sure you are meaningfully involving local scientists/communities in the work that you are doing. It's easy to tell when someone isn't doing this at all, or is being surface-level about it.

These are great Qs! And quite frankly, I am still in the doorway (really just a toe over the threshold maybe) of the entrance to wide-scale scientific communication. We'll see what happens. But I've basically been just putting myself out there as much as possible, and talking about the science that I'm passionate about in as many formats as possible (social media, speaking gigs, productions). Over time, people start to recognize that you're good at what you do (well, I try to be, anyway - at least I'm enthusiastic??), and they start knocking on your door more. I don't really know what other concrete advice to give except to not be afraid to cold-email people and put yourself out there as much as possible toward the goal that you have. The worst people can say is "no".

I do agree that we have a problem with scientists and science communicators being paid very poorly or not paid at all. We need to draw our boundaries. I try really hard not to accept any unpaid speaking gigs unless 1) I know the person, 2) the speaking gig will be serving underrepresented groups and/or for another good cause. I'll do those for free no problem. Hopefully we can move the needle by drawing these types of boundaries.

depends how sick the shark is ;)

This is a fantastic and very complicated/nuanced question. You've touched on the fact that conservation, in the end, is a value judgement - based in what people want to prioritize. As far as coyotes, I think we still have a ways to go as far as assessing whether they are negatively impacting listed species in their new eastern ranges (as compared to the impacts of other non-native species like outdoor domestic cats). The other challenge with an animal like the coyote is that the slim evidence we have shows that lethal control (if a wildlife manager was into trying that) wouldn't work, and their populations would quickly rebound. Thus, I imagine this will have to be a very context-specific answer, where we create solutions on an individual-species basis for our endangered and threatened species, while simultaneously increasing our empirical understanding of whether and how expanding mesocarnivore populations are impacting species of interest. Not a satisfying or clear cut answer, I'm afraid, but nothing in conservation ever is!

Oooh I love this question, what a tough one. I think one of my favorite tools to use is incorporating an analogy or some sort of "social math" into science communication. For social math, for example, when we talk about fence ecology we could say something like "the length of fences wrapped around the earth could likely reach the sun". That loops people into the scientific material through a topic/distance/measurement that they can understand and relate to.

I think that Seeker (https://www.seeker.com/) also does a great job at communicating all of that great micro-science stuff - though they use a lot of fancy animations and camera work which might not be logistically feasible.

The advice, in short, is to connect your science back to the average person. Why might it matter to them? What aspect of a person's daily life does the science connect to? It's a good series of questions to ask yourself when seeking funding too - I think my explorations with SciComm have improved my grant writing ability to a great extent.

I'm not sure if I have a favorite (and taiko is SO much better in person than over video, IMHO!), but here's a fun performance from the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival last year (start at ~20:30 if you want to skip the kiddos and beginner groups): https://youtu.be/XMCvAoysADU?t=1236

Make sure the chickens are in a robust, fully enclosed enclosure (i.e., a big chicken run with a roof). For protecting dogs and other animals that are in the yard, if you can't keep an eye on them the whole time, try to install a tall fence with coyote rollers (i.e., https://coyoteroller.com/) on the top.

I would be super curious to see that study! Some friends and colleagues have done diet studies on coyotes, and found the number to be quite a bit less than that. Even in NYC, our densest city in the USA, the coyote population mainly eats wild prey (i.e., rodents and other small mammals, bugs, plants, etc.) just like their rural & suburban counterparts.

Regardless, keeping cats indoors and dogs on leash will pretty much prevent anything from happening to them. Outdoor cats are a major killer of wild birds, so yet another reason to keep our kitties indoors.

I am a taiko drummer, guitarist (not the best but I get the job done!), singer, and cellist. I'm flexible as far as genres, but I really like singing jazz and bluegrass!

As far as how I get it done, I don't really sleep, honestly, I have some insomnia- which gives me more hours in the day but I don't recommend it, haha. I'm getting a bit better at the work-life balance, but I feel personally connected to and passionate about a lot of my work, so it is a bit difficult. I've always been a very energetic person?

Don't be afraid to reach out to people (even cold-emailing them) who have positions/careers/etc. that you want to get into- you never know what gems of advice they might impart to you, or opportunities you might come across.

They're completely human-designed! So yes :). I have not done any research at zoos, though- but there's a whole field of people who do important work on captive animals, their behaviors, and their welfare.

(Side note that people have very polarized views on zoos, but I personally think that zoos which are accredited by the American Zoological Association [AZA] have done a LOT for conservation efforts).

Honestly, I almost ended up at NYU studying screenwriting and symphony orchestra (I'm a cellist). I also wanted to work with wildlife since I was quite young, but was a bit torn. What pushed me over into wildlife completely was that I was offered a biology field research opportunity for underrepresented students, that would begin prior to my freshman year in college (at Cornell).

As far as how I decided what to specialize in- I was drawn to wildlife work since I was very very very young- I grew up in Queens, NY and as a child I chased cicadas, pigeons, cockroaches, and squirrels around, imagining I had my own nature show. When I got to undergrad (major: Natural Resources with focus in Applied Ecology), I followed every wildlife-related opportunity that I could, and ended up doing my senior thesis on herring gulls on an island off the coast of Maine. On the side, I kept up my interest in music/arts/creative stuff through taiko drumming, guitar/singing performance, etc., and did fencing- so in other words I tried to keep my options open and follow my interests in as many directions as possible.

For my carnivore research, again it was all about networking and following opportunities related to my interests. I kept in touch with professors that were working on projects that I was interested in, and worked for them after college, etc. In general, though, the common thread is that I've always worked on misunderstood animals, I've always wanted to work with wildlife, and I've always been interested in science communication and other creative endeavors --- it's just that the path has never been predictable.

I haven't gone! I've known friends who have and absolutely loved it.