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Giant River Otters and Other Adventures with Kat Foree
Giant river otters are social, intelligent, and deeply connected to the health of their ecosystems—but what happens when their food supply starts to dwindle? In this episode of The Wild Life, we’re joined by Katherine Foree, a researcher studying how these apex predators use their habitat in the Madre de Dios region of Peru. With a Fulbright grant supporting both her research and cultural exchange, Katherine is three months into her work at Cocha Cashu Biological Station and preparing for a second study on the impact of fish depletion on otter food-sharing behaviors. We also dive into her past experiences with orangutans, lemurs, and conservation challenges around the world. Join us as we explore the fascinating lives of giant river otters and what they can teach us about the delicate balance of the Amazon’s waterways, talk books, the often overlooked humanity of scientists, animal psychology, and so much more!
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Follow Kat on Instagram @a.kat.named.rin
Transcript
Welcome to the Wildlife.
Speaker A:I'm your guide, Devin Boker.
Speaker A:And today we're venturing deep into the Amazon to explore the world of one of its most charismatic yet little known apex predators, the giant river otter.
Speaker A:These sleek social carnivores are essential to the health of their ecosystems.
Speaker A:But their survival depends on a delicate balance, one that is increasingly under threat.
Speaker A:My guest today, Kathryn Forey, was at the time of our interview this past July, three months into a nine month Fulbright grant studying how these otters use their space in the Madre de Dios region of Peru.
Speaker A:She was preparing to soon begin a new project looking at how declining fish populations affect their food sharing behavior.
Speaker A:Catherine's journey has taken her from studying orangutans to lemurs protected areas of Kenya.
Speaker A:And today she's here to share her insights into what these incredible otters reveal about the Amazon's future.
Speaker A:Let's dive in.
Speaker B:Hi, my name's Catherine or Cat Forey.
Speaker B:I use she her pronouns.
Speaker B:I'm currently in Manu national park in the Madre de Dios region of Peru and I'm working on my Fulbright grant.
Speaker C:I, I have to say when I saw your information kind of coming through, I was like, okay, immediately have to have a conversation.
Speaker C:I was like, giant river otters, Peru.
Speaker C:Like these are like so many boxes checked.
Speaker C:I was like, we've gotta, okay, we've gotta make this happen, we've gotta talk.
Speaker C:So I'm really excited right now to learn more about what you're doing and kind of what led you there.
Speaker C:And I guess that's actually probably a good spot to start is journey like what, what got you to where you are at this moment?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I guess it started when I got back from my semester in Kenya.
Speaker B:I really needed, I knew I needed a letter of recommendation from this professor that I hadn't taken a class with yet.
Speaker B:But I was going to be in his little like one month field primatology class.
Speaker B:So I sent him an email that was like, hello, you don't know me at all, but I really am going to need a letter of recommendation from you in a month.
Speaker B:What will it take?
Speaker B:And he's like, well, you know, let's just get to know each other this month.
Speaker B:Turns out he was also from Texas, close to my hometown.
Speaker B:And so I spent the next year and a half pretty much continuously taking his classes and getting to know him.
Speaker B:And he's a primatologist, but he helped me figure out that I was really interested in social animal behavior.
Speaker B:He set me up studying some lemurs in Myakka, Florida, as well as looking at orangutan social webs.
Speaker B:And so when it got nearer to trying to figure out what was I going to do after graduation, he suggested that I look into a Fulbright grant.
Speaker B:And I'd never heard of it.
Speaker B:I just honestly wanted to do something outside the country, something interesting with research.
Speaker B:And from there I got in touch with my queen.
Speaker B:Her name is also Kat.
Speaker B:So we like to send our emails back and forth, but just Kat.
Speaker B:Anyways, Kathleen Robinson, she started me on the essentially like two year process for applying to this grant.
Speaker B:And it started out I needed to find where I was gonna go and kind of what institution.
Speaker B:And honestly, I think the reason that I got this grant is because instead of like deciding on a place and my needs and trying to just like slam them together, I said, okay, I need to go somewhere with intermediate Spanish.
Speaker B:I'd love to go somewhere in the rainforest.
Speaker B:And like, that was really my initial desire.
Speaker B:So I found Cocha Kashu Research Station and I sent Cesar, the head of science, an email.
Speaker B:I was like, hey, I'm not sure what I want to do, but can I talk to you about doing a Fulbright grant at your station?
Speaker B:And so I got to talking with him and kind of asked like, what social animal projects are going on?
Speaker B:And he gave me the option.
Speaker B:He's like, well, you could study the primates, you could study the macaws or the parrot, or you could study the river otters.
Speaker B:And I figured that I'd rather spend my time looking down rather than looking up.
Speaker B:So I picked the river otters.
Speaker B:And then from there he put me in touch with Dr.
Speaker B:Ade Barrocas, who is the head of the giant river otter conservation project done through San Diego, who also or San Diego Zoo Global, which also manages Cochacashu.
Speaker B:And I asked him, I was like, I'm really interested in like animal culture, social hierarchy, behavior.
Speaker B:And he was like, well, they do this pretty unique thing where the river otters are in extended family groups and there's a breeding pair and then there's just a bunch of relatives.
Speaker B:And by a bunch, I mean like up to 11.
Speaker B:And so the relatives will help provision the babies of this main mating pair.
Speaker B:So they do this really unique food sharing system that goes all the way through adolescence, which is pretty, pretty uncommon to be feeding not your own babies.
Speaker B:So yeah, he helped me find this project of looking at what the difference in food sharing behavior is between these areas that have been heavily gold mined and polluted by mercury.
Speaker B:Therefore, like dropping the amount of fish in the water in comparison with these more protected lakes here in Manu national park and the more outlying like Amarikairi, Amariquerie reserves.
Speaker B:So they're not like quite as protected, but they still, they're monitored more for gold mining, so.
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's.
Speaker B:That's flowcharted my way in.
Speaker C:But.
Speaker C:So you, you mentioned you're originally from Texas, is that right?
Speaker B:Austin, Texas.
Speaker C:Austin, Texas.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:I'm originally from Houston, so I know Texas is a big place for sure.
Speaker C:But when people are like, Texas, I'm like, is there a chance Houston area?
Speaker C:Austin is extraordinary.
Speaker C:It's a really interesting place.
Speaker C:I love the bats.
Speaker C:That's probably my favorite is going up and just watching the bats.
Speaker C:Really cool experience.
Speaker B:Yeah, so lovely.
Speaker B:I led a couple canoe trips out underneath the Bat Bridge for people who'd like never been canoeing.
Speaker B:And I was like, okay, get in a canoe and we're gonna go sit underneath some bats.
Speaker B:It was really.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So for those listening who aren't entirely familiar with what exactly a Fulbright grant is and how it operates and kind of what all that involves.
Speaker C:Could you explain that?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So a Fulbright grant, I think it was originally started by the US government with a big endowment from Mr.
Speaker B:And Mrs.
Speaker B:Fulbright, I believe.
Speaker B:And the idea is kind of to create intercultural understanding, exchange and just like competency, I guess.
Speaker B:And so it's both like a soft diplomacy thing that the US does as well as just like this pretty expansive opportunity for people to go to different countries.
Speaker B:And it's more well known in other countries as sending people to the United States.
Speaker B:So whenever I like, I've been down in Peru, I tell people I'm doing this Fulbright grant and they're like, but why are you in Peru?
Speaker B:I'm like, no, no, no, no, this is the other way around.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So there's, and then there's two kind of major sections.
Speaker B:There's the English teaching and study or.
Speaker B:Yeah, just English teaching awards.
Speaker B:So assign people and they'll put them in, they'll do their nine month term there.
Speaker B:And then there's research study awards and I've got a research study award.
Speaker B:And you have, you affiliate with an institution.
Speaker B:Usually it's a university, but I'm with San Diego, Peru.
Speaker B:And then you have the option you can either kind of like get your master's degree or take some master's classes or you can conduct some research.
Speaker B:So every month they pay me a stipend of the median income of a person in Peru, I think, or like minimum Cost of living.
Speaker B:And I send in my monthly reports, and I adhere to the 10 pages of guidelines, which, thankfully, isn't too hard when you're out in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker B:And, yeah, I really.
Speaker B:I like it because I know when you're doing institutional research, there's a lot of pressure to do this, like, publish or perish, you know, really die hard with what you're doing.
Speaker B:And it's felt really good to, like, to me, to assuage my anxieties.
Speaker B:It's like Fulbright has chosen me as a person to do this project that I've picked to see if I like it and if it's meaningful to me.
Speaker B:And so instead of having this pressure to, like, publish and continue in this academic career, like, I do want to publish, and I do think I want to continue in academia, but, you know, it doesn't feel like the weight of all of my future job or tenure is resting on this.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, yeah, That's.
Speaker C:That's gotta be quite nice.
Speaker C:There's, like a layer of freedom, you know, with it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And such a remarkable place.
Speaker C:I mean, what.
Speaker C:How long have you been there so far?
Speaker C:Did you say.
Speaker B:Three months, and in country, three months, 20 days, but here at the station, like, three months, five days, sure.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:And what.
Speaker C:What would you say so far have been some of your more memorable experiences or even moments where, you know, you felt like, wow, this is a.
Speaker C:This is a very different place.
Speaker C:This is not what I'm used to.
Speaker B:Well, I mean, the first.
Speaker B:The first night I was there, like, I speak Spanish, okay.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It's not.
Speaker B:It's not amazing.
Speaker B:It's not terrible.
Speaker B:But this meant that there was this professor and his student, and she was a prospective thesis student looking to do her research on Caymans.
Speaker B:And I kind of heard them talking.
Speaker B:And what I interpreted was, we're gonna go walk around the lake and look for cayman nests at night.
Speaker B:And I was like, oh, hell yeah.
Speaker B:Like, I'd love to go look for some Cayman nests.
Speaker B:Like, that sounds really cool.
Speaker B:So my first sign that that wasn't exactly what was happening was instead of going over to the trailhead, we went down to the boat dock.
Speaker B:And I was like, oh, okay.
Speaker B:I guess we're gonna look at them, you know, from the boat.
Speaker B:So we get in the boat and we start paddling, and neither.
Speaker B:Neither of them can steer.
Speaker B:I'm, like, pretty experienced in a canoe, but I was in the middle, so I was trying to steer the canoe from the middle, and they're like, okay, we're doing this Eye shine trick for caimans.
Speaker B:Their eyes reflect red if you hold the lamp up to your eyes, kind of like spiders.
Speaker B:So we spot ourselves a caiman, and they're like, okay, we'll paddle towards them.
Speaker B:And I was like, okay.
Speaker B:So we paddle towards them, and they're like, closer, closer, closer.
Speaker B:And I was like, okay.
Speaker B:And then the professor leans halfway out of the canoe and grabs this caiman.
Speaker B:And I was like, what?
Speaker B:So, I mean, you know, granted, it's a caiman only like, this big, like maybe 2.2ft long, but, yeah, they're not.
Speaker C:Still.
Speaker B:I had no idea.
Speaker B:Yeah, I.
Speaker B:I was not expecting it to be a.
Speaker B:A cayman grabbing night, you know, I really was not prepared.
Speaker C:No.
Speaker C:Was it.
Speaker C:Was it just the.
Speaker C:Just to see the caiman or was it.
Speaker B:No, no, they.
Speaker B:Yeah, they were looking.
Speaker B:They're looking at the length they're looking at.
Speaker B:It's like snout to top of the head length as well as looking for fingers and toes missing.
Speaker B:So they can do later identifications, because turns out the piranhas in this lake will bite off fingers and toes.
Speaker C:Really?
Speaker B:Feel like, yeah, I've come full circle because at first it was like, oh, no, piranhas will eat you if you go in the water.
Speaker B:And then it was like, no, no, piranhas are only scavengers.
Speaker B:They eat dead things.
Speaker B:And I get here, and they're like, don't stop moving in the water, or the piranha will take a chunk out of you.
Speaker C:Well, yeah, I.
Speaker C:Yeah, grabbing a caiman out of the water is a.
Speaker C:That would definitely be kind of a shock for sure.
Speaker B:Something else I learned in Kenya was that, like, yeah, carnivores are dangerous, but also, like, don't fuck with herbivores.
Speaker B:Like, just.
Speaker B:Yeah, if.
Speaker B:If you're gonna get murdered, it's gonna be by an herbivore because they're like, oh, you're gonna kill my family.
Speaker B:I'm.
Speaker B:I am but one of many.
Speaker B:I will sacrifice myself.
Speaker B:Whereas the carnivores are, you know, a little bit more willing to let you run away.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:Oh, my gosh.
Speaker C:I.
Speaker C:I try because I'm in Minnesota, and I try.
Speaker C:You know, people, like, when I go up north and stuff, people are like, aren't you ever afraid of, like, bears or wolves?
Speaker C:And I'm like, you know, I've come across so many bears, and they just walk away or they run away.
Speaker C:I've seen wolves.
Speaker C:They run away.
Speaker C:What I'm afraid of is a moose.
Speaker C:Like, that's the one thing I don't want to Be cornered by is a moose.
Speaker C:I corner by a wolf, corner by a bear.
Speaker C:I'll even take a mountain lion before I'll take a moose.
Speaker C:Like nine foot tall thing flinging through the air.
Speaker C:Yep, that's the one I have trust issues with.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:For real.
Speaker B:I, I spent a couple of my summers canoeing around.
Speaker B:You might know Camp Widiji Wagon, It's a YMCA canoe camp.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Well, they had essentially the same training.
Speaker B:They're like, okay, black bear, bang some pots and pans together.
Speaker B:Brown bear, we're just not even gonna worry about that and hope it doesn't happen.
Speaker B:But the moose, you stay away from those mooses.
Speaker B:Like just steer clear.
Speaker B:If you see them, don't make eye contact, paddle the other direction back up slowly.
Speaker B:Like most of the education was the anti moose education.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:Not to get, not to get too off topic, but I remember also when I learned that they can swim like something like 20ft below the surface to graze on aquatic plants and things.
Speaker C:And I'm like, so you're telling me like hypothetically I could be scuba diving in a lake and then turn to my side and there's a mo, like no, no, I love moves, they're typical.
Speaker C:But jaws, yeah, for sure.
Speaker C:So, yeah, I guess kind of on a similar note, I mean we have otters here.
Speaker C:They're quite small.
Speaker C:I do remember learning back and I think it was a wildlife populations class, just about how much range and stuff that they can cover and how they kind of use their space, like even in a given period, like a given day.
Speaker C:I was like kind of flabbergasted because it just seemed so much more than what I expected.
Speaker C:How, how, when it comes to like the giant river otters, how much space do they use and how do they compare, you know, size wise and things with, with like river otters in North America that people might be more familiar with.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So it really depends on what season it is.
Speaker B:So here in the Amazon, they've got the wet season and the dry season and during the dry season they're like day to day, they're restricted to their lake.
Speaker B:Now Cochac, the lake that I'm on right now that I'm looking out the window at here, is about two and a half kilometers long and it's got some swamps and it's got a, like a little quebrada, little stream that goes to some more water and then it also has a currently dry canyon that connects to the river.
Speaker B:So daily they're kind of doing laps around this lake.
Speaker B:They're going into the swampier areas, spending a lot of time in some low overhanging trees, which is really unfortunate for me because I can't see them there.
Speaker B:But they also occasionally take these sojourns.
Speaker B:We're thinking they go into the creek during the dry season because it leaves, like, pools where fish are a lot easier to catch, but they're really hard, really hard to find there.
Speaker B:We found tracks a couple times, but have never actually seen the otters outside of the lake, which we've been trying, but it's not.
Speaker B:Not super easy.
Speaker B:But in terms of size, I believe they get up to about five and a half feet.
Speaker B:They have a really long, very powerful tail.
Speaker B:In fact, when I was first looking for the den with the scientific manager, Cesar, he was like, okay, we gotta be really careful when we approach this den because we're pretty sure they're not here.
Speaker B:But if they get you look out for the claws and the tail.
Speaker B:Apparently, like, that's what'll get you, you know, it's propelling them through the water.
Speaker B:Just slapped.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Not sure how big river otters are, but let's see.
Speaker B:Anything, anything else on that point?
Speaker B:I mean, they're.
Speaker B:The size of the lake does seem to kind of dictate, like, the size of family it can support.
Speaker B:So right now our otter population is kind of dying out.
Speaker B:We're down to three.
Speaker B:They've had, like, a litter of pups the last four years, but none of them have survived more than six months to, like, get out of the den.
Speaker B:But there was recently this really big flood that came through, and that's kind of.
Speaker B:My secondary project right now is looking at the spatial use of these otters in the lake.
Speaker B:Taking regular water quality data and just trying to, like, determine, you know, if there's.
Speaker B:If they're catching more fish, you know, if there's a chance that this environment's going to become more hospitable for them or, you know, if their numbers are just going to continue to dwindle and we'll lose this population here?
Speaker C:Sure is.
Speaker C:So is the, the.
Speaker C:The reduction in the population and the.
Speaker C:And the low survivability, is that.
Speaker C:Is that related to the water quality that you were mentioning before?
Speaker B:I'm not.
Speaker B:I'm not really sure, honestly, from the introduction I've been trying to write, I think, like, fish populations are pretty affected by this water quality, and otters are very affected by fish populations.
Speaker B:They eat primarily fish.
Speaker B:They eat, like, I think it's four to six kilos a day of Fish per otter, which is really like twelve twelveish pounds, eight to twelve pounds of fish.
Speaker B:So, you know, I've seen them feeding on mussels.
Speaker B:I've seen them eat some baby caimans before, but they are really reliant on.
Speaker B:I can't remember what exactly the name of these two fish families are, but they're these fish that really are reliant on these kind of messes of branch in the water and they'll kind of hide up in there.
Speaker B:And there's, there's one paper that talks about seasonal flooding on isolated lakes, but it is in Singapore, but it's the closest tropical thing I could find.
Speaker B:And that said that it mainly affects longer lived larger fish, which are kind of like the star prey items for the otters.
Speaker B:But yeah, not, not entirely sure, which is I guess why we're doing this research to find out if this water quality has, you know, if it's changed significantly because we have some before data and if so, like, has the frequency of fish being caught been changed?
Speaker B:Are they spending more time in areas where like the chlorophyll is higher or the dissolved oxygen is higher?
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:No, that totally makes sense.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:What, what have you, like, so far in these last three months and things, you know, what, what have you learned about, about the, the otters?
Speaker B:Well, let's see.
Speaker B:They.
Speaker B:Firstly, it's been really gratifying to have them start to become habituated to me.
Speaker B:So I'm in this like dugout canoe paddling around, following them in the lake.
Speaker B:And they kind of start off by doing this periscoping behavior where they lift their neck and shoulders up out of the water, which, you know, you'd think, oh, a neck that's not very far, but their neck is like a third of their body.
Speaker B:So they like lift themselves out of the water and they make these like, snorting guttural noise at you, which means, you know, move, you're in my space.
Speaker B:So it's been really wonderful to go from them like periscoping, which is what that behavior is called, and snorting at me to now, so long as I'm not wearing my bright pink rain jacket.
Speaker B:They hate.
Speaker B:They hate the pink rain jacket.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:The, the only female in the group, Polly, she'll come right up to my canoe, you know, just like half a meter away and like stick her head out of the water and look at me, look at my canoe and then go about her business.
Speaker B:Kind of like it feels like she's greeting me.
Speaker B:I don't know if that's exactly what it is.
Speaker B:You know, if I'm putting my, my Morgan cannon animal hat on.
Speaker C:But sure.
Speaker B:But yeah, that's been great.
Speaker B:And then, I mean, I've learned that they do use a lot of shallow water for catching their prey, which does.
Speaker B:There's conflicting literature on it.
Speaker B:Some groups say that otters won't spend time in places that are shallower than like half a meter.
Speaker B:But that also might be referring to like if the whole body of water is shallower than half a meter.
Speaker B:But yeah, they'll, they'll do a lot of fishing in the shallows of the lake.
Speaker B:And then I think it ends up like they catch a whole bunch of small fish at the beginning of the day.
Speaker B:Just seems like whatever they can get.
Speaker B:And then they move on to these like much higher energy fishing tactics where they go out into the middle of the lake, which is like maybe 3 meters, and they do this really dramatic, like almost dolphin like thing where they go under and then they launch their whole body out of the water in this like beautiful arc and then dive back in.
Speaker B:I think it's like gaining momentum and taking a breath at the same time.
Speaker B:So they're just like hopping and, you know, chasing this fish along with their two other family members into the shallows.
Speaker B:They'll grab this fish that's like half their body length and then the begging starts.
Speaker B:Right, so you'll have one otter that's just like, you know, mouth full of fish, making chewbacca noises essentially, which indicates I have a fish, you don't.
Speaker B:And then you have the other two just making these weird like cross between a whale, like a, I mean literally a whale.
Speaker B:Large, largest land, largest water animal, largest animal on earth noises and some type of squeaky bird just like, just like begging for this fish.
Speaker B:They'll like, you know, do the kind of playful dog asking to play stance, you know, with their back legs up and their front legs down the look.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:And then they'll like scuttle around to the back and they'll make even more insistent noises.
Speaker B:And then I don't know exactly what will motivate them to finally take the steel, but sometimes they'll like dip back underwater and then they'll launch themselves into the air, grab the fish away from the one that caught it and then just like run off and you, you can hear them screaming like all the way across the lake.
Speaker B:Just these angry, angry, weird noises that they sound like they belong underwater, honestly.
Speaker C:And so, I mean, we already talked kind of about, you know, the, the fish populations and how they might be affecting them and stuff.
Speaker C:And I forgot to even bring up, I mean, you did say so at the end of this month.
Speaker C:That's kind of your, your next project, right, is looking at how, how the depleted fish, exactly how that might be interacting with or impacting the, the otters.
Speaker B:I finish out this month and then I am going to come back and do kind of one last month of data collection here.
Speaker B:But this group, the Giant River Otter Conservation Project, does a yearly census.
Speaker B:And so they're essentially taking like little snippets of behavior and spatial usage, kind of like what I'm doing here, but on a more.
Speaker B:I don't know exactly the scientific words for this, but they're taking a lot of different groups, whereas I'm taking like the longer time sample.
Speaker B:And they're also, they're taking water quality.
Speaker B:They're doing kind of a fish census, a Cayman census.
Speaker B:I think they even are looking at kind of fishing birds in the lakes that we go to because that's also a good indicator of how much energy is passing through these trophic systems.
Speaker B:Because I believe caimans take up like, I think it was 300 kilojoules maybe of energy.
Speaker B: would take up, I think about: Speaker B:And then the giant otters take like 2,300 per otter per day.
Speaker B:So like, they really have this massive, massive intake of energy.
Speaker B:And it's reflected in like, the local fishermen don't really like giant otters because they're like, oh, they fish the whole lake.
Speaker B:But yeah, I'm really excited to go see a whole bunch of different families of otters.
Speaker B:And yeah, like, I mean, maybe I'm not supposed to wonder this as strictly an animal scientist, but I've also got my degree in psychology.
Speaker B:So the question is like, is it similar to humans in that a lack of food typically creates more sharing?
Speaker B:Or, you know, is it the reverse?
Speaker B:Is it that they're going to be sharing less because there's less to eat?
Speaker B:And like, what implications does that have for us as our world becomes more polluted and these resources become, you know.
Speaker B:Yeah, reduced.
Speaker B:But yes, will be interesting to see particularly because, yeah, it's these.
Speaker B:No other groups of otters do this extended family care thing.
Speaker B:It's pretty unique to these, to these giant ones here.
Speaker B:So I'm not entirely sure like, what, what effect it would have on other populations of otters.
Speaker B:I do know the, the only other otter food sharing study that's been done is in Asian small clawed otters and it found that, let's see, it was like the adults shared a lot with the juveniles, but that wasn't affected by abundance of food, which is not.
Speaker B:I mean I would think that food abundance would have something to do with it.
Speaker B:But granted, I think this is also like these otters are regularly getting provisioned.
Speaker B:So it's not like a long term lack of food that is being reflected, it's just like in that daily food, food drop that they have left to shoot them.
Speaker C:Yeah, I mean that is really interesting though.
Speaker C:I mean like, see now you got me going thinking about the different, broader implications and things.
Speaker C:But I do always love looking at different examples of social behavior in, in animals and like some of those elements.
Speaker C:Like what is, what is the more significant drive?
Speaker C:Is there, is there a really strong drive of like self preservation even in these social groups?
Speaker C:Or is the, is the drive to maintain and protect the whole stronger?
Speaker C:And how do you see that manifest in different ways?
Speaker C:It's, it's really interesting.
Speaker B:There's two major theories on why sharing happens.
Speaker B:And one of them is essentially like conflict avoidance.
Speaker B:When someone is begging at you, aggressively trying to avoid giving it to them is a pretty decent energy expenditure.
Speaker B:And then there's also the theory, I can't remember I was reading about it this morning, but it's like inclusive fitness, I think it is.
Speaker B:So it's like if they're even approximately in your gene pool, it's better to, to give them this food and also to assume that you will then get some food in return or some other benefits.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen, I think that's like one of the prevailing ones that I see a lot with birds in particular that people talk about where you, you know, the, the, the other males will like help the male or, or you know, people, the males that were not the direct mate of the female will still take care of the, the chicks, you know, or the eggs and things like that, that inclusive fitness piece.
Speaker C:Yeah, either way it's like a super fascinating topic and I'd have to assume that there's across, even, even within, you know, like organisms, across different species and stuff.
Speaker C:There's probably all kinds of different drivers at play.
Speaker C:But, and I'm the, the psychology piece I was curious about because you, yeah.
Speaker C:You have animal studies and psychology.
Speaker C:Does that, do you, do you feel like in your work you, you feel a lot of interplay between those or that maybe the psychology piece influences Your interest in the animal behavior aspect or anything like that?
Speaker B:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:And it's kind of, honestly, it's a little bit of a sticky subject because, so I got my degree psychology and animal studies, and animal studies in particular is more of an anthrozoology degree looking at the intersection between human and non human animals rather than strictly zoology.
Speaker B:So I spent a lot of time in my classes talking about, you know, when is it appropriate to anthropomorphize?
Speaker B:When is it appropriate to, you know, access your catalog of human traits and project them onto animals?
Speaker B:And the answer is, you know, it's different in every case.
Speaker B:I think that it's, it seems foolish to never look at human behavior in reference to animals, like, particularly with social creatures.
Speaker B:But at the same time, if you overgeneralize, like there's the classic example of the chimpanzee baring their teeth is like the sign of aggression.
Speaker B:Whereas we look at it and we're like, oh, they're smiling.
Speaker B:So I don't know, it definitely can be conflicting for me, but also really complementary.
Speaker B:I took a animal behavior class at the same time as a social science class.
Speaker B:And that was so, so fun because I'd make, I mean, I made some of the other students in my social science class uncomfortable because I'd start talking about social situations.
Speaker B:Like you'd be describing animal behavior like on the college campus, like, ah, yes, all of the males cluster around in this one place and they take off their shirts to display for the females that they know they're going to be there, you know, and everyone in the class is like, yeah.
Speaker B:But I think, honestly, while psychology does come into my work in terms of just like the way I look at animal behavior, it comes in a little bit more with the biggest important thing I learned while I was in Kenya, and that is if you want to conserve animals, you have to help the people first.
Speaker B:And it's, it was honestly really embarrassing that it took me until my junior year of college to really like put together this idea of, you know, if people are starving, they're going to do whatever they can to feed their babies.
Speaker B:It's not necessarily, you know, malicious people that are poaching these white rhinos.
Speaker B:It's people that need to feed their family and, you know, it's the drought or it's the colonialism or it's, you know, whatever factor it is that are driving these people to do these things.
Speaker B:And granted, the people that are in employing the people to go hunt the white rhinos maybe are not trying to feed their babies in that moment.
Speaker B:But like, I don't know, it was just super life changing for me to see how much of an impact this like eco colonialism mindset that's been pushed onto so many like ecology and animal students of like, we need to do this fortress conservation.
Speaker B:We need to put up the walls and we have to keep everyone out, including the indigenous people and we need to preserve, you know, this Eden space.
Speaker B:And yeah, to have that disrupted and to go talk to these people that were doing these really destructive farming practices in Kenya and you know, they're just normal hungry people, honestly.
Speaker B:Like, they don't have the luxury of thinking, oh, in two seasons of planting bell peppers here, this land is going to be totally destroyed and nothing can grow on it.
Speaker B:It's like, no, no, I'm starving.
Speaker B:Nothing.
Speaker B:Like my body can't grow, you know?
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, 100%.
Speaker C:I, that, that took me, that took me a bit too.
Speaker C:It wasn't until really after, after my, my first, my first round of school and then I was working in wolf conservation and trying to understand, I mean, you want to talk about a mixed bag of perceptions and ideas and things like that, get into wolf stuff.
Speaker C:But then, you know, talking with, you know, like landowners and stuff, and they're like, well, you know, they come after my cows and so I, I want, I want them hunted, I want them, I want them killed.
Speaker C:I don't want them in my area.
Speaker C:It's like, it's like, well, yeah, I mean, I, until that situation is taken care of, you know, it's, it's going to be hard to address anything else.
Speaker C:And so we, we did all kinds of stuff with like, different prevention methods and, and you know, conflict management and stuff.
Speaker C:It reminds me, there's this quote speaking of Minnesota, Paul, Paul Wellstone, a famous quote of his was like, when we all do better, we all do better.
Speaker C:And extending that to the animal world as well really, really does ring true.
Speaker C:Because like what, like what you said, humans, whether we like to think about it or not, I mean, we are animals as well and we're kind of beholden to those same instincts of survival and preservation and protecting our own and that kind of thing.
Speaker C:And if, if an animal, whether it's endangered or not, whether it serves an ecological role or not, is getting in the way of like my well being, my children's well being.
Speaker C:There's, there's going to be some rise of conflict and stuff.
Speaker C:I'm not going to be able to think about the importance of preservation if I'm thinking about my own preservation and I.
Speaker C:Yeah, that, that comes into play so much.
Speaker C:I mean, just the rhetoric around a lot of conservation efforts.
Speaker C:There's a lot of like, what's the word I'm looking for here?
Speaker C:Like moral imposing or like ethical imposing.
Speaker C:You know, I can't believe that they would kill this kind of animal or that they wouldn't want this animal around, or that they would, that they would turn this into a crop space or that they would grow palm here.
Speaker C:And like, these people are bad and these people are wrong for doing this and we need to prevent them from.
Speaker C:And it's like you don't live there and you don't have the exact circumstance to really conceptualize why that is the case.
Speaker C:And caring for the people definitely, definitely will lead to some of those bigger positive changes in the future.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I think it also is not helped by this kind of stereotype.
Speaker B:Maybe it is.
Speaker B:Or I mean, also like general trend that I see in zoologists and that is that they're like, oh, I don't like people.
Speaker B:That's why I'm out in the middle of nowhere studying animals.
Speaker B:And it's like, no.
Speaker B:Oh no.
Speaker B:Like, you're the exact person.
Speaker B:We need to like people.
Speaker B:Because honestly, if you're not, if you're not likable and able to be persuasive, you can't do anything with your research.
Speaker B:Like, all it does is feed these, you know, tall academic monoliths.
Speaker B:And it doesn't, it doesn't really make the change that, I mean, at least I assume most people want to.
Speaker B:It's hard to watch.
Speaker C:Oh, for sure.
Speaker C:I mean, that's one of the things I've, I've loved about.
Speaker C:Okay, the Internet and social media definitely have downsides to them and things.
Speaker C:But one of the things that I have loved to see in recent years in particular has been just the way that, that science and scientists have, have been able to more directly communicate the work that they do to more people and that it has become a little bit less.
Speaker C:This kind of like, you know, ivory tower academia.
Speaker C:You know, people are off doing science, but then that's not getting communicated anywhere.
Speaker C:No, it's.
Speaker C:There's like direct conversation with the people who are actually doing the work and stuff and being able to communicate what they're doing and why it's important and things.
Speaker C:And it's just that that's amazing.
Speaker C:And it does so many things for understanding, for accessibility, for transparency about the process of science and how it's done.
Speaker C:I mean, it's Revolutionary.
Speaker C:And I'm hoping that that means that the future will see A more scientifically literate people and B, more people interested in being involved in the sciences.
Speaker B:I hope so.
Speaker B:And, and at the same time, when we were talking about this, like, you know, if there's scarcity, it's harder to do the more superfluous or the larger goal things.
Speaker B:It makes me think of this like the chronically underpaid ununionized science work.
Speaker B:Cause I'm like, I'm in this, it's like wildlife career job board group on Facebook and it's really devastating to see how many posts are and you know, particularly women saying, I can't afford to do this anymore.
Speaker B:Like I can't feed my family and also feed my passion.
Speaker B:And it's just like, oh the, I've been really having to deal with this scientific expectation of like your research is your life.
Speaker B:Because like being out here, there's really, there's not that much access to hobbies.
Speaker B:Like I, I like, I love to go social dancing.
Speaker B:That's a big thing for me.
Speaker B:And you're hard pressed to get scientists to dance.
Speaker B:And it's like if, if I was doing this project entirely in service of science, I would be working from 5am straight through to 6pm with you know, maybe half an hour to go run and get lunch.
Speaker B:And I would be doing this, you know, seven days a week with maybe a day off every two weeks.
Speaker B:But like, it's for this reason I'm thankful that I don't have an institution that I'm beholden to because like I do take two days off a week.
Speaker B:And during the hottest part of the day when the sun is laser beaming onto the lake, my redheaded self needs to go hide in a dark corner.
Speaker B:Like, I just turn into a little crisp if I don't.
Speaker B:But there's this, this attitude of like, if you're not suffering for your science, if you're not putting your heart and your soul and your energy and your money into this discipline, you're not doing it good enough.
Speaker B:Like I, it's been a lot of, I guess, self work to, to come out here and try and take care of myself because I'm surrounded by these people.
Speaker B:Like, to get to Cochrakashu, typically you gotta be like really hardcore because it's, it's a hardcore place.
Speaker B:It takes like three days to access from the nearest big city.
Speaker B:And so, you know, comparing myself to these people who are just die hard all day every day, you know, it makes me feel really Inadequate to want to take care of my body and my mental health and my social relationships.
Speaker B:It's just.
Speaker B:It's hard.
Speaker B:And it.
Speaker B:It does make me doubt, you know, like, this conservation is my passion to, like, know these animals and to advocate for them, but if it's gonna grind my bones into dust and, like, turn me into a piece of shoe leather, like, I just don't think it's necessarily sustainable.
Speaker C:Mm.
Speaker C:Oh, one.
Speaker C:I really appreciate you bringing that up and this being a talking point because, like, you are 100% correct.
Speaker C:I mean, I even remembered some of my initial positions and stuff where it'd be, like, the end of, like, my scheduled shift, and I'd be kind of, like, looking around for the cues of, like, all right, yeah, like, it's.
Speaker C:It's the end.
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker C:I'm all good.
Speaker C:And then being met with, like.
Speaker C:Like, well, is the work done?
Speaker C:Is it, like, have you done everything that you can do in a day?
Speaker C:And I'm like, if I want to be able to do this long term, maybe, you know, I do need to.
Speaker C:I do need to rest and take care of my.
Speaker C:But, like, where, like, the expectation is like, no, you go until the end of the day and until you can't anymore, and otherwise you're just.
Speaker C:You're just not doing it right.
Speaker C:And that.
Speaker C:That is something that I hope that this kind of new wave of.
Speaker C:Of transparency and, you know, seeing the face of the scientists and not just the science allows for is, you know, maybe some.
Speaker C:Some better pay and some better conditions.
Speaker C:And, I mean, gosh, how many.
Speaker C:How many people immediately after graduation have to take a position where the only compensation is housing at a.
Speaker C:At a research site?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:You know, and that's it.
Speaker C:It's just like, yeah, we've got a bunkhouse for you to stay in.
Speaker C:This is your entry level, 20 miles nearest grocery store.
Speaker B:You have to pay for it.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's like, with what.
Speaker C:How.
Speaker C:Like, it just doesn't.
Speaker C:That does not add up.
Speaker C:And I mean, the very definition of sustainability, and that's what so many of us are trying to practice, right?
Speaker C:Is.
Speaker C:Is by definition, if you can't do it forever, it's not sustainable.
Speaker C:You know, that.
Speaker C:That applies to.
Speaker C:To human behavior and physical capability as well.
Speaker B:So I.
Speaker B:I have a kind of a WhatsApp group chat with a collection of people close to me that hear about my adventures.
Speaker B:And I think I was about a month in, and I was like, you guys, I need a wife.
Speaker B:Like, I think this is how all the conservationists did.
Speaker B:They had a Wife to enter their data, do the calculations, do their laundry, cook their food.
Speaker B:You know, give them a little hug and tell them they did good at the end of every day.
Speaker B:Like, where's my wife?
Speaker B:So, you know, maybe if I had a slave.
Speaker B:No, no, sorry.
Speaker B:I mean a wife to do all of my extra work for me.
Speaker B:It'd be more sustainable and I could do these long voyages into the unknown, you know, working hard every day.
Speaker B:But like, even though I'm getting my meals cooked for me by our wonderful cook Vicky, like, it's still like, oh my goodness, doing.
Speaker B:I'm so bad at doing laundry by hand.
Speaker B:Like I didn't realize how difficult it was to scrub a long sleeve button up.
Speaker B:But it takes me like 15 minutes a shirt and that's doing them shittily.
Speaker B:Like, oh my God, two and a half hours to do my laundry for the week.
Speaker B:Oh, rough.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:I mean you did, you did mention some, some things that you like to do, you know, as, as a human being.
Speaker C:Because scientists are indeed human beings.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And still have all those same things.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:You mentioned.
Speaker C:So you do landscape watercoloring, which I think is cool.
Speaker C:Event planning.
Speaker C:You read fantasy books.
Speaker C:What, what's, what's your go to for, for books?
Speaker C:Do you have any favorite series or anything like that?
Speaker B:It's, it changes depending on kind of where I'm getting my source.
Speaker B:So I started out with Audible and that was like, okay, I have to pick one book a month.
Speaker B:So I'm gonna pick the longest, best book I possibly can and I'm gonna read it at like one time speed and really savor it.
Speaker B:And then I went to audiobooks.com and that gave me kind of a subscription model to where I could use my credit to join a book club.
Speaker B:So I joined the fantasy Sci Fi book club and all of the books in there were like C list books, but you could read a lot of them.
Speaker B:So I just chomped on a lot of like really, really mid books.
Speaker B:Just like kind of consuming them for the, for the sake of consuming them.
Speaker B:And then now I've moved on to using Libby.
Speaker B:Thank goodness.
Speaker B:How could I have not known that the library has an app where you can get your audiobooks for free.
Speaker B:And now it's more of a mix.
Speaker B:It's like I put the books that other people recommend to me on hold and I, you know, get those and then I can just instantly access better than the audiobooks dot com.
Speaker B:They're like C list.
Speaker B:Yeah, but, but those type of books.
Speaker B:But in terms of like go tos, I really, I'm trying to move away, honestly from the majority of the like, romance fantasy books.
Speaker B:Not because I have any issue with the genre of romance.
Speaker B:Like, it's great.
Speaker B:I'm, I'm out in the middle of nowhere, I have no prospects, I might as well get invested in someone else's.
Speaker B:But I've been noticing, oh, there's so many like terrible tropes of this like sassy heroine that then meets a man and then he makes all her decisions for her and she loves it.
Speaker B:And that's like so many of those type of books.
Speaker B:But I recently read, I think it's called the Adventures of Amina Al Sirafi and it was fantastic.
Speaker B:It was about a middle aged pirate woman who was, you know, going through this struggle of dedication to work or dedication to family and trying to fulfill this insatiable desire to explore and to, you know, do new things, but at the same time being worried for her family's safety and you know, the impact of her actions on those around her.
Speaker B:And it had like, it had a little tiny bit of romance.
Speaker B:Like her ex husband appears.
Speaker B:But it was so wonderfully character driven by a character archetype you really don't often see.
Speaker B:You know, not only is it a female pirate, but it's also a middle aged mom, you know.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Stunning book.
Speaker C:I'll have to look into that one.
Speaker C:Yeah, I've been reading a lot lately, more than usual.
Speaker C:I had like a dry spell of not reading a whole lot for a few years and now I'm on like my 14th book of the year, which is a lot for me.
Speaker C:I'm reading a few at once and I have, I always have like a range and some, some that are like fantasy and then science books and stuff.
Speaker C:And I, I totally know what you mean.
Speaker C:I've.
Speaker C:Because like I've read the, the acotar books, the Thorns and Roses and that trope and like even like getting to the end of them.
Speaker C:I'm like, I still don't like any of these characters.
Speaker C:I want to finish, I want to finish the story, but I still don't like any of you.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:It's like, yeah, they're really, it's like eating cake.
Speaker B:You know, you eat the cake and you're like, maybe this cake isn't the best, but I can't stop eating it.
Speaker B:And I do feel a little sick afterwards.
Speaker B:But like, no, you can't have my cake.
Speaker B:I'm gonna finish it.
Speaker C:Yep.
Speaker C:Yep, exactly.
Speaker C:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker C:Okay, well before, before we kind of wrap things up and stuff.
Speaker C:I mean, do you have, I guess a couple things.
Speaker C:Do you have advice for anyone who is either currently in school or thinking about going into wildlife or conservation or anything like that, whether it's going down a similar pathway to yours or anything?
Speaker C:Advice that you might give people?
Speaker B:Yeah, I think that kind of two important things.
Speaker B:The first one is to get to know your professors.
Speaker B:Like I'm glad my school had like a pictures with professors.
Speaker B:So on, you know, the first Friday of every month we'd go sit down and you could have a alcoholic or non alcoholic drink with your professor.
Speaker B:And then I would, in order to pay attention, I would like sit front and center in my classes.
Speaker B:And so it really felt a.
Speaker B:I was more motivated to learn because when you look the professor in the eyes you can't disengage as well.
Speaker B:And then they also remembered me and like having them not only write me letters of recommendation, but I got my lemur job because the professor that I mentioned I needed my letter of REC from Dr.
Speaker B:Bransford, he, I was doing some other project that didn't work out and he was like, I have a job for you.
Speaker B:You're going to like it.
Speaker B:Like do this, do this lemur diet study.
Speaker B:And so the more people that know what you're interested in, the more people will think of you when that opportunity comes up and can send it your way.
Speaker B:And then the other one that I'm learning here is like, it's a.
Speaker B:You can apply for things you never think you'll get.
Speaker B:And since everyone else also didn't think they'd get them and didn't apply, you might get it.
Speaker B:And it's okay to try something if you're not 100% sure and then use that information to figure out what you do and do not.
Speaker B:Like, like next time I think I'll try and work on a team where I'm not alone for nine hours a day.
Speaker B:You know, somewhere where I have shade inside the forest canopy and maybe an animal that's like crepuscular so I can take a midday nap.
Speaker C:Yeah, well, well put, well put.
Speaker C:I mean, do you, do you have I.
Speaker C:Because yeah, you brought up the lemur thing before and you also the orangutans and stuff.
Speaker C:I mean, are there any other like really just like core memories that you made in any of those experiences that you'd like to share?
Speaker B:Hmm.
Speaker B:There was a moment near the end of my orangutan research, I was doing it at Zoo Tampa, looking at orangutans and managed care.
Speaker B:And I'D go like three hours a week, and I would note down their behavior and kind of who their nearest neighbor was.
Speaker B:But near the end there was this big drama.
Speaker B:So there had been a fight between two orangutans and the baby of the group had intervened, gotten his finger broken, finger got amputated, orangutan got put in the back for a while.
Speaker B:And when the baby came back out, it was like the baby went to the other baby's mom instead of its mom.
Speaker B:And that mom kind of like took the baby in.
Speaker B:And then the original mother that the baby had not gone to got upset, like, tried to kind of beckon the baby back, pull the baby back.
Speaker B:The baby was like, hell no.
Speaker B:And then the mom went and she got dirt and she started throwing the dirt at her baby and the other mother.
Speaker B:And it was like such a scandal.
Speaker B:And I was so engrossed.
Speaker B:And I remember afterwards, like, the gratification of being able to interpret the situation when they make no sounds.
Speaker B:Like it's just, you know, context from those many hours I'd spent watching them and their expressive faces and their, and their behavior.
Speaker B:It's like, oh, I'm starting to learn how to tell these stories and understand what's going on in a different species than my own.
Speaker A:Thanks again, Kathryn, for joining us today.
Speaker A:Your work is a perfect example of how conservation is more than just about animals.
Speaker A:It's about ecosystems.
Speaker A:It's human relationships, the importance of diverse perspectives and cultural exchange, and the intricate connections that sustain life.
Speaker A:From the dense forests of Peru to the ever changing waters these otters call home.
Speaker A:Your research is helping to illuminate the hidden forces shaping their survival.
Speaker A:And for that, I'm grateful.
Speaker A:And I'm sure the people listening are too.
Speaker A:If you enjoyed this episode and want to keep stories like these coming, consider supporting the wildlife on patreon@patreon.com thewildlife for as little as a dollar a month.
Speaker A:And wherever you're listening, don't forget to subscribe, leave a rating or a review, or just share this episode with a fellow nature lover.
Speaker A:Until next time, stay curious, stay inspired, and keep exploring.
Speaker A:And thank you for spending some of your time with me today.
Speaker A:It means the world Peace out rainbow trouts.
Speaker B:SA.
