Speaker 1: Ruby.
Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Rick Schwartz. What is the world?
Speaker 3: I'm Marco Went and this This is Amazing Wildlife, a
Speaker 3: podcast where we cover unique stories of wildlife from around
Speaker 3: the world and uncover fascinating animal facts. This podcast is
Speaker 3: in production with iHeartRadio's Ruby Studio and San Diego Zoo
Speaker 3: Wildlife Alliance, an international nonprofit conservation.
Speaker 2: Organization which oversees this beautiful.
Speaker 3: Place, the San Diego Zoo where we are now and
Speaker 3: the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.
Speaker 1: You know, every time you do that monel like my friend.
Speaker 4: Which it's an intro, but you know, I tend to
Speaker 4: like get in sync with our surrounding area. Guess where
Speaker 4: we're here at the zoo again. There's a robin flying
Speaker 4: behind you. There is a red shild or hawk cruising around.
Speaker 3: We're lucky that we get to go on locations of
Speaker 3: this podcast. I know a lot of podcasts are in
Speaker 3: studio and sound control and all that, but I think
Speaker 3: we're lucky we get to places.
Speaker 4: And I was remembering, like we were talking about and
Speaker 4: Panda last and we were here in the area at
Speaker 4: the zoo right, like we learned a lot of really
Speaker 4: cool things and it made me think of like even
Speaker 4: just like bears in general and where bears live, and
Speaker 4: even like some people live really close to maybe like
Speaker 4: a grizzly or a polar air.
Speaker 3: It's actually a big part of the conservation world that
Speaker 3: we have. Yeah, there's humans. They're a big part of
Speaker 3: why we need that conservation yea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hundred percent.
Speaker 4: I mean even being a native San Diego you know,
Speaker 4: I know they're mountain lying in the area, but it's
Speaker 4: something we have to think about. And you know, while
Speaker 4: we were talking about it, we brought this wonderful journal, right.
Speaker 2: So for those who.
Speaker 3: Video yet, we brought our scenes a wildlife journal, a
Speaker 3: wildfe Lions Journal. Excuse me, Yeah, that came out in
Speaker 3: July and August partly only dropped mine.
Speaker 1: Sorry mind so pristine and beautiful.
Speaker 4: But even in the cover, man, I means like there's
Speaker 4: a beautiful species right here, like a leopard, right and
Speaker 4: then in the middle here there's a really cool title,
Speaker 4: which I want to get props at Peggy, who actually
Speaker 4: I learned later came out with the title and we
Speaker 4: can talk about a little more. But it's a common ground, right,
Speaker 4: and a lot of really interesting facts and stories about
Speaker 4: community and wildlife.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's two articles that I want to make sure
Speaker 3: you know. And this is the benefit of being a
Speaker 3: member of the San Diego Zoo and the Safari Park
Speaker 3: is not only do you get the free entrance with
Speaker 3: every visit and guests get all sorts of extra things
Speaker 3: that way too, but you get these great stories that
Speaker 3: come in and talk a lot about the inside of
Speaker 3: what we do as an organization. And there's one article
Speaker 3: in here about the jaguar and human conflicts that occur
Speaker 3: in South and Central America and the work being done
Speaker 3: to help mitigate that, to help change that from being
Speaker 3: a conflict to be living in coexistence. And then the
Speaker 3: other one you mentioned, common Ground, of course, which is
Speaker 3: about all the elephants there in Kenya and work being
Speaker 3: done to find common ground for humans and elephants to
Speaker 3: live together there.
Speaker 1: I know, I mean, I think we should talk about
Speaker 1: it more.
Speaker 2: I think we should.
Speaker 3: But instead of you and I just talking about the articles,
Speaker 3: why don't we ask the experts that we have with Oh, I.
Speaker 1: Know, we got the experts. Hey, good morning, experts.
Speaker 6: Good morning extnie y, good morning.
Speaker 2: Go ahead and introduce yourself to our audience.
Speaker 3: Let them know who you are and what your title
Speaker 3: is here with this organization.
Speaker 7: I'm doctor Christy Rupert.
Speaker 5: I am an Associate Director of Community Engagement on our
Speaker 5: Conservation Science where on Life Health team, I get to
Speaker 5: work on the human dimensions of conservation, so understanding how
Speaker 5: people interact with wildlife, how they affect by wildlife conservation,
Speaker 5: and how our conservation hubs can support human wildlife coexistence
Speaker 5: around the globe.
Speaker 2: This is a small job, that's awesome.
Speaker 8: And I'm doctor Schiffer Goldenberg and I'm a scientist also
Speaker 8: within our Conservation Science and Wildlife Health department, and I
Speaker 8: work mostly in ecological fields and mostly on megafauna, so
Speaker 8: large animals that he plants.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that would be.
Speaker 5: Here.
Speaker 2: Okay, fair enough.
Speaker 4: I mean there was a lot to talk about. Can
Speaker 4: you guys highlight a little like what's succor this article
Speaker 4: for you? What impressed you so much about it?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Sure, so I can start.
Speaker 8: I think part of a collaboration with social science is
Speaker 8: really understanding how important those long term relationships are and
Speaker 8: the process of conversation about what the problem is and
Speaker 8: what the context is for that conflict and coexistence. And
Speaker 8: this work in particular grew out of human leopard coexistence
Speaker 8: work that Kirsty and her colleagues have been leading for
Speaker 8: many years, and it was that collaboration that really allowed
Speaker 8: us to expand into this space of human elephant code systems.
Speaker 5: And part of the reason the conversation really emerged to
Speaker 5: the top is reflective of broader trends and patterns in Kenya,
Speaker 5: where a lot of our work is centered. The challenges
Speaker 5: to elephant populations historically have revolved around ivory poaching, so
Speaker 5: in global demand for ivory products, and over the last
Speaker 5: ten or so years, Kenya and many other countries have
Speaker 5: really stemmed ivory poaching as the main pressure on elephant populations.
Speaker 5: That is a major success for conservation and thinking about
Speaker 5: overall populations. Though the rates that elephants are illegally killed
Speaker 5: has actually shifted more so over to conflicts with people
Speaker 5: and so in Kenya, trying to better understand human elephant
Speaker 5: conflict as a challenge to people and elephants has helped
Speaker 5: kind of emerge this as a focus for us in
Speaker 5: our work.
Speaker 3: So I want to ask real quick so we can
Speaker 3: kind of set the common ground for our audience, what
Speaker 3: are the actual conflicts someone listening to this, who might
Speaker 3: live in, whether it's rural Middle America or a big
Speaker 3: city like San Diego or Los Angeles or somewhere like that,
Speaker 3: may not really have a clear picture as to what
Speaker 3: is human elephant conflict, what conflict could possibly exist, because
Speaker 3: I don't know if that's a clearer image as to
Speaker 3: how people might have to coexist with them in Kenya.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so what are some of the problems.
Speaker 8: It's a really great question. And so if people have
Speaker 8: heard about human elephant conflict, they've probably heard about crop reading,
Speaker 8: which is elephants going into agricultural fields and just eating
Speaker 8: their fill and trampling crops in the process. That's not
Speaker 8: as much of an issue in the area where we
Speaker 8: work in northern Kenya because it tends to be a
Speaker 8: very dry area where it's not supportive of very large
Speaker 8: scale agriculture. So we do see some crop reading, and
Speaker 8: we do see some you know, destruction of kitchen gardens,
Speaker 8: but we also see a lot of conflict emerging in
Speaker 8: other cases, some cases where trees are being ripped down
Speaker 8: by elephants when they switch to brows in the dry season,
Speaker 8: going after water resources that are shared, and then you know,
Speaker 8: things sort of change in space and time where people
Speaker 8: are walking to community resources like a school or a
Speaker 8: clinic and they're bumping into elephants and it escalates from there.
Speaker 8: And so those are some of the issues that we
Speaker 8: see and that we hear about from this community.
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like it's so vary too.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm a TikTok scarlier you guys, And sometimes
Speaker 4: I get on some videos where I see a video
Speaker 4: of maybe a rhino that went into a suburban area
Speaker 4: and for good reason, the mother is very worried about
Speaker 4: her child. And I imagine it's extremely specific and nuanced.
Speaker 4: Even just Africa alone, I would imagine different communities where
Speaker 4: the north or south and we have to listen, right,
Speaker 4: we have to work with those communities. Can you talk
Speaker 4: a little bit more about that, like how do we
Speaker 4: as the Alliance help out those communities in those kind
Speaker 4: of scenarios.
Speaker 5: I think this relates to something Triffer is just touching on,
Speaker 5: which is that the conflicts are varied. Yeah, conflicts are
Speaker 5: not singular and they're not static. And so when we
Speaker 5: approached engaging with these communities in Northern Kenya, a lot
Speaker 5: of it was about understanding the diversity of interactions and challenges,
Speaker 5: as well as priorities for coexistence where people see elephants
Speaker 5: and where the interactions are not negative so that can
Speaker 5: be maintained and supported. And really it was about prioritization too,
Speaker 5: so we tried to be open and honest and that
Speaker 5: conflict is never going to be eliminated, is never going
Speaker 5: to be zero. These conflicts are going to fluctuate as
Speaker 5: conditions change over time, and so part of the process
Speaker 5: was developing one that was a trusted and transparent process
Speaker 5: to rate and prioritize what types of conflicts communities wanted
Speaker 5: to address first. And we did this by pulling information
Speaker 5: from different channels, like said for scientists, we want information
Speaker 5: to guide some of these decisions. Data data that's generated
Speaker 5: by these community members, and I think that's really important
Speaker 5: because the decision making around what's selected to pursue, having
Speaker 5: that come from voices within the community at different levels,
Speaker 5: so not just people informal power, but pulling those different
Speaker 5: perspectives to understand as a community what to approach first
Speaker 5: was really important to us. So we started with mapping
Speaker 5: exercises to understand again spatially, where people are really dependent
Speaker 5: on natural resources like water sources, or grazing blocks for
Speaker 5: their livestock. We did a number of focus group discussions
Speaker 5: and that really illuminated some of the seasonal aspects of
Speaker 5: human elephant interactions that were really pertinent to our decision
Speaker 5: making process. And then also a representative survey, and that
Speaker 5: was to get at some of the voices within the
Speaker 5: community that maybe aren't always at the community meetings, So
Speaker 5: how do you get a representative sample from these areas?
Speaker 5: That helped us rate and prioritize if we can't address everything,
Speaker 5: what's most important to address first. And this helped us
Speaker 5: identify human safety, particularly for children walking to school, as
Speaker 5: something community members certainly wanted to address first.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 4: I mean specifically on the really hit home for me
Speaker 4: was those people who can't go to those certain meetings
Speaker 4: as an example, get that data, ranchers. I'm thinking out
Speaker 4: in the back of the country and there are opinions matter.
Speaker 1: Greatly as well these scenario.
Speaker 4: So that's really great that you guys are trying to
Speaker 4: invest in all manners of community in different walks of life.
Speaker 1: So that's really cool.
Speaker 7: Thank you so much.
Speaker 5: It was important to us as well to gather that
Speaker 5: information before any of these strategies started, so we can
Speaker 5: monitor that over time, learn what's working what's not, so
Speaker 5: that our conservation strategies could be adjusted.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you had mentioned that it'll never go to zero,
Speaker 3: that there's always going to be fluctuations of different things
Speaker 3: going on in the environment. Populations of course as well,
Speaker 3: can change things. There's so many variables. But of course
Speaker 3: the goal is to mitigate it as much as possible,
Speaker 3: and it being of course the conflict between the elephants
Speaker 3: and the people.
Speaker 2: When it comes to doing this, and we've talked.
Speaker 3: About this for in fact, they just came up in
Speaker 3: pandas that conservation isn't just to go in and solve
Speaker 3: the riddle and you're done.
Speaker 2: It is a long game. It's a long process.
Speaker 3: When you look at the riddle of elephant human conflict,
Speaker 3: knowing it's going to be a long game, what are
Speaker 3: some of the more important things you look at going
Speaker 3: into that. We've talked about really addressing things within the community,
Speaker 3: listening to them, leaning on their knowledge and expertise of
Speaker 3: the environment and the weather patterns and the elephants and
Speaker 3: all that.
Speaker 2: But for this long game of mitigating.
Speaker 3: This, what's probably some of the more important things you
Speaker 3: guys have come across so far.
Speaker 8: That's a really great question. I think you touched on it.
Speaker 8: With a complexity. There is so much complexity involved with
Speaker 8: human elephant conflict for a number of reasons. Elephants, as
Speaker 8: we know, are extremely smart animals. They are problem solvers
Speaker 8: and they figure out a bluff. And so what we
Speaker 8: know with mitigation methods is that they will find the
Speaker 8: weak points or they will understand when it's actually not
Speaker 8: that risky to do what they're trying to tell you.
Speaker 8: So and of course they're driven to these great resources.
Speaker 8: Elephants they have these spatial maps in their head. They
Speaker 8: know where they're going, they know when those resources are ripe,
Speaker 8: whether it's accia pods on trees or you know, water
Speaker 8: sources that are ephemeral, and so that's a piece of
Speaker 8: the complexity. Another piece of the complexity is that the
Speaker 8: seasonal dynamics of the place change all the time, and
Speaker 8: so the levels of conflict and the distribution of conflict changes.
Speaker 8: And then there are other degrees of come complexity, including
Speaker 8: whether a community is willing to buy into a particular intervention,
Speaker 8: whether there are barriers for entry with that intervention, financial sustainability,
Speaker 8: of the method that kind of thing, and so Kirsty
Speaker 8: touched on this a bit where she spoke about level
Speaker 8: setting at the beginning and understanding what we're going to
Speaker 8: be able to do and what we're not going to
Speaker 8: be able to do, and so prioritizing and understanding that
Speaker 8: there's always going to be some degree of conflict, but
Speaker 8: where can we prioritize And then to the piece about adaptability.
Speaker 8: I think it's really important to understand that because you
Speaker 8: need a suite of tools and you need the adaptability
Speaker 8: piece within a community. We have really focused effort on
Speaker 8: training for community members who are dealing with conflict so
Speaker 8: that people actually are able.
Speaker 6: To go and you know, not reinvent the wheel.
Speaker 8: There are resources available, there are organizations who are leading trainings,
Speaker 8: and so the last couple of years or so, we've
Speaker 8: been facilitating a lot of those exchanges so that there
Speaker 8: are people embedded within the community who can adapt as
Speaker 8: the conflicts change well.
Speaker 3: And that gives them a sense of ownership too. It's
Speaker 3: not just you walking in the same Okay, this is
Speaker 3: what you need to do. I'm going to go back
Speaker 3: home now. I'll be back in a few months to
Speaker 3: check on you.
Speaker 1: Guys.
Speaker 3: But when you do the training and there's other organizations
Speaker 3: that are involved. The partnerships that we have with other
Speaker 3: organizations are so important. But then giving ownership to of
Speaker 3: the individuals who live there, who are dealing with the
Speaker 3: conflict on a daily basis to then empower them to
Speaker 3: teach others as well. Really is that sense of ownership
Speaker 3: where you can go back and check up on them,
Speaker 3: but you're not needed there every single day.
Speaker 4: I would imagine a little more inclined to you know,
Speaker 4: I definitely know that guy from the other side of
Speaker 4: the valley, but these I don't know about the es
Speaker 4: day from the alliance because that could be something that
Speaker 4: you have to contend with. I would imagine sometimes in
Speaker 4: certain communities, wouldn't you say?
Speaker 5: Yeah, this brings up a point that we always like
Speaker 5: to highlight, which is the incredible team on the ground
Speaker 5: that we work with.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so I wish he.
Speaker 5: Was sitting next to me, our Human Round Life Code
Speaker 5: Existence coordinator and Kenny his name is Ambrose, led to Luai.
Speaker 2: Shout out to Ambrose.
Speaker 5: Ambrose, and he is helping to manage this group of
Speaker 5: community conservation assistants that are going down to learn from
Speaker 5: save yellowpant since Southern Kenya about the human elephant coexistence
Speaker 5: toolbox and the point about ownership, I think that goes
Speaker 5: part and parcel with leadership within these communities and different
Speaker 5: roles and opportunities. Something we've learned from exploring this elephant
Speaker 5: coexistence work is that there are different types of knowledge
Speaker 5: and experience that can have a role in.
Speaker 7: Any collective strategy.
Speaker 5: So someone perhaps is formally trained in the toolbox and
Speaker 5: they can lead trainings about say, reading elephant behavior, and
Speaker 5: then in addition, they can invite or have an elder
Speaker 5: from the community to share about their wisdom that they've
Speaker 5: developed through the course of their life living with elephants.
Speaker 5: A key part of our process has been sharing results
Speaker 5: from the different streams of information that we've been gathering
Speaker 5: so that any decision making is collective. And I always
Speaker 5: remember sitting in Lasso Lodge next to Ambrose and next
Speaker 5: to our other colleague, LExEN, and one of the elders said,
Speaker 5: I definitely want there to be education days where you're
Speaker 5: sharing about this toolbox. I want to be there and
Speaker 5: share what I know too, and that wisdom piece I
Speaker 5: think is really important for this elephant work. We did
Speaker 5: ask those questions and some of the surveys about what
Speaker 5: do you already do? And that is really important to
Speaker 5: understand also as we're evaluating any strategies and interventions, because
Speaker 5: it's not a clean slate, this is not a static
Speaker 5: laboratory setting, so understanding what people are already doing and
Speaker 5: how well they think those strategies work is an important
Speaker 5: component of this as well.
Speaker 2: So I want to ask.
Speaker 3: Both of you mentioned a couple of times the toolbox,
Speaker 3: and I know in context what you mean, but for
Speaker 3: our audience who may be guessing or trying to understand
Speaker 3: what that means, what is the toolbox?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: Not a literal one exactly.
Speaker 6: So it's a book.
Speaker 8: It's essentially a manual that our colleagues that Save the
Speaker 8: Elephants put together, which is a collection of all the
Speaker 8: different mitigation strategies that people have used.
Speaker 6: And the different ways that they work.
Speaker 8: And as well, it's really important it's sort of the
Speaker 8: trade off of labor and costs that's involved, and so
Speaker 8: obviously not every method is going to work in every community,
Speaker 8: and so it allows people to really evaluate what might
Speaker 8: work in their communities, what they're already doing, and so
Speaker 8: they have trainings along with that manual, and they have
Speaker 8: it published in many languages at this point, and they're always
Speaker 8: updating it so visual.
Speaker 7: It's illustrations are gorgeous, and it is available online.
Speaker 5: So anyone listening to this podcast our members can search
Speaker 5: the Human Elephant Coexistence Toolbox and find the website that
Speaker 5: Save the Elephants manages and updates regularly with different languages,
Speaker 5: and as the evidence base around coexistence evolves and develops.
Speaker 5: I think that's an important aspect too. Is part of
Speaker 5: the toolbox development was a call for information about how
Speaker 5: well these strategies work, so that could be refined over
Speaker 5: time as well.
Speaker 4: I'm curiously when you talked about methods that were successful
Speaker 4: and we're not successful for listeners who have no idea
Speaker 4: what's going on out there with elephants in different communities,
Speaker 4: could you give me like a couple examples, maybe one
Speaker 4: a little more rule and maybe one a little more urban,
Speaker 4: if you can think of a certain different situations you
Speaker 4: know or not, just whatever pops up in your head.
Speaker 4: You know, some of the nuances of elephant and human
Speaker 4: interactions and conflicts.
Speaker 7: That have fences high. What do you want?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: Yeah, and actually the one that's a good one because
Speaker 4: actually there's a really cool picture and I mean I
Speaker 4: can describe a little bit, but it's a picture.
Speaker 1: Actually, you guys describe this picture? What am I looking
Speaker 1: at right here?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so this is a photo that's in the common
Speaker 5: Ground article within the Sez tw a journal I got
Speaker 5: to take this photo actually, but yeah, during.
Speaker 7: A visit, yeah, thank you. During a visit from or
Speaker 7: for Chewy Mamas.
Speaker 5: They were being hosted by one of the women's groups
Speaker 5: that say the Elephants work at called Loam Beni. So
Speaker 5: they were at the women's center that's next to Save
Speaker 5: the Elephants camp in Savo or in the Voi Savo
Speaker 5: area of Kenya, and one of the Save the Elephants
Speaker 5: staff members is describing a beehive fence to these Chewy Mamas.
Speaker 5: Be High fences are an incredible innovation that work in
Speaker 5: that the the beehives are set up around a fixed boundaries,
Speaker 5: such as around a farm, and there's wire between each
Speaker 5: of those bee hives, and so the beehives will shake
Speaker 5: if something touches them like an elephant or in the wind,
Speaker 5: and be highs and the sound would invoke a few
Speaker 5: response from elephants. And so that would keep elephants further
Speaker 5: away from the farm Shiffra, Is that right?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think this is an incredible innovation. There
Speaker 5: are some really important considerations though. One is that there's
Speaker 5: heavy initial cost investment and so it's not a viable
Speaker 5: option for some household owners that are more resource constrained.
Speaker 5: So there's a heavy initial cost investment. And then a
Speaker 5: really important aspect is that bees require water sources nearby
Speaker 5: and so yeah, so you need bees within those boxes
Speaker 5: for it to be an effective fence tool. And so
Speaker 5: in drought times, which is a natural but unfortunately exacerbated
Speaker 5: aspect of conditions in Kenya giving climate related drought impacts,
Speaker 5: if the bees aren't there, then the fence isn't going
Speaker 5: to work, right, Yeah. So I think that it's incredible
Speaker 5: to look at where these beehive fences work because it's
Speaker 5: also producing a product that someone can sell for an
Speaker 5: additional income stream.
Speaker 7: But I think the really important.
Speaker 5: Place for us to highlight here is that the behigh
Speaker 5: fences are going to be fixed spatially.
Speaker 7: It's going to be around something like a crop.
Speaker 5: And where we work in northern Kenya, the conflicts are
Speaker 5: not fixed spatially. They are around resource access and use,
Speaker 5: looking for grasslands, looking for water, walking to school, walking
Speaker 5: to a clinic, and so something like a beehiveh fence
Speaker 5: isn't going to be a match for some of the
Speaker 5: pastoralist communities that we work in, right, and just real quick,
Speaker 5: pastoral community means what pastoralism is referring to societies that
Speaker 5: keep and herd livestock. So it's around livestock production. It's
Speaker 5: not only an important part of economic security. It's tied
Speaker 5: to food security, it's tied to cultural significance. And so
Speaker 5: in northern Kenya where we work in, like Hippia and
Speaker 5: Sambru Counties in particular, the pastoralist communities are really important
Speaker 5: partners for conservation. And so all of our conservation strategies.
Speaker 7: Are going to involve livestocks that happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I have a little more that too, So
Speaker 3: people here in America that might be listening. It's not
Speaker 3: like a farm where they bring hay to the livestock.
Speaker 3: They are hurting their livestock every morning out of the
Speaker 3: little bomas or areas they create for safety.
Speaker 2: Overnight, they're walking through the wilds.
Speaker 3: Basically the finals grasslanes you had mentioned that's where those
Speaker 3: conflicts can happen, and they bring them back in at
Speaker 3: night time there's no delivery of hay or grains, so
Speaker 3: they're really very much a part of the habitat that
Speaker 3: they're living in with those elephants exactly.
Speaker 5: And that's part of the decision making around these community
Speaker 5: conservancies where we work. So community conservancies are such a
Speaker 5: critical land use type, not only for land rights for
Speaker 5: pastoralist communities, but because wildlife cannot survive in government protected
Speaker 5: areas alone.
Speaker 7: There's just not enough space.
Speaker 5: And so the community conservancies are neighboring some of these
Speaker 5: formally protected areas or private conservancies and managing landscape level
Speaker 5: wildlife populations. And so the community conservancies, that's part of
Speaker 5: their governance is deciding where livestock can graze during different
Speaker 5: times of the year. What a few minutes ago referred
Speaker 5: to a core conservation area or a grazing block. Those
Speaker 5: are areas where the community would decide, Okay, we can
Speaker 5: graze livestock here for these particular months until certain conditions change,
Speaker 5: like the next set of rains come, etc. The other
Speaker 5: aspect I want to mention is that pastoralism is changing too.
Speaker 5: So in the last few decades, more past oralist communities
Speaker 5: in the North have been keeping small stock like goats
Speaker 5: and sheep, and the grazing patterns for goats and sheep
Speaker 5: is different than cattle, So some of those considerations around
Speaker 5: where some of these livestock are going is important as well.
Speaker 5: You'd ask us about different strategies and trade offs. I
Speaker 5: talked about the high fences, Shifferd. Did you want to
Speaker 5: talk about other types of fences too. I think this
Speaker 5: is another part of the conversation when you think about
Speaker 5: large scale land use planning.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's definitely true.
Speaker 8: So you know, electric fences are another popular intervention for conflict.
Speaker 8: They don't come without costs. I mean there's very heavy
Speaker 8: investment to begin with. And then also, you know, elephants
Speaker 8: can figure out how to bring through a fence either
Speaker 8: they find a weak point, they figure out their tusks
Speaker 8: don't conduct electricity and they use them.
Speaker 5: No but serious talk about the videos to look at
Speaker 5: watching an elephant figure out they could use their tusks
Speaker 5: to get is oh yourritible?
Speaker 8: Yeah, and then you get these notorious fence breakers that
Speaker 8: people know about, like these repeat offenders exactly, and because
Speaker 8: they're social learners. You know, they're teaching those types of behaviors,
Speaker 8: and so that becomes an issue. But it also, i
Speaker 8: think Christy was alluding to it touches on something else
Speaker 8: that we talk about a lot within conservation sounds and
Speaker 8: wildlife health, which is landscape permeability. And so senses aren't
Speaker 8: always great because you want to encourage movement, right, and
Speaker 8: it really can restrict movement. And in this landscape in particular,
Speaker 8: movement is critical Cattle they are tracking those fresh grasses,
Speaker 8: and so are elephants and other wildlife, and they're changing
Speaker 8: their land use patterns as there's more ephemeral water on
Speaker 8: the landscape, and so that movement really allows the habitat
Speaker 8: to sort of recover in some areas when you know
Speaker 8: there's not as much pressure on it because the wildlife
Speaker 8: have moved elsewhere, and so that's an important one. You
Speaker 8: asked about other interventions and when they might work and
Speaker 8: when they don't, and so part of the period when
Speaker 8: we were looking and talking to people and looking and
Speaker 8: seeing what people are already doing, were some really incredible
Speaker 8: interventions that people had done just out of materials that
Speaker 8: were around essentially trash, so like plastic bottles putting them
Speaker 8: on wire fences because there's like a whistling sound that
Speaker 8: comes through and.
Speaker 4: Then elephants and it sounds weird over.
Speaker 1: Exactly can go so far, I imagine.
Speaker 8: Well, that's the point is that elephants figured out they
Speaker 8: might be freaked out initially, and then they realize, oh,
Speaker 8: that's at that tree looks really good and.
Speaker 5: Say for it that that maybe the sound is repulsive
Speaker 5: until the acacia pods inside looked just good enough to
Speaker 5: try it exactly.
Speaker 4: On the couch, you know, like, do I get up
Speaker 4: and get those chips that I know I want to
Speaker 4: get that I'm gonna so I really really need it,
Speaker 4: you know. But that's really fascinating and so challenging with
Speaker 4: such an intelligent animal as well, especially one the history
Speaker 4: of communities in those areas in Africa. They're ingrained in
Speaker 4: the nuances of wildlife. Zebra flow in one area and
Speaker 4: so or they're cattle and whatnot. But then you have
Speaker 4: a big elephant rollman in and you have to navigate
Speaker 4: those things. How does one navigate an area where there
Speaker 4: is no fence involved?
Speaker 8: You know?
Speaker 4: Do we understand the movements of behavior the elephant hurts
Speaker 4: in that area and we try to navigate around those
Speaker 4: behaviors or what are some of the strategies in that regard.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the two things that come to mind have to
Speaker 5: do with elephant wear behavior, So.
Speaker 8: Yeah, why don't you touch on that, and I can
Speaker 8: touch about tracking elephants.
Speaker 5: Sure, So the foot based encounters that are tied to
Speaker 5: human safety are part of one of our current strategies
Speaker 5: that's highlighted in the toolbox, and that is understanding elephant behavior,
Speaker 5: being able to read it as you are on the landscape.
Speaker 5: And so one way to think about it is almost
Speaker 5: these zones and thresholds, So if you come across an elephant,
Speaker 5: making a decision about what you can do given how
Speaker 5: aggravated they are or how close you are. So that's
Speaker 5: one piece is reading elephant behavior, reading their cues, their
Speaker 5: body language. And the big part of that though, is
Speaker 5: trying to avoid it beforehand. And so one aspect that
Speaker 5: we're working to coordinate with our community partners is a
Speaker 5: pilot that's going on right now during the school term,
Speaker 5: which is gathering the students in the morning and having
Speaker 5: them walked as a group by someone that's trained in
Speaker 5: elephant or where behavior that's gone to the toolbox training,
Speaker 5: and that has kind of cleared away based on some
Speaker 5: of our other representatives that have called in to say, actually,
Speaker 5: this path is safe. We're just there and there aren't
Speaker 5: elephants there this morning. So you're trying to avoid it.
Speaker 5: You're trying to strengthen numbers with the kids, and you're
Speaker 5: trying to put into perspective what to do given the
Speaker 5: situation with that particular elephant. Are there multiple elephants? There
Speaker 5: is there a baby? There is it a single male?
Speaker 7: Exactly? Exactly?
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 8: Yeah, So elephant aware of behavior and it's again you'll
Speaker 8: find this in the toolbox that we spoke about earlier.
Speaker 8: It's learning to read elephant behavior and so what are
Speaker 8: the signs that they're aggravated, What are the signs that
Speaker 8: you're too close?
Speaker 6: What might you do if they start to escalate? Right?
Speaker 6: What's the safe way to get away?
Speaker 8: And so that's an important one, is just making sure
Speaker 8: that people are sort of on the same page in
Speaker 8: reading elephant behavior. If you see a bowl elephant, should
Speaker 8: you look for other elephants. There's often an idea that
Speaker 8: elephant bowls are alone, but that's not always true, right,
Speaker 8: And so little aspects of that and understanding the ecology
Speaker 8: and their behavior a little bit better, and that's been
Speaker 8: a focus of the training.
Speaker 7: You want to give an example of sound.
Speaker 5: I feel like this is an interesting specifics of wind
Speaker 5: sound and maybe something like an auditory noise could help
Speaker 5: or could hurt given how close you are to the elephant.
Speaker 5: I'm thinking about the vo voozellas in the toolbox.
Speaker 6: Oh you talk about it.
Speaker 1: Okay, before we get to that. Yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: point I love that story. By the way.
Speaker 4: It makes me think the kids can actually learn how
Speaker 4: to read elephant behavior when y're watching the trained individual
Speaker 4: for true, and I bet a lot of those crosswalkers
Speaker 4: in the state, so listen to this, like man, I
Speaker 4: could be read that.
Speaker 1: It's a really cool concept.
Speaker 4: So anyway, I love that idea, like just teaching the kids,
Speaker 4: you know, from square one, seeing the kids.
Speaker 5: From square one, and then embedding some of that evaluation throughout.
Speaker 5: So I think that the data that's present and Kenya
Speaker 5: oftentimes is around incidences when something happens. Is there a
Speaker 5: crop rating incident? Is there something a really unfortunate safety
Speaker 5: incident where someone gets hurt or worse, But we don't
Speaker 5: have data on when something works to keep elephants away
Speaker 5: from somewhere. And that's what this pilot is helping us
Speaker 5: to do too, in trying to get that reflection on
Speaker 5: how well something's working. So having concentrated effort for a
Speaker 5: short period of time and then coming back to reflect
Speaker 5: and learn with that community decide if that's what we'll
Speaker 5: pursue going forward is an important part of this process
Speaker 5: as well. It's not a problem solution and then we
Speaker 5: go and then they go and it works. It's going
Speaker 5: to be a process and I think that is something
Speaker 5: that we've committed to and has built the trust needed
Speaker 5: to enable any of this work. So that I think
Speaker 5: is a key aspect of the adaptability piece that Schiffer
Speaker 5: was mentioning.
Speaker 7: That's right.
Speaker 8: Yeah, And Marco, you asked also about you know, on
Speaker 8: the elephant side, like how can we monitor the elephants
Speaker 8: and there are others on the landscape who are tracking
Speaker 8: elephants that are prone to come into conflict. We're not
Speaker 8: doing that work, but it can really inform how they
Speaker 8: move around these resources and really importantly and touches on
Speaker 8: something that we haven't discussed yet today, which is the
Speaker 8: drivers of conflict. And so We've talked a lot about
Speaker 8: mitigation methods, but land use is a big, big driver
Speaker 8: of conflict, and so how a particular space is used,
Speaker 8: whether it's a human area or a wildlife area. Are
Speaker 8: there areas that have been corridors for elephants forever and
Speaker 8: they're not going to stop even if there's development in there,
Speaker 8: And so some of those tracking studies can really help
Speaker 8: identify those corridors and help in those bigger conversations around
Speaker 8: land use, planning, habitat fragmentation, which increases interactions between humans
Speaker 8: and elephants.
Speaker 4: While you're speaking, actually makes me think maybe some guests
Speaker 4: aren't aware of like how elephants are so nuanced and
Speaker 4: their traditions and their culture of what they do. I mean,
Speaker 4: it makes me think of certain elephant species crossing vast deserts.
Speaker 1: But the matriarch Abuelita, how the she.
Speaker 4: Knows, you know, in a few miles are going to
Speaker 4: hit that water source right there. So maybe people aren't
Speaker 4: aware of that that these antle fins are really committed
Speaker 4: in their traditions.
Speaker 1: They're like, to your point, they're going to go through
Speaker 1: this town because this is what.
Speaker 4: We've been doing for generations, generations, So we have to
Speaker 4: think about.
Speaker 7: Those practices absolutely.
Speaker 8: And if you want to see a really cool map
Speaker 8: and you know, sort of story about Abulita is like
Speaker 8: you can look at this paper published by Polanski at
Speaker 8: All twenty fifteen and it showed these elephants in the
Speaker 8: Namibian desert and you see their tracks. They're wandering, they're wandering,
Speaker 8: they're wandering. It gets to a certain point when their
Speaker 8: calves are going to need water and they be lined
Speaker 8: for the closest water source, even if.
Speaker 6: That's kilometers away.
Speaker 8: It's remarkable how they do that, so they know very
Speaker 8: well where that resource is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and to your point you'd said, these elephant corridors,
Speaker 3: these corridors, they're not super highways in the fact that
Speaker 3: there's a lot of traffic, but it is this path
Speaker 3: that they have known for generations and it's been passed
Speaker 3: down for generations. So if maybe in the season that
Speaker 3: they're not using that corridor, something is built there or
Speaker 3: humans try to move into that space, that's an immediate
Speaker 3: conflict that's going to occur because the elephant's like, no,
Speaker 3: this is our road, this is where we've always gone.
Speaker 3: So understanding the behavior of elephants, understanding the need of
Speaker 3: the humans. Now, one thing we didn't touch on because
Speaker 3: I think for us and probably for our audience, it's
Speaker 3: kind of an understood why is this even important? Why
Speaker 3: even address this? Why worry about the elephants? Why do
Speaker 3: we care to try and make sure everyone can get along?
Speaker 3: Why not just go, hey, humans need this and is
Speaker 3: here we are great?
Speaker 1: That's a heavy.
Speaker 3: Fair and I do think I do believe our audience
Speaker 3: listens to us, they're fans of this, understand the parts
Speaker 3: of these conversations of conservation. But also it's a fair
Speaker 3: question as because let's say somebody who's listening saying, hey,
Speaker 3: I just listened to this great thing, this is what
Speaker 3: they're doing for it, and.
Speaker 2: Someone's just looking. Why does that matter? Yeah, let's give
Speaker 2: them that information. Why does that matter?
Speaker 3: Let's let our audience have the opportunity to spread the
Speaker 3: words sort of like you know, you were saying, how
Speaker 3: we need to teach everyone these aspects of mitigating the
Speaker 3: conflict by I understanding elephants. Let's teach our audience why
Speaker 3: is this important? Why does it matter?
Speaker 8: You know? I think elephants are remarkable animals for many, many, many, many,
Speaker 8: many many reasons. There's the reason that you know, I
Speaker 8: got into elephant study, which is that they have these
Speaker 8: incredible social behaviors. They have strong relationships like we do,
Speaker 8: and those relationships are adapted. They are incredibly important ecosystem engineers.
Speaker 8: And so they are tree killers, which means that they
Speaker 8: open up savannahs for grassland and prevent the sort of
Speaker 8: bush encroachment that you get in a lot of areas.
Speaker 8: They also create these paths that are used by other
Speaker 8: wildlife by people. They dig, they release water from underground.
Speaker 8: I mean, there's so many ways in which they serve
Speaker 8: as important ecosystem engineers. One that we hear about a
Speaker 8: lot for forest elephants is that they're seed dispersers. And
Speaker 8: there are tree species that have evolved to be eaten
Speaker 8: in past the gut of an elephant and depend on
Speaker 8: an elephant's gut to actually spread. And so there's so
Speaker 8: many ecological reasons. There are incredibly important cultural reasons and
Speaker 8: social reasons as well.
Speaker 5: Elephants are such an important part of national heritage in Kenya,
Speaker 5: and so there is a strong societal significance. And I
Speaker 5: touched on the wisdom that communities have from living with elephants,
Speaker 5: and that's because that shared space dates so far back,
Speaker 5: and so the meaningful connection to elephants is there. And
Speaker 5: it's not to say that even with challenges, people don't
Speaker 5: want elephants there. And so a lot of our strategies
Speaker 5: are also building tolerance for accepting some of these risks,
Speaker 5: but having the ability and the belief that they can
Speaker 5: address any of these challenges to continue sharing space with elephants.
Speaker 5: Shiftframentioned how elephants can be ecosystem engineers open up space
Speaker 5: for grasslands to develop and flourish, and people that are
Speaker 5: living with livestock need those grass resources, and so there's
Speaker 5: many social and ecological reasons why protecting a future for
Speaker 5: people and elephants is so important.
Speaker 1: Pretty good answers, yeahs.
Speaker 3: And it goes right into reminding everyone that we're all interconnected,
Speaker 3: even in our human bubbles. We can appreciate wildlife, a
Speaker 3: bird or whatever flying over a squirrel in the park,
Speaker 3: but we're all connected. And we lose the elephants, the
Speaker 3: folks over there will lose their entire livelihood essentially because
Speaker 3: the engineering of the ecosystem. And that's an obvious point
Speaker 3: there in the sense it was big mammal doing big
Speaker 3: things but it's true for all species. They're all interconnected,
Speaker 3: they all play a part in the world we live in.
Speaker 3: It's so important for us to have our lives as well,
Speaker 3: So it's great.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for that.
Speaker 8: One of the reasons that we are able to have
Speaker 8: this conversation is because there are elephants in that landscape,
Speaker 8: because people have co existed with elephants for hundreds of years,
Speaker 8: and I think that's an important one to re Absolutely.
Speaker 1: It makes me excited.
Speaker 4: You guys, they think of communities like in the Amazon
Speaker 4: dealing with jaguars or maybe leopards in Asia. I mean
Speaker 4: so many different things, even mountain lion. Here in the
Speaker 4: United States, we're not.
Speaker 1: You're removed from these coplaces as well.
Speaker 4: Right, so maybe applications in Africa could be useful here
Speaker 4: in the United States as well. But I love what
Speaker 4: you guys are doing community work, engaging everyone together and
Speaker 4: not just the Alliance alone. Right, We're always saying it
Speaker 4: over two hundred collaborators around the world.
Speaker 2: We can't do it alone.
Speaker 4: So this is the stuff that really makes my heart sinks.
Speaker 4: I really appreciate you telling me these stories.
Speaker 2: Is great.
Speaker 3: And before we wrap up, I was just reminded we're
Speaker 3: here at the zoo, of course, and a family.
Speaker 2: Just walked by.
Speaker 3: Can we ask real quick each of you, how did
Speaker 3: you get into this line of work? This is this
Speaker 3: is your lifelihood, this is what you do. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: we asked this question a lot of.
Speaker 2: Our wildlife care specialists and whatnot.
Speaker 3: But the level of conservation science where you're going back
Speaker 3: and forth to Kenya, where you're helping bring communities together
Speaker 3: and you're listening to communities to bring better information back,
Speaker 3: how did you get to where you are today?
Speaker 2: Either?
Speaker 4: When of you go first, think about the little kids
Speaker 4: here because no shape. But your jobs are the ones
Speaker 4: people think about when they think about the aligns.
Speaker 2: You guys are out.
Speaker 4: There sweating it up, getting bitten by mosquito, step on
Speaker 4: an elephant poop, I'm sure, but you're smiling every second
Speaker 4: it anyway, it's great.
Speaker 5: People ask me if I thought that I would be
Speaker 5: exactly here, and the answer is no.
Speaker 7: I was interested in education. I wanted to be an educator.
Speaker 5: I've always loved nature, and so I started my career
Speaker 5: with San Diegazy Wildlifeliones in some of our environmental education programs.
Speaker 5: I was evaluating those to understand how people learn about
Speaker 5: the environment, how they feel about certain pro environraural behaviors.
Speaker 5: And then that really turned my attention to human behavior
Speaker 5: as this driver of challenges that species face and also
Speaker 5: this key that can turn some conservation strategies toward positive
Speaker 5: futures for people in wildlife. And so I went to
Speaker 5: graduate school my degrees focused on participation in conservation. For
Speaker 5: my PhD work, I studied human draft interactions and poaching
Speaker 5: is a threat to giraffe in Kenya. That's what really
Speaker 5: built a lot of my relationships with these pastoralist communities.
Speaker 5: And now I get to focus on the human dimensions
Speaker 5: and ensure that our conservation strategies are for community goals
Speaker 5: as much as they are to boost species population. And
Speaker 5: before Shiff introduces herself or maybe after, the reason that
Speaker 5: I'm so glad that we got to have this conversation
Speaker 5: together is because our partnership is something I really value
Speaker 5: in that it's bridging some of the social and ecological perspectives.
Speaker 5: So we mentioned these dynamic systems and so being able
Speaker 5: to approach some of these systems and understanding by pulling
Speaker 5: information from communities, pulling information from elephant movements is really
Speaker 5: valuable and so I love doing this with scientific partners
Speaker 5: as well.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 8: And so for me, yeah, my family, I will say
Speaker 8: it's always been extremely supportive of just following my interests
Speaker 8: wherever they leave. And so I read everything I could,
Speaker 8: and you know, as an undergrad like, I realized, oh,
Speaker 8: if I'm interested in ecology, I should get some experience
Speaker 8: doing ecological research, and so I cold went up to
Speaker 8: a professor and he was awesome and he mentored me
Speaker 8: for the next year and a half and kind of
Speaker 8: taught me about ecological research.
Speaker 6: And then that continued.
Speaker 8: As I realized is that I wasn't really interested in
Speaker 8: pursuing a career in freshwater diatoms. I was, it was fascinating,
Speaker 8: but I was really interested in animal behavior and particularly
Speaker 8: an animal social behavior, and so I started reaching out
Speaker 8: to people who were doing the job that I wanted
Speaker 8: to do, and eventually I got in touch with who
Speaker 8: became my PhD professor and who taught me a tremendous
Speaker 8: amount about elephants and ecology and sort of crossing the
Speaker 8: world between animal behavior and applied conservation. And so that
Speaker 8: was really important and so I like to tell younger
Speaker 8: people you know, like have a little hutzpa and make
Speaker 8: sure that you're like reaching out and be okay with
Speaker 8: rejection because you might not hear back.
Speaker 6: All the time.
Speaker 1: It's a good word hoodspy or little age, right, a
Speaker 1: little saw. But that's great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, and I agree with that too.
Speaker 3: It's like, if you're really passionate about it, a no,
Speaker 3: it doesn't mean no forever. It just means not that person,
Speaker 3: not that connection, not the route you're supposed to be on.
Speaker 3: But keep following that passion and your curiosity, and eventually
Speaker 3: water finds its balance. Right, you'll get to where you belong.
Speaker 3: Where you guys are great examples of that.
Speaker 2: So thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Well, yes, later on.
Speaker 8: Exactly exactly, and then find awesome colleagues you can work
Speaker 8: that keeps you guys.
Speaker 3: But again, right, it's that passion you each have has
Speaker 3: brought you together to become colleagues, to become that cohort
Speaker 3: that now you can bring others into around the.
Speaker 2: World for this work.
Speaker 3: So thank you both so much for spending some time
Speaker 3: with us, sharing your stories and all the work you
Speaker 3: guys are doing.
Speaker 5: Thank you for having us and for highlighting community based work.
Speaker 5: It's so fulfilling for us, and I hope we're back
Speaker 5: to share how this work progresses.
Speaker 4: I think we need to. This article is really rat
Speaker 4: so literally everyone can jump on. Get the journal, become
Speaker 4: a member, and your project does progress. If something comes
Speaker 4: up that doesn't end up in the journal, give us
Speaker 4: a call again for an update. Thank you, Thank you
Speaker 4: some elephant nuckles.
Speaker 2: Community was really good. That was really I.
Speaker 4: Love when we talk about community, diversity of people over
Speaker 4: the world, the United the Alliance, all these people together
Speaker 4: work in and benefiting wildlife.
Speaker 1: It's just it's great, right well.
Speaker 3: You know, it's definitely an underlying current through every piece
Speaker 3: of conservation we talk about, no matter what species, no
Speaker 3: matter what location on the world you're in the US
Speaker 3: or anywhere else, even like burrowing owls here in San Diego,
Speaker 3: for example, there's an ongoing part of it, which is community,
Speaker 3: trusting the locals and what they understand and know, and
Speaker 3: working with them, collaboration with other organizations, not just doing
Speaker 3: it ourselves, bringing together these teams to then not just
Speaker 3: go Okay, we're done here and walk away, but let
Speaker 3: that team that's staying there, that lives.
Speaker 2: It's part of it.
Speaker 3: Grow and become a part of that conservation and the
Speaker 3: diversity of people that have to come together to make
Speaker 3: that work. It's been a part of every story so far,
Speaker 3: yet it's unique.
Speaker 2: To each story.
Speaker 4: Also, it's wild right now, and just the nuances of
Speaker 4: human culture and in this case, elephant culture and all
Speaker 4: these traditions woven together makes me excited of the possibilities
Speaker 4: of the future for all manners of walking life.
Speaker 1: And we're just talked about.
Speaker 4: Bees to elephants, but also we got to think about
Speaker 4: the plants too, and these kind of conversations, right, and
Speaker 4: that might be something we're gonna touch on that episode.
Speaker 3: As a lovely lead in a great you're like a
Speaker 3: professional podcast you are Amanda.
Speaker 2: For that one.
Speaker 1: But no, but it's exciting, right. We get we're talking
Speaker 1: about some orchids.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk about a dangered orchid.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll be the orchid house.
Speaker 2: That's cool, guest.
Speaker 3: Maybe our general audience might think, oh, orchids, I see
Speaker 3: them in the store all the time.
Speaker 2: But these are orchids.
Speaker 4: We're like, maybe there's four left on the planet hundred percent, right,
Speaker 4: And they get just as effected with all these conflicts
Speaker 4: as well, with human beings also, so I can't.
Speaker 1: Wait to talk about them.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, there you go.
Speaker 4: We're going to stay at the Zoo another episode, but
Speaker 4: I'm excited about It's going.
Speaker 1: To be a good one.
Speaker 3: So if you haven't subscribed, please do and tune in
Speaker 3: next time we talk about and learn more about in
Speaker 3: endangered orchids right here at the San Diego Zoo.
Speaker 1: Can't wait. I'm Marko Went and.
Speaker 2: I'm Rick Schwartz. Thanks for listening and for watching.
Speaker 3: For more information about the San Diego Zoo and San
Speaker 3: Diego Zuosafari Park, go to SDZWA dot org. Amazing Wildlife
Speaker 3: is a production of iHeartRadio. Our supervising producers are Nikia
Speaker 3: Swinton and Dylan Fagan, and our sound designers are Sierra
Speaker 3: Spreen and Matt Russell. For more shows from iHeartRadio, check
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