Did You Notice? The Wildlife is Watching You.

In this 10 Minute Tuesday, Rick explores how human activity impacts wildlife behavior, highlighting recent scientific studies and personal insights. Discover how animals adapt to human presence and what this means for conservation efforts.  Rick also discusses the use of drone technology to deploy environmental monitoring tools with little human impact, giving researchers a "cleaner" read of the habitat.

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Links mentioned in the episode:
Yale News: Wildlife is Watching Us Too and Changing Their Behavior In Response
Science.org: Interacting effects of human presence and landscape modification on birds and mammals

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ZoologyRick.com

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Podcast Music: Positive Carefree Folk Pop
Artist: Burgberg
Used with Full Music Standard Lic.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Going to share with you a little bit of a personal story, and I hope I'm not alone this. Maybe you can relate. But essentially, I was grocery shopping the other day, turned to go down the aisle, and saw there are like four or five other people in their grocery carts, and I just stopped right there and decided, you know what? I'll go further down the other side of the store to get some things that I need, and I'll come back to this aisle later. It ends up there's a lot of animals out there that do the same thing when they come in contact with humans. I'm Rick Schwartz, educator, public speaker, and all-around curious guy. Over the years, my curiosity and experiences, along with the many people I have worked with, revealed to me we all have a desire to feel connected to the natural world. You're listening to Animals, Nature, and You, a podcast that explores a connection between animals, nature, and humans. A podcast that celebrates learning more, following our curiosity, and reconnecting with the natural world. Welcome to another 10-minute Tuesday here on Animals, Nature and You. Of course, I'm your host, Rick Schwartz, and I have to say, we're chunking along here. We got a lot of episodes we're clicking through, and it's kind of fun to know that we're gathering more in our community. And so I want to say thank you real quick. I appreciate you being here. I appreciate those of you who've left reviews, also, stars, whatever might be. Again, like I've mentioned in previous episodes, that doesn't really do anything for the algorithm, but it does give a little bit of social credit, if you will. So when people are looking for a show to listen to or watch on YouTube, when they see other people have left comments or reviews on podcast players, they're a little curious. They want to see what's going on. So thank you all for doing that. And I really appreciate that as we grow. And it's kind of funny, as we talk about this podcast and this community growing, this particular episode is about how humans and our activity, not just in how we change the landscape, but our just showing up being present sometimes, can impact wildlife. And what's interesting is the impact is different depending upon the species. So specifically, I came across this article the other day. Initially it was Yale News, and it was a Yale study that was done, and it's titled Wildlife is Watching Us Too and Changing Their Behavior in Response. Essentially, the article goes on to talk about how using studies, doing research with GPS callers, knowing different species from a wide variety of mammals and birds, and then using data from 2019 and 2020. And if you remember, 2019 was right before the pandemic, 2020 was during the pandemic. So you also had an opportunity then to look at cell phone GPS and human behavior and where it was normally moving and flowing and then how it got drawn back. And they took that data to then lay over how are the animals acting when people are present versus people aren't. Short periods of time, long period of time, seasons. It was very interesting. The article links to a more in-depth article that has this study in science.org. So I went further into that. And it was really cool because they talk a lot about, and I'll I'll make sure, as always, I'll make sure that the links are down below in the show notes for you. So you can check out these articles too. I'm not going to go super in depth, I'm not going to quote a bunch from it. Just thought it was a really interesting conversation. In that there were species like the gray wolf that, with humans in the area, they expanded the amount of territory and space that they used. But looking at the data and looking at it more, it was because they were avoiding, going out of their way to avoid interacting with the humans in that space. And that space can be they use hiking, off-roading, skiing, things of that nature. And they also look at agriculture, land development, things on the other side that are a little more permanent, and how do these things impact it? Now there are some species that took advantage of humans being in the space, increasing their space into the human area because we leave food. We leave things that they can live off of, essentially. So that's when you look at maybe your urban raccoons, your urban coyotes, where we start to interact at a level that is more uh impactful because we leave behind resources that may or may not be natural resources, but nonetheless, resources the animals can exploit. Then there are other species that they shrunk their footprint. They certain birds didn't go out as far in search for food or establishing territory because of the human behavior in that space. So it was interesting in the all this data is important because as we look at things from a conservation level, whether it's dause hiking or myself, I love trail running. I have several areas, several green spaces here in San Diego. I love going out to spend time in nature. And the study made me think about that. What is my impact? You know, I have one person just out for a run. I didn't really look at that as impactful. Like you think of camping, you think of going out and spending time in the space, leaving behind things or using resources, off-roading, things that are a little more impactful, at least in my mind, versus just going out for a day hike or a trail run. And this really shows that it doesn't matter what we're doing, it's our presence sometimes that can impact and change an animal's routine, behavior, how it interacts with its habitat or the environment in general. This data is important for those doing conservation. When we look at the need for national parks, we look at the need for state parks, we look at the need for keeping open spaces open. Yes, they should be something we uh should also participate in enjoying because green spaces, open spaces, natural spaces are so important for our health, mentally, physically, emotionally, all of it. But then we also need to consider when we look at industrializing these spaces, when we go mining or drilling or the need for agriculture or the removal of timber, what does that impact other than the obvious? Whether it's the obvious trucks in the space, the people in the space, the the loss of true habitat, but then in general, just the presence of that as well. This information is important because it allows those in that are making the argument for conservation, for no, we shouldn't do that behavior there, to be able to show the impact the presence of humans has on natural spaces, on the wildlife living in these spaces. And again, I I've I've said it before on this podcast, it's something I believe truly. It's not just about animals should have space too. They should. They should. But I think some people like, oh, you're just, you know, you're just a tree hugger, you just love animals, you know, you think they're as important as humans. The way I see it from what I have researched and but I've researched college-level studies of science and biology, ecology, environmental studies, it's all linked. We're all linked. We cannot keep encroaching into these spaces and expect to live a normal life long term on this planet. And I don't mean that in a doom and gloom way, so much as we need to find sustainability. And studies like this, I think, are very important for that. It made me also think of when I was working for another company, a large nonprofit organization here in San Diego, that does a lot of work around the world. One of the tools they were looking at was how to deploy things like cameras into natural spaces without doing it with a human, using a large drone to go and drop something that it can then set itself up autonomously to then record that space, to track animals that way. Using trail cameras and other things in the wild are important and very valuable for us to get an idea of what lives out there. You can track footprints, you can look at scat, but unless it's on an exact trail that you're on, you're not always going to see those things. And so being able to deploy these cameras are important because it gives you a bit of observation opportunity for what's out there, what's using that space and how do they use it. When we go out there as a human, we drop these things out there, we set them up, we leave behind our scent. If the animals have learned, let's say it's a mountain lion or a wolf, have learned that humans are negative, are bad and dangerous, they're going to avoid that scent. They won't be around there. So your camera trap may or may not get a proper reading. Other species, like my good friend the raccoon or the coyotes, well, they might sense humans and smell our scent and think, well, in the past they've always left food behind. That might be a resource. So your camera trap might actually end up capturing more activity of those species than would naturally occur if there wasn't a human scent there. So the autonomous drop of a camera system into the wild, whether we're talking North America or anywhere else, has value in that it doesn't bring with it the human scent. We can disinfect clean and sanitize these things before sending them out to eliminate the human marker. So therefore, you're getting a cleaner look. So again, going back to a study like the one I was talking about, then again, I'll have the links down below in the show notes, it allows us that opportunity to get another view of the subtleties of our impact, of driving on certain roads, campsites that are open certain times of year, but not others. What if, what if we're talking about a species of bird or a species of mammal or even a reptile that is impacted by our presence and it disturbs their nesting, it disturbs their reproduction cycle, it deserves disturbs some growth in their youth. What if we learned about that? We understood our impact and could say, okay, for these two months, humans don't get to go there. I think it's a fair trade. It could be the difference between saving a species or losing a species, and when what we know from all of our other knowledge of when we lose a species where numbers drop or they are uh go extinct from a certain environment or certain space, it changes so much of that environment. What if we could learn more about how we impact the spaces we're in and make those subtle changes? I have said it before, and and I know it. I truly do believe that we don't have to stop being humans. We don't have to stop doing everything we do, but we do need to be more thoughtful. Why would that be a bad thing? Why would it be a challenge for us, one of the most intelligent, problem-solving creatures on the planet, to make subtle adjustments to make for better environments for ourselves? And yes, for the birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and everybody else that we share the planet with. Just a thought. Either way, I would love to hear from you. Let me know. The podcast players, at the very top, there's a link that says send fan mail. If you'd like, click on that. You can send me a message, voicemail, or a text. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. What is your input? What's your experience with humans being in natural spaces, or your own experience seeing wildlife respond to you being in their habitat? And of course, if you want, my information's all down below. My website, zoologyrick.com. You can get a hold of me through that. You can find me on social media, ZoologyRick, and all the other usual things. And before I wrap this up, I just want to say again, thank you all for joining me on this Curious Odyssey. If you haven't already, please subscribe or follow so you don't miss any of the upcoming episodes. Every Tuesday, a 10-minute Tuesday like this, and every Thursday, we have an awesome interview with an awesome person doing some pretty cool things. So I don't want you to miss any of those episodes. Again, thanks so much for joining me on this Curious Odyssey. I really appreciate you being here. Have a good one, everybody.