The PrimateCast

Send us Fan MailToday's episode is all about royalty. No, not those odd primates shuffling around palaces in crowns and robes, but the monarchs of the butterfly world.We're joined by Dr. Jaap de Roode, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Biology at Emory University, who's one of the world's experts in insect self-medication.Yup, you heard that right. You might have caught one of our episodes (42, 60) with Mike Huffman, who discovered chimpanzees self-medicating in Tanzania to ward off parasites.  Well, if you thought that was amazing (it is!), wait'll you hear Jaap talk about monarch butterflies! After sharing his background in parasitology and population ecology, Jaap describes his work on medicative behaviors in monarch butterflies. From there, we go on to a whole bunch of other topics, like:how parasites affect monarch health, especially during their migrationsthe incredible diversity of animal medicative behaviorsThe role of citizen science in monarch conservationThe importance of science communication in raising awarenessWe also talk about Jaap's forthcoming book, Doctors by Nature: How Ants, Apes and Other Animals Heal Themselves, due out from Princeton University Press on March 4, 2025. When we recorded the interview in spring 2023, Jaap was actually in Japan visiting Mike Huffman to talk about this book, so Mike joined us for the interview.  For anyone whose interested, I noticed that Jaap started a podcast of his own out of Emory University called Virulent Vortex. Check that out if you're interested in "infectious diseases across scales from molecules and pathogens to populations and pandemics, and everything in between" (from their website).As always, I thoroughly enjoyed having this conversation, and learned a lot from Jaap about butterflies and beyond. Disclaimer: The PrimateCast in no way, shape or form supports self-medicating with cigarette butts like those inventive urban birds in Mexico!The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailIn this episode of The PrimateCast, your host sits down with science communicator Amanda Mathieson, Head of Public Engagement, Education and Communications at Biorbic, Ireland's National Bioeconomy Research Centre. She's also a pioneer in the space of developing STEM-themed escape rooms. And that was the main topic of discussion in the interview. Throughout the episode, Amanda offers insightful anecdotes and creative ideas that reveal the potential of escape rooms as educational tools. We uncover the nuances of designing these immersive settings, from overcoming teamwork challenges to incorporating actors to enhance the experience.  About STEM-themed escape rooms, Amanda notes in the interview that, "It really levels the playing field… Gives people a chance to excel at something that is science based but they might think, ‘oh wow, I did that, I beat that, even though I don’t think of myself as a sciency person'."In an article she coauthored in the journal Research for All, Amanda writes that, "In an engagement scenario, perceived learning may be more valuable than actual learning, as this relates to self-efficacy and the likelihood of continued engagement.”Amanda paints a vivid picture of how these innovative approaches can promote a love for science and encourage critical thinking, making learning an enjoyable adventure for all ages.During the pandemic, Amanda also started her own podcast, conversing with science communicators in different fields and exploring how people can get into such roles. We touched on Amanda's own career path in the interview, but to learn more about the field and some of the people in it, check out that limited series podcast here. In addition to her role at Biorbic, Amanda is also Coordinator of the STEAM Summer School, which provides practical training in communicating science through the arts. And, she is currently working toward her doctorate at University College Dublin’s Earth Institute, where she studies “play”. We end the interview with a discussion of learning through video games like Age of Empires, and board games like Pandemic and Daybreak. As Amanda notes in closing, we all need to play more! And if we can do a little learning at the same time? Well, all the better.Photo Credit: Amanda Mathieson.The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailExplore zoo animal welfare with Dr. Lance J. Miller, a leading authority in animal welfare science at Brookfield Zoo Chicago, formerly Chicago Zoological Society's Brookfield Zoo.Lance is Vice President of Animal Welfare Science at Brookfield Zoo Chicago, but he also holds a slough of other appointments. He’s Chair of the Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums Animal Welfare Committee, an Advisor to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ (AZA) Research and Technology Committee, Animal Welfare Committee, and the Behavioral Scientific Advisory Group, and he’s a Steering Committee Member for AZA’s Ambassador Animal Scientific Advisory Group. Lance is also internationally active in the field, currently serving as the Vice-Chair for the World Association of Zoos and Aquarium's (WAZA) Ethics and Animal Welfare Committee, and as Chair of the WAZA Ethics Subcommittee.There's a lot to take in here. We talk about:the difference between animal rights and welfaregoing beyond the five freedoms to providing opportunities to thrivethe cetacean welfare study - the largest multi-institutional study of cetacean welfare in existencebehavioral diversity, behavioral stereotypies, and other indicators of indicator of animal welfarehow technology like Zoo PhysioTrack and ZooMonitor are reshaping the landscape of animal welfare monitoringthe ethics of animals in zoos and the perceptions of visitors in relation to conservation and welfareThis episode will enrich your understanding of a complex, interdisciplinary field that blends science and ethics and showcases in the best case human compassion and commitment to the animals we keep at zoos and aquariums.I hope you enjoy the conversation!The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailIn this episode I sit down with my friend and colleague, cognitive scientist Dr. Nicolas Claidiere from the Center for Research in Psychology and Neuroscience at Aix-Marseille University. Nico was on the podcast once before, in episode 30 when we recorded from the International Primatological Society's conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, back in 2014. So let's call this a 10-year reunion!In the episode, we talk about:bloodletting (Paywall), I know, right? Nico thought it was a weird question, too! the most tech-savvy baboons in the world, who also boast some of the highest screen times aroundbut also, why they are good subjects to study social cognition withThe emergence of conventions in baboon society, like shaking hands, or driving on the right/left, but not!cumulative cultural evolution, and why it might not be scalable in non-human speciesthe relationship between biological and cultural evolutionand the role of mentors in shaping one's careercuriosity, in humans and beyond ...-----“You need social learning and you need technological reasoning to get technological evolution. The question is, what evolved first and what is the most important." (Nicolas Claidiere)-----I found this to be a remarkable conversation about the evolution of technological reasoning, social learning and cultural evolution. It offers a reflection on the broader implications of social dynamics and cognitive science, and really highlights what incredible insights can come from one of the most innovative research labs you're likely to find out there.I hope you enjoy the interview as much as I did! And learn a lot from it, too...The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailWhat happens when a primatologist and podcaster leaves behind an academic career in Japan to embrace a new chapter in wildlife conservation in Canada? Crickets on the show, for one...Join me as I share my emotional decision to move on from Kyoto University and take up the role of Senior Scientist, Wildlife Conservation at the Wilder Institute / Calgary Zoo. The challenges of uprooting my family, the bittersweet farewells to a cherished community, and the thrill of new beginnings all mixed up in this candid narrative. The episode is one part explanation for a year-long absence from podcasting, one part call-to-action as I wrestle with where to go with the podcast from here.We're now 9 episodes away from 100. My promise to you is that we'll get there, possibly sooner than you think. But beyond that?That's where I need your help. Here's what you can do:Send in ratings and reviews! Wherever you listen to the show. Apple Podcasts. Spotify. Platform X. Whatever. These will help grow the podcast and tell me how I'm doing, and whether you get value out of the show.Reach out through social media, through the podcast website, or via [email protected]. See below for details on how to reach me.Donate! Make a small one-time donation, or become a monthly subscriber for a small fee. Shout outs and deep appreciation to anyone who supports the show. Your support will directly influence whether we carry on beyond the 100 episode benchmark.This episode is not just a story of change, but a rallying call to join me on this new path where our shared passions for wildlife and science communication can drive the PrimateCast community onward.The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailIn today’s installment of the podcast, I’m really excited to share a fascinating conversation I had with Dr. Tecumseh Fitch about the evolution of cognition and communication.Tecumseh Fitch is Professor of Cognitive Biology at the University of Vienna where he co-founded the Department of Cognitive Biology and plays a leading role in the radically interdisciplinary Vienna Cognitive Science Hub, where they gather biologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, and computer scientists, and mix them with linguists, philosophers and musicologists to really understand cognition and communication in its broadest sense.But more than that, Tecumseh Fitch is an icon in the fields of cognitive biology and language evolution - he literally wrote the textbook on the The Evolution of Language. His mastery of these topics are on full display in this conversation, as are his storytelling skills. “one way of seeing cognitive science is it’s the triumph of mentalism over behaviorism” (Tecumseh Fitch)We ended up with a rich tapestry of insights into how language and cognition evolved, how they shape the lives of animals across the spectrum - from bees to naked mole rats to chimpanzees - and how they’ve set the scene for our own human experience.So, if you want to hear us meander from American Civil War generals to the question of why dogs can’t dance, or find out why macaques could anatomically ask questions like “will you marry me” but to my knowledge are not known to have ever done so, then stick around for the next hour plus and I guarantee you will not be disappointed.Other topics in this interview include:call production (vocal) learningHoover the Talking Sealthe evolution of musicality, singing and rhythmicitygreat ape language projectsAI and animal communicationOn Darwin and why it has taken so long to accept the idea of animal mindsGeneral William Tecumseh Sherman and Tecumseh Sherman Fitch II always learn a lot through the conversations I have for The PrimateCast, but I gotta say that this one had me cognitively locked in. I hope it does the same for you. Related episodes: (#72) A conversation about what music means to us, and monkeys, with Dr. Charles (Chuck) Snowdon(#23) Conversations about Communication from the 74th Annual Congress of the Japan Society for Animal Psychology.The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailFor this episode, I sat down in the studio with evolutionary anthropologist Dr. Laura Buck in the Research Centre for Evolutionary Anthropology and Palaeoecology of Liverpool John Moores University.Dr. Susumu Tomiya of CICASP also joined the conversation.After waxing on the plausibility that some ancient hominins in cold climates might have hibernated - spoiler alert! Not very - Laura describes the evolutionary and developmental processes that lead to adaptations and behavioral responses to the cold. We talk about human cold adaptation and how they relate to those of Neanderthals, and how patterns emerge to help species thrive in thermally-inhospitable places.Laura describes her current research, and how scientists might have overlooked a potentially critical evolutionary force among mammals: hybridisation. We touch on the idea of genetic rescue for conservation, and whether the "grolar bear", a hybrid between grizzlies and polar bears, might - and that’s a controversial might! -  might allow polar bear genes to survive climate warming in the arctic. Laura’s work on hybridisation has focused on macaques, but she argues that what we learn from studying hybrid macaque bones can help us understand many of the mysteries of evolution. She touches on the modern techniques used in geometric morphometrics - simply put, measuring bones in cool ways to understand evolutionary processes - including the future role of AI in the process. Laura closes with the idea of niche construction, where it’s not only how we and other species adapt to the environments around us, but also how we change those environments ourselves, leading to the conclusion that in many ways we are responsible for our own environments of evolutionary adaptedness.Other topics covered in the interview:Non-adaptationist explanations and just-so stories in human evolutionFieldwork fails with technology in scanning and measuring bonesNasal air conditioningclimate adaptations comparing prehistoric humans in Japan with Japanese macaquesHybridization and evolution of the primate pelvisAs the Northern hemisphere gears up for the winter, remember that we all have some physical and many behavioral adaptations to the cold. But, if you’re unsure, hey, maybe you can just hibernate…The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailIn today’s lecture, Dr. Paula Pebsworth joined us from her home in Texas to give a lecture titled “You never know where life will take you: an interdisciplinary and unconventional path”. This lecture was extra special for me, because Paula and I were grad students together at Kyoto University’s Primate Research Institute over a decade ago, both under the supervision of Mike Huffman. I’ve missed my friend over the intervening years, along with her family - who also play a feature role in her talk - so it was wonderful getting back together for this event.Apart from the normal dose of nostalgia that such reunions can bring, I was reminded of what we lost when the Primate Research Institute was restructured in the spring of 2022 - a place where minds met and grew together, where budding and rooted primatologists alike were mixed and incubated and sent off to do amazing things wherever life after PRI took them.And what an interesting life Paula has had, both before and after her time in Japan. Paula is an independent scientist who has had professional roles as a Research Coordinator for Wildcliff Nature Reserve in South Africa, a Post-doctoral Research Associate and adjunct associate at the National Institute of Adv. Studies in Bangalore, India, a Scientific Coordinator at Cloudbridge Nature Reserve in Costa Rica, and a head scientist for an environmental consulting firm in Saudi Arabia.Through it all, she has worked toward tackling the monumental challenge of managing human-nonhuman primate conflict and coexistence, the topic she spends most of the lecture covering in tantalizing detail.But would you imagine that she started out her professional career as a chemist testing wine in the California vineyards? It doesn’t seem obvious, but Paula manages to weave this background into her studies of antiparasite strategies and self-medication in chimpanzees and baboons.And no, she wasn’t getting her subjects drunk on wine! But you’ll have to stay tuned to find out how it all makes sense in the career of this thoughtful and innovative primatologist.Now, Paula is just about to pack up and head over to Japan herself in a few days, for an event where she’ll be speaking about human-nonhuman primate coexistence at Kyoto University. I can’t wait to meet up with her there and catch up.Paula has also agreed to follow this lecture up with a proper conversation for the primateCast, so stay tuned for part two in the near future. I took a lot of notes during her lecture and have a lot of things to follow up on.The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailIn today’s origin story, Dr. Colin Chapman joined us over Zoom from his home on Vancouver Island to talk about, quote, “A Few Fun Things I have Learned Studying Primates". Colin Chapman has a whole bunch of titles that are worth a quick once over: he is a Killam Research Fellow, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a fellow at Humboldt Foundation, a Wilson Fellow, holds an Office of an Academician, Northwest University, Xi’an, China and is a Conservation Fellow with the Wildlife Conservation Society. He’s also received a humanitarian award from the Velan Foundation.Colin recently moved to Vancouver Island University to spend more time on his conservation efforts in and around Kibale National Park Uganda, where he’s spent so many of his years as one of the world’s most prominent primatologists.In the lecture to follow, Colin unpacks what he’s learned about primate population dynamics over 34 plus years at Kibale. He talks about deforestation, bushmeat hunting and climate change, and importantly how research can allow us to make predictions about how these anthropogenic threats might affect primates in the future. Colin closes with a series of take home messages like how it’s ok to make mistakes along the way, how scientists in more developed nations should use our privilege to focus on capacity building to support researchers in less fortunate circumstances, and why making sure to have fun is the key to longevity as a researcher. Other topics that come up include:health and conservation and the mobile health clinic he spearheaded to support  local communities in Ugandahow primate foraging might actually make the food landscape worse for themselves over timehow colobus biomass is tightly linked to plant food qualitywhile at the same time global change can lead to declines in food quality (paywall) for those very same primatesyet their populations may not suffer the dramatic losses we expectFor anyone interested in hearing more from Colin, he was also on the podcast in Episode 39, where I asked him to reflect on then 26 years of research and conservation at Kibale.We hope you enjoy this take from one of the world's leading primate scientists!The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailIn this episode of The PrimateCast origins, we’re sharing a lecture from primatologist and cognitive ethologist, Patricia Izar from the University of São Paulo. Pat is one of the eminent Latin American primatologists, and along with her close friends and colleagues Drs. Dorothy Fragaszy and Elisabetta Visalberghi - see episode #68 for more on this from Elisabetta Visalberghi - she’s been studying the incredible tool use behavior of robust capuchins for the past few decades.Capuchins are one of the very few non-great ape primates that are known to commonly use tools in nature - they use stones and anvils to crack open tough nuts and aquatic invertebrates (Paywall).Pat walks us through a series of fascinating experiments with these charismatic monkeys - who by the way you can hear make a series of audio-only cameos in the background while she shows our Zoom audience some videos. Her target? Trying to understand what they know about the tools they use and what benefits they gain from using them.Check out a short documentary about the EthoCebus project, of which Pat is a key member. Because of her long history of observing and experimenting with wild capuchins, she challenges the idea from laboratory experiments with captive-reared individuals that capuchins don’t  understand how or why the tools they use work; a commonly held belief that, unlike humans, monkeys don’t really have a strong sense of the ‘folk physics’ underlying their behavior.Other topics that come up:selecting the best tools to use what environmental factors affect when and how capuchins use toolshow using tools might affect social relationshipsthe nutritional benefits of tool use in different seasonsHave you ever wondered how heavy those stones are?playing with perception by providing huge stones that are light as a featherPat ends by talking about how this iconic behavior in capuchins can tell us a lot about the evolution of tool use in humans. By studying animals like capuchins, we can learn a lot about the kinds of conditions that are likely to have fostered this cognitively demanding behavior during our evolution.Although she doesn’t mention it in the lecture, Pat is also a key figure in the profession and development of primatology, both locally in Brazil and internationally. She is currently the President of the Brazilian Society of Primatology, and serves the International Primatological Society as its VP for Education.The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailIn this episode, comparative cognitive scientist Dr. Reggie Gazes and my office neighbor Dr. Ikuma Adachi.Reggie is an associate professor of psychology and animal behavior at Bucknell University in Lewisburg Pennsylvania. She and Ikuma overlapped as trainees in the lab of Dr. Robert Hampton at the now-named Emory National Primate Research Center.Listen to Rob in episode 20 of the podcast on mental time travel and metacognition. In the interview here, we find out how her experiences in Rob’s lab translated into Reggie’s own approach to being a teacher-scholar at Bucknell University. Since a large part of what Reggie does involves engaging, supporting and doing research alongside undergraduate students, I thought it fitting to ask for their input in designing the interview, which can be thought of as a sort of collaboration with them. Along with Reggie riffing on Bunny the dog, teaching students like she trains her monkeys, and - spoiler alert! - why she won’t go to karaoke with her students, we talk at length about the nuts and bolts of doing comparative cognitive science, and particularly in the context of animals in social groups.Some key studies done by Reggie and her lab mates that are a great primer for this conversation include her work on factors influencing touchscreen work in rhesus macaques and how social networks predict learning outcomes in capuchins. She really gets across in our conversation just how important it is to consider the rich social lives of animals when trying to design cognitive tests and understand how they think and why.These are the kinds of things that would really matter to individual primates living under natural conditions, so it was great hearing Reggie’s thoughts on how this type of cognitive experimentation was gaining more and more traction, despite its many challenges!Other topics covered in the interview:TikTok's Bunny the dogpeanut butter sandwichesmentorship and role modelsteaching and scholarshipimposter syndrome and the importance of collaborationFor more on Reggie Gazes and the 'Awesomeness' of her work, check out the Comparative Cognition & Behavior at Bucknell lab. The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailIn this episode of The PrimateCast origins, we’re sharing a lecture given by wildlife biologist and conservationist Dr. Ian Redmond, OBE.Ian is renowned for his work with gorillas and elephants in Africa. Through research, filming, ecotourism, and conservation science and activism, he’s spent over 40 years cultivating the wisdom and the network needed to inspire and incite real change. In this lecture, Ian weaves an engaging tale around his experiences. His wonderful storytelling might make you feel, as I did, like you’re part of the story. And I think that’s one of Ian’s main points; that all of us are part of nature’s story and importantly can be part of its protectorate in lots of different ways.His stories move effortlessly from African villagers to conservation icons to world leaders, and you get the sense that Ian is at home amongst all of them, never losing sight of the ultimate goal of protecting the planet and its diverse inhabitants. He jokes about how he got himself to Karisoke research station to study gorillas by offering to fix Dianne Fossey’s leaky roof. And even has some fun stories about Sir David Attenborough during his filming for the iconic BBC series Life on Earth. But its his descriptions of his time in the forests, with the gorillas and elephants, with the local people that live alongside them, which really sparks in us that sense of what might be lost if we fail to act on behalf of the Earth.To that end, Ian leaves us with some ways to support conservation efforts, including some of the initiatives he’s been directly involved in over the years. Here’s where you might be surprised to learn about blockchains for elephants! But it all seems to be part of the bigger picture of finding ways to assess the economic value of the ecosystem services species like elephants and gorillas provide, as the true gardeners of the forests.It’s easy to get swept away by Ian’s easy nature, engaging rhetoric, and just his plain old dude with interesting stories vibe. But you’re going to learn a lot listening to this lecture.Other topics covered and links to related organizations:virtual ecotourism through vEcotourismnon-profit nature documentaries at Ecoflixholistic natural capital and nature credits with Rebalance EarthGreat Apes Survival PartnershipIntergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)conservation issues in Africa: bushmeat, materials extraction, deforestation, civil war, poachingMy favorite quote from this episode: "I am vibrating to elephant rumbles in a cave 160m under the ground in total darkness” [Dr. Ian Redmond, OBE]The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailIn this episode, conservationist, author and founder of The Orangutan Project, Leif Cocks. Leif is a tireless conservationist who seems to be involved in innumerable conservation projects throughout Southeast Asia, but most notably The Orangutan Project, which he founded in 1998.We talk about Leif’s path to conservation, which began early on with an interest in animals and nature and was formalized through his experiences in higher education and work in husbandry and small population biology at Perth Zoo. What really stands out in this conversation is Leif’s passion for and commitment to being a defender of the natural world and all the beings living in it. We get into orangutan conservation, including what he views as the pillars of successful orangutan reintroduction - physical health, mental health, social skills, and forest skills.Leif describes how  The Orangutan Project operates, emphasizing the importance of collective action and going far beyond just orangutan conservation into preservation of entire ecosystems and supporting local human communities living therein.He also deftly describes the real challenges involved in conserving the rainforest’s megafauna, from supporting the endearingly “bat shit crazy” folks who manage to translocate elephants to safe areas, to getting people emotionally connected to the species and ecosystems that need saving.I really appreciated Leif’s ability to unpack the nitty gritty of running a successful conservation effort, and the efforts they’ve made to assess the progress of the various initiatives they’ve sponsored. We close out the conversation with some moral questions about personhood in nonhumans and the value of captivity for conservation at places like zoos.Other topics we discuss:orangutans and conservation translocationsanimal cultureecotourism to connect people with natureTinder meets Uber for elephant conservation!Notable quotes from Leif:on orangutans - "they're self aware persons that don't belong in captivity"conservation needs "loving kindness and intelligent action"on conservation challenges - "For every complex problem in the world there’s a simple solution which is absolutely wrong”If you want to find out more about Leif, his personal story and his work, you can find him at leifcocks.org or through The Orangutan Project website. He’s also the author of three books: Orangutans and their Battle for Survival, Orangutans: My Cousins, My Friends, and Finding Our Humanity. And check out episode #14 in season 1 of the Talking Apes podcast. Check out his socials at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThis episode of The PrimateCast: Origins is taken from CICASP's International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field.The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories told by experienced researchers in primatology and related fields. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program at Kyoto University. We are releasing the audio from these lectures right here on The PrimateCast: Origins.For anyone interested in viewing the video versions of these lectures, head over to the CICASP TV YouTube channel, where you can also watch them live as we stream our Zoom feeds there.For the 21st international primatology lecture we invited  Dr. Fred Bercovitch to share his origin story with us. This lecture took place on May 10, 2023.Fred was a professor with us in CICASP from 2010 until his retirement in March 2017. He was a key mentor for me and played a big role in helping our international program mature. Starting his career studying primates and particularly the sexual behavior of baboons at Gilgil, Kenya, Fred's career meandered through developmental biology and reproductive neuroendocrinology of rhesus macaques at Cayo Santiago , mating behavior in Koalas in Australia, social structure of Giraffes in Zambia, and many more topics and species around the world. Fred also forged a career integrating work at zoos and in the wilds, having spent time at San Diego Zoo's Conservation Institute. After leaving Japan, he helped launch a non-profit for giraffe conservation called Save the Giraffes, and is now a Board Member with the Anne Innis Dagg Foundation, also tackling giraffe conservation.Two books that defined Fred's  journey were Edgar Rice Burroughs'Tarzan of the Apes and Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. He weaves these into his life's work describing how he went from the 11 year old boy whose essay on the need to save our planet - part of which he reads in the show! - was not selected by his teachers to be read at graduation, to the renowned wildlife biologist and conservationist he is today.Key topics that come up along the way are:the importance of understanding Darwin's ideas on evolution for conservationbaboon and koala sexgiraffe social bonds and behaviorListing of endangered species in IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species - and getting giraffes on it!It was great to have Fred back in touch with us, and I'm happy to share his wise words with all of you on the podcast. For other episodes of The PrimateCast where Fred appears, check out #2 with the CICASP team and #63 with Chia Tan.And just for kicks, check out this article about Fred in a piece titled "Someone San Diego Should Know" published in The San Diego Union-Tribune.Enjoy!The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThis episode features a conversation with Devan Schowe, Campaigns Associate with animal advocacy and wildlife nonprofit, Born Free USA. Born Free USA, and its parent Born Free, are charitable organizations advocating for animal welfare and compassionate conservation, with the ultimate goal of ending human exploitation of animals for any reason. In the interview, Devan outlines the history of the organization - it has a very Hollywood origin story! - and all of the twists and turns that brought her to it.  Devan’s profile can be found on the Born Free USA website’s About Us page. She is an experienced primate caregiver and animal welfare specialist with a master’s degree in primate conservation from Oxford Brookes University. We talk about some of her early experiences investigating the welfare of reptiles, and then about her master’s research on the welfare of coconut harvesting pig-tailed macaques in Thailand (published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science).  As Campaigns Associate, Devan is involved in many of the programs at Born Free USA, for example on the primate pet trade and the issues surrounding the fur trade in the USA.  For more about the primate pet trade in the USA, read Born Free USA's report (Public Danger, Private Pain: The Case Against the U.S. Primate Pet Trade) and watch a documentary on Life After the Pet Trade. Devan also talks about how people can get and have gotten involved in animal protection. To find out more, check out Born Free USA's activists toolkit.We also get a bit into the legislation of animal protection in the US, and later talk about the ethics of animals in captivity, particularly at places like zoos which have a bit of an embattled reputation these days over whether their efforts to educate the public and conserve wildlife outweigh their struggles at times to provide quality welfare for all of their animals. Other topics we cover in the interview: what does the role Campaigns Associate at an animal advocacy group look like?tracking social engagement for animal welfare and the Tiger King effectJapanese macaques living in Texas!compassionate conservationleopard geckosand more ...Devan is clearly passionate about animals and their conservation and welfare, and exceptionally knowledgable about animal issues in the USA. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did, and learn from it as I also did!Note: Talking Apes released an interview in 2021 with Born Free USA Programs Director Dr. Liz Tyson-Griffin back. Consider this a great and complementary piece to learn more about their work and issues faced by animals in the USA.The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThis episode of The PrimateCast: Origins is taken from CICASP's International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field.The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories told by experienced researchers in primatology and related fields. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program at Kyoto University. We are releasing the audio from these lectures right here on The PrimateCast: Origins.For anyone interested in viewing the video versions of these lectures, head over to the CICASP TV YouTube channel, where you can also watch them live as we stream our Zoom feeds there.For the 20th international primatology lecture, we invited Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka to join us and speak about her own origins, as a primatologist and wildlife veterinarian, the first in Uganda, and the story behind Conservation through Public Health (CPTH) and Gorilla Conservation Coffee. The conversation was recorded on Wednesday, April 5, 2023.In the talk, Dr. Gladys moves from describing the events in her childhood that foreshadowed her career as a conservationist and wildlife veterinarian through the development of her career and efforts to conserve the endangered mountain gorillas of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Uganda, largely by supporting the health of people living in the area. Topics covered include:her new memoir, Walking with Gorillas: The Journey of an African Wildlife Vet (pick up a copy!)being a wildlife vet for endangered gorillas and when to interveneecotourism for conservationwhy health and economic stability is key to successful conservation of speciesbuilding the African Primatological Society to support African efforts for research and conservation of African primatesDr. Gladys also recounts how devastating the COVID-19 pandemic was ecotourism in the region, and how she and others mobilized to ensure that the local community was vaccinated and had access to personal protective equipment such as masks and  medical support so that the risk of transmission to the gorillas was minimized. I found these stories incredibly inspiring, and endlessly insightful. Dr. Gladys’ passion for people and nature comes out in spades, and her model for conservation is one I’d love to see adopted all over the world as it has found a way to succeed through compassion for all beings involved, human and gorilla alike. Enjoy!Photo Credit: Jo Anne McArthurThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThis episode features a conversation with Dr. Tesla Monson, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Western Washington University. Tesla was in Japan visiting our own Dr. Susumu Tomiya to start some work with our collection of primate bones, so I asked Susumu to join us in the studio as well. Tesla runs the Primate Evolution Lab at Western Washington University, and has conducted some fascinating research into how we can use bones and fossils and especially teeth to understand the “squishy parts” of our collective evolutionary past that don’t preserve, like the life history traits of an animal or its behavior. Tesla tells us about some of her discoveries about correlated or patterned evolution that link tooth characteristics with other anatomical and physiological processes and allowed her and her colleagues to hypothesize about things like life history traits and behavior that aren’t preserved in the fossil record. These include how dental patterns correlate with vitamin D delivery to infants in ancient populations of humans living in Arctic Beringia, or with prenatal growth rates and endocranial volume in catarrhine primates.After hearing Tesla talk about these things I became a lot more interested in teeth myself, and what they can tell us about extinct species! But there’s a lot in this interview beyond teeth for anyone interested in evolution and the diversity of life, how scientists are often just like detectives, and just generally about being a whole person.While discussing Tesla’s efforts in science communication, we talk about the phenomenon of imposter syndrome, which can affect anyone in any role but seems to be particularly common among academics, and especially in early career researchers. All three of us seemed to have something to say on the topic, as it’s an ongoing struggle for so many of us and any encouragement and open discussion about it may land with someone in need at the right time. We close by looking at her current projects on inclusion in and out of science, such as her symposia in Integrative Human Evolution, geared toward early career researchers and interdisciplinarity, her involvement with the Bearded Ladies, who are out there to show the world that, to quote Tesla, “You don’t have to have a beard to be a scruffy paleontologist out in the field”, and her efforts to highlight the key roles played by historical women in Washington, which she calls Washington Women.Some other things that come up in the interview  include:Tesla’s study about teeth, prenatal growth rates and endocranial volumeTesla’s coauthored study about teeth, mammary gland anatomy and vitamin D deliveryIt’s a Long Way from AmphioxusTesla’s outreach programsI hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I and Susumu did!The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan Mail“You should always collaborate with your friends!” - Sarah BrosnanIn this episode I am really excited to be able to bring to you an interview with Dr. Sarah Brosnan, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Philosophy and Neuroscience in the Language Research Center at Georgia State University. Dr. Ikuma Adachi,  from Kyoto University's Center for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior, also joined us for the interview.Sarah Brosnan is probably best known for her work on inequity aversion in primates. Her early experiments published in Nature [Monkeys reject unequal pay] showed that capuchin monkeys are sensitive to what others receive for the same amount of work and reject unequal pay. Note that the video of these experiments is absolutely delightful and should be required viewing for every student of nature, the nature of the mind, and probably bratty child out there. Check it out here: capuchin monkey fairness experiment.In the interview, Sarah explains how inequity aversion is likely a key component of social knowledge, and likely evolved as a suite of abilities linked to prosocial behavior.After discussing some of the nuts and bolts of experimentation and the challenges of interpretation, we move into Sarah's more recent line of research: comparative experimental economics.What's fascinating about this work is that Sarah is testing multiple different species of primate - capuchins, macaques, chimpanzees, and humans - by setting them up with more or less identical experimental situations. These experiments are really allowing Sarah and her colleagues to learn the mechanical foundations of how we make decisions; and how they may be the same or very different foundations to those of other species even when the outcomes - like being able to maximize the payoff in any given game -  look exactly the same!I learned a lot from Sarah in this interview, and had an absolute blast with this conversation! I hope you all enjoy this interview with Dr. Sarah Brosnan as much as I did.Other topics discussed in the interview:“Let the monkeys show you the way” as a foundation for scientific discoveryMaximizing interpretability through well-designed experiments … and follow-ups! How widespread inequity aversion is in the animal kingdomWhether spite is likely among the suite of emotionally-driven behaviors available to animalsGetting into the weeds with games for game theoristsBeing careful not to confuse cause and consequence as mechanism and outcometesting cognition in group settings and all the chaos that bringsOne final thought. At 24:14 of the interview, Sarah mentions a 2023 paper that demonstrates that bonobos are sensitive to inequity (Paywall). The author, whose name she forgot in the moment, is Jonas Verspeek.The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThis episode of The PrimateCast: Origins is taken from CICASP's International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field.The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories told by experienced researchers in primatology and related fields. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program at Kyoto University. We are releasing the audio from these lectures right here on The PrimateCast: Origins.For anyone interested in viewing the video versions of these lectures, head over to the CICASP TV YouTube channel, where you can also watch them live as we stream our Zoom feeds there.Unlike our normal format for these lectures, in which our guests normally provide us with an origin story lecture, we instead ran IPLS 18 as an interview with Distinguished Professor Emeritus Dr. Frans de Waal. Frans almost needs no introduction, but you can find out more about him through some links to Emory University here and here, and on his Wikipedia page here.  The interview was conducted by Dr. Michael Huffman and yours truly, with a smattering of questions from participants, including students and postdoctoral researchers affiliated with Kyoto University’s program in primatology and wildlife science.The conversation was recorded on Wednesday, January 18, 2023.In the interview, we talk about:his book Chimpanzee Politics and communicating science and writing popular booksEnglish, writing and storytelling as a non-native English speaker, and extending rigorous scientific research into popular science prosethe responsibility of scientists to communicate their findings when they relate to society and how their ideas might be coopted for certain agendas end users may have - think Konrad Lorenz falling in with eugenicists or Richard Dawkins calling us 'slaves to our genes'primate culture and empathy for Japanese primatologyhow our views of the pillars of primate society have evolved from competition, aggression, dominance and conflict to peacemaking, conflict resolution and cooperationdrawing the line between anthropomorphism and anthropodenial, and what components of animal cognition and emotion overlap with those of humanshow measuring emotions in animals is not the same thing as understanding their 'feelings', for example grief, which was asked about by an audience memberand much, much more!An here is that video of Frans hugging a Telenoid! It can't be missed!Enjoy!The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThis episode is all about where, how and why primates got their names! No, we won't be talking about popular primates like Kanzi the bonobo or Pan-kun (if you're in Japan), but rather the terms we use for the common and scientific names of primates across their taxonomy.Dr. Elaine Guevara is a Lecturer in Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke University's Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, and in 2021, she coauthored a study published in the International Journal of Primatology called “Whom do primate names honor: rethinking primate eponyms” (Open Access), along with Chloe Chen-Kraus, Casey Farmer, Katherine Meier, David P. Watts & Jane Widness.-----------Eponym (noun): one for whom or which something is or is believed to be named.-----------In the interview, we do a deep dive into primate names and the various contexts within which they are given. Key topics of discussion include:colonial roots of primate naminghonorifics, hero worship and challenge of getting it rightdecolonizing science and having dialogues toward greater inclusivity in science and societyVerreaux's sifaka, Geoffroy's spider monkey, Dian's tarsier and the Bemaraha woolly monkey (a.k.a. Avahi cleesei), whose epithet (species name) honors John Cleese!pronunciation and the challenge of Anglicizationbetter ways to name as conceived by the international primatological community-----------CORRECTIONAt 1:00:02 of the interview Elaine notes that the term 'maias' - suggested by JM Rubis (2020) to replace the established common name orangutan - is an indigenous Malay term, when in fact it is the term used by the Iban, a group indigenous to the island of Borneo.-----------For more information, and to contribute to understanding primate names and what we should do about them, explore these links!Primate Eponyms website - learn more about primate namesakes and contribute if information for your species is missing!Survey for primatologists (at all career stages!) where you can provide your thoughts on primate eponyms. CLICK HERE!The orang utan is not an indigenous name: knowing and naming the maias as a decolonizing epistemology (Paywall) by Jane M. Rubis (2020).Decolonizing the Ourang-Outang (Open Access) by Maeve Fairbanks,  Luke D. Fannin & Nathaniel J. Dominy (2022) published in the International Journal of Primatology.The family that built an empire of pain - The Sackler family is a notorious namesake with dark roots underlying the opioid crisis. Elaine discusses this in the context of honorifics and the injustices felt by those harmed.Photo Credit: Elaine GuevaraThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThis episode of The PrimateCast: Origins is taken from CICASP's International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field.The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories told by experienced researchers in primatology and related fields. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program at Kyoto University. We are releasing the audio from these lectures right here on The PrimateCast: Origins.For anyone interested in viewing the video versions of these lectures, head over to the CICASP TV YouTube channel, where you can also watch them live as we stream our Zoom feeds there.For the 12th international primatology lecture we invited distinguished professor Dr. Mewa Singh to share his origin story with us. This lecture took place on May 25, 2022.-----"One need not have a formal degree in a discipline, to become a specialist in that discipline"-Mewa Singh, 2022-----Dr. Mewa Singh is Life-Long Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology and Institute of Excellence at the University of Mysore. Throughout his career he has investigated the behavior and ecology of mammals, most notably primates, and has been heavily invested in their conservation and management in different regions throughout India.In this lecture, he describes his activities related to the conservation of primates in India, particularly through distinctions between forest-dependent species and others that are more adaptable to human-dominated landscapes. He then describes various behavioral adaptations that have allowed more commensal macaque species to thrive in urban settings.Key topics that come up are:genetic diversity in lion-tailed macaques with respect to habitat fragmentationprotecting habitat and regrowing wildlife corridors with rainforest treesprimate commensalism and behavioral plasticity in urban environmentsacquisition of novel foraging strategies as adaptations to extracting human resourcesHe begins the lecture talking about how he became a wildlife biologist and primatologist, and that it wasn't exactly a straight line or so predetermined from a young age. And he closes with some further advice about studying primates ethically in human landscapes. In between, he provides numerous pieces of advice and bits of wisdom that will no doubt have value for all listeners. Enjoy!. The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThis episode features paleoanthropologist and science educator Dr. Briana Pobiner.Briana works in the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. She is also Associate Research Professor in the Department of Anthropology at George Washington University. Briana’s anthropological research focuses on understanding the human diet, and changes therein over the past few million years. Her work on science education and communication focuses on promoting understanding of evolution through examples from our own bushy branches of the evolutionary family tree. In the interview, we cover a range of topics including:the question "what makes us human?"reconstructing the diets of our ancestors using paleontological 'time machines'ancient hominins sharing the savannas - and food? - with ancient carnivoresbusting some common myths, like the idea of linear evolution and the 'paleodiet'balancing doing, teaching and communicating science to broad audienceshow to go about becoming a strong communicator of scientific ideasbeing a mom in the field with kidsThere is so much in this interview for everyone, and we couldn't be happier to be sharing it on The PrimateCast. Here are a few links to help you learn more about Briana Pobiner and her work:Briana's professional bioBriana's research websiteAnswer the question "what does it mean to be human" yourself on the Smithsonian Human Origins Program’s website A brilliant 2016 paper on accepting, understanding, teaching and learning evolution in the USBriana's academic page on GWU's websitePhoto Credit: SmithsonianThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThis episode of The PrimateCast: Origins is taken from CICASP's International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field. The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories told by experienced researchers in primatology and related fields. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program at Kyoto University. We are releasing the audio from these lectures right here on The PrimateCast: Origins.For anyone interested in viewing the video versions of these lectures, head over to the CICASP TV YouTube channel, where you can also watch them live as we stream our Zoom feeds there. For the 8th international primatology lecture we invited Dr. John Mitani to share his origin story with us. This lecture took place on January 27, 2022. -----"If you find good [mentors], lean on them"-John Mitani, 2022-----John Mitani is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, who has conducted over 40 years of research on gibbons, orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos. He is the 2022 recipient of the Charles R. Darwin Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Biological Anthropologists. And, listening to his lecture really gives one a sense of why! So much of his work found its way into the textbooks.In the lecture, he shares many of the key discoveries he and his colleagues have made about social behavior in primates. These covered topics like:territoriality and indices of home range defensibility how ape vocalizations play a role in territorial defense and spacinghow male orangutans can have hugely different mating strategies that coincide with huge differences in body size and other physical featureshow chimpanzee social behavior and alliances are determined by genetic relationships among malesHe then goes on to provide some sage advice for any up-and-coming scholars out there. He spends a good deal of time acknowledging his mentors, and implores all of us to do the same. He also acknowledges the importance of serendipity, and the need to be opportunistic in the face of new observations. With eloquence and humility, John tells us the story of his career, in the hopes it can provide some inspiration to those of us out there on similar paths. One thing's for sure: I sure felt inspired after hearing him speak!The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThis episode features distinguished primatologist Dr. Charles Snowdon, or Chuck Snowdon, as he’s maybe better known by. Chuck is Hilldale Professor of Psychology Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and he’s widely known for his work on primate social development, communication and cognition. He ran the Snowdon Primate Center in the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where so much was learned about the small Neotropical primates known as marmosets and tamarins. In the interview, we deep dive one specific topic that Chuck has worked on over the past couple of decades: musicality in nonhumans! Some of our topics of conversation include:the integration of art and science, STEAM, and collaborating with musicianshow our appreciation of music evolves and affects our moodmaking music for monkeys... and why it mattersand many more!Here's a great quote from Chuck from a 2009 article published in the Guardian: “Why should a tamarin find our music comforting? I find the monkey music quite irritating.” You can read the paper on which a lot of our conversation was based in an article published in the journal Biology Letters (Paywall). There's also more music for tamarins in the supplementary material of that article as well!In the interview, Chuck also references Snowball, a cockatoo who became YouTube famous for its ability to dance to the beat of popular music. This bird was also the focal point of our conversation with Dr. John Iversen, another fascinating conversation I had when he visited Japan for the Japan Society for Animal Psychology conference back in 2014. He's the middle interview in The PrimateCast 22.The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThis episode presents an interview with Dr. Pamela Asquith, and anthropologist and meta-primatologist who has studied how primatology was done historically in Japan, and tackled the challenge of language, metaphor and anthropomorphism in science.In March 2022, she delivered an excellent talk for CICASP in our International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives in the Field. You can find a link to that event here, or go straight to the CICASP YouTube Channel and find it here. The interview is not a carbon-copy of the lecture, so I'm sure one can find value in both!Pam Asquith is currently adjunct professor in Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria, but perhaps spent the bulk of her career in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alberta. Pam is perhaps best known around here as the person who translated - with support from colleagues in Japan - Kinji Imanishi's seminal 1941 book Seibutsu no Sekai 「生物の世界」into English, under the title: "A Japanese View of Nature: The World of Living Things". Imanishi is considered a founder of Japanese primatology- he set up Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute itself! - and was especially instrumental in giving it the flavor it had that set it apart from primatology as it emerged somewhat independently in the West. Some of the topics we cover during the conversation include:understanding primatology through the lens of history and philosophy, and how Eastern and Western cultural trends influenced the trajectory of the fieldthe challenges of anthropomorphism and metaphor in science and the study of animal behaviormeta-primatology and the process of studying those who study primates, especially in Japanmarginalization in science, sometimes caused by language constraints and cultural influences on thoughtthe legend that is Kinji Imanishi, his views on nature, and his influence on Japanese primatology and beyondFor anyone interested in finding out more about her work, you can visit Dr. Pamela Asquith's website, and check out her book A Japanese View of Nature: The World of Living Things on Amazon or wherever else you might get your reading material. And don't forget to check out her lecture for our International Primatology Lecture Series!The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThis episode of The PrimateCast: Origins is taken from CICASP's International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field.The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories told by experienced researchers in primatology and related fields. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program, but we decided to release the audio right here on The PrimateCast.For anyone interested in viewing the video versions of these lectures, head over to CICASP's YouTube channel, where you can also watch them live as we stream our Zoom feeds there.For the 6th international primatology lecture we invited Dr. Karen Strier to share her story with us.Many of our listeners should be really familiar with Dr. Strier, as she was until recently president of the International Primatological Society and is the author of 6 editions of the famous textbook Primate Behavioral Ecology - which I assume many of you, like me many years ago, were trained on!I was lucky enough to interview her for the podcast back in 2016 (#53) at the 26th Congress of the International Primatological Society that was held in Chicago and hosted by Lincoln Park Zoo. She had just become president of the IPS, so now I guess we can bookend her tenure with a follow up episode of The PrimateCast - nailed it!But I thought we had a really great conversation back then, so it was nice to see the bigger picture of Karen’s work in this IPLS event. And, if you stay to the end, you’ll notice that I left in my own question of Dr. Strier, just because I thought her answer to it really helped fill out the story of why their work on muriquis matters so much, and what we still need to look out for.In her talk, Karen covers how she got into primatology and ended up studying muriquis, also known as woolly monkeys - those rare faces in the forest, which she writes about so elegantly in a book of that name. Northern muriquis, her main study species, are among the most endangered primates, and the work that Karen and her colleagues have been doing is really shedding light on their ups and downs, and the threats they continue to face.Karen Strier is Vilas Research Professor and Irven Devore Professor of Anthropology at the University of Madison - Wisconsin. For anyone who wants to know more about Dr. Strier, check out her lab's homepage on the University of Wisconsin's website.The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThis is podcast #69 with Dr. Takeshi Furuichi.I was really excited about this interview. I've known our guest - Dr. Takeshi Furuichi - since I was a grad student in the Section of Social Systems Evolution at Kyoto University's now rebranded Primate Research Institute. He was the Section Head until this year when we were all redistributed together to the Wildlife Research Center."I want to behave like ... females of bonobos, but in reality I am a male chimpanzee"Dr. Furuichi is considered a leading expert in the behavior of bonobos, and has gone to great lengths to better understand how and why they differ from their close cousins, the chimpanzees. He runs the study site at Wamba village, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and has continued to shed light on the evolution of the genus Pan and what it means for our own evolutionary story as well. In the interview, we meander through a lot of interesting topics. We discuss why Japanese primatologists have almost exclusively studied Japanese macaques and African Great Apes. Dr. Furuichi then describes how the small village of Wamba in the middle of the Congo Basin became the setting for one of the most influential bonobo study sites in the world. And the trials and tribulations of those who made that happen!Then we talk about bonobos and chimpanzees, how they're the same, how they differ, and why. This provides a great summary of his work and should be a great primer on ecology and evolution within the genus Pan. And, he ends with a discussion of how he and his partner, Dr. Chie Hashimoto, are doubling down on uncovering the interrelationships between sex and society.For anyone listening, it should become apparent early on that Dr. Furuichi is a great storyteller and drops loads of little nuggets of information and wisdom thorughout the interview. I hope you all enjoy listening to this interview as much as I did recording it.For anyone interested in finding out more about hist work, you can visit Dr. Takeshi Furuichi's profile on the Wildlife Research Center's website. Use a translator where necessary (I recommend DeepL!). I would also encourage you to visit the website for the NGO that Dr. Furuichi spearheaded called Support for Conservation of Bonobos, where you can learn more about bonobos, the jungles and people of Wamba, and the Kyoto University group's efforts to protect them. I hope you enjoy this interview with Dr. Takeshi Furuichi on The Primatecast. When you're done, you can browse loads of other audio content from primatologists and conservationists from around the world.Photo Caption: Takeshi Furuichi with local kids at Wamba Village in the DRCPhoto Courtesy: Takeshi FuruichiThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailIn this installment of The PrimateCast we continue with our International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field. The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories about experienced researchers of primatology and related fields, through lectures delivered by those very individuals. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program, but we decided to release the audio right here on The PrimateCast.Unlike most academic lectures, which are usually focused on testing scientific hypotheses, this series is designed to offer a feel for how one becomes a professional in the field of primatology. In a way, we might think of it as a career primer for young primatologists just starting their own journeys into the nether regions of Academia. At the same time, anyone might enjoy the stories told of big dreams, exotic locations and species, and the humanity inherent in forging a new path in life and in work.For anyone interested in viewing the video versions of these lectures, head over to CICASP's YouTube channel, where you can also watch them live as we stream our Zoom feeds there.The 5th podcast in our IPL series featured Dr. Elisabetta Visalberghi, who spoke to us back on October 13, 2021.Dr. Visalberghi was the Research Director at the Institute of Cognitive Science and Technologies, part of the National Research Council of Italy, where she continues to act as Associate Research Scientist.She is an author of around 200 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and cowrote The Complete Capuchin: The Biology of the Genus Cebus (Cambridge University Press, 2004). Her research has focused on the behavior and cognition of wild and captive primates, especially capuchin monkeys.She is probably best known for her work on cognition and social learning in capuchins, and especially as they relate to the amazing use of hammer-and-anvil stone tools by capuchins to crack open nutsIn the podcast, Dr. Visalberghi runs through her background and how she got into primatology, highlighting the importance of serendipity in that process. The second half of her talk details her work on capuchin tool use and social learning.To learn more about her work, visit her web page and the EthoCebus Project website.The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThis is podcast #67 with Dr. Susumu Tomiya.It's such a pleasure to be able to share my interview with Dr. Susumu Tomiya, my colleague for the past 3+ years in the Center for International Collaboration and Advanced Studies in Primatology (CICASP).Susumu and I have worked closely over that time toward developing our capacity at Kyoto University to teach science communication to our graduate students, and to encourage and promote their activities in various ways, such as through news stories on the CICASP website and co-developing educational programs with students themselves. Here are a couple of examples of Susumu's work in that regard, in interviews with graduate student Tianmeng He and postdoc Gao Jie about their research.Susumu is an assistant professor, now based in the Department of Cognitive Neuroscience at Kyoto University's new Center for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior (EHUB). But, he is a vertebrate paleonologist interested in mammalian diversity, with a background in studying extinct carnivorans in North America! You might wonder what he's up to at a research institute dedicated to the study of primates, and you can find out by listening to the podcast right here! To find out more about his research, visit his personal website. In the interview, we discuss a pretty wide range of topics, from understanding biodiversity in an evolutionary context to contextualize biodiversity loss in the present and future, to exploring some of the amazing species he's studied (think, beardogs!). We then get on to the process of doing and communicating science, and onto science education, as Susumu has long been involved in the latter through programs at the museums he's worked at - including Chicago's famous Field Museum - and now through CICASP. It was such a treat to record this interview, so I hope my enthusiasm for speaking with Susumu comes through, and that you all feel a little more nourished coming away from this interview with Dr. Susumu Tomiya as much as I did.The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailIn this installment of The PrimateCast we continue with our International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field..The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories about experienced researchers of primatology and related fields, through lectures delivered by those very individuals. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program, but we decided to release the audio right here on The PrimateCast.Unlike most academic lectures, which are usually focused on testing scientific hypotheses, this series is designed to offer a feel for how one becomes a professional in the field of primatology. In a way, we might think of it as a career primer for young primatologists just starting their own journeys into the nether regions of Academia. At the same time, anyone might enjoy the stories told of big dreams, exotic locations and species, and the humanity inherent in forging a new path in life and in work.For anyone interested in viewing the video versions of these lectures, head over to CICASP's YouTube channel, where you can also watch them live as we stream our Zoom feeds there."Ideas in science often evolve as the result of unexpected accidents"- Robin DunbarProf. Dunbar is behind some key scientific ideas, such as the Social Brain Hypothesis - which has had ample success in explaining the distribution of higher forms of cognition across the animal kingdom - and Dunbar’s number, the iconic idea that there is a numerical cap on the number of relationships we can realistically maintain at any given time in our lives.During the talk, he explains the origins of these ideas and their origins in his own fieldwork on primates and ungulates, as well as some accidental collaborations with people from a wide range of other disciplines.Robin Dunbar is Professor Emeritus in Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford. You can find out more on our dedicated page for this event. The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThis is podcast #65 with Dr. Ikuma Adachi.Before getting into the interview, I announce with great sadness the passing of Dr. Steve Ross, as announced by Lincoln Park Zoo. Steve was a formidable figure in chimpanzee conservation and animal welfare science in general, in addition to being an all around good person and key figure at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo. He will be missed.This is also the first podcast released since the restructuring of the Primate Research Institute, which had an exceptional 55 year run as a leading primatological institute. I make a note of that as well before getting into the interview.Now, Dr. Ikuma Adachi is no stranger to these parts, and he's been on the podcast twice before, way back in our second episode in April 2012, and again in March 2016 on Episode #20. Feel free to check those out in addition to listening to the current episode.Ikuma is associate professor of Cogntiive Neuroscience at Kyoto University's new Center for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior (EHUB). He's also the new head of CICASP, assuming the role this month after a 5 year hiatus from being part of the center. But he's always had a big inlfuence on how we operate, so it was great getting him back in the studio.In the interview, we discuss a range of topics, from internationaliation at Kyoto University to running a chimpanzee lab and managing the expectations of incoming students. We talk about his own experiences with chimpanzees and research in comparative cognitive science, and end with some speculations about the metaverse and humans in space...yeah, you read that correctly!The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailIn this installment of The PrimateCast we continue with our International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field. "Dreams are not destinations, they're journeys. So, dare to dream"- ZimboIn the third podcast in this lecture series, we hear from Dr. Ramesh Boonratana, Zimbo, talking about why he's not a primatologist and - according to him! - other incoherent ramblings.  Zimbo details his journey into and then out of primatology, with a couple of important messages for teh audience. It's clear from the lecture that Zimbo values education, doing things the right way, and offering a roadmap for young students wishing to get into the field. I think that's what makes him so popular in the world of Southeast Asian primatology, where he's actively involved in various educational and conservation-oriented activities.Zimbo is an associate professor of conservation biology at Mahidol University in Thailand, and has many advisory roles for organizations as diverse as the IUCN Species Survival Commission's Primate Specialist Group, the Bukit Merah Orang Utan Foundation, and the Creation Justice Commission of Kota Kinabalu rchdiocese. He talks about some of these roles and how he's involved in bringing people together for conservation in this lecture.You can find out more about the talk and about Zimbo on our dedicated page for this event, complete with a biosketch with his academic history. The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThis is podcast #63 with Drs. Chia Tan and Fred Bercovitch - and was recorded in March 2015.The setting for this interview was one of the symposiums for our Primatology and Wildlife Science graduate program at Kyoto University, where students and wildlife professionals gathered to share their research and efforts towards conservation, environmental stewardship and advocacy.At the time, Chia Tan was working in San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research (now the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance), and so I took the opportunity to talk with her, among other things, about the role of zoos in conservation.As will become obvious to you during the interview, Chia is absolutely passionate about people and nature. Though trained as a scientific researcher, she’s been a driver of numerous conservation initiatives that have a strong human element to them. We talk about two in this interview - TIPS, or the training in primatology series, which helps motivated young conservationists and researchers from primate range countries attend international training programs and conferences, and Little Green Guards, which aims to foster nature appreciation in children through education, reflection and action, with the hope to inspire and prepare the next generation of Earth’s guardians.Chia remains the VP and Global Program Director for Little Green Guards, but she’s also VP and Treasurer for Ludi International, a US non-profit dedicated to preserving biological diversity on Earth by inspiring and empowering people through scientific research, education and capacity building. She’s also adjunct professor of Anthropology at San Diego State University and the School of Agroforestry Engineering and Planning at Tongren University (Guizhou, China), and she sits on the IUCN Species Survival Commission’s Primate Specialist Group. And I’m probably missing a few things here as well!Now, in the interview, you’ll also hear from Dr. Fred Bercovitch, who previously worked at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s Behavioral Biology Division before becoming professor at Kyoto University’s Primate Research Institute until his retirement in 2017. If you want to learn more about Fred, you can go way back in time and listen to The PrimateCast #2, which was published on April 12th, 2012!Fred had invited Chia to the symposium, as their time at San Diego Zoo overlapped and he thought she’d be an excellent role model for our own graduate students in the program.And so, kind of coming full circle to zoos before we jump into the interview, when Fred was here at Kyoto University, he was teaching some undergraduate courses in Conservation Biology and Zoo Biology. When he retired in 2017, a couple of years after this interview, I actually inherited those courses, and I’m still teaching them today.So in some ways, talking about zoos and conservation with Fred and Chia turned out to be a little bit of foreshadowing for my own future.The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailIn this installment of The PrimateCast we continue with our International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field. "Expect Problems; you won't be disappointed"- Vernon Reynolds In the second podcast in this lecture series we hear from Dr. Vernon Reynolds, in a talk entitled "Budongo: The Making of a Field Station". In the lecture, Vernon gives us the story behind many decades of chimpanzee research in Uganda, leading to the Budongo Forest Project and later the Budongo Conservation Field Station. You can find out more about the talk and about Vernon on our dedicated page for this event, complete with a biosketch with his academic history. And make sure you check out his very own Wikipedia page! The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailOur guest in this installment of The PrimateCast is Dr. Julie Duboscq, researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research based at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, in the department of EcoAnthropology. I interviewed Julie just before she left Japan to join the CNRS after a five years of postdoctoral study here at the Primate Research Insitute.Note to readers: this podcast interview was recorded in June 2018, but I'm only now getting to releasing it. For shame! It's not for lack of quality, but sometimes things get shuffled down the pack. This is also only the fifth podcast released since that time! Also for shame!  All Hail the Fieldwork Fail...Julie’s been a fixture in research on the evolution of sociality and social behavior in the macaque genus. She's a long-term member of the Macaca nigra project, with those mischievous selfie-taking crested macaques on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. And studied the Japanese macaque, Macaca fuscata, over a five-year period with me here in Japan. Julie’s spent a good deal of time thinking about and studying relationships between individuals within groups and all the costs and benefits those relationships entail. We speak about some of those costs in the interview, as they relate to transmission of infectious organisms like lice within macaque social networks. You can see some of that work featured here and here (Paywall). We also talk about Julie's time on Koshima and the various fieldwork fails that plagued her work there. She showed the the reslience and ingenuity of a true fieldworker during her time there! Although we don't get into it in the interview, Julie is also a founding member of the MacaqueNet, which is a group and database aiming to facilitate and encourage collaboration between macaque researchers. It's a wonderful initiative that I'm happy to be a part of, and I look forward to the various novel projects and results that arise from such a large-scale collaboration. Julie talks about oen science toward the end of the podcast, and MacqueNet is a perfect example of the kind of collaborative atmosphere she envisions for science and the scientists that populate it.The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailIn this installment of The PrimateCast we introduce a new series that CICASP launched in June 2021, the International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field. The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories about experienced researchers of primatology and related fields, through lectures delivered by those very individuals. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program, but we decided to release the audio right here on The PrimateCast.For anyone interested in viewing the video versions of these lectures, head over to CICASP's YouTube channel, where you can also watch them live as we stream our Zoom feeds there.The first podcast in this lecture series brings you Dr. Michael Huffman, in a talk entitled "Learning to become a monkey and other lessons for becoming a primatologist". "Make your dreams big so you can grow into them"-Michael Huffman, 2021 Mike is associate professor in the Section of Social Systems Evolution at the Kyoto University Primate Research Institute.Mike is a pioneer in many ways. Perhaps most famous for his discoveries of self-medication in wild chimpanzees in Tanzania, he was also among the earlier scientists exploring topics like female mate choice and behavioral traditions - which we now know to be a form of animal culture - in Japanese macaques at Arashiyama Monkey Park in Kyoto, Japan).But even the fact that he came to Japan to begin his career in the academy in his early twenties shows just what a pioneering spirit he has! But with mentors like the late Dr. Junichiro Itani, and a rich and active history of primatology in Japan, Mike found his way and eventually learned to become a monkey.Mike presents his origin story here, in a talk entitled "Learning to become a monkey: and other lessons for becoming a primatologist". Watch it above or directly on YouTube.The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailOur guest in this installment of The PrimateCast is Dr. Cécile Sarabian, co-host of this very podcast and producer of Conservation Voices for The PrimateCast. I interviewed Cécile just before she departed Japan to begin the next stage of her life and career...Cécile spent the better part of 9 years with us here in Inuyama City at Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute, so there is also a good deal of tripping down memory lane in the podcast. But we do try to stay focused and talk about some cool science as well.It's a dirty job...Cécile has made a bit of a name for herself internationally as a pioneering researcher focusing on evolutionary origins of hygiene and disgust in the animal kingdom, especially in primates. We talk about this research, including some of her experimental results - discoveries made after presenting study subjects with some intrigiung foraging decisions involving contaminants like feces and rotten foods! - that have garnered a fair amount of appeal in the popular media. You can see a couple of those popular articles here and here.In the podcast, we also talk about Cécile's own development and the importance of mentors therein. We spend some time talking about someone very important to Cécile, the late Dr. Val Curtis who worked at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, whose influential book Don’t Look, don’t touch: the science behind revulsion was instrumental in the development of Cécile's research and whose activism in human hygiene inspired Cécile to think about how she could apply her research as a force of good the world.For anyone interested in more info about Dr. Val Curtis, check out her Wikipedia page and I highly recommend her inaugural lecture at the LSHTM, which was recorded in the months leading up to her death in September 2020. She was a brilliant scientist and inspirational human, and will definitely be missed.I'm sure we've not seen the last of Dr. Cécile Sarabian on The Primatecast, but join us for her fairwell-for-now podcast, and browse among loads of other audio content from primatologists and conservationists from around the world.Photo Credit: Andrew MacIntoshThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailOur guest in this installment of The PrimateCast and Conservation Voices is Dr. Anne Laudisoit, senior scientist at EcoHealth Alliance in New York City, who visited us at the Primate Research Institute last month between two field trips in eastern DRCongo.Plague, monkeypox and moreIn the podcast, Dr. Laudisoit starts by coming back to her disease biology background and how her fascination with zoonotic diseases started… trapping rats in Kinshasa as a master’s student! She then goes into more detail about the One Health approach through some zoonotic diseases she has been studying from a fieldwork point of view, such as plague in Tanzania, monkeypox in DRC, as well as their intermediate, accidental (-often us) and ultimate hosts! From field experience to field experience, we can hear Anne’s passion for her work, the biodiversity she encounters, and the projects of which she is a part, such as EcoHealth Alliance’s PREDICT project, which aims to predict future viral epidemics globally.A newly discovered population of chimpanzeesIn the second part of the interview, Anne shares the other side of her fieldwork: Primatology! In 2015, while sampling for pathogens and meeting with locals in the Blue Mountains Region, in the northeast of the DRCongo, Anne and colleagues find a chimpanzee community living along this high-altitude fragmented landscape. Two years later, she comes back with a team of Congolese researchers from the University of Kisangani (UNIKIS) and the Biodiversity Monitoring Center (CSB), as well as a photojournalist friend, Caroline Thirion, to explore the region and make a film called MBUDHA about their expedition and the incredible biodiversity they encounter… including chimpanzees that live near a stream called Mbudha ("water of chimpanzees" in the Kibale language).Photo Credit: Heungjin RyuThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailOur guest in this installment of The PrimateCast is Dr. Valeria Romano, who shares with us a series of interviews she conducted with conservation scientists during a meeting on the “Strategic Planning for the Conservation of Golden Lion Tamarins” run by the Save the Golden Lion Tamarin Association in 2018. Have a beer on the golden lion tamarinIn the podcast, Dr. Romano introduces us to golden lion tamarins and why they are in special need of our attention as endangered species. We weave between discussions in the studio and interviews done in Brazil with five conservation scientists, including Dr. Luis Paulo Ferraz, Dr. Carlos Ruiz-Miranda, Dr. Jenniffer Mickelberg, Dr. Marcos Freire, and Dr. James Dietz. Each brings a unique perspective and a unique contribution to the conservation of this endangered species. You can also hear about various ways in which you can support their conservation (e.g. beers for conservation!).We'd like to thank all of our guests, who generously shared their tme and expertise with us for this program.Photo Credits: Valeria Romano / Save the Golden Lion Tamarins (www.savetheliontamarin.org)The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThe PrimateCast rolled out its mobile podcasting unit to cover the joint meetings of the International Primatological Society and American Society for Primatologists held between August 21-27, 2016. Last year's congress was hosted by the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes of Lincoln Park Zoo, and the conference was held at Navy Pier in Chicago, USA.The PrimateCast On Location at IPS 2016 with Dr. Chris WhittierI was really excited to be able to chat with Dr. Chris Whittier at last year's IPS in Chicago. Chris and I met a few years earlier while bunking together at a symposium held by some colleagues in the Czech Republic, so it was good to sit down and catch up! Chris is a wildlife veterinarian with a PhD in population medicine, and is currently working in the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, where he also directs a Master's program in conservation medicine. Chris was at IPS presenting his work on applied wildlife veterinary medicine in a symposium titled "Advances in health research at the interface of humans and nonhuman primates", chaired by Dr. Dominic Travis.In the interview, we discuss his experience working literally to save the lives of African great apes through Gorilla Doctors, previously the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project. We get into the sticky issues of wildlife health interventions, sometimes lumped into the category of 'extreme conservation', and discuss the importance of health surveillance and, if necessary, intervention in wildlife conservation. Visit his academic page here for more information on his expanding activities in wildlife health and conservation. We'd like to sincerely thank Dr. Chris Whittier for joining us on this episode, as well as all of our guests on this series of podcasts from our coverage of the 26th Congress of the International Primatological Society and 39th Congress of the American Society of Primatologists. We look forward to Nairobi 2018. Photo Credit: Chris Whittier / Gorilla DoctorsThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThe PrimateCast rolled out its mobile podcasting unit to cover the joint meetings of the International Primatological Society and American Society for Primatologists held between August 21-27, 2016. Last year's congress was hosted by the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes of Lincoln Park Zoo, and the conference was held at Navy Pier in Chicago, USA.The PrimateCast On Location at IPS 2016 with Dr. Fabian LeendertzAs a practicing primate infectious disease ecologist myself, it was really great for me to get the chance to chat with Dr. Fabian Leendertz, who heads up the Epidemiology of Highly Pathogenic Microorganisms Project Group at the Robert Koch Institut in Berlin. Dr. Leendertz was at IPS presenting his work on great ape respiratory diseases in a symposium titled "Advances in health research at the interface of humans and nonhuman primates", chaired by Dr. Dominic Travis.Dr. Leendertz has been involved in some pretty high profile work examining the emergence and persistence of pathogens such as Ebola and Anthrax in wildlife, and what these and other infectious diseases mean for great ape health, population viability and conservation. In the interview, we discuss some of this work, what it's like going in to an Ebola zone shortly after the 2014 outbreak in West Africa, what kills great apes in the forest, and what we know and still need to know about primate disease. Visit his research group here for more information on their activities. We'd like to sincerely thank Dr. Fabian Leendertz for joining us on this episode, as well as all of our guests on this series of podcasts from our coverage of the 26th Congress of the International Primatological Society and 39th Congress of the American Society of Primatologists. We look forward to Nairobi 2018. Photo Credit: Fabian Leendertz / © TMF e.V.The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThe PrimateCast has rolled out its mobile podcasting unit once again, this time to cover the joint meetings of the International Primatological Society and American Society for Primatologists held between August 21-27, 2016. This year's congress was hosted by the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes of Lincoln Park Zoo, and the conference was held at Navy Pier in Chicago, USA.The PrimateCast On Location at IPS 2016 with Dr. Charlie NunnAs a practicing primate infectious disease ecologist myself, it was really great for me to get the chance to chat with Dr. Charlie Nunn, who has been asking really big questions in this field over the past decade and a half or so. Dr. Nunn is a Professor at Duke University's Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, as well as its Global Health Institute. He's also Director of the Triangle Center for Evolutionary Medicine. Dr. Nunn was at IPS presenting his work in a symposium on the evolution of sleep.In the interview, Dr. Nunn walks us through his background and how he became interested in the comparative evolution of primate infectious disease. We talk about the Global Mammal Parasite Database - an online repository for published information about parasites infecting mammalian hosts - and how that marvellous idea came about, and how much work it must require to maintain! We also discuss his more recent work about the evolution of sleep, and why humans might not sleep as much as would be expected for a primate on our branch of the evolutionary tree. Visit the Nunn lab to find out more about his research into the evolutionary ecology of why we get sick. We'd like to sincerely thank Dr. Charlie Nunn for joining us on this episode, as well as all of our guests on this series of podcasts from our coverage of the 26th Congress of the International Primatological Society and 39th Congress of the American Society of Primatologists. We look forward to Nairobi 2018. Photo Credit: Chris Martin / Andrew MacIntosh / Charlie NunnThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThe PrimateCast has rolled out its mobile podcasting unit once again, this time to cover the joint meetings of the International Primatological Society and American Society for Primatologists held between August 21-27, 2016. This year's congress was hosted by the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes of Lincoln Park Zoo, and the conference was held at Navy Pier in Chicago, USA.The PrimateCast On Location at IPS 2016 with Dr. Karen StrierIn this edition, we sat down with Dr. Karen Strier, Vilas Research Professor and Irven Devore Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. During the conference, Dr. Strier took the reigns as incoming president of the International Primatological Society from outgoing president and Kyoto University distinguished professor Dr. Tetsuro Matsuzawa. We talked briefly about this, but spent the bulk of the interview discussing her long term research with muriquis in Brazil and how her work as well as the field of primatology, which she herself has helped mould through education and outreach, have developed over the last few decades. As author of numerous primatological works, including the hugely influential series Primate Behavioral Ecology, now in its 5th print edition, Dr. strier has been a leader in the field and an inspiration to generations now of primatologists. Her energy and devotion to research, education and conservation are evident throughout the interview. Get ready to be inspired, as we look forward to good things to come during Dr. Strier's tenure as IPS president over the next 4 years.We'd like to sincerely thank Dr. Karen Strier for joining us on this episode, as well as all of our guests on this series of podcasts from our coverage of the 26th Congress of the International Primatological Society and 39th Congress of the American Society of Primatologists. We look forward to Nairobi 2018. Be sure to check out our other podcasts featuring interviews with leading scientists in primatology and beyond.Join us and all our friends at IPS/ASP on The PrimateCast, and visit our official webpage @ theprimatecast.com to find loads of content from primatologists and conservationists around the world. You can also visit (and Like/Follow) us on Facebook and Twitter and leave comments and feedback on this or any other podcast in the series. You can also follow our RSS feed, or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes to keep up with the latest content.Photo Credit: Saki Higaki / CICASPThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailIUCN World Conservation Congress, Honolulu, Hawaii - September, 2016. Conservation Voices correspondent Cecile Sarabian attended the screening of “Blood Lions”, a film portraying the lucrative and legal business of canned lion hunting in South Africa. The screening was followed by a discussion with Dr. Andrew Venter – Executive producer and CEO of Wildlands Conservation Trust.Bloody business“Every single day in South Africa, at least two to three captive-bred or tame lions are being killed in canned hunts. And hundreds more are slaughtered annually for the lion bone trade. The Blood Lions story is a compelling call to action to have these practices stopped.” South Africa is one of the only places in the world that breeds lions commercially for hunting.The legality of canned lion huntingAt the September 2016 IUCN World Conservation Congress, the world’s top scientists, government representatives, non-profit organizations, and experts including Andrew Venter adopted motion 009 on Terminating the hunting of captive-bred lions (Panthera leo) and other predators and captive breeding for commercial, non-conservation purposes. A good start, which unfortunately was not followed up in Johannesburg at the CITES CoP17 meeting late September, as the 182 countries present did not reach consensus on banning all international trade in African lions, from trophy heads to bones. Although the majority of participants agreed on banning the trade in bones, teeth and claws from wild lions, the Department of Environmental Affairs of South Africa recently decided to export 800 captive-bred lion skeletons annually to feed southeast Asian traditional medicine.In this interview with Dr. Andrew Venter, we come back to the issues and challenges depicted in the film about canned hunting and wildlife conservation in South Africa.Photo Credit: Reuters / Ali JarekjiThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailKonichiwa! On September 24, 2016, a few dozen people gathered under a tent at Ueno Park in Tokyo for The Global March for Elephants and Rhinos – an event that took place in more than 130 cities around the world to raise awareness about poaching and the ivory/rhino horn trade. The march was organized on the first day of the CoP17 meetings in Johannesburg, where country leaders decided on regulations regarding the ivory trade and the protection level to be attributed to all elephant species. Conservation Voices could not miss such an event happening in Japan, so we jumped on a Shinkansen for Tokyo to meet the organizers and ask them to share their thoughts on the ivory issue for the podcast.Japan’s hunger for ivoryAlong with China and Thailand, Japan is another current major market for elephant ivory, using the material in everyday life, says Mrs. Airi Yamawaki – Tears of the African Elephant director and co-founder, and organizer of the Global March for Elephants and Rhinos in Tokyo.Tears of the African ElephantMrs. Yamawaki grew up and lived in South Africa for more than twenty years. As such, she says she has always been fascinated by wildlife. Working for the documentary film industry, she has also spent extensive time in Kenya, where – along with Asuka Takita, a wildlife veterinarian, they founded Tears of the African Elephant, an NGO based in Japan and Kenya to raise awareness about poaching and ivory consumption.In this interview, Airi Yamawaki relates the situation in Japan regarding ivory consumption and the political issues concerning the proposed closure of all domestic ivory markets in the world at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Hawaii and at the CITES CoP17 meeting in Johannesburg.We'd like to sincerely thank Airi Yamawaki for making time to talk to us at the Global March in Tokyo, and we look forward to having her talk about the ivory issue at future Conserv’Session screenings at Kyoto University.Photo Credit: Cecile Sarabian / Airi YamawakiThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThe PrimateCast has rolled out its mobile podcasting unit once again, this time to cover the joint meetings of the International Primatological Society and American Society for Primatologists held between August 21-27, 2016. This year's congress was hosted by the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes of Lincoln Park Zoo, and the conference was held at Navy Pier in Chicago, USA.The PrimateCast On Location at IPS 2016 with Dr. Laura MarshJust as we were about to close up shop, take down our Kyoto University booth and pack away our mobile podcasting unit, we were approached by Laura Marsh wondering what we were doing. After she explained to us what she was doing, we had to immediately scrap our plans for a quick and dirty exit and sit down one last time for a fascinating chat with another personality in the primatology world. What comes out is a tale of mystery and intrigue of epic proportions - uncharted Amazonian rainforest, a missing monkey, and ... a houseboat!? Dr. Laura Marsh is Director and co-founder of the Global Conservation Institute, and she has dedicated herself to the field of tropical ecology and conservation. In the podcast, she describes her upcoming project, Houseboat Amazon. Years and years ago, a saki monkey (Pithecia vanzolinii) was lost to science, with no individuals, dead or alive, being spotted since 1932! After discovering the animal in museum collections while revising the taxonomy of saki monkeys, Dr. Marsh decided that what was needed was an expedition of epic proportions, fueled by the desire to discover and preserve some of nature's remotest lifeforms.Rather than using a more traditional approach, Dr. Marsh decided to bring all of us along for the ride, in a social media extravaganza that puts each of us on the boat in search of the long lost platyrrhine. So follow along with Houseboat Amazon, and be sure to check out their crowdfunder, powered by Indiegogo, at Generosity.com to find out how you can help with the mission. We'd like to sincerely thank Dr. Laura Marsh for joining us on this episode, as well as all of our guests on this series of podcasts from our coverage of the 26th Congress of the International Primatological Society and 39th Congress of the American Society of Primatologists. We look forward to Nairobi 2018. Photo Credit: Cecile Sarabian / Andrew MacIntoshThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailAloha! From September 1-10 2016, the IUCN World Conservation Congress – the world’s largest conservation event – was held at the Hawaii Convention Center in Honolulu. The PrimateCast switched its IPS/ASP T-shirt with a Hawaiian shirt and lei to ride the waves of this huge conservationist gathering.   What’s happening at the IUCN WCC 2016?In this introductory podcast, we showcase some of the big motions and decisions that took place at the IUCN WCC 2016, in addition to the many voices that were present at the congress. With more than 10,000 participants from 192 countries, we could not record them all, but we still obtained a mix voices loud and clear representing 5 continents!Each participant we interviewed was asked 5 short questions: what is your favorite place on planet Earth? What is your favorite species/organism? Who is your favorite conservationist? What is the most urgent place/species to conserve/preserve? What was the best part of the IUCN World Conservation Congress? Along with responses from our delegates, Andrew MacIntosh and Cecile Sarabian try to answer these questions as well. Can you?In the upcoming podcasts featuring conservationists that attended the conference, you will be able to hear from Sylvia Earle, Andrew Venter, Jo Ruxton & David Jones, as well as Abnous Sadeghi & Amir-Hossein Khaleghi, so stay tuned!We'd like to sincerely thank all of our guests on this episode as well as on the entire series of podcasts from our coverage of the IUCN World Conservation Congress 2016. We look forward to the 2020 congress – location still unknown… Be sure to check out our other podcasts featuring interviews with leading scientists and conservationists in primatology and beyond.Photo Credit: Heungjin RyuThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailThe PrimateCast has rolled out its mobile podcasting unit once again, this time to cover the joint meetings of the International Primatological Society and American Society for Primatologists held between August 21-27, 2016.This year's congress was hosted by the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes of Lincoln Park Zoo, and the conference was held at Navy Pier in Chicago, USA.The PrimateCast On Location at IPS 2016In this introductory podcast, we showcase a smattering of the many voices that could be heeard at IPS/ASP 2016 in Chicago. Cecile Sarabian and Andrew MacIntosh took their mobile recording devices around the exhibition hall at Navy Pier to hear from delegate after delegate about... well, about not that much really but we're certain that you'll all enjoy listening to it anyway! And, you'll get our perspectives on the conference and these little short interview clips throughout. We close the episode with an interview with organizers Dr. Steve Ross and Dr. Lydia Hopper, who give us their impressions on the conference and all the hard work that led up to it, including how they plan to cool down from all the madness!  Stay tuned for the many upcoming podcasts featuring scientists that attended the conference, including Laura Marsh, Karen Strier, Charlie Nunn, Fabian Leendertz, Chris Whittier and Lilian Pintea. We'd like to sincerely thank all of our guests on this episode as well as on the entire series of podcasts from our coverage of the 26th Congress of the International Primatological Society. We look forward to Nairobi 2018. Be sure to check out our other podcasts featuring interviews with leading scientists in primatology and beyond.Photo Credit: Heungjin RyuThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailHave you ever wondered whether tortoises yawn contagiously? Or what reptile memory might be like? Or even what impact reptile cognition may have on ecosystem processes? No? Well, Dr. Anna Wilkinson has, and she shares her thoughts with us on this episode of The PrimateCast.A-MAZE-ing Moses…In the interview, Dr. Wilkinson talks about how her interest in studying reptile cognition arose, how Alexandra the red-footed tortoise failed to spread yawns contagiously, and how tortoise cognitive abilities can still amaze under the right experimental conditions. In the second part of the interview, she also discusses the implications of her work for improving reptile welfare and conservation.Anna Wilkinson is Associate Professor of Animal Cognition and leader of the cold-blooded cognition laboratory at the University of Lincoln. She has also been awarded an Ig Nobel prize in 2011 for her work on (no) contagious yawning in the Red-footed tortoise.Photo Credit: Anna Wilkinson / Moses / University of LincolnThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!

Send us Fan MailOur guest in this installment of The PrimateCast is Dr. Anna Nekaris, the world's foremost authority on one of the world's least known primates: the slow loris, or as she likes to call it, the Little Fireface."A venomous primate, that's ridiculous"In the interview, Dr. Nekaris talks about how she seeks to understand why a primate has evolved venom, placing it in small company to which only a handful of other mammals belong. She also discusses why we need to be concerned about the illegal pet trade and slow loris conservation, and how telling people about their venomous ways might help. We conclude the interview talking about her conservation and outreach program, The Little Fireface Project, and how they are both battling and exploiting social media to combat the pet trade that is threatening this group of primates across their range.Anna Nekaris is Professor of Anthropology and Course leader for the acclaimed MSc in Primate Conservation at Oxford Brookes University. She also happens to be co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Folia Primatologica, the official journal of the European Federation for Primatology.Photo Credit: Anna Nekaris / The Little Fireface ProjectThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.Here's what you can do to get in touch!Connect with us on Facebook, X, or InstagramSubscribe where you get your podcastsEmail [email protected] with thoughts and commentsIf you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above. Thanks for being part of The PrimateCast Community!