Our species has coexisted with carnivores for as long as we’ve walked on this planet, and as the globe’s top predator, we’ve developed an interesting relationship with carnivores; a mix of fear, reverence, persecution, and admiration. As we allow carnivores to return to their native territories, we are relearning how to coexist with predators.
Even though we’ve gained a tremendous amount of knowledge in the past century, our feelings towards deadly creatures haven’t changed, and conservationists are stuck in the middle of human-carnivore conflict. So, how do we live with carnivores? Do they hold secrets in their biology that can inform us on how to avoid conflict? And are there any global truths to living with predators?
To take us on a global carnivore tour, today we are sitting down with Miha Krofel, PhD, Head of Wildlife Ecology and Management Research Group at the University of Ljubljana, and a member of the IUCN’s Cat Specialist Group, Canid Specialist Group, and Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe. Miha was first drawn to Paleontology as a young child and loved learning about the past’s extinct carnivores.
However, when it came time to decide what to do with his life, he made the conclusion that sitting in a museum looking at dead things wasn’t nearly as fun as studying alive species in the wild. So, in university, Miha made the switch to wildlife biology and became an expert in Eurasian lynx ecology and behavior.
He also carried a dream of traveling the world, and through luck and perseverance, Miha has worked in several countries on various continents studying the area’s carnivores. Miha is truly a global carnivore expert and has published a ton of papers on predator ecology, behavior, and conservation.
Through this episode, we are adding three more countries to the show’s country list! Miha and I discuss Eurasian lynx, brown bears, and Golden jackals in Slovenia. We then hop across the globe and chat about lions, cheetahs, and leopards in Namibia. Following, we take another oceanic leap and learn about snow leopards and Pallas’ cats in Mongolia. We wrap the conversation with a nice pretty bow and talk about carnivore coexistence on a higher scale, and explore the ups and downs of Miha’s career.
If you enjoy hardcore science conversations that you can’t walk away from, then you won’t want to miss a moment of this episode.
Alright, everyone. Please enjoy this conversation with Miha.
