Helping humans and wildlife coexist, with Suzanne MacDonald, PhD

Many of us share our cities and neighborhoods with animals that lived there before we moved in, such as raccoons, turtles and crows. Suzanne MacDonald, PhD, of York University, discusses why some species thrive in urban environments while others struggle; how city living changes animal behavior; and how understanding animal cognition and behavior can help wildlife and humans coexist better. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration blog, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

• 0:26Speaker 01

  So good, so good, so good.

• 0:28Speaker 02

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• 0:45Kim Mills?

  If you live anywhere near a city, you've probably had a run-in with a raccoon knocking over your trash, startling your pets, or breaking into the bin you were sure was raccoon-proof. As cities and suburbs expand, we are increasingly building roads and neighborhoods in places that once had fewer humans. Some species struggle, others adapt. And raccoons with their reputation as cute and clever trash pandas are one of the most visible and popular examples of successful adaptation. Today, we're going to talk to a psychologist who studies what happens when humans and wildlife mix, whether it's raccoons, turtles, elephants, or great apes. Why are some animals so good at living among humans?

• 1:30Kim Mills?

  How does urban living change animals' behavior? And how can learning more about how animals think and behave help us protect and coexist with them when our habitats overlap?

• 1:45Kim Mills?

  Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life. I'm Kim Mills.

• 1:59Kim Mills?

  My guest today is Dr. Suzanne McDonald, a professor of psychology at York University in Toronto, where she studies animal cognition and behavior. Her current research includes work with great apes, urban turtles, llamas, crows, and, yes, raccoons. She conducts field studies around the world, from Kenya to her own backyard in Toronto. Dr. McDonald is an APA fellow and has authored dozens of research papers on topics ranging from spatial cognition in primates to urban turtle behavior. She has also worked as the on-call animal behaviorist at the Toronto Zoo and has spoken about her work to many media outlets, including CBS News, CBC, the BBC News, and The Atlantic.

• 2:44Kim Mills?

  Dr. McDonald, thank you for joining me.

• 2:46Speaker 04

  I'm delighted to be here. Thank you for having me.

• 2:50Kim Mills?

  As I just mentioned, you study many different types of animals. But I heard you say in one interview that nobody ever wants to talk to you about anything but raccoons. So of course, we will get to other animals. But let's start with the raccoons. How did you become the go-to expert on raccoon behavior?

• 3:06Speaker 04

  Well, you know, your guess is as good as mine.

• 3:10Speaker 04

  I don't know. I remember years ago, CBC approached me and said they were going to do a documentary on raccoons. And could I be interviewed? And I said, well, I could be, but I have no idea about raccoons, and nobody really does either. There was a psychologist back in the early 1900s who studied raccoons, but they hadn't really been studied since then. So I said, if we're going to do a documentary, we should study them. So that's how I started studying them. And they were so interesting. I mean, how could you not love them?

• 3:43Kim Mills?

  Well, why do you think people are so interested in raccoons? What do they love? What do we love about raccoons out of all the animals that come into our daily lives?

• 3:51Speaker 04

  I think we have a love-hate relationship with them. So I have studied that attitudes toward raccoons and people in the cities. And, you know, half of the people love raccoons because they're so mischievous, and they look at their little faces and their little hands. And, you know, they can, they just look like somebody you want to hug. But the other half really, really hate raccoons because they get in their garbage. We call it, just, you know, full disclosure, we call trash garbage here in Canada. So I will say garbage cans, but it really means trash cans. And so the other half of people really hate raccoons because of the damage that has been done to their houses. Certainly in Toronto, that's for sure.

• 4:30Kim Mills?

  Yeah. Well, so just today, there was a story in The New York Times about pygmy raccoons in Cozumel that make toys out of trash and show each other how to do so. You're nodding. So did you see the story? Do you know the research?

• 4:46Speaker 04

  I know the research, yes. I'm not sure that these are toys, but certainly it's really interesting.

• 4:52Kim Mills?

  What do you think they might be? I mean, have you ever seen behavior like this, similar to it? And what does it mean?

• 4:59Speaker 04

  I'm not sure what it means, but I do know that I think these toys, I think these are the ones that put the cardboard in the water or the whatever it is in the water.

• 5:08Kim Mills?

  Yeah, paper.

• 5:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, paper. And they mold it into something. But that's a really raccoon thing to do. So raccoons evolved around rivers. And everything they do, if they can, they take whatever they have and they put it in water. That's just what they do. So this is not unusual, that they would take paper and put it in water and then ball it up, because that's what they do. That's what they do. Back in the 50s, psychologists actually trained raccoons for TV commercials. And they had them doing stuff like that. And the raccoons invariably were not very good on the TV commercials because they would take the objects and they'd run away with them. So that's what raccoons do, is they take stuff, they put it in water, they fiddle around with it with their hands

• 5:53Speaker 04

  because their hands are so-so. That's their superpower, they can see with their hand. And so I'm not sure what this actual behavior is, but I certainly have seen raccoons, you know, North American raccoons, take things and put them in, put it in water. I've never given them paper. I should probably do that.

• 6:12Kim Mills?

  Yeah. And I'm trying to imagine what kind of commercial would require raccoons. What would you be selling?

• 6:21Speaker 04

  I'll tell you. So it was a bank. And obviously, I wasn't there at the time. So I'm just relaying what I tell my students all the time. But it was a bank commercial. And they wanted the raccoon to take a coin and put it in a piggy bank. And what they found is that raccoons would rub the coin between their hands. And then they would, instead of putting it in a piggy bank, they would run away with it. So that's what raccoons do. They don't give up things very easily, that's for sure. So, you know, the raccoon has a very interesting repertoire, and I, behavioral repertoire. And I think that's, to get back to your first question, that's one of the reasons we like them, because they are so active and they do such interesting things with their hands. And if you think about other species

• 7:06Speaker 04

  that we see in the city, even our dogs and cats, they don't do things with their hands, but raccoons do things with their hands.

• 7:13Kim Mills?

  So raccoons have fingers where they can do a lot of interesting things, but they don't have opposable thumbs, right?

• 7:19Speaker 04

  Exactly. But they grasp, right? So they can grasp. They can't touch all their fingers together like we can, but they absolutely can grasp objects very well, which allows, and their little fingers are so good at getting into under things and digging in things. And so they're really, really good with their hands. And as I said, that's their superpower they have in their brain. They have an extraordinary number of areas in their brain devoted to input from the receptors in their hands. So they basically, when they touch an object, they see it in their brain because they evolved around rivers and they work at night. And so they need to be able to put their hands in the water and understand what they're feeling under the water. And so that's how they evolve.

• 8:04Kim Mills?

  Now, other animals make things that we humans interpret as toys. And some, like crows and chimps, will even make tools. So what does this tell us about the lives of animals? I mean, tools are a practical thing, but how should we understand things that look to us like toys?

• 8:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's why I'm not sure that these are toys. Raccoons do spend a lot of time, especially the young ones, playing. If you work with rehabilitated raccoons, like orphaned raccoons in a sanctuary, they absolutely play with toys that we give them. Anything they can use with their hands, they're all about that. So I'm not sure, you know, orangutans use toys. All the species you would think would play with toys, they play with toys. Your dog plays with toys. I was actually at the Toronto Zoo with my students a few days ago, and we saw a giant soft-shelled turtle playing with the toy. So playing with toys is ubiquitous across the animal kingdom.

• 9:02Kim Mills?

  And is that, I mean, is this because they're bored? Or is this somehow mentally enriching to them? Do we know? Is this too anthropomorphic a question for me to ask you?

• 9:11Speaker 04

  Not at all. You can ask anything. But really, you know, we don't know because we can't say, hey. We can't interview them and say, hey, why are you doing that? But certainly, play serves a lot of functions. So object play in particular increases skills. Certainly with raccoons, it increases their hand-eye coordination, which they need to survive. So just like in humans, that's what play does for us, too, right? It increases our skills. We have object play to learn how to do things. We have social play to learn how to cooperate with others. We have, you know, just rough-and-tumble play to get physical skills. So play serves a lot of functions. You usually see it in younger animals of a species while they're gaining all these functions. And the adults, just like in humans,

• 9:56Speaker 04

  tend to sit around and just watch the young ones play. But sometimes they do play as well. And raccoon adults will play, for sure. And most adults will play if they have, if they've eaten and they have, you know, extra time. But the reality of most animals' lives, adult animals' lives, is that they got a lot to do, so they don't have time to play. But in the cities, their food needs are met, overmet, really. So they do have lots of time. So you see that in urban raccoons, for example, that they do behave much more like younger ones because they're not on the search for food all the time.

• 10:37Kim Mills?

  What are the other differences that you see between urban and rural raccoons? And why are these changes happening?

• 10:45Speaker 04

  Well, I think we're responsible, as usual. It's always down to the humans, right? So we have built these cities, this infrastructure, and raccoons are built to explore stuff like that. So yay for them. They've managed to figure out how to live with us. And the more they figure us out by getting into our trash cans, sorry, it takes me a minute to say that, by getting into our trash cans, you know, or getting into our attics or getting into our garages and figuring out how to open doors and do all that stuff. We try to outsmart them with our giant human brains. And the more we do that, the more they get smarter.

• 11:27Speaker 04

  So we are actually causing this evolutionary arms race to make the ones who can outsmart us survive. And the ones who can't, they don't survive. So that's natural selection and it's fine.

• 11:41Kim Mills?

  Are there other wild species living near us, humans that are going through similar changes?

• 11:49Speaker 04

  I mean, I can't say because I don't have data. And you know, psychologists like data. But absolutely, obviously, we're the city is selecting some species that can live with us. And the others are not going to be in the city. So they're either going to, you know, not be around or they're going to go elsewhere. So crows, for example, crows do super well with us because they, I personally think most crows are smarter than we are. And they figure out our routines. They're, you know, if you think of a raccoon and then you've got to think like a different level for crows. They're so much smarter than raccoons are. And it's just, you can't even imagine. So when I first started studying raccoons,

• 12:33Speaker 04

  I thought, oh, this will be interesting because raccoons are like the monkeys of North America. Right? We don't have monkeys in North America. I thought, oh, maybe raccoons fill that niche. How awesome that will be to study. And no, it's not true at all. But crows absolutely are like flying primates. And they love what we build for them. But we give them so much that they can use. And so the densities of these animals like crows, like raccoons, like rats, even opossums, it's much higher in cities. So you can tell that they're not only just surviving us, they're actually thriving in our environments. Whereas other species, you don't see them in the cities.

• 13:14Kim Mills?

  I've read that some researchers have found or think that they've found that that crows, for example, form actual relationships with humans and that they hold grudges to if they don't like you. Have you seen that research?

• 13:26Speaker 04

  Oh, God, yes. I've seen that research and that's my lived experience. It's 100%. So I have a crow friend and he is fantastic. And I've had him for about, I haven't had him. I've had the relationship for about 10 years. And, you know, it takes time to build a friendship, whether it's with a crow or with a human. And mutual respect has to be there. And so we have that. And he has now, he has every year, he has offspring with his mate. And the offspring get to know me as well. But we're not friends, but they get to know me. But this year, one of the offspring, one of the males, oh, my God, he, he had the audacity to dive bomb me. And my crow took it out on him

• 14:10Speaker 04

  and went after him and pecked him. And it was, if I could do a voiceover, it'd be like, not that one. Don't hit that one. Do not. And they really, really can identify individuals. So they do absolutely hold grudges. If you've done something to you, they don't forget that at all. And if you've done something good, they don't forget that either. So they, they really do, they can tell us apart. They can tell the cars we drive. They know the routines we have. They absolutely know our behavior just as much, actually better than we know their behavior.

• 14:46Kim Mills?

  Wow.

• 14:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's weird.

• 14:51Kim Mills?

  You were recently quoted in an article in The Atlantic called, "Are Raccoons Evolving Into Pets?" Now, I'm pretty sure I know the answer. But for our listeners, is keeping a raccoon as a pet a good idea?

• 15:04Speaker 04

  Yes, you do know the answer. And the answer is always no, no. Every time a student asks me that, no, that is not a good idea, bad idea, very bad idea. Don't do that. So I know there are, there may be listeners who have had raccoons as pets. But when you get them as babies, oh, adorable, so sweet with their little bitey teeth and their little scratchy claws. And then within a few months, they become giant and they destroy your house. So they are very destructive. They are wild animals. I had a conversation with a reporter from a Japanese newspaper. And because there are now raccoons in Japan because people have brought, oh, and they're taking over. And it's, it's not good.

• 15:47Speaker 04

  And he said, but they're so cute. And I said, well, you know, tigers are cute. You want them in your city?

• 15:52Kim Mills?

  No.

• 15:53Speaker 04

  Okay, well, you don't want these either, do you? You don't want wild animals in your house. It's not good for them, for the animals. It's not good for you. We, it's not allowed in Canada, but in various US states, people do have raccoons and they put them on Instagram. It looks adorable. And everyone says, oh, I want one too. No, you don't. You really don't. They're not, they're like extremely powerful toddlers that can bite you. You don't want that in your house.

• 16:23Kim Mills?

  You also helped design Toronto's raccoon-resistant trash cans, but I understand that the raccoons figured out how to beat them. Is it possible to build a raccoon-proof trash bin? And are they really little geniuses? Or are they just persistent?

• 16:38Speaker 04

  Well, that's an excellent question. And notice you said raccoon-resistant trash cans. So by and large, most of the, they're organic bins. They're, we call them green bins. They are for organic waste, which is really attractive to raccoons. And by and large, they're working really, really well. So the only ones that aren't working well are is if a rat has opened up a hole in one because the raccoons can get their hands in. And there is one female that I'm aware of who has figured out how to knock it over and break the mechanism to get in. She's the only one and she has not taught it. And nobody, they don't learn from each other that way. So everyone just lines up and waits for her to open the bin. And then they get what they can. So overall, people are quite happy.

• 17:22Speaker 04

  I have heard from people in Toronto saying, oh, my bin is really great. It's no raccoons in there at all. So the ones that you've seen, you may have seen, somebody might have seen this online with raccoons figuring out the mechanism. But it turns out those were, I don't want to say, I'll say heavily curated videos where the mechanism was actually broken because the city went to investigate. And actually, it was broken. So I don't know whether the homeowners broke it or whether it just broke. But if it's working, if the bin is, is as it should be, they can't get in. And it is, I think, impossible to build a raccoon-proof or rat-proof or any animal, anything proof

• 18:06Speaker 04

  because somebody is going to figure it out at some point. Yeah.

• 18:09Kim Mills?

  We're going to take a short break. When we return, we'll talk about Dr. McDonald's research with other species, starting with urban turtles.

• 18:19Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration blog or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

• 18:47Speaker 02

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• 19:13Kim Mills?

  Well, let's talk about some of your other work. So you've also studied urban turtles. Let's talk about that. How did you get interested in studying turtles? What kinds of questions have you investigated?

• 19:25Speaker 04

  Well, this is not so psychology-ish, but it's turning into that. So originally, it started out because I'm also in biology. I am in psychology and biology. And one of our conservation authorities here needed somebody to study turtle movement because we're trying to prevent turtles from getting squished on the roads. So in every city, major roads often bisect wetlands. So they cut them in half. And turtles don't know that. So they want to go from one side to the other when they want to lay their eggs or they want to make. And they go, they try to go across these major roads and it ends in disaster. So thousands and thousands of turtles are often squished on the roads every year.

• 20:07Speaker 04

  Road mortality is the number one way that they're going to die. And these are long-lived animals that do not recover from this kind of mortality. You know, their populations don't recover. So the city of Brampton, which is near Toronto, wanted to build a corridor underneath the road and get the turtles to use the corridor. So we were studying that. And now it's moved into looking at turtles in urban areas. How are they doing? How are their demographics? You know, are there young turtles? Or is it all old turtles? You know, how many males, how many females? And we're also looking to see if bolder turtles, so this is where the psychology comes in, in personality. We talk about boldness and shyness.

• 20:52Speaker 04

  And bolder turtles are more likely to get injured or get into traps or get into fish hooks or whatever than shy or turtles. So this is super interesting to my psych students. And turtles are thinking about things, more things than you would think. But certainly, we didn't start out thinking about that. And that's why I mentioned that Nile saw shell turtle playing because, you know, my students were amazed to see this turtle playing with a ball. So, you know, there's a lot more going on there than you might think. And if we preserve the turtles, then we're going to preserve the habitat. So it's all connected.

• 21:29Kim Mills?

  And turtles can learn to use a corridor underneath a highway?

• 21:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, so what, it's tons of money put into this, bless them. And they put up little fences along the road, like not tall fences, but short ones. And you'll see that along some wetlands to kind of funnel the turtles as they're walking into this corridor underneath the road so that they can get through safely. And then we can measure to see if that worked. And what we actually do is put cameras up. And what you can see is that raccoons will sit in the corridor and wait for the turtles to come in because it's like a moving buffet coming right to them. So that, you know, we curse the raccoon because they sit at the nest and they wait for the hatchling to come out. They said, you know, they're, they got that figured out.

• 22:18Kim Mills?

  Yeah. Well, you've also done work with orangutans, studying, I read their reaction to music and to photographs. Can you tell us about that work?

• 22:29Speaker 04

  Sure. I've been working with orangutans for many decades. And my graduate students have done some fantastic things. One graduate student, now we're doing, we're looking at food preference, which is one of the fun, the most fun, I shouldn't say funnest, but it is the most fun study, honestly, because we're giving them a choice between two types of food. And then we're looking at quantity discrimination and all the things that psychologists do. But the basic thing where you put two food items and let them choose is so fun because they love doing that. And then when you give them something they don't like, like broccoli, they actually fling, fling it back at you. They're just so awesome. They're, they, or they'd rather have an empty plate than have broccoli, frankly. And I'm with them on that.

• 23:14Speaker 04

  I don't like broccoli either. But just see their facial expressions, just like, what are you even, why are you even asking me this? Like, why would I entertain eating this broccoli? It's not even a food. Anyway, they, they, they should eat it, we should all eat it, it's good for them. Anyway, so we do things like that. So we have looked at whether they like music, which was simply a question of, hey, in, in the zoo, wouldn't it be nice if they could have the music genre that they like? You know, maybe they're big rock and roll fans, maybe they're rap fans, I don't know. And that's what we wanted to find out. And it turns out they're fans of no music. When you give them these choices, they will tell you, just like they don't like broccoli, they don't want to listen to music.

• 23:59Speaker 04

  It's, I think it's too much for them. So they will turn it off when you give them the choice. But, you know, being able to have a choice, I think, is the biggest thing as a psychologist, to see choice and control is so important for humans and it is so important for our cousins as well. So certainly the great apes want to have choice and control over what they do. And when they live in human care in a zoo setting, for example, giving them choice and control can greatly improve their lives, which is the, which is the big picture, which is what we're studying.

• 24:32Kim Mills?

  All right. Well, let's talk more about your work with zoos. I mean, how has your research changed the way that zoos care for particular animals?

• 24:42Speaker 04

  Well, I like to think it's had a positive impact. But certainly the orangutans and gorillas and, you know, Joe, that work where we use computers with them and we allow, we give them lots of cognitive stimulation, cognitive enrichment, it's called. I think we're actually measuring now to see if that does impact them in a positive way. So rather than just assuming that, oh, well, I'm sure they'll love to do this and they, they seem to enjoy it. We actually are looking to see if that has an impact on their activity levels, how much they play, how much they eat, you know, whether they're actually having improved welfare as a result. And I think that's kind of where the field is going to, rather than just assuming that

• 25:23Speaker 04

  if you do these things for animals in captivity, that it will be better. That music study actually taught me that, well, we assume that it would be fun for them to listen to something, but it turns out if you ask them, they don't actually want that. So I think that's sort of where we're going. The idea in my mind is always like a vending machine of things where they get to choose what things they want to have. And we can assess whether having those things makes them happier. So, you know, there's in, in individual species, whatever they're doing, sometimes they're doing what we call stereotypical behaviors. So they're, it's kind of like us if we, some people bite their nails or they suck their

• 26:07Speaker 04

  hair, I've seen people suck their hair or constantly move their leg or whatever. That's kind of an indicator that there's some anxiety or something is not right. Polar bears pace back and forth, tigers pace back and forth, they swim in a circle. You know, primates will over groom, birds will pluck their feathers, those kinds of things. So if we can reduce those behaviors, then, I mean, I, I'm assuming we're having a positive impact on them. So those are the kinds of things that we're focused on, trying to, one animal at a time, improve their, their well-being.

• 26:44Kim Mills?

  And I know you've done field work in Kenya and other countries around the world, looking at elephants, lions and other endangered animals. How does that work connect to what you see closer to home in Canada? I mean, what's the overarching through line in your work?

• 27:03Speaker 04

  That's a good question. I have to think about that for a minute. I think probably it's that human wildlife or human animal coexistence. So I've done lots of things around the world, as you say, and usually it has something to do with how can we protect these animals from what we have horribly done to them? Because humans are not great. I think we can all agree on that. And how can we exist peacefully together? So animals have been doing, you know, elephants, for example, you know, they have the same route for thousands, well, millions of years. And humans come in and they put their farms and their, their towns in that route. And then the elephants try to come through the town and people go, oh my God, there's

• 27:48Speaker 04

  elephants in my town. Yeah, well, I, you know, they were there first. And that's kind of my impression. Same thing with raccoons too. It's like, well, they were there first. This was their town before you even, you know, hundreds of years. They, it's their town. We just moved into it. So that's kind of my attitude and that, you know, hyenas live with humans in Kenya, elephants live with humans in Kenya, big cats live with humans in Kenya. And how can we make it safer for the animals and safer for the humans? Obviously, we don't want to say, oh yeah, let's have leopards come in our living room. But we do want to say, the leopards, this is their home too. Let's make sure we can all live together and share the land.

• 28:32Kim Mills?

  Well, speaking of living together, so a couple of years ago, I went on safari to Africa, which was a wonderful experience. I'm just wondering if that kind of tourism is helping animals in the wild because it leads to more conservation? Or does our driving around in these open safari jeeps, shooting pictures disturb the animals? Or do we even know whether this type of tourism is harming more than it's helping?

• 28:57Speaker 04

  What a great question. And where did you go? South Africa or Kenya?

• 29:01Kim Mills?

  I was in southern Africa. I was in five countries in southern Africa.

• 29:05Speaker 04

  Cool. Okay. So it really, I think that question really depends on the management strategies in the countries. So some countries like ask because South Africa has a different management strategy than Kenya, for example. So in Kenya, all the wildlife belonged to Kenyans.

• 29:22Speaker 04

  In South Africa, private landowners can, they own the animals that are on their land. So it's a, it's a very different approach. So I think it's not a sort of, you can't really answer that question for the whole continent, but certainly on a country by country basis, I think Kenya's got it figured out. That the animals know that when there's a vehicle and people stay on the vehicle, that that is no threat to them because they're not harmed by vehicles. But in South Africa, when they see a vehicle, sometimes there are hunters on that vehicle that shoot them and they're on specifics. And so they don't particularly like the vehicle. So I think we have to take into account the cognition of the animals, you know, what

• 30:06Speaker 04

  are they, how do they view us? And how have we made them view us? Because certainly elephants will, I think it's a stereotype, but, but they will remember, right? They remember, oh, that, that guy had a gun and he shot my brother. So I don't like vehicles. Whereas if, if a vehicle is never, ever a problem for them and all it does is drive by and makes loud grumbling noises, well, that's fine. You know, they're, they're not too upset by that. In Kenya, they're certainly not upset by that. So I do think we have to give the animals a lot of credit that they can discriminate between good humans and bad humans.

• 30:47Speaker 04

  And also that they will not only hold a grudge, but they remember who hurt them. And we need to recognize that. So I think there's lots that can be studied there, you know, to look at country by country differences on how animals view the presence of humans. But certainly in my experience, that's what I think.

• 31:07Kim Mills?

  I saw you published a paper a few years ago on the future of artificial intelligence in animal monitoring. How have developments in AI and other technologies changed the kind of work that you're able to do? And where are we going?

• 31:21Speaker 04

  Well, what I can tell you is it's a lot harder than it sounds. So, you know, we were like, oh, AI, this will be great. Everybody's just AI, AI, AI. It turns out, okay, well, AI depends on humans training the AI. And what we do in a millisecond, when we can look at an animal and know, you know, well, if you're familiar, for example, with an orangutan, you can tell immediately whether it's a female or a male, and you can tell immediately whether she's happy or she's sad. It takes AI years and years of training to figure that out because they're not set up for that. So we're not going to replace human observers anytime soon. My students are always like, oh, well, let's just get AI to do the data collection.

• 32:03Speaker 04

  Okay, well, you're going to get nothing because AI doesn't even know. No, AI is trained on humans, and humans and other species have wildly different behaviors and different facial expressions and all those things. So it really is not easy. We're doing a project now. My postdoc, Dr. Espinosa, is doing a project looking at free-ranging dogs in India, and we're using drones to follow them, follow packs of dogs, and you can actually track them using, and that you can use AI to figure out who's with whom and where they go, what their home ranges are and stuff like that. But when it gets down to very subtle behaviors, AI is no good.

• 32:46Kim Mills?

  Now, for those of us who would like to keep wild animals wild, what are some things that we can or should do? I know that very few of us are in a position to stop deforestation or urban sprawl, but are there things that we can do as individuals to help? For example, should we stop feeding backyard birds?

• 33:07Speaker 04

  Oh, you know, that's a really tough one because it's, it seems like the best idea to feed them, especially when the winter's really cold. And, you know, we're in Canada, so I always say, look, when it's really, really cold and birds have nowhere else and it's covered in snow, then putting out seeds is okay. But in the summertime, what you're doing is you're attracting other species, you're attracting rats and squirrels and raccoons and whatever, and you're also spreading disease, right? If you have a backyard feeder. But I'm hesitant to say don't do it because it does give people so much joy, and having joy is such a limited resource.

• 33:46Speaker 04

  So, you know, but certainly feeding raccoons or coyotes or any of these mesocarnivores, these middle-sized mesocarnivores, no, bad idea. Don't do that because all it will do is they'll bring their friends and they'll get aggressive and they'll take it out on your pets. So you don't want that. But it is, it's a tough line to draw. I'm not going to watch an animal starve to death in the winter. I'm going to feed them in the winter for sure. So I know we're not supposed to, but, you know, I don't think you need to worry about animals. They are not pets. They will find their way. And in the summer, when there's lots of food, in the fall, when there's lots of food, it's okay. So you can just let them be.

• 34:29Speaker 04

  But, you know, even with the turtles, with the hatchlings, we have, we're working with great indigenous partners, the Turtle Protectors here in Toronto, and they protect the nests of turtles and they, they make sure the hatchlings come out and don't get eaten. And you might say, well, that's interfering with nature. But, you know, we've changed nature. These are in parks with cars and people stepping on the hatchlings. And so anytime that we've disturbed the habitat, I think it's not such a bad idea if we try to give them a hand. I think when we go to a national park, for example, we don't have to worry about that. But in our urban settings, when we make it really, really hard for these species, I don't think it's the worst idea to do what we can to, to help them out.

• 35:14Kim Mills?

  So looking for local groups where you can volunteer and, and help with the guidance of scientists.

• 35:20Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And I think evidence-based helping is the way to go, right? Like, sometimes you think you're helping, but you're not helping. And, you know, I've done that too. I've been doing this since I was a child and, and all the things I thought that were a good idea, probably not a good idea, but having, having a team with you and having a plan and having, you know, that's what we do with the Turtle Protectors, who are a fantastic group, and they're, they're protecting turtles since their name. And we can give them the data they need to know where to do it, how to do it, what not to do, what to do. And I think that's, that's the perfect thing, to have a team that has that sort of basis in evidence.

• 36:00Kim Mills?

  Just to wrap up, I know you've mentioned a few of the things that you and your students are working on. Are there any other research projects we didn't cover that you'd like to talk about?

• 36:10Speaker 04

  No, I think everything, I think we've talked about it all. I mean, there's always, there's always something. So there's, there's always something to get interested in. Every time I read something, I go, oh, there's a good study. So, you know, there's a lot, oh, yeah, a lot of my students are actually going to be doing projects with, in, in a little place called Reptilia, not little, but it's a place that has reptiles. So they're going to, because I think that reptile welfare, you know, turtles and snakes and lizards, I'm not a big snake fan, but lots of people are. Their well-being is completely underappreciated. As I said, we saw that turtle playing and everyone's amazed, right? So we assume we put a snake in a box and it'll be fine. Okay, well, really?

• 36:53Speaker 04

  Because I don't, you know, a snake in the wild doesn't sit in a box. So I think trying to figure out how to identify welfare, good and bad, in species that are not mammals is a really interesting challenge. And so I think we're going to try to work on that because they don't have facial expressions and they don't have the behaviors that we're used to, but that doesn't mean they're not experiencing something. So that, I think, will be fun for this upcoming year.

• 37:23Kim Mills?

  Okay. Well, Dr. McDonald, I want to thank you for joining me today. This has been very interesting.

• 37:28Speaker 04

  Thank you so much. It's been great.

• 37:30Kim Mills?

  You can find previous episodes of Speaking of Psychology on our website at speakingofpsychology.org or on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like what you've heard, please subscribe and leave a review. If you have comments or ideas for future podcasts, you can email us at [email protected]. Speaking of Psychology is produced by Lee Weinerman. Thank you for listening. From the American Psychological Association, I'm Kim Mills. Kim Mills.

• 38:39Speaker 05

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