Kia Pākiki Canterbury – wildlife management
In this Kia Pākiki Canterbury podcast, Science Communicator Tom Goulter and co-host Associate Professor Adrian Paterson from the Department of Pest-Management and Conservation at Lincoln University interview Professor Elissa Cameron from the University of Canterbury’s School of Biological Sciences.
They discuss Elissa’s career working with wildlife, including wild horses, meerkats, quokkas, lions and giraffes.
Kia Pākiki Canterbury is a monthly podcast presented by the Canterbury branch of the Royal Society Te Apārangi.
Transcript
Tom Goulter
Professor Elissa Cameron of Ngāi Tahu and Ōtākou is the head of Canterbury University’s School of Biological Sciences. This year, she was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi for being an international leader in wildlife biology and conservation management. Elissa, your PhD thesis was on the Kaimanawa horses. Do you want to tell us about that?
Professor Elissa Cameron
Yeah. I was very privileged to work in the army training area, near Waiouru, on, I guess it was funded by the Department of Conservation to look at methods to control horses in the area, but it also enabled data collection on maternal investment, social structure and so forth. And I think that’s one of the beauties of science is you can be addressing a management-related question and doing fundamental science at the same time, which is really nice. So that was 3 years with a lot of time spent in the field. My thesis was on maternal investment, which was great fun looking at how mothers apportion resources to their different foals so that, I guess the first thing that a parent can alter is any influence that might have on whether you have a male or a female offspring. And we saw really strong effects of body condition on whether you had a male offspring or a female offspring. That kind of got me interested in a bit of a career-long interest in the physiology of how parents might alter whether they are having a male or a female offspring. And thereafter, you’ve got differences throughout pregnancy. Then mothers can apportion their care in relation to how many resources they have to share with their offspring at that point in time, whether it’s a male or a female offspring, and also really importantly, the risk to that offspring. So if there’s a risk in relation to multiple stallions in a band, so one of them is not a father, for example, there’s a bit more of a risk of injury and mothers are really sensitive to that and they protect those offspring. And then of course they decide when to wean the offspring and then they have another offspring. With horses, they can only foal maximally one per year, so it’s quite a big physiological decision as to when you actually cut that foal and invest in the next one.
Associate Professor Adrian Paterson
And so you took that and then went to other species?
Professor Elissa Cameron
I did, yeah. I’ve been so privileged to work on such a large variety of species. So my next position was my first postdoc, which was actually working on quokkas on Rottnest Island. For those of you who are not familiar, I suggest you Google it. It’s the world’s happiest animal. It’s got a little smile on its face, but they’re quite threatened on the mainland. And I was looking at their social structure, what determines their breeding success and then coupled with a genetic study. Are they really inbred because they only live on one island off the coast of Perth? Very cool, lovely animals to work with.
Associate Professor Adrian Paterson
And probably less controversial than the Kaimanawa horses, I’m assuming.
Professor Elissa Cameron
Way less controversial. It was really nice to finish the PhD on quite a controversial species in a beautiful part of New Zealand, but also one that is, you know, seasonally difficult to go and work on a nice tropical island.
Associate Professor Adrian Paterson
So what did you learn that you took into other research from that experience?
Professor Elissa Cameron
Everyone on both sides of the controversy are interested in the numbers. So you want quality numbers, you want to get away from everyone giving their feels on what the numbers are and what the reproductive rate is and so forth. And the higher-quality data you can provide, the better for everyone. No one likes you at the time, but everyone kind of wins in the long run. I guess in my experience of anything that involves polarisation is that the answer sits somewhere in the middle. So everyone sort of has a better solution if they can just get away from the mindset that they’ve been in. But quality science is integral and to go into it without preconceptions. I’ve been around horses most of my life, so I appreciate both sides of this argument. You know, I love the environment and I love the horses and sometimes they’re not in the right places together. And that’s really important. So you have to go in, respect the animals and collect quality information that can help everyone make better decisions.
Tom Goulter
Your research focuses on the role of the individual in ecology. That seems like a really interesting intersection of a lot of disciplines.
Professor Elissa Cameron
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve always been interested in the individual and it’s really only recently become more popular. I’ve always felt that everything scales up and down from individuals. So you get your physiology, your genetics and so forth is determining what you do, plus interaction with the environment and then interacting with other individuals. And if we ignore the individual, a lot of our population models and so forth actually are really not meaningful. And it’s not just the individual, it’s how they interact with others. So it’s sort of the social interaction, social bonds and so forth. So I’ve really sort of had that as my interest. And maybe the little me is the kid that just loves the individual animals. You know, I love my dogs, I love my horses. And yeah, university training way back last century kind of taught us to leave that aside. But any of us who’ve had a pet, we know that they’re different. You know, they might be the same breed, they might be from the same litter, but they’re all, individuals are different and that’s really important for predicting what’s going to happen to a population. So that’s, really always been interested in that. And I think as well, maybe from my upbringing, I’ve always, always was raised to think that everything’s interconnected rather than separated. So I’ve always really enjoyed trying to, I guess again, back in the day, we were taught to be quite reductionist and I’ve always brought a different lens to that and thought actually you can’t tweak something here and not have an effect over here. So yeah, I think those are the two lenses that I like to try and have on all the research I do, the individual and then all the connected webs that individuals live in.
Associate Professor Adrian Paterson
So one of the themes you’ve had in the last few years is kind of looking at the impacts of humans on landscapes, which then impact into various animal species and so on. So do you want to tell us about that? I see you have something on jet boats.
Professor Elissa Cameron
Yeah, I guess what I’m interested in is, management sort of can go both ways and human impacts go both directions. So we do, I guess it started from doing both sort of Kaimanawa horse work where we are trying to manage their numbers down and then moving on to species where we’re trying to manage their numbers up. And management is just not neutral. But then it makes you really aware of all the other interactions that we have as well, purposeful or not purposeful. So jet boating is a great example. You know, it’s a good co-use of an area to have birds nesting and jet boats, but they’re not going to be without impacts on each other. And so that’s what I really got interested in. And some of the – people get quite concerned about what appeared to be high-impact activities and less concerned about the low-impact activities. And I think a good example of that is, you’re probably all familiar with Cecil the lion and, you know, hunting and so forth, which is a high-impact activity and people get really upset about it for good reason. But eco reserves have tourists in them and tourists driving around are not devoid of impact either. And I think we’ve really got to look at all of those different elements of impact. And humans are part of the ecosystem and we have to really take that into consideration. All of the animals, even if you’re in a fenced reserve or something like that, are interacting with humans and in different capacities. So yeah, fascinated by that.
Associate Professor Adrian Paterson
You’ve spent time in Africa doing research, which I guess would be quite helpful in coming back to that sort of idea that humans are part of the landscape ‘cause they’ve been part of that landscape for a very long time. So tell us a bit about what you got up to when you were in – I mean, you brought back part of the accent.
Professor Elissa Cameron
Yeah, I know. I used to have the strongest Kiwi accent ever, I reckon. I went there as a postdoc originally, and that was working on the Kalahari meerkat project. There’s a demographic thing here, but some of you will recall Meerkat Manor. And so yeah, I knew them before they were famous, the exact same groups. So I used to work with the Whiskers and so forth. It’s this amazing window into animals’ lives where they’re completely habituated and in fact use you as part of the landscape. So even when we are doing research only and they’re not seeing any other humans, they start using us. So, you know, if a raptor flew over, they’d come and stand under our legs instead of going down a bolt-hole, for example. So we are never neutral in the environment. So that was fabulous. And then I moved on to more ecological projects, and my next postdoc was working in the Kruger National Park and really looking at an interesting question, and that is why do giraffes have such long necks? We teach it in school. It’s a classic of evolution, but it turns out no one had actually ever tested that empirically. So we went in and excluded some competitors and looked at foraging behaviour of giraffes and, and whether having a long neck does actually give you a competitive advantage. And yeah, it does. We confirmed the textbook example of competition, but that then starts to give you that window into the idea that, well, people have been here the whole time and that our low-impact activities are also impacting all the animals that live in the Kruger, for example, even though it’s a beautiful massive fenced reserve.
Associate Professor Adrian Paterson
So you worked on lions as well?
Professor Elissa Cameron
Yeah. So I did, after that, I went to the US and had my first faculty position, but then I returned back to South Africa to take over the directorship of the Mammal Research Institute at the University of Pretoria. So then I did quite a variety of projects from small mammals like mole-rats all the way up to apex predators like lions. So yeah, and usually under sort of management scenarios. What happens if we do this? What are the flow-on effects?
Associate Professor Adrian Paterson
And so you’ve done the Lion King trifecta then, meerkats, lions and warthogs.
Professor Elissa Cameron
I’ve done them all and I can categorically tell you that the reason Pumbaa farts so much is because they’re not insectivores. They eat grass.
Tom Goulter
What first drew you to this work?
Professor Elissa Cameron
It’s because I’m still the child. I never actually grew up. It’s what I wanted to do from when I was really little. And then I went through the vet phase and then realised that actually it was zoologists who did the work that I thought vets did. And I guess a bit of dogged determination and just never actually really growing up. That’s what drew me to it. I’ve always loved animals and been completely fascinated by the decisions that they make and understanding that context really. And obviously also a little bit passionate about the environment. You know, we all want to make a difference to that. I think that changes across your lifetime. But, yeah, definitely, the value of wild land, wild animals and, and conservation. It never loses its value.
Associate Professor Adrian Paterson
And so where did you grow up?
Professor Elissa Cameron
Halswell, just down the road.
Associate Professor Adrian Paterson
And you’re back in Halswell.
Professor Elissa Cameron
Yeah, I’ve gone full circle. Yep, little kid who grew up semi-rural. I think the earliest photo you’ll find of me somewhere online is a 6-year-old at Christchurch A&P show hugging my donkey. So yep, full circle. And then around the world and back again.
Tom Goulter
How did you go from that 6-year-old girl hugging your donkey to a PhD student studying the Kaimanawa horses?
Professor Elissa Cameron
I went to Canterbury University and studied zoology and psychology. So I have a undergraduate degree in biology and psychology. My parents have always been really supportive but also were like, you know, maybe you should do law or something that actually gives you a career. I promised I would do that if it didn’t lead anywhere. They definitely, and my father in particular always said, you know, you should follow your dreams at least as long as you can because then you will, it’s not like you’ll never work a day, but you’ll be living, you won’t be living for the weekends. You’ll be living during the week and doing what you love. It doesn’t mean it’s not hard, it just means that you have the passion for it. So I was really lucky to do that. I then made some contacts out at Orana Park because I really, by that stage, I knew I wanted to eventually work in Africa. And so I went and organised my own project out there, came back, pitched it to a potential supervisor who was brave enough to say yes. And so I went with that. Then I worked for a little while and did a bit of overseas travel, to do some voluntary work after I had managed to fund that. Spent a bit of time in the UK because I ran out of money and had to work in a pub and fund my way home. And then came back here and worked for a couple of years in order to get the right PhD. I was really determined not to just rush into something but something that would be a good stepping stone. And the Kaimanawa horse project came up and it wasn’t in Africa and it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do, but it seemed like a perfect stepping stone to where I wanted to get to. So yeah, went for that.
Associate Professor Adrian Paterson
So what sort of research have you currently got under way?
Professor Elissa Cameron
So we are doing quite a bit on possum catchability and what the impacts might be of a suite of things that could impact possum catchability. We’ve got a little bit of a model running with mice as well. So the idea is to look at whether trapping in itself creates more untrappable individuals and what we could do to mitigate that, turn it back. We put a lot of effort into more effective devices, but if they’re not interacting with any devices, we’re actually still going to, we’re going to get it down to a smaller and smaller percentage. But we may have to look at using some quite innovative and counterintuitive ways to get them re-interacting with devices and which is why we are testing them on lab mice first, because we don’t want to go out into the environment and test something that might have the opposite effects or a perverse outcome. So yeah, but really we are focusing on whether we can better understand behaviour and all the different forms of inheritance. I mean, you know, genetic inheritance, epigenetic maternal effects and then of course learning across your lifetime. And all of those can affect how you interact with a device and which are the ones that we can potentially tweak, to roll back the clock and get animals interacting with devices again.
Tom Goulter
How have traditional ecological knowledge and mātauranga Māori, how might have they contributed to your mahi?
Professor Elissa Cameron
So I try and carry that lens with me of just a slightly different understanding of how the environment works. And I guess that probably comes back to my point that, you know, I’ve always believed everything is connected and it, it changes the way we look at experiments now. I guess I always sort of pushed it down and then I come back and I’m like, actually, I can lean into this. I’m going to embrace this. And so for example, we are trying to do experiments where we might actually alter the hormones. So we use hormone changes in our experiments, for example, because we don’t want to change the individual into a new individual, which is what we do if we do other types of experiments. So we don’t want to be reductionist, we want to keep everything intact and then just tweak little things. And I think that’s where I’m really leaning into. Everything in the environment, everything in the animals’ world, but everything, in terms of all our people, everything is completely connected. And if we do reductionist experiments, we’re going to come up with the wrong results. And we’re never neutral. Just by being there, we’ve made it non-neutral. So that is vitally important that we acknowledge that straight off the bat. And I think the other, the other inspiration I really hold onto is physical and mental health in humans and everything else is intricately related. And yet we’ve been trying to pull those apart as well. So that’s another one of those connections. And I guess that’s why I’m interested in the hormones behind that, you know, that’s about both our physical and our mental health. And that’s not just humans, that’s everything else out there. And I think if we can lean into our different ways of knowing, then we really start to make some insights. And we see it in the history of science, right? As we get new people added, and I think, to me the really good example is, you know, there was an explosion of women in behavioural ecology in the 1970s and 80s. And suddenly we came up with a huge number of new hypotheses that didn’t revolve around, you know, the females just being a resource that the males fought over and the females were all neutral. And the number of new breakthroughs we made from that was massive. And every time we bring in people with different ways of knowing the world, that happens. And it’s what leads us to our breakthroughs actually. We get one person coming in with a slightly different viewpoint and suddenly your whole world is challenged, and it’s a wonderful thing. And I guess I also like to push back on the idea that we have recently that, you know, any diversity hires or anyone related to diversity is less well qualified. You know, they’re differently qualified and we should acknowledge that not everyone has the same pathway. I have a somewhat non-traditional pathway, and I think I have learnt immeasurably from all of that. And we have to acknowledge that we come from a place of privilege and that shapes who we are and what we are and it changes our qualifications. But that doesn’t make us more qualified. We have to understand the obstructions that different people face because we need everyone’s perspective. We’ve got some grand challenges that, you know, we actually can’t afford to go we just need 2% of the brains. We need everybody. And we need all the perspectives and experiences. And that’s the only way we are going to move forward.
Tom Goulter
What are some examples of grand challenges that we need more than 2% of the brains for?
Professor Elissa Cameron
All of them. I think we live in, you know, the, the climate emergency is vital that, one, we acknowledge it and, two, we really think about, I guess, we want to stop the damage, but we’re going to have to move to a climate adaptation model. And really that’s so challenging now that our models are sort of outpacing our knowledge. I mean, they can no longer predict things because things are changing so rapidly. So we really need a lot of energy going into that, alternative energy sources. We need a lot of people engaged in science journalism, I think. I think we are living in unprecedented times in terms of, we’ve got information at our fingertips, but it’s increasingly difficult to discriminate information from non-information and misinformation and disinformation. We need more brains thinking about how we make that happen. So we live in unprecedented, I think, times of challenge. The environment is never constant. And I think that was a sort of 1900s lens is essentially conservation was about returning it, the environment to how we first photographed it would be the way I would describe it. But actually all the environments were constantly in flux. And some of the early photographs were actually artefacts of some other process going on. And particularly, again, I’ll move back to sort of African examples that, those early photographs were taken in areas where elephants had recently been desperately hunted for ivory. And there’d been disease outbreaks, particularly a rinderpest outbreak, which meant that a lot of those photographs, sort of these beautifully vegetated areas that would never have actually been like that. And so then there was a sort of a move through the 19th century to manage species so that you still had those beautiful wooded areas where actually they were never like that in the first place. So, you know, there was control of elephants and impala and so forth to get them back to those photographs. But it was never like that. There would’ve been years of drought, there would’ve been years of population, massive increases, crashes and so forth. So the environ, so what we should be managing for –
Associate Professor Adrian Paterson
Even just things like fires, you know, big fires come through, wreck your local habitat for, you know, a generation or three.
Professor Elissa Cameron
Absolutely. Or you know, a massive migratory species passes through and there’s not back for another, you know, 5, 10 years. So we should never be managing for the same thing. We should be managing for that flux in the environment but not for the extremes. We might lose things, but you know, we really have to start thinking about this dynamic environment that we live in rather than setting our blinkers and saying this is what it must be like. Ecology is change.
Associate Professor Adrian Paterson
Always change.
Tom Goulter
Always change. But there’s one question we like to ask every interviewee in this podcast, which is what’s the last thing that made you curious?
Professor Elissa Cameron
That’s a great question. So I’ve been thinking about social bonds in zebras. Now you might not think that zebras might have social bonds, but zebra mares live pretty much lifelong after they disperse from the band that they’re born into with a bunch of other females that, that are not their sisters, they’re not related to them in any way, but they form really strong bonds with those females. And I guess we’ve shown in horses that social bonds determine female reproductive success. And I guess I’m really curious what type of bonds are the most influential, and I think it bears relationship to humans as well. Is it your BFF, your best friend forever? Is it one strong bond that you can hold onto and that’s going to really help you throughout your life? Or is it all the Facebook friends? So is it a mare who is well bonded with everyone in her group, or is it a mare that has one really, really good friend that she can rely on? Which of those is more important and how is that mediated? I’m really interested in the oxytocin, like glucocorticoids, all those things that are there and why do they live in a group with unrelated females throughout their whole life? It’s a really unusual system. And they show all of these amazing social behaviours. They groom each other, they spend a lot of time bonding, a lot of investment into these bonds. So what is it that makes forming a bond so damn important for us as well as other species? And again, all animals is, all life is social. So what’s so special about sociality?
Tom Goulter
That’s a great answer. Thank you so much for your time, Elissa.
Professor Elissa Cameron
It’s a pleasure.
Acknowledgements
Tom Goulter, Kia Pākiki Canterbury
Associate Professor Adrian Paterson, Lincoln University
Professor Elissa Cameron, University of Canterbury
Kia Pākiki Canterbury logo, © Plains Media/Royal Society Te Apārangi (Canterbury Branch)
Images of Tom Goulter and Adrian Paterson, © Royal Society Te Apārangi (Canterbury Branch)
Image of Elissa Cameron, © Royal Society Te Apārangi
Quokka on Rottnest Island, Patrick Kavanagh, CC-BY 2.0
Kaimanawa horse photo by Sian Moffit, DOC, CC-BY 4.0
Cecil the lion, Daughter#3, CC-BY 2.0
Kalahari meerkats, South African Tourism, CC-BY 2.0
Giraffe at Kruger National Park, flowcomm, CC-BY 2.0
Lion at Mkuze Game Reserve, Andy Morffew, CC-BY 2.0
Ernest Rutherford Building, University of Canterbury, Derek Pons, CC-BY 2.0
Possum feeding, The University of Waikato Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato
Climate change protestor, Takvar, CC-BY 2.0
