Tracking Wildlife and Human Impacts Along the Missouri River: From Lewis and Clark to Big Data

In the Science Friday episode, Flora Lichtman guides listeners through two coordinated investigations into wildlife and human presence on shared landscapes. First, Dr. Roland Kays and a nationwide team traverse the Missouri River by van, kayak, and foot, deploying camera traps to document current wildlife and compare it with historical observations from the Lewis and Clark expedition. The effort aims to map biodiversity changes over roughly 250 years and to illuminate patterns of recovery, regulation, and habitat protection. In a second thread, ecologist Ruth Oliver discusses a study that combines anonymized cell phone data and car traffic with animal tracking to quantify how human presence alters where wildlife go. The episode also highlights human-wildlife tensions, potential conservation strategies, and how to follow the projects online.

• Biodiversity and long-term wildlife monitoring through camera traps
• Human presence measured with big data to assess its impact on predators and other species
• Nuanced trends: wildlife recovery with conservation history, but new challenges from land use
• Paths toward smarter coexistence and space sharing between people and wildlife

Overview

The podcast presents two interconnected explorations of wildlife on landscapes shared with humans. In the first thread, Flora Lichtman introduces Dr. Roland Kays and a broad team of scientists who are traveling the Missouri River to document wildlife using camera traps. This modern expedition retraces a route long associated with Lewis and Clark, aiming to contrast today’s biodiversity with historical observations and to highlight how wildlife populations have fared over the last two and a half centuries. In the second thread, Ruth Oliver from UC Santa Barbara describes a study that leverages big data from cell phones and vehicles alongside animal tracking to quantify how human presence perturbs wildlife across large regions. The episode emphasizes how these data-driven approaches can inform conservation and land-use policy.

Expedition along the Missouri River

The Kays-led effort combines field paddles on the Missouri with ground surveys and a network of scientists across the country. The team operates in canoes, kayaks, and vehicles, visiting significant river corridors and collaborating with local researchers to deploy camera traps that provide a systematic record of which animals occupy the route today. The project uses these cameras to create a long-term cross-regional survey, enabling comparisons not only with each other but also with historical accounts from the Lewis and Clark era. Although camera traps cannot perfectly replicate the statistical robustness of modern large-scale sampling, the approach reveals clear patterns about wildlife presence, habitat use, and responses to human activity over time.

Big Questions and Emerging Patterns

The central questions are straightforward: how is wildlife doing today, and how does that compare to the historical record? The researchers frame the analysis as a long-term reflection on the state of wildlife and the effectiveness of conservation measures implemented over the last century. The cameras help identify broad patterns across regions, including how protected areas, hunting regulations, and protected landscapes have contributed to species recovery, such as restored populations of bald eagles, deer, and turkeys. The conversation also addresses ongoing threats from habitat loss, fragmentation, and industrial development, including oil infrastructure seen in western North Dakota, which poses new challenges for wildlife and landscape sharing.

Surprises and Red Flags

While the overall trajectory is encouraging for many species, the discussion also highlights concerns. Prairie dogs, for example, have experienced drastic range contractions while facing public land management pressures. The best field moment recounted involves a bald eagle swooping near the river and a duckling seeking refuge in a paddling boat, underscoring the intensity of predator-prey dynamics in the wild. The segment on prairie dogs also underscores how policy and public perception can lag behind ecological needs, suggesting a need for a more compelling public-relations approach to the species themselves.

Big Data on Human-Wildlife Interactions

The second part of the podcast shifts to a separate study led by Dr. Ruth Oliver and coauthor Scott Yanko, examining how humans influence wildlife using data from cell phones, cars, and GPS-tracked animals. The work distinguishes the impacts of habitat modification from direct human presence and interactions. Oliver notes that while animals respond to human activity, their responses are not uniform across landscapes. For example, cougars tend to shrink their range as human density increases, with a more pronounced contraction in less developed areas where animals are less habituated to humans. In contrast, gray wolves expand their range in rural areas, a pattern that researchers are still decoding. The study emphasizes that human-wildlife dynamics are nuanced and that traditional habitat-centric conservation models may miss critical mechanisms that drive population trajectories.

The podcast discusses how such granular data can reveal mechanisms behind population declines and inform smarter policies. By combining human mobility data with wildlife tracking, researchers can begin to map where and when wildlife can safely share space with people. Oliver stresses the potential for policy design that uses space and time as levers to reduce conflict and support sustainable wildlife populations.

Implications for Coexistence and Policy

The episode concludes with reflections on conservation strategies that enable space sharing without compromising biodiversity. The researchers view the findings as a source of optimism that targeted interventions—such as spatially explicit protections, demand-driven habitat preservation, and timing-based measures—could improve coexistence on a crowded planet. The podcast also notes the value of public engagement and better communication for underappreciated species like prairie dogs, which may benefit from improved public perception and policy support.

Follow-Up and Resources

Listeners are encouraged to follow the researchers online, including Roland Kays at rolandkays.com and the Wild Animals YouTube channel, where videos and updates from the expedition are shared. The episode also points to the broader potential of big-data approaches to inform wildlife management and conservation decision-making in real time.

Closing Thoughts

The podcast frames two complementary perspectives on biodiversity and human influence: field-based, long-term wildlife monitoring and data-driven analyses of human movement. Together they illustrate how modern science can illuminate the complex interplay between people and wildlife, guiding more nuanced and effective conservation strategies for a crowded landscape.