Media


2021





Our review paper on how fear of predators can affect the neurobiology and behaviour of wildlife was featured in this article on the BBC.




Liana was interviewed as an expert on predator-prey interactions, particularly how the fear of predators affects the behaviour of prey.  



Sharon Levy was inspired by our AREES paper (2020), and wrote an article on one of the topics in that paper, “Do wild animals get PTSD? Scientists probe its evolutionary roots.”


 
 
2020



 

Our paper won "The Wildlife Society's 2020 Publication Award" for excellence in scientific literature of wildlife biology and management





Liana was interviewed for the Emmy-nominated documentary "Nature's Fear Factor".


Liana was interviewed for a piece on the responses of wildlife to humans being lock-down due to Covid-19.


Liana was interviewed for a piece on fear of the human super-predator.



Liana was interviewed to evaluate and comment on a new paper on fear in the wild.



MSc Alumnus Nikita was interviewed to comment on how urban wildlife behaviour has changed due to Covid-19 lockdowns.


2019







Our paper received media attention from 20 radio shows including CBC Radio One (Torah Kachur), The Wildlife Society, Science Daily.



Our paper received international media attention including BBC Newshour (100 million listeners), National Public Radio USA, The Atlantic magazine, The Independent, and other leading newspapers in 11 countries.



Our work in South Africa on fear effects is a feature in PBS NOVA's documentary: “Animal Espionage”.


Liana was interviewed for a special feature on “fear” where she reported the effects we have found on the brain to ecosystems.



Liana was interviewed to comment on a new paper in a Nature publication that documented the recent re-discovery of an ungulate long thought extinct. 





Liana was interviewed for an article that featured our work on invasive species.


Liana was interviewed to comment on the newly released UN report on Biodiversity and talk about her course in Conservation Biology (BIO3442).



Liana was interviewed for an article on how large carnivores can maintain ecosystems through fear.


Liana was interviewed to comment on a new publication involving landscapes of fear between sharks and killer whales.



Our paper, as well as our PhD Candidate Lauren, were featured in an article on PTSD and wildlife.


Our paper was highlighted in an article and included a video of our lab and PhD candidate Lauren.




2018






Liana and Mike on location in South Africa; our work was featured for a production called “Spying on Animals”.




Our lab was featured in the university's student-run newspaper.


Liana interviewed for an article on predator-prey interactions.




2017






Our paper received extensive international media attention including articles in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Daily Mail (UK), New Scientist, National Geographic and other outlets.


Our paper was nominated by the British Ecological Society for a Haldane Prize (best paper of the year for an early career researcher).



Liana was interviewed to discuss our paper on the human "super-predator".

 


2016






Our paper received extensive international media attention including the Washington Post, a Scientific American podcast, CBC Radio broadcast and additional international coverage in China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Lithuania, New Zealand, Qatar, Russia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.



Our paper was featured in Nature's "Research Highlights” section.


Liana was interviewed to discuss our paper on trophic cascades for CBC Radio-Canada, Les Années Lumière, and CBC Radio’s Quirks and Quarks. 


Our paper received very extensive international media attention, including in the Washington Post, The Atlantic, Daily Mail (UK), Toronto Star, and outlets in Australia, Austria, Brazil, China, Costa Rica, Gabon, Germany, Holland, Hungary, India, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain and Switzerland



Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment featured our research on fear of the human “super predator" in their “Dispatches” section, which highlights the most important new discoveries in the discipline.


BioScience featured our research program in a special 2.5 page article entitled “Fear factor”, highlighting our repeated successes in experimentally demonstrating that fear itself can affect the population and community ecology of wildlife.


2015






Liana provided her expert knowledge and our video materials to the documentary, “The Messenger”.




2013






Liana was invited to participate in an hour-long panel discussion of “Fear” with two other world leading experts, on the program The Forum (100 million listeners worldwide).



Our work on the ecology of fear was featured in an article.


Liana was interviewed for an article on introduced predators. 


Liana was interviewed regarding the impacts of introduced predators on wildlife.

2012






Liana, Mike, and Evan Pressier (University of Rhode Island) cofounded the Gordon Research Conference on Predator-Prey Interactions. Liana chaired the inaugural meeting in 2014 summarized here.






2011






Our paper was highlighted in a 1.5 page "Perspectives" articles, highlighting the signficiance of our work.


Science organized a press conference for our paper, which led to reports in: the New York Times, Times of London (UK); most major Canadian dailies, and newspapers in Austria, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Estonia, Germany, Holland, Peru, Russia, Spain & Venezuela.


Liana appeared in a full-length documentary on introduced predators.



Liana was interviewed about the impacts of introduced predators.
 

2010






The “Faculty of 1000” highlighted our paper experimentally demonstrating predator effects on the fecundity of free-living wildlife as a “must read”.


 
Our entire field crew was featured in a TV news item regarding our work on the impacts of introduced and invasive predators.


Liana was interviewed regarding our lab’s work on the impacts of introduced and invasive predators.




2004 - 2009






Liana was interviewed about our paper demonstrating inter-generational effects of food limitation on brain development.



Liana was interviewed about our paper demonstrating that brood parasites mimic the vocalizations of their hosts.



Our research programme on the brood parasitic brown-headed cowbird was featured in this popular book.



The Guardian wrote an article on our paper regarding sexual displays and brain size.





New Scientist wrote an article about our work on food shortage and brain development.



Liana was interviewed about our results showing that sibling competition is more lethal to female than male offspring.



Our research showing chronic predator-induced stress in wild animals was reported on in the ‘Science news’ segments by these two broadcasters.



Canada’s two leading national newspapers both published articles about our research demonstrating chronic predator-induced stress.


Highlighted News

New Current Biology paper:
Fear of the human "super predator" pervades the South African savanna


Wildlife's fear of humans far exceeds even the fear of lions!

Video of giraffe, leopard, hyena, zebra, kudu, warthog, and impala running in response to hearing humans.

Video of elephants, rhinos, and other wildlife reacting to humans and lions.

Lions have long been seen as the world’s most fearsome predator, the “king of beasts”. Recent global surveys show humans kill prey at much higher rates than other predators, meriting humans being termed a “super predator”. We report experimentally demonstrating that fear of humans far exceeds even that of lions throughout the savanna mammal community in a premier African protected area; strengthening the evidence that fear of the human “super predator” pervades the planet. Paramount fear of humans adds to our global environmental impacts as fear itself can reduce wildlife numbers.