Katey, The Indie Snow Leopard Researcher
- Ximena Neri
- Mar 5, 2019
- 7 min read
It could be due to her training in the US army, or maybe her passion for large-carnivores, but Katey goes three notches higher. Not only she works in a remote and wild place to help conserve one of the less known carnivores, facing the challenges of women in STEM and human-wildlife conflicts, she is also a self-funded indie researcher. Stories like hers are rarely told, and here we share it.
After a year in Iraq with the US army, Katey completed a Bachelor’s in Zoo and Wildlife Biology. During that timeframe, she worked with captive wolves while educating the public about them, collared wild wolves for USGS [United States Geological Services] in Minnesota, and worked with over 70 species of reptiles in her university’s serpentarium.
She also minored in Psychology to help support community conservation work with people and completed a Master’s degree in Zoology with a Master Plan focus on mitigating human-wildlife conflicts. "It was an unconventional program that differed from having a traditional thesis on one main study. Instead, my Master Plan was made up of several interconnecting community-based projects that were applied to different species in different situations of human activity".
Katey has been studying snow leopards for five years now. Initially, she was looking to work with wolves after doing a steppe ecology course in Mongolia. A web of networking for wolf biologists in Mongolia led her to working with the Mongolian Academy of Sciences to survey for snow leopards throughout the Zavkhan province, Uvs province and the Altai. She has collaborated with local organizations to survey for snow leopards in little or never studied areas, interview herders on livestock losses to snow leopards and wolves, help test predator deterrents for Snow Leopard Conservancy, and started a study to investigate potential zoonoses in snow leopard scat.
Other than focusing on snow leopards and their interaction with herders, she has grown an interest in One Health: "One Health connects the well being of wildlife, domestic animals, and people. I also have a passion for the overall safety of those working in remote environments; rangers, herders, and field researchers. If field teams aren’t safe, they can’t efficiently do their work to study species, stop poachers, and help communities. There is a lack of standardization in training and gear preparedness for field teams to handle trauma injuries, illness, and evacuation. These skillsets can be especially valuable in environments with dangerous wildlife."
"Conservation is about more than a species of focus. It’s about helping the people who live and work in the environment of that species." - Katey Duffey
Q&A with Katey
Q: How would you describe the origin of human-wildlife conflict in the region you study?
A: Livestock provide the livelihoods of nomadic herders in snow leopard range. The environment and climate doesn’t support many crops, and the infrastructure for alternate sources of income are not well developed. However, large, free-ranging herds compete with wild prey so livestock often become an easy food source for snow leopards and wolves. Although snow leopards are considered sacred and wolves are generally respected, if they kill livestock, herders may shoot them in retaliation to protect what is essentially their bank account.
Q: Are there any measures being taken to prevent human-wildlife conflicts? Do you think these measures could be improved and lead to a more positive impact?
A: Different organizations such as Snow Leopard Trust, Snow Leopard Conservancy, and Panthera are working with smaller organizations, government officials, and communities to help local people protect their livestock. Predator-proof corrals for smaller herds, solar-powered light deterrents, and livestock guarding dogs such as those from the Bankhor Dog Project in Mongolia, are methods being implemented. Livestock insurance is a self-sustaining program with bonuses in some areas to provide compensation for lost animals while having the participants promise to not kill snow leopards. Alternate income from the making and selling of handicrafts by herder women is a popular method as well to help offset livestock losses.
Changes in livestock husbandry to keep smaller, healthier herds, keep them properly corralled at night and watched during the day is ideal, but must retain consistency. A balance is needed to allow herders to maintain their income while preventing overgrazing through buffer zones, and incentives to prevent retaliatory killing of predators.
Q: Which have been the biggest challenges of being a woman working for Snow Leopard conservation?
A: Engaging with colleagues in the different organizations has been quite positive. As an independent researcher, it is sometimes a challenge to access new journal articles, but my fellow snow leopard biologists are always happy to send a pdf my way. Colleagues have been supportive at offering a fresh pair of eyes to look over any writing or to be an ear to bounce potential ideas with. The carnivore world is a pretty tight knit world, where everyone seems to know each other. Its also one of those world’s that seems difficult enough as it is to get into, while being very male-dominated. Every field has their more arrogant individuals who will doubt the abilities of newbies, especially women, but the colleagues who are supportive far outweigh the negative interactions.
In the field, the challenge is mainly in working with a culture where a woman’s traditional role is to stay in the home raising children and cooking. I’ve received comments by local male teammates that wave off my opinions on how to go about field methods or interviews as if being a woman somehow makes those opinions ridiculous or amusing. Those comments are added to the fact of being not only a woman, but a foreign woman. I’m also often questioned about my personal status of not being married and not having interest in having kids. Instead of the expectation of teammates taking turns with camp chores, local male teammates assume I will do all the cooking and cleaning since that’s what women in that country do. Locals in snow leopard range are very hospitable and don’t mean to be rude, but the cultural difference with gender roles is something to be aware of so that a balance can be met to maintain cohesion.
Q: How would you describe your experience of searching for funds to support your work? Are you supported by a team?
A: Finding funding as an independent researcher is incredibly difficult, if not almost impossible. Even if I want to work in the same area as a well-funded organization and help contribute to their research with my findings, their funding resources are still off-limits. The majority of grants require an affiliation, that you’re a student somewhere, that you’re a PhD, or a combination of all three. Some resources require you to be a native from the country the study is in. For the few grants I can qualify for, the funds don’t cover logistics. They don’t cover travel, lodging expenses, food, fuel, vehicle rental, stipends for a driver, interpreter, ranger, and the service of the field partner. The funds don’t cover park fees and permits either. However, the majority of the funding I need is for those things, so I either need to pay out of pocket or raise it myself. So far all of my fieldwork has been self-funded because of those hurdles. I’ve crowd-funded using different online platforms and used extra income from various temporary jobs. Up until now, I haven’t been supported by a team outside who I work with in the field. I don’t have an institution to come back to, I’ve struggled trying to find a reliable lab willing to take the time to collaborate with a project not run by one of their own members, and I’ve been left to try to wrap up past projects and writing alone.
Those challenges have forced me to rethink what type of projects I should focus on based on my very limited resources. Its not practical for me to do traditional wildlife research like most my peers still with universities and conservation projects that require a heavy budget when my career is at a freelance stage. That is why I’ve been going the multi-disciplinary route. By increasing my skills and education in health and safety, I can collaborate with professionals from that discipline and gain access to those resources while making a broader impact and increase opportunities for a sustainable income. I have expanded my networking to physicians involved in infectious disease, occupational medicine, and many within emergency medicine due to the wilderness medicine connection. I’ve done brainstorming with wildlife veterinarians too. My current freelance work with Taffs Tv as a medic and security for commercial expeditions has opened more opportunities for resources and a reliable team as well so that I can now develop stronger collaborations with larger conservation organizations.
Q: What advice would you give to early female conservationists looking to work with large carnivores?
A: Definitely keep an open mind and gather as many other skills as you can to apply to fieldwork. At the beginning of my conservation journey, I was most focused on studying wild canids. Yet, despite working with captive wolves for 5 years, collaring them for USGS, and doing community engagement for coyote conflict mitigation, I struggled with landing another canid opportunity. Even during periods of being in “large carnivore limbo”, I remained active working with various other species, doing public education with different species, offered aid to a local state botanist to help with a vegetation survey, and assisted in stream health assessments. Another way to get in the door with carnivores is to keep an eye open for studies on prey species. Most importantly, network! Send emails to organizations and researchers to ask for more information on their work and build a rapport with mutual interests. Try to come up with your own project ideas to support that work and ask what you can do for them. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t hear back or are dismissed if those organizations and researchers get many other emails. Try someone else and keep adapting to what may be needed.
If I was 11 years old and was asked to write about someone I admired, I would definitely write about Katey. I would do it today and tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow! Her story is one of resilience, strength and passion. Her drive has taken her to places I have only read about in Atlas books or encyclopedias, and she has lived in remote places that are featured as "the wildest of expeditions" in National Geographic. She has done this as a woman, solo, as an independent researcher and as a passionate carnivore conservationist. Her expeditions are as brave as those done by Alexander Von Humboldt or Darwin years before to the Americas!
Katey is a strong role model to me, and I believe many other young girls and mature women would be invariably inspired by her advocacy and love to wildlife. I hope this story touches you, and may this be the beginning of recognising the effort done by so many amazing people that do not hold academic tenure or are well-known conservation leaders.
You can follow Katey on Twitter: https://twitter.com/UnciaKate and read more about her on her blog: https://kateyduffey.wordpress.com/
Thank you for sharing your experiences with us!
- Xim Neri
If you know an amazing conservationist working for human-wildlife coexistence (probably it´s you) whose story you´d love to read, let me know to arrange an interview!
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