Hello, my friends, and welcome to episode 134 of Just the Zoo of Us.

On this week's episode, I got to chat with an amazing conservation biologist who studies the oft maligned yet thoroughly impressive powerhouses, hyenas.

We talked about the diversity of the hyena family, eating bones, girl bossing, how pop culture has missed the mark

on hyena representation and compassionate conservation. I promise this episode is going to have you

whooping with joy over these incredibly cool animals. Just the Zoo of Us presents

hyenas with Dr. Christine Wilkinson. Hey, everybody. This is Ellen Weatherford. I'm here as usual with your favorite animal review podcast, just the zoo of us. And this week, I am really excited to talk about animals that I don't think get enough love. They get some attention, but I don't think they get enough love. We're talking about hyenas with a special guest. This is Christine Wilkinson. Say hi, Christine.

Hey, everybody.

So excited to talk to you. I'm quite the fan. I have been following you on social media for some time.

Before we talk about hyenas, let's talk about Christine a little bit. Can you let our listeners know what your hyena journey has been like? I would love to. It's kind of a meandering

journey. So I grew up in Queens, New York, very far away from any hyenas. Known for their

hyena population. Although that would be amazing and frightening. And yeah, as a kid, I was always kind of

running around the city, looking for urban

animals like squirrels and cockroaches and cicadas. I love cicadas. I would put them on my shirt

and go to dinner with them on my shirt. And my mom would hate that. It's a brooch. Yeah, they would just sit

there. It was so cute. Like live cicatives? Yeah, live cicadas. They just, they kind of don't

move. Yeah, my mom wasn't, she didn't like that. And, oh, and pigeons have a soft spot in my heart

all over New York. And I really wanted to be kind of like the nature show hosts that I saw on TV,

but none of them really looked like me. I'm a person of color, for those of you

can't see me, or had really similar backgrounds, and I had no idea how to get to that point. So I was

kind of like just running around after these animals trying to approximate that. But I knew from a really

young age that I wanted to work with wildlife. So fast forward to when I was applying for undergrad,

I ended up being really fortunate to be invited

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