Hey friends, this is Ellen here to set up this week's episode. We don't normally do guest episodes back to back, but life's kind of weird right now, so here we are. Y'all are really going to love this one. Just trust me. I wanted to get out in front of this episode with a thanks to our patrons on Patreon, April Kamik, Megan Clark, Vikram Beliga, Paul Chomo, Ashley Tucker, Jacob Jones, the Jungle Jim Queen,

Brianna Feinberg, and Christina Sanders.

Thank you all for making this show happen.

Thank you. All right. I am here with our new friend Tyas Williams. Say hello, Tyas. Hey, how's it going? Thanks for having me on, Ellen. I really appreciate you inviting me onto your podcast. No problem. I'm really excited for you to be here and I'm super, super hyped about

the animal that you are going to talk about because it is one of my favorites. But before we really

dive into our animal for today, I'd like to, I'd like for you to kind of introduce yourself and

tell us a little bit

about what you do in wildlife ecology and how you got into this field. Yeah, sure. So,

my name is Tyos Williams. I'm a wildlife ecologist. I have a specialization niche in

carnivore ecology. I'm fascinated by carnivores of all realms of differentiating vertebra taxa.

But most specifically, I focused on mammology and herpetology. I got into carnivores. Well,

I first saw I want to backtrack. I've loved animals ever since I was a kid. I was always fascinated

with just the unique in just majesty, in just superior

power and adaptive ability that many animals have across the world. And how unique, but yet how

similar many of their traits are and how they can utilize it to their advantage in differing ways,

I think I've always been just captivated by their beauty and

they're just their prowess at the same time. And within that, I've always loved a big cat.

So I think that's where it extends from. I've always loved the concept of just like powerful

carnivores and just how they have such an just inextricably important link to environmental

health. I think that's kind of where it started

from me. I went to the University of Georgia. I studied fisheries and wildlife science at

Warren Ellis School in Forestry and Natural Resources. It's an incredible program. I probably,

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