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So why is this behavioral ecologist so excited about the coyote and badger video, other than it being pure and adorable? (a thread) Coyotes and badgers have been observed working together for a long time. It has been demonstrated that both benefit energetically as well.
Native American oral traditions talk about this association and it has been captured in photos and film, along with written accounts. This isn't new, albeit not well known among the public. The first thing that excites me is the charisma of this video reaching a broad audience.
The more the general public sees the playful and social side of two much persecuted carnivores is always a bonus. I will never stop sharing videos of coyotes playing with dog toys they find. On a deeper behavioral ecology level, this video demonstrates some important ideas.
The coyote and badger association isn't obligatory, and the two species have certainly been observed killing one another. There isn't a consistent "natural rule" that the two species get along. This demonstrates the /flexibility/ in behavioral and ecological associations.
Noting and observing flexibility it important. Humans (many scientists included...sometimes the worst offenders) are guilty of thinking in parameters of hard and fast "rules" in the natural world: Stimulus A elicits Behavior B, always.
While useful in understanding how behaviors and ecological processes work at the (very) proximal level, these experiments and "rules" often frame behavior and ecological associations as coded, robotic, and inflexible. People quote instinct, and deny the role of thinking.
Scientifically we are FINALLY emerging from a dark period of natural study where humans are the only thinkers and decision makers and nature is simply a stimulus-and-instinct-driven play that we can observe (which justifies/ied so much cruelty to other organisms/ecosystems).
(I've literally had yelling matches with some anthropologists about the cognitive and cultural capabilities of non-human animals, where they absolutely refused to see these as anything but instinct in non-humans.)
(And don't get me started on wildlife management agencies not taking into account behavioral ecology and the social/cultural lives of the animals they regulate purely as numbers. We have a ways to go yet.)
Back to coyotes and badgers cooperatively hunting... Their seemingly loose, yet highly beneficial hunting association shows the importance of understanding that nature is /flexible/ and that flexibility introduces an incredibly amount of complexity and variation.
The complexity and variation DOES fit the incredibly elegant Theory of Evolution, which is SO elegant that it accounts for all the "rule breakers" in nature without the theory breaking down itself (thank you Darwin and Wallace, you did science a real solid there).
In this video I see how complex and flexible nature is. How complex and flexible these two animals are. How these aren't two animal-robots reacting solely to stimuli. How the body language and ease between them suggests that they know each other as /individuals/.
In all my years studying wild animals (with many more to come), I've seen this complexity, intelligence, and decision-making. I've argued for it. I've battled with some "old-school" scientists and the general public arguing against it.
And here, in 12 seconds of a coyote and badger heading through a culvert together, a broad audience can see and consider what I and many in my scientific generation see: a thinking, complex, dynamic nature that demands our respect and mindfulness as we move through this world <3
