Hi everyone. I know this may seem to be in the wrong subreddit, but please bear with me.
I am currently planning to apply for a PhD in ecology and have been brainstorming some research directions. I’m interested in studying carnivore behavior comparatively in zoo and wild settings (same 1 species across both contexts) to understand how behavior changes under ecological and anthropogenic factors. My background is more ecology-based, but I do have experience in both in situ and ex situ settings: my undergrad research was on landscape ecology of a related species, and I have prior experience volunteering at a US zoo and several sanctuaries abroad. My bachelor's degree is in biology with a minor in cognitive science.
The challenge I’m running into is that most grad programs seem to fall into one of two areas: programs that focus on work with wildlife in in situ systems, or programs that are more focused on work with captive animals in ex situ systems. I firmly believe that good conservation requires integrating both perspectives, but I’m having trouble figuring out how people bridge these two worlds in practice within a PhD structure.
If you work at a zoo, are a researcher, or collaborate with researchers:
- Have you ever seen grad students conducting research with zoos?
- What kinds of programs or institutions have you seen researchers doing zoo-based behavioral studies come from?
- Are there labs or people that you know to doing comparative behavioral ecology in both wild and zoo settings?
- Is it very difficult to obtain access/permissions to study at a zoo as a grad student? What does that process usually look like?
Any general advice on programs, labs/advisors, or general pathways into this kind of work would also be really helpful. Thank you!