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Good morning Climate Kids and welcome to our Carnivores and Climate Change module.

All Photos Credit to Dr. Megan Jennings, San Diego State University Conservation Ecology Lab
Graph Credit to Julie Kalansky, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Today, we are excited to investigate one of my favorite groups of animals – the carnivores. Through this video/presentation, we will explore what makes a carnivore a carnivore, why they are so important to our region and ecosystems here in southern california – and most importantly how they are impacted by climate change and human activity and what you can do to help them. This lesson is apart of the Climate Kids – Carnivores and Climate Change Module and the Thru the Lens Module in collaboration with the San Dieguito River Valley Conservancy.

What are Carnivores?

To start it’s important to define “What are carnivores?” Here we have a couple of great examples that you may or may not have seen before – a bobcat on the left, a wiley coyote on the upper right, and one of the largest of the carnivores across our region on the bottom – the mountain lion – sometimes referred to as a puma, a cougar and even a panther.

Now what do all of these amazing animals have in common – what makes them carnivores? Any guesses.

If you said, they eat meat – you right! Carnivores are animals that eat meat. You might observe that this carnivore on the slide is enjoying a nice meaty treat in the form of a squirrel. As scientists, we can determine if an animal is a carnivore due to the specialized teeth, or sharp incisors, of the species that make it easier to tear through meat. You too have incisors on the right and left side of your mouth – granted probably not as sharp as these carnivores. However most humans also eat vegetables, thus we are considered omnivores and not necessarily carnivores.

Carnivores like this coyote are predators meaning they use their sharp teeth to hunt other animals or prey for food. Carnivores play a special role in the food web as predators in controlling prey populations. Without these carnivore predators keeping prey populations in check, the ecosystem might become unbalanced. Thus, it’s really important for scientists to study this animals to make sure ecosystems are healthy. But how do they do it, especially when many of these animals are scared of humans or might only come out at night?

Detecting Carnivores

Scientists use unique tools such as cameras traps to detect and study these animals without having to be near them. You can see an example of this camera trap attached to a post on the left and some examples of the photos it takes on the right. Everything from a mountain lion to a coyote, a fox and another bobcat. It’s almost as if the camera traps allows scientists to take selfies of these carnivores to get to know more about them.

The cameras observe interesting behavior like this bobcat laying down in a meadow. What do you observe in this photo? Is the bobcat taking a nap? Is it getting ready to pose for the camera? What can these photos tell us about these animals?

Here is another example of a different bobcat? Is this one doing yoga? No, probably not, it looks like she’s going after something like a mouse that she sees or hears in the grass. Camera traps are a great tool for scientists to understand carnivore behavior in certain areas, but because they are only put in a certain place – we need additional tools to gather more information.

Beyond camera traps, scientists use other tools to understand more about carnivore behavior and where they are going. Can you use your observation skills to identify another tool in this photo that we use to study these animals….If you noticed the black tracking collar on this bobcats neck – great observation!

Tracking collars, not much bigger than the collar you might put on your dog, are used to track animal movements across a landscape. A collar has a small GPS chip in it just like a cell phone and it tells scientists where the animal is. The more advance tracking collars can sometimes give us information about the animals themselves. Scientists can use the antenna to track the animals movements over time and learn about the animals behavior. At this point, you might be wondering a very important question – how do scientists get the bobcat to wear the collar?

In order to put these important devices on the animals – First, scientists have to capture them. Don’t worry, the scientists are specially trained and carefully plan their work so that the animals are safe throughout the process.

Studying Carnivores

Then, once the animal is safely captured, a trained scientist gives them special medicine to sleep while they fit them with their collar and an identifying ear tag – almost like a special earring. Then, just like when you go to the doctor for a check up, the scientist also collect samples like blood and hair, takes their temperature, and listens to their heart. This allows the scientists to assess the health of the carnivore and make sure they are doing okay. The scientist then stays nearby to watch the animal wake up and return safely back to the wild.

Now with the camera traps, the data we collect comes in the form of photos. However, with the tracking collars, the data comes in the form of the small dots you see here on this map. This aerial map is located in Ramona, California and displays several different dots. Each dot represents a data point of when the GPS informed us where the bobcat might be. Each color represents an individual bobcat. Looking at this photo, what are some things you notice about the dots and the movement of these animals.

Tracking Carnivores

The first thing you might notice – is how many colors there are. This data represents that there are 4 different bobcats, as indicated by the 4 different colors. You might also notice that some of the
different colors clump together and some of the colors, like the blue dots are spread out over a long distance. What do you think this might mean? How are the bobcats moving?

Another question, we should ask is why are they are moving? What might be some reasons animals might move around? If you said things along the lines of finding food or shelter, or maybe finding a bobcat mate, or maybe even just running away from another predator – these are all great examples of why these animals might move around the landscape.

Here is another example of these collar tracks – this map is located in Los Penasquitos Canyon, in San Diego, Ca. What do you notice about this map as a whole? In terms of how many tracks or colors? Where are they going? Are there other features on this map, that might make it different to the last one?

So similar to the last photo, we have what looks like four different colors or animals and you might notice, based off their tracks that they are staying in a relatively defined area – right here within this canyon. Based off of other things you might notice in this picture? Why do you think this is?

For those who might be unfamiliar with this area – this canyon is surrounded by houses in grey and what’s more these bright yellow lines that you see are freeways. Needless to say, if you are one of the bobcats represented in these tracks, do you think it’s as easy to find food, water, shelter. What might some of the challenges be?
This is another important reason why scientists use camera traps and tracking collars to study these animals. With increasing human development and the impacts of climate change that we will discuss a little later – it has become harder and harder for these animals to move around in the ecosystem. Thus, scientists study carnivores this way to help them.

Studying Carnivores

Did you know that we can create special bridges or tunnels to help carnivores and other animals cross roads safely so they don’t have to dodge cars?
Carnivores can’t necessarily use a crosswalk like you and I, instead they use culverts or tunnels, like the one pictured here.

Alternatively, some scientists recommend that we use wildlife bridges like this one in BANFF National Park in Alberta, Canada. These special corridors give safe passage for all types of animals to move in the landscape. Can you come up with other solutions to help carnivores and wildlife move around? I recommend brainstorming with your group or class – there are many ideas that scientists might not have even thought of yet!

Scientists work a lot on helping animals move around when they live near humans, but there are other challenges that these animals face. There’s another big problem for wildlife that’s more difficult to see, it is called climate change!


Climate change is caused by human activities that release gases, like Carbon Dioxide and Methane, that get trapped in the earth’s atmosphere. These gases come from human outputs like cars, airplanes, factories, and more! When those gases get stuck in the atmosphere, they create a heat-trapping blanket around the Earth. As you might imagine when you are under a blanket – It’s gets hotter and hotter. Same thing with the Earth under the blanket of increased pollution or greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The heat-trapping blanket causing our earth to warm has many different impacts depending on where you live. Here in San Diego, where I live, there are hotter days, more extreme storms, drought, wildfire and more, making it harder on people and animals.

In terms of temperature, These two graphs show the average temperature of the hottest day – today (on the left) and in the future (on the right). What difference between these two images do you see? What color is showing up more?

As you might observe from these graphs, it is predicted that in this region, daily temperature ranges will become more extreme. This means that habitat ranges from many species, including carnivores might shift as temperature changes. Do you see now why it’s important that scientist study these animals and where are they going?

The story is similar for climate impacts to water, scientists predict that in this region, which is characterized by variability in precipitation or rainfall, that this variability will become even more extreme, resulting in more frequent and prolonged droughts followed by intense flood events. In drought conditions, it will become more difficult for animals to find enough water, thus they will have to travel even further, and with higher risk, to get what they need to survive.

Climate change is causing more frequent drought conditions, hotter temperatures, and drier vegetation. This also means more wildfire conditions, especially in summer and fall in Southern California. Scientists are seeing that with climate change, animals are needing to move to cooler areas, areas with more available water, and that they are being impacted by wildfires.
The data that is collected with camera traps and radio collars allows scientists to ask and answer questions and come up with solutions on how to best help these animals to adapt to changing climate conditions now and in the future.

As Climate Kids – you too can ask these questions and be apart of the solution. Climate Kids use the power of science, art, and storytelling to help the earth and the carnivores. As Climate Kids you too are scientists and scientists have three main jobs: (1) Figure out the Problem, (2) Find the Solution, and (3) Tell the Story. What solutions might you come up with to help carnivores and other wildlife adapt to the impacts of climate change and how will you tell others about your work?


If you are looking for inspiration to get started, there are many thing you can do to help. We have created this nifty list of 10 actions you can take everyday to help protect the earth whether it be saving water by turning off the sink when you are brushing your teeth of using reusable water bottles and bags when you go to the grocery store. Ever action we take can be a step in the right direction.
When it comes to climate change and protecting wildlife, we can all be apart of the solution.

So what will your climate commitment be? What action or actions will you commit to doing to help lower the impacts of our changing climate?


That’s all for now – I hope you enjoyed learning about carnivores, how we study them, how they are being impacted by climate change, and what you can do to help. If you have any additional questions or want to learn more about what you can do, we encourage you to visit our websites at www.climatekids.org or www.climatesciencealliance.org

Thanks and keep up the good work!