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Roland Kays

@rolandkays.com
1.1K followers 153 following 179 posts

Professor at North Carolina State University and scientist at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. Camera Traps, Animal Tracking, host of the Wild Animals YouTube Channel. Likes to play in the snow.

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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 13/09/2026
Nice write up about our research with coyotes on the outer banks 🏝️of NC studying the movement and abundance of a troublesome 🐦 and 🐢 🪺 predator www.nps.gov/articles/coy...
nps.gov
Coyotes on the Move: What a New Study Means for Protecting Coastal Wildlife (U.S. National Park Service)
Cape Hatteras and Cape Lookout National Seashores partnered with North Carolina State University researchers and USDA Wildlife Services to better understand coyote populations, movements, and impacts ...
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 26/08/2026
@movebank.bsky.social just crossed 10 Billion animal tracking locations! Also 10K studies. Thanks for trust of the scientific community to archive such hard earned data there. Working on 'Movebank Neo' for the next 10 Billion
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 23/08/2026
Last post from our Lewis & Clark wildlife resurvey. Lewis wrote to Jefferson that these rivers held more beaver than any streams on earth. It was a business plan & it worked. Here's what's left after that enterprise, and whats come back w/ conservation rolandkays.com/reflections-...
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 05/08/2026
New paper - What could the next 20 years of wildlife tracking look like. Our horizon scan, out today in Proc Royal Soc B, maps out 28 innovations to unlock movement ecology's untapped potential. wildlabs.net/en/article/o...
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 23/07/2026
The last paddle of our Lewis & Clark resurvey took us through a forest of fish trap pilings in Baker Bay. The traps were banned in 1934 but the poles testify to the massive scale of this unsustainable fishery rolandkays.com/paddling-bak...
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 13/07/2026
Wildlife Insights is hiring an Executive Director. Lead the global camera trap data platform, its AI, its science agenda, and its partnership with WCS smithsonian WWF NaturalSciences WildMon & Google www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/44...
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 10/07/2026
Postdoc opportunity with Alex Jensen at Texas State University is hiring a postdoc in wildlife/macroecology. Range dynamics, citizen science & computer vision using iNaturalist data. $60K/yr + benefits, 2 yrs funding. Start early 2027. Apply by 9/30/26: alexjojensen.weebly.com
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 04/07/2026
Retracing Lewis & Clark down the Columbia. They portaged the Cascades in 1805. Bonneville Dam drowned those rapids so we easily paddled through. Watched salmon climb the fish ladder past the counting windows. But 8 dams to the ocean, and it adds up.https://rolandkays.com/paddling-from-bonneville/
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 25/06/2026
April 1805: Lewis & Clark reached the mouth of the Yellowstone and found bison, elk, and pronghorn in numbers that astonished even them. 220 years later, we flew a drone over the same bluffs George Catlin painted in 1832. The land's still there. The animals aren't. 🦬 youtu.be/BCzuZZ69T6c
youtu.be
Mouth of the Yellowstone: 1832 vs Today — Lewis & Clark Wildlife Resurvey
YouTube video by Wild Animals
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 25/06/2026
Beavers build better fish habitat than we do! This awesome dam complex on Idaho state land creates the deep pools and floodplain storage that steelhead need, plus acts as fire resilient sponge 🦫🐟🌲🔥https://rolandkays.com/state-lands-the-beaver-built-salmon-streams/
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 22/06/2026
At Canoe Camp on the Clearwater, Lewis & Clark built dugouts and ran the first serious rapids of their trip. We paddled the same water 221 years later and sat down with Nez Perce experts to learn what's happened to the salmon since. rolandkays.com/padding-the-...
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 17/06/2026
After Lewis and Clark, America nearly destroyed its wildlife. We set camera traps along their route to find out what saved it. Episode 1 of Return of the Wild is live: youtu.be/_Y2yFPKlLVI #WildlifeConservation
youtu.be
After Lewis and Clark, America nearly destroyed its wildlife - here's what saved it.
YouTube video by Wild Animals
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 12/06/2026
Lewis & Clark wrote of bison so thick "the whole face of the country was covered." Yellowstone's Lamar Valley still looks like that. Thousands of bison + wolves & mountain lions. We checked trail cameras to document the recovery. rolandkays.com/yellowstone-wildlife/
rolandkays.com
Yellowstone Wildlife | Roland Kays
Roland Kays Personal Website
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 11/06/2026
Grizzly, wolf, mountain lion, elk — almost the full cast Lewis & Clark saw here is still on the Rocky Mountain front. We spent a day checking trail cameras on the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Ranch with Boone and Crockett Club. The cameras don't lie. rolandkays.com/roosevelt-ranch-predators/
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 10/06/2026
Stop 2 of our Lewis and Clark Resurvey was to launch or canoes down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh, just like Merriweather Lewis did. rolandkays.com/pittsburgh-p...
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 09/06/2026
4 days, 48 miles paddling the wildest stretch of Missouri River left. Lewis & Clark recorded bison, elk, wolves, and bears here. We found mule deer and coyotes. The cliffs are unchanged. The wildlife is not. rolandkays.com/missouri-breaks-paddle/
rolandkays.com
Missouri Breaks Paddle | Roland Kays
Roland Kays Personal Website
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 08/06/2026
4 days, 48 miles paddling the wildest stretch of Missouri River left. Lewis & Clark recorded bison, elk, wolves, and bears here. We found mule deer and coyotes. The cliffs are unchanged. The wildlife is not. rolandkays.com/missouri-breaks-paddle/
rolandkays.com
Missouri Breaks Paddle | Roland Kays
Roland Kays Personal Website
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 05/06/2026
In 1832 George Catlin painted the Knife River bluff where Lewis & Clark had wintered with the Hidatsa and Mandan just. We just went back with a drone. The earth lodges are gone. The bluff remains youtu.be/LlmLCoZ0mEg
youtu.be
Knife River, North Dakota: 1832 vs Today — Lewis & Clark Wildlife Resurvey
YouTube video by Wild Animals
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Reposted by Roland Kays
Alt National Park Service @altnps.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
The Trump administration is dismantling a $368 million deep-ocean monitoring network 900+ sensors tracking climate currents, fishery health, ocean carbon absorption, and coastal flooding along the East Coast. Ships go out in June to start pulling it up. Congress funded it twice after Trump
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 01/06/2026
Observing a free-ranging bison herd on American Prairie lands was the wildlife moment of the trip. The northern Montana grasslands are closer to what Lewis & Clark described than almost anywhere else. Our resurvey cameras are now running here too. rolandkays.com/prairie-conservation/
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 31/05/2026
Students from Aaniiih Nakoda College helped us deploy camera traps on the Fort Belknap Reservation as part of the Smithsonian's Lewis & Clark Mammal Resurvey. Bison, swift fox, black-footed ferrets — this prairie has it all. rolandkays.com/prairie-conservation/
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 31/05/2026
In 1832, George Catlin painted the mouth of the Platte River from this bluff. Lewis & Clark had passed the same spot just 28 years before. We just went back with a drone. Here's what's changed. 🎥 @AmericanArt. youtu.be/jpwHbBl0sB4
youtu.be
The Platte River: 1832 vs Today — Lewis & Clark Mammal Resurvey
YouTube video by Wild Animals
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 30/05/2026
Students from Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College just deployed 40 camera traps across the Fort Berthold Reservation as part of the Smithsonian's Lewis & Clark Mammal Resurvey + tribal wildlife program. Can't wait to see what turns up! rolandkays.com/nueta-hidatsa-sahnish-college-camera-traps/
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 29/05/2026
Prairie dogs have the worst PR team! They run matriarchal colonies, communicate w sophisticated alarm system, and engineer habitat that bison, ferrets, owls, and badgers all depend on. Meanwhile Capybara just vibing & have more followers rolandkays.com/sdsu-prairie-dogs/ @AECheeseman
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 28/05/2026
Meriwether Lewis: "the river is wide, full of large sandbars, the water very rapid and of a yellowish brown colour. Its banks are falling in." Standing on the same Missouri River sandbars today, it fits! One of the only places on the route where that's true rolandkays.com/goat-island-ponca
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 27/05/2026
Lewis & Clark heard their first coyote near here in 1804 a "prairie wolf barking at us as we passed." Now Teresa Graham from Little Priest Tribal College is running camera traps at the same spot, and coyotes are still showing up. 🐺📷 rolandkays.com/adams-homestead
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 27/05/2026
Stop 4: Seeing William Clark's original field journal at the Missouri History Museum. Elkskin binding worn smooth by two years on the trail. Every species we're documenting today started as an entry on these pages. rolandkays.com/forest-park/
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 25/05/2026
Stop 5 of the Lewis and Clark Reurvey: pushing upstream out of St. Louis against the same river currents Lewis and Clark fought for 2,000 miles. Even a few miles is humbling. Reward: 11 bald eagles and a duckling that jumped in our boat to escape one. rolandkays.com/paddling-ups...
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 24/05/2026
Stop 3 of the Lewis & Clark Mammal Resurvey: Tom's Run, WV. Fisher are back. The forest is back. But without wolves or mountain lions, deer have hit ~40 per sq mi, twice a healthy target. Tree saplings need a plastic tube to survive. rolandkays.com/university-o...
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 22/05/2026
Stop 2 of our Lewis and Clark Resurvey was to launch or canoes down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh, just like Merriweather Lewis did. rolandkays.com/pittsburgh-p...
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 22/05/2026
Stop 1 of the Lewis & Clark Mammal Resurvey: a fisher walked into our western PA cameras on its own, a species trapped to extinction here that's quietly returning. Plus beavers, breeding sandhill cranes, and three canid species. rolandkays.com/barkasky-farm/
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Reposted by Roland Kays
New Phytologist @newphyt.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Despite rapid warming, seed production is not leading poleward migration in North American and European forests Clark et al. @frodsan.bsky.social @andrewhacket-pain.bsky.social @rolandkays.com @valentinjourne.bsky.social nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/NRGUJA...
Climate norms and trends that affect tree fecundity for 15 years (2010 to 2024).
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 06/05/2026
This trend isn't just limited to Europe and Japan; rural depopulation is beginning to shape landscapes in China, the US, and Brazil. We need to be prepared for a wilder future! www.nytimes.com/interactive/... #WildlifeRecovery #Rewilding #Conservation #Ecology #HumanWildlifeConflict
nytimes.com
Opinion | All of the Predictions Agree on One Thing: Humanity Peaks Soon (Published 2023)
Most people now live in countries where two or fewer children are born for every two adults.
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 06/05/2026
The Path Forward: Managing this "post-peak humanity" world requires: • ✅ Non-lethal conflict mitigation (fencing, deterrents). • ✅ Incentivizing regulated hunting. • ✅ Proactive monitoring of recovering populations.
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 06/05/2026
⚠️ The Conflict: This recovery isn't without challenges. In Japan, the number of people injured by Asian black bears has risen from ~25/year in the 1980s to ~100/year today. 📺 Watch here: www.nytimes.com/video/world/...
nytimes.com
Video: How Japan Is Tackling Its Bear Problem
Bear attacks are at record levels in Japan, with more than a dozen people killed this year. Javier C. Hernández, our Tokyo bureau chief, looks at the causes and how Japan is responding.
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 06/05/2026
/ As people move to cities and rural populations decline, abandoned farmland is returning to forest. This "land abandonment" provides the perfect habitat for large herbivores and their predators to reclaim old territory. 📊 The Data
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 06/05/2026
🧵 A surprising wildlife trend is emerging that could be a sign of the future: large mammals are making a massive comeback in parts of Europe and Japan. The driver? Human depopulation in rural areas. New paper: 🔗 besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 05/05/2026
16 states. 140 camera trap sites. One historic comparison. 🎥🐾 We're comparing the wildlife of today with the journals of Lewis and Clark from two centuries ago. See how the American landscape has changed in our new series! Check out the intro here: youtube.com/watch?v=WeGuXP8oK1g
youtube.com
Return of the Wild: The Start of a Lewis & Clark Journey
YouTube video by Wild Animals
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 01/05/2026
starting our epic resurvey of wildlife along the Lewis and Clark Route www.cbs17.com/news/local-n...
cbs17.com
NC State professor, team retracing Lewis and Clark’s historic route
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — A Triangle professor is leading a group of travelers across the country — but it won’t be a typical road trip. Dr. Roland Kays, a research professor at NC State, as wel…
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Reposted by Roland Kays
Black Rock Forest @blackrockforest.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
Urban coyotes = bolder. But behavior was strikingly consistent nationwide. Full paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41... #UrbanWildlife #Ecology @rolandkays.com @drjuliekyoung.bsky.social
nature.com
Large-scale experimental assessment of coyote behavior across urban and rural landscapes - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Large-scale experimental assessment of coyote behavior across urban and rural landscapes
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 29/04/2026
🐺🐻‍❄️🦌🫎🦃🦅🐒🦝🦫🦬🐘🦉🐿️🦨🦡🐾🦎📷🧬 Hiring: Biodiversity Lab Manager @NaturalSciences Anticipated opening this summer Help run our on-exhibit Lab in Raleigh MS required Sign up for an alert when it goes live #cameratraps #AI #computervision docs.google.com/forms/d/1nrS...
A picture of the north carolina museum of natural sciences
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 17/04/2026
Coyote Crossing premiers April 20 at 7 PM on @pbs.org covering the story of Canis latrans from tar pits to neighborhoods, and including a short appearance by me and my cat robot
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 10/04/2026
Are Urban Coyotes Actually Bolder? A Scientific Comparison based on our recent paper led by @DrJulieKYoung youtu.be/tZ22GHxHAKs
youtu.be
Are Urban Coyotes Actually Bolder? A Scientific Comparison
YouTube video by Wild Animals
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 10/04/2026
Great work led by Arielle Parsons with James Clark. Data from NEON esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 10/04/2026
The concern going forward: climate change favors generalists. If Peromyscus are already this dominant, expect that to intensify as specialist species lose ground. Biotic homogenization isn't just a theoretical risk for small mammals — the pattern is already there.
media.tenor.com
Global Warming GIF
ALT: Global Warming GIF
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 10/04/2026
Meet the champ. Broad diet, broad habitat tolerance, fast reproduction — Peromyscus are the ultimate generalists. They're also the primary reservoir for Lyme disease and hantavirus. When one genus dominates community structure, that has consequences beyond just the ecology.
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 10/04/2026
This plays out across the continent. East of the Rockies especially, one genus is structuring entire small mammal communities. The dominance fades west, but it's still there in most regions Peromyscus occurs.
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 10/04/2026
That something else: raw abundance. Peromyscus (mainly P. leucopus, P. maniculatus, and P. gossypinus) were the sole dominant entity at 53% of sites — accounting for 58% of total interaction strength on average. Coexistence theory predicted them as dominant at 0% of sites.
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 10/04/2026
Classic coexistence theory says overlap of species traits — diet, habitat breadth, body size, life history — should predict who competes hardest with whom. We tested that. It didn't hold up well. Something else was driving community structure.
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Roland Kays @rolandkays.com · 10/04/2026
We used NEON data: 68 species, 44 sites across the US, 7 years of abundance estimates. This isn't one forest in New England. This is everywhere.
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