Alie Ward

Imagine if Elle Fanning grew her hair out and also knew everything about snow leopards.

That's what we're working with.

Amazing.

So find a patch of sunlight and curl into a ball for tales of snow-capped mountains, narrow escapes, camera trap revelations, DNA discoveries, olfactory obsessions, stories from the brink of extinction, if big cats like big boxes, why tails can be bobbed, lioness manes, big cat attacks, making huge biscuits, and if a cat purrs in the woods, would anyone hear it?

With wildlife biologist...

field researcher, lab whiz, science communicator, cat parent, and mega-felinologist, Dr. Imogene Cancellari.

can hear me okay yes we're all good okay hear me okay yes amazing oh my god look at us we're finally doing this i know i'm so excited i know i wanted to i've never hung out with you in person have i have i no big bummer i know we've never met irl i'm just an internet fan from afar all these years same same we like each other okay let's get into it imaging cancellari she her

Dr. Kancelari, I was so thrilled when your PhD was in the bag.

When you were studying this, did you always want to be like a cat doctor?

Did you always want to be a PhD?

Were you just in the field with bobcats and then you're like, I got to go next step, snow leopards?

Do you see behavior in big wild cats that's similar to your babies at home?

Or is that a myth?

Oh, you do.

Imogene says she's thankful that she learned otherwise after a study trip to Australia showed her the importance of wildlife conservation and the thrill of fieldwork and megafelinology as a career.

So a box trap is like someone put a burrito in a phone booth or a small room and you were like, hell yeah, burrito.

And then the door locked behind you.

And then some sweet aliens were like, hey, can we just study you for like a sec?

We're trying to save your species.

And you're like, what's in it for me?