Joe Rogan Experience #2213 - Diane K. Boyd

Diane Boyd recounts a career spent studying wolves from the days of VHF radio collars through satellite tracking, describing how wolves disperse hundreds of miles and naturally recolonized the West. She and Joe Rogan dig into wolf biology, pack dynamics, mortality, and the contentious politics of reintroduction versus natural recovery. The conversation ranges across predator-prey ecology, mountain lions, grizzly bears, toxoplasmosis altering wolf behavior, and the domestication of dogs from wolves. Boyd, a self-described 'science den,' repeatedly pushes back on viral animal myths while explaining the nuanced reality of living with large carnivores.

• Boyd debunks the 'Canadian superwolf' myth, showing a single Glacier wolf traveled 540 miles north, proving one continuous wolf population from Yellowstone to the Yukon.
  00:04:09
• Boyd describes the most terrifying night of her life: drunk loggers came to her remote cabin, called her by name, and she pulled a gun on them for the only time in her life.
  00:23:31
• Boyd states the science shows the average hunter is better off facing a charging bear with bear spray than a firearm.
  01:21:42
• Boyd reveals she opposed the Yellowstone and Central Idaho wolf reintroductions, believing wolves were already recolonizing on their own and forced reintroduction breeds human intolerance.
  02:08:27
• Colorado's reintroduction took roughly half its wolves from Oregon that already had livestock-killing experience, due to a ballot-mandated deadline and every other state refusing.
  02:12:09
• Yellowstone wolves infected with toxoplasmosis are far more likely to become pack leaders and take fatal risks, effectively a cat parasite influencing wolf behavior.
  02:40:39
• Boyd explains humans domesticated dogs from wolves roughly 30,000-35,000 years ago, well before livestock domestication around 11,000 years ago.
  02:37:32

• The average wild wolf lives only about 4.3 years from den emergence until death.
  00:09:56
• A lone male wolf survived four years entirely alone in Idaho's Frank Church Wilderness before a reintroduced female found him and they bred for years.
  00:10:59
• There are roughly two-and-a-half to three times more mountain lions than wolves in northwestern Montana.
  00:14:39
• John Vaillant's book 'The Tiger' recounts a Siberian tiger that stalked and waited 12-48 hours outside a poacher's cabin before killing him in apparent premeditated revenge.
  01:08:14
• Newspaper accounts from 1917 report Russian and German soldiers in WWI suspended fighting to kill a wolf pack attacking the wounded, reportedly killing about 50 wolves.
  00:56:46
• A decades-long Russian experiment selecting silver foxes only for tameness produced fox kits with floppy ears, shorter snouts, and dog-like coloring within a few generations.
  02:27:42
• Dan Flores theorizes huge bison herds appeared only after European diseases killed ~90% of Native Americans who had been keeping bison populations in check.
  02:20:24
• Pronghorn antelope evolved to run 60 mph to outrun a now-extinct North American cheetah.
  02:53:10
• Black coat color in wolves traces to a gene introduced from domesticated dogs and is linked to different disease resistance to distemper and parvovirus.
  02:47:30
• There is a documented correlation between high toxoplasmosis prevalence in a country's population and successful soccer teams, possibly via increased risk-taking.
  02:46:28

Books, products and media the guest or host genuinely endorsed here — with the buy link.

Affiliate link — we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.