Season 7, Episode 1: Coyote Controversy, Urban Beekeeping, Taxidermy

Episode Segments

• Coyotes: Kill Them or Coexist?
• Urban Beekeeping: What's the Buzz About?
• Breathing New Life Into Taxidermy

Coyotes have proven themselves extremely adaptable to urban life. Some communities say they are "too adaptable." They want coyotes controlled and even killed to protect their young children and pets. Others believe we can co-exist with coyotes if we know how to adapt to them. Now the National Park Service has launched its first ever coyote tracking project. Reporter Derrick Shore asks, how can we come to terms with coyotes? He meets residents on both sides of the coyote issue, and follows a National Park Service coyote tracker to find out what science can teach us about this clever and sometimes threatening urban dweller.

After more than a century, backyard beekeeping is now legal in the city of Los Angeles. But bees have been under siege from pesticides, pests and pathogens. Is there anything the average person can do to help these remarkable insects? Reporter Cara Santa Maria meets the brainy inventors of a new computer program that can save a hive from destruction, and provide aspiring backyard beekeepers with a high-tech tool for healthy hives.

Behind the dioramas of preserved elephants and mountain lions at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles is Tim Bovard, one of the world's premier taxidermists. Unfortunately the number of museum-based taxidermists is shrinking fast. Will taxidermy itself go extinct? Reporter Conor Knighton meets Tim Bovard and discovers a surprising interest in taxidermynurtured by a woman whose love of animals extends beyond their deaths.