157. Interview with urban ecologist and science communicator Dr Kylie Soanes

This week we were delighted (and a little bit starstruck) to be joined by Dr Kylie Soanes: conservation biologist, urban ecologist and self-described “friendly neighbourhood wildlife scientist”. Kylie’s work takes the question of how nature and people can live alongside one another and turns it into real, visible change: building rope bridges so gliders can cross busy highways, 3D-printing nesting hollows for powerful owls, and adding floating wetlands to city rivers. She collaborates with councils, community groups, engineers and architects, writes for the likes of The Guardian, The Conversation and Australian Geographic, and has built a wonderful audience of nearly 29,000 people on Instagram with her trademark warmth and wit (and the occasional Jane Austen reference in a peer-reviewed journal). A research fellow in urban biodiversity at the University of Melbourne, she is, by her own admission, probably running late to her next meeting because she got distracted by a cool bird. Join us for a fabulous conversation about why conservation belongs in cities and not just “out there”, how to fill the information vacuum before nonsense does, why storytelling and evidence-based hope beat battering people with data, and Kylie’s lovely reminder that reach is a verb - you have to go to where the people are. You can follow Kylie and find out more about her work here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-29/kylie-soanes-urban-nature-conservation-biodiversity/105315332  https://www.instagram.com/drkyliesoanes/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylie-soanes-40975a90/ https://kyliesoanes.com/