Dr. Mireya Mayor, a Miami-based anthropologist, primatologist and official National Geographic Explorer, is not only the subject of the Boca Interview in our new March issue: She’s also our cover model! In the issue, she discusses the solitude of her often-isolated, world-traveling lifestyle, how she discovered the smallest primate on record, the species that strikes the most awe in her, and how she survived a harrowing plane crash.
But that’s not all we touched upon in our wide-ranging conversation with this impressive advocate for all of the world’s creatures. In this Web Extra, Mayor shares more from her remarkable life story and her surprising turn on a TV series dedicated to hunting a folkloric creature.
You randomly selected an Anthropology class in college. Had you not taken that course, where do you think you’d be?
I was fairly certain I would become an attorney. I loved English and philosophy and, coming from a Cuban background, probably arguing as well. And I felt like that would give me the opportunity to help people that had been wronged. It’s funny, because I did this anthropology class completely by chance, because the women’s biology class I wanted to take was full. And this class fit my schedule.
I always had this natural curiosity for animals and a real sense of adventure and love of the outdoors. And all of these things combined; it was an oddly natural fit for a city girl who grew up in South Florida without having those experiences.
How did your family take your decision to shift careers to something that was maybe seen as less lucrative than law?
I grew up the only daughter of a single mother, who is a Cuban immigrant. We grew up with very little means. And so I don’t think money was ever at the forefront of what my mom wanted for me. I think she wanted stability and a more traditional career, like a teacher or a nurse. I don’t think that my family even knew this type of career was even possible. I certainly didn’t. I didn’t grow up knowing another female explorer and scientist.
My mom reacted like any, say, normal Cuban mother would, which was to panic about there being a lack of hospitals and medical care and lots of innate risks and dangers associated with this. … I basically got on a plane to South America, to Guyana, to one of the most remote and unexplored regions of the Amazon, at the ripe age of 22, never having left the country, never having been camping. So of course my mom was worried. She was also supportive in that she ironed my field pants before I took off for the field, which was her nod of support.
But she was scared. And I tend to believe she thought it was a phase, and that I would go and get the adventure bug out. But to me it’s never been a question that this is what I should be doing. It was a real a-ha moment when I watched “Gorillas in the Mist,” and I read the book, and I knew then that this is what I wanted to dedicate my life to.
So even with all the things that happened to me on my first expedition—I nearly died from a severe blood infection—for not one second was I deterred. I actually was in the hospital already dreaming up what my next big expedition would be, and what animals needed the most help. And that’s what I did: I designed a research plan, while laying in a hospital bed, to head off to Madagascar to study two of the most critically acclaimed endangered primates in the world.
You’ve been part of the research team in the Travel Channel’s “Expedition Bigfoot.” How did you become involved with this mystery?
What’s funny about that is when they first approached me, I had no interest in doing it. But as I talked to the producers who were making it, I realized that they genuinely wanted the show to be grounded in science, and they wanted someone with credentials who had had experience looking for rare, elusive animals.
Because I had discovered the world’s smallest primate, in Madagascar, they thought that having someone with my background would help balance the show from legend to science. And that intrigued me. And I thought it would be a one-season wonder. I thought, why not? I’m going to get to explore in America’s own backwoods, which is not something I have had a lot of opportunity to do. And truthfully, exploration for the sake of exploration is OK by me. So I thought, why not? I’ll sign on.
And what I did not anticipate is that it became their highest-rated show. Season Four is about to start airing. We filmed in Alaska. I did not anticipate how much bigfoot would become an incredible vehicle for science communication. Because a lot of the viewers who believe in bigfoot also are climate change deniers or flat-Earthers—typically people who are not engaging with science and whom scientists don’t engage with. And so all of a sudden I had this open door and access to people who had questions about climate change or had all of these other questions about the scientific process and how you document an unknown species, and what does it take to prove a discovery. That was a very cool outcome of my participation.
I think that a lot of scientists are very quick to dismiss people who don’t immediately subscribe to what they believe to be true 100-percent. That’s one of the reasons I have the science communications program at FIU, because I want to really instill the importance of keeping an open mind, and that curiosity that led you to science in the first place. … That is why I got into this field, and I trust that that’s why so many others have. But there’s a disconnect between scientists and a big audience. So it was really nice to see this bridge form out of this bigfoot show, where now, I’m reaching an audience that otherwise would not be a part of that conversation.
Have you encountered any evidence that this cryptid creature could exist?
Everyone always asks me, do you believe now? For me, it’s not a religion. It’s not something I ever would say I believe in. It is something that I would require irrefutable, tangible, physical evidence to then make the claim that we have this new species to be described. Have we found that? Not in my opinion. Having said that, we have found very compelling findings. In Kentucky, under what is described by bigfoot researchers as a tree structure that is claimed to be made by a bigfoot … underneath I take DNA samples from sites where it seems warranted. And that sample was analyzed by a very prestigious lab, and they were shocked to find DNA that matched a chimpanzee with some unspecified aspects of it. And just based on that geneticist’s reaction, I knew we had a really interesting, compelling find. It definitely raised an eyebrow. Is that enough for me to say that it exists? No. We need more. And that’s what science is all about: proving and re-proving, testing and re-testing.
Can you imagine if you went down in history as the person who proved bigfoot?
I always thought how full-circle that would be: the world’s smallest primate, world’s largest primate. I hope that we get to tell that story soon. But the funny thing is, other things have happened in the field that science can’t explain, at least not easily. I have witnessed it, and there’s a high strangeness of things that are always a part of these bigfoot stories, and I can tell you very honestly that I have witnessed it. It’s bizarre.
Is there a species that is on your bucket list for discovery?
Most of the time, you don’t know that something is out there until you discover it. That was the case with that mouse lemur; that was not a planned discovery, and I think most great discoveries aren’t. They happen by accident and because you’re out there and you’re doing the work. But there are certain primates, especially in Asia, that have been deemed either extinct or haven’t been seen in so many years that people think they’re gone, that I would love to find, rediscover, and then help protect, if there’s a chance for that.
Are you seeing the needle move in the direction of more women in your field?
Absolutely. That’s one of the things I’m addressing in my program at FIU. There is still not a good balance, but we are in fact seeing more and more women pursuing these fields. It takes a whole cultural shift in many ways for that to happen, because I feel like we’re at the point where we just don’t want women to have a seat at the table—we want them to be running the meeting. And that takes time. And there’s so much talent; the talent pool is incredible in South Florida. So just giving them the opportunities to take that next step and make it happen has always become a very fulfilling part of what I do.
This Web Extra is from the March 2023 issue of Boca magazine. For more like this, click here to subscribe to the magazine.
