Kevin S. Fridy–Professor of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Tampa, and slated after this interview to deliver a talk, “Human Bycatch in a West African Wildlife Corridor,” as part of the Pints of Science lecture series offered monthly at venerable Tampa concert venue New World Brewery—traces his path from kid growing up in Palatka, FL to accomplished academic. 
Explaining there was just one high school in Palatka, and characterizing it as “rough”—he noted a jarring attrition rate: 700-800 students would start attending, and four years later, only 300 would remain—he recalls almost an intuitive inclination to study hard and excel academically. It worked. He earned a scholarship, attending George Washington University, and when an opportunity arose to study abroad, Fridy
selected Ghana. This, it turns out, launched a long, professionally and personally fruitful relationship—Fridy estimates he’s traveled to the West African country more than two dozen times. He recounts how his first trip there, in 1997, as a 20-year-old who’d never traveled internationally, shaped him in multiple ways. Fridy really took to Ghana, finding some notable parallels between the country and his native Palatka. Amidst return journeys to Ghana, and further strides down the road of academia—he’d followed his B.A. in International Relations by securing a Master’s in the same field—a mentor advised him to get a Ph.D. As it happens, the University of Florida, in Gainesville—about 40 miles from Palatka—runs the largest collegiate African Studies program. Fridy did indeed get his Ph.D from UF, in Political Science. (At one point in our conversation, he describes himself as a “mainstream political scientist.”) In something of a sneak preview of that night’s Pints of Science lecture, he outlines how he and various colleagues came to formulate a slice of research anchored in Ghana’s Red Volta’s Forest
Reserve. They recognized it as a significant wildlife corridor, but wondered what else might be learned by setting up 20 camera traps in that area for a year. Fridy says that yearlong assemblage of images documented the expected heavy elephant traffic—the Reserve serves as a wildlife corridor for more than 90 percent of West Africa’s elephants (though chiefly in the “dry season,” Nov. to March)—but also an enormous presence of cattle, and comparatively little human activity: a handful of hunters, gold miners, and so on. Given the procession of pachyderms, I was struck—and delighted—that there seemed to be no evidence of poaching. Fridy explains that he and others involved in this camera trap exploration of the corridor plan to publish a paper on the endeavor. He observes that the animal emphasis here marks a shift in the direction of his work as a political scientist, and he anticipates he’ll move further in that direction. (https://www.ut.edu/directory/fridy-kevin-s, https://fridy.com/)
COMEDY CORNER: Nate Bargatze’s “Eagles” (https://nateland.com/)
MUSIC: Rebekah Pulley’s “Talking Animals Theme,” instrumentals
NAME THAT ANIMAL TUNE: King Crimson’s “Elephant Talk”
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