Co-Thriving is a relational framework and praxis for multispecies flourishing developed collaboratively by Daniel Curry and Claire Musser. It brings together long-term field-based conflict prevention, multispecies research, applied anthrozoology, visual ethnography, conservation practice, and storytelling.
What is Co-Thriving?
The framework grew from Curry’s sustained work with wolves, livestock, ranchers, range riders, and education in shared landscapes in northeast Washington, and from Musser’s research into human–wildlife relationships, multispecies agency, visual ethnography, and the limits of conventional ideas of coexistence.
Together, this work asks what becomes possible when we move beyond simply tolerating other species and instead create the conditions in which human and more-than-human communities can flourish together.
Co-Thriving is not a fixed set of tools or interventions; it is a shift in mindset that leads us to pay attention, respond, adapt, and recognize other beings as active participants in shaping shared worlds.
From Coexistence to Co-Thriving
Coexistence is often measured by the absence of conflict: fewer livestock losses, fewer animals killed, fewer complaints, or greater human tolerance. These outcomes matter, but Co-Thriving asks a broader question. If we are participants in a shared landscape alongside other species, what needs to change in human practices, relationships, institutions, and ways of knowing so that multiple species can flourish together?
This shifts the focus from managing animals to understanding relationships. It also recognizes that successful practice cannot always be reduced to a standard toolbox. What works depends on the animals, people, histories, landscapes, and relationships involved.
Co-Thriving as Praxis
The framework is grounded in practice. In rural Washington, Co-Thriving is expressed through conflict prevention, range riding, low-stress livestock handling, adaptive grazing, presence, observation, and learning to read the behavior of wolves, cattle, people, and landscapes. Through Project GRIPH, these practices demonstrate that living with wolves is not simply a matter of deploying deterrents. It requires attentiveness, adaptation, relationships, and a willingness to change human behavior before conflict occurs.
In urban and suburban Los Angeles, Bears in Hot Tubs explores Co-Thriving through animal-led visual ethnography and multispecies storytelling. The work asks what happens when bears are approached not primarily as conflicts to manage, but as neighbors, decision-makers, and participants in a shared landscape. Here, Co-Thriving may involve witnessing, restraint, changing cultural narratives, recognizing animal agency, and reconsidering who is understood to belong in human-shaped spaces.
Musser’s doctoral research brings these case studies together through the idea of Co-Thriving across the rural–urban divide, examining wolves in Washington and black bears in Los Angeles as different expressions of the same relational framework. The framework is also increasingly informing Mexican gray wolf recovery, conservation education, advocacy, conflict prevention, and public engagement through the Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project.
Core Principles
Although Co-Thriving is designed to remain responsive to different species, communities, and landscapes, its development is guided by several recurring principles:
- relationality rather than separation;
- attentiveness and presence;
- recognition of animal agency;
- adaptation rather than one-size-fits-all intervention;
- prevention rather than reaction;
- reciprocity and shared responsibility;
- respect for lived, local, scientific, and multispecies knowledge;
- willingness to change human practices and systems;
- recognition that animals are participants in shared landscapes, not simply objects of management;
- the possibility of multispecies flourishing rather than mere tolerance.
Using the Framework
We welcome researchers, practitioners, educators, filmmakers, conservation organizations, students, and communities who wish to engage with or apply Co-Thriving. The framework may be used to inform:
- wildlife conservation and conflict prevention;
- human–wildlife relationships;
- multispecies research;
- anthrozoology;
- environmental humanities;
- education;
- community engagement;
- conservation storytelling;
- filmmaking and visual ethnography;
- policy and advocacy;
- rural and urban wildlife practice.
Because Co-Thriving is intended to be relational and adaptive, we encourage people to engage with its principles rather than treat it as a standardized checklist or prescribed set of interventions.
Practitioners, researchers, educators, and others are welcome to discuss, study, teach, and apply the Co-Thriving framework and praxis developed by Daniel Curry and Claire Musser in their own contexts, with appropriate attribution. If you use, adapt, teach, publish about, present, or build upon the Co-Thriving framework and praxis, please clearly acknowledge its origins and cite the work using the citation provided below.
Use of the framework does not grant permission to reproduce or republish copyrighted text, graphics, photographs, films, educational resources, training materials, or other original content from CoThriving.org, ProjectGRIPH.org, GRIPH.com, GCWolfRecovery.org, AnthroZooCo.org, or associated projects without permission, except where otherwise permitted by law.
For substantial adaptations, training programs, commercial applications, derivative resources, or projects that build directly upon the Co-Thriving framework, we ask that you contact us to discuss appropriate attribution, use, and potential collaboration.
We welcome thoughtful applications that extend Co-Thriving into new species, landscapes, communities, and disciplines while maintaining its core commitments to relationality, attentiveness, agency, adaptation, shared responsibility, and multispecies flourishing.
Suggested Citation
Until the forthcoming academic publication is available, please cite the framework as:
Curry, D., & Musser, C. (2026). Co-Thriving: A relational framework and praxis for multispecies flourishing. CoThriving.org.
Suggested in-text citation: (Curry & Musser, 2026), or Curry and Musser’s Co-Thriving framework.
Forthcoming Academic Publication
For academic work addressing the development of Co-Thriving through wolf–livestock relationships and shared working landscapes, please also cite:
Musser, C., & Curry, D. (forthcoming). “Beyond coexistence: Co-thriving with wolves in the Anthropocene: The Onion Creek Pack and the legacy of wolf persecution.” In Animals Past in the Anthropocene: Exploring Human–Animal Relationships through Environmental Humanities. Exeter University Press.
Suggested Attribution Language
When describing the framework, we suggest language such as “the Co-Thriving framework and praxis developed by Daniel Curry and Claire Musser,” or “Curry and Musser’s Co-Thriving framework.” Where relevant, you may also describe it as “a relational framework and praxis for multispecies flourishing.”
A Note on the Term “Co-Thriving”
The phrase co-thriving has been used in other contexts, and we do not claim ownership of the words themselves. Our request for citation and attribution relates specifically to the Co-Thriving framework and praxis developed through the Curry–Musser collaboration, including its principles, conceptual development, methods, applications, research, and associated body of work.
This work has developed through Project GRIPH and GRIPH, Musser’s doctoral research, Bears in Hot Tubs, the Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project, CoThriving.org, and associated research, writing, field practice, and collaborations.
A Living Framework
Co-Thriving is not intended to be static. It is being developed through ongoing practice, research, critique, collaboration, and engagement with different species and landscapes. We welcome thoughtful applications of the framework in new contexts, particularly where they retain its commitment to relationality, attentiveness, adaptation, agency, shared responsibility, and multispecies flourishing.
Co-Thriving is not something humans do to or for other animals. It emerges through relationships in which humans learn to pay attention, respond, adapt, and recognize other beings as participants in shaping shared worlds.
Collaboration and Research
If you are interested in applying Co-Thriving in research, conservation practice, education, policy, filmmaking, or another project, we welcome conversations about collaboration, attribution, and appropriate use of the framework. Contact us to discuss using or collaborating around Co-Thriving:
- Daniel Curry – danielcurry@projectgriph.org
- Claire Musser – claire@anthrozooco.org