Recent discussions about how wolves are portrayed in the news media got me thinking about public attention to this issue, generally. Is the wolf issue heating up or cooling down following their removal from federal protections? I used Google Trends, a tool for examining the content of web searches over time to see how issue […]
Continue Reading →After the horrific tragedy in Newtown Connecticut, ecologist and animal advocate Marc Bekoff penned an essay in which he argued that “cruelty, violence and warlike behaviors in other animals are extremely rare” (Humanlike Violence is Not Seen in Other Animals). As evidence, Bekoff relies heavily on an essay by John Horgan critiquing […]
Continue Reading →This past October, I helped organize a symposium entitled “Carnivore conservation in human-dominated systems: Ecological, ethical and social dimensions” at the EcoSummit conference here in Columbus, Ohio. The purpose of the symposium was to bring together international scholars from several disciplines to examine the ecological, ethical and social dimensions of carnivore conservation in […]
Continue Reading →The idea that wolves and other large carnivores cause a “trophic cascade” through their impact on elk has been challenged by a number of recent publications. Last week another study was released that puts a dent in the notion– it suggests human activities, not large predators, are primarily responsible for elk vigilance in human-dominated landscapes.
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Continue Reading →The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park turned the nation’s most prominent national park into a laboratory of sorts, whereby scientists could document and measure the effect of wolves on a variety of other species. Since their return, dozens of studies have been published purporting to show some effect of wolves on some other […]
Continue Reading →This past September my colleagues (S.A. Enzler & A. Treves) and I published an article arguing that the public trust doctrine could provide a legal means to force protection of wolves were state policies found lacking (Bruskotter et al., 30 Sept. 2011, p. 1828). This article prompted two recent replies published by Science last month […]
Continue Reading →Researchers from Michigan State University and Michigan Technological University published a report this week detailing the results of a 2010 telephone survey of Michigan residents. In total, the study contacted 973 residents (95% confidence level +/- 3.2% margin of error). Eighty-two percent of residents agreed that wolves have value; only 16% disagreed with the statement, […]
Continue Reading →In reading some of the comments posted in response to stories run on The Wildlife News this week, I was interested to see a few very heated exchanges concerning humans’ role in determining how animals die. These comments reminded me of a presentation I saw this past November at the annual meeting of the Wildlife […]
Continue Reading →Several recent discussions on The Wildlife News have focused on trends in wolf depredations (i.e. killing of domestic animals), and pondered what they mean for the future of wolves’ management. The notion that per capita depredations (i.e. depredations per wolf) should increase with time is implicit in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) 2009 […]
Continue Reading →In May of this year, the US Fish and Wildlife Service proposed creating a Distinct Population Segment (or “DPS”) of wolves in the Great Lakes Region, and removing wolves in this DPS from federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections (76 Fed. Reg 26086). The “delisting” of wolves in the Great Lakes was recently discussed […]
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