wild | Ecology for the Masses

Tag Archives: wild

Can Humans and Wild Ungulates Live Together in a European Landscape?

Posted on April 8, 2020 by Sam Perrin One comment

Guest post by Benjamin Cretois (Image Credit: Wer Mei, CC BY 2.0)

The challenges and opportunities of coexisting with wild ungulates in the human-dominated landscapes of Europe’s Anthropocene (2020) Linnell, Cretois et al., Biological Conservation, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108500

The Crux

The “land sparing vs land sharing” debate is not new to wildlife conservation and is more relevant now than ever. Land sparing entails creating areas distinctly for wildlife, commonly referred to as Protected Areas. The science of spared landscape is well developed and its principles were fundamental to early conservation biology. On the other hand, the confinement of wildlife into human-free area is possible on a very limited in a highly anthropogenic landscape like Europe. Hence, the coexistence movement, which requires both wildlife and humans to share their landscape, leading to a wide range of interactions between the too. This is especially true when it comes to charismatic large mammals including large carnivores and ungulates, whose range has large overlaps with ours.

We wanted to summarise the knowledge on wild ungulate distributions and examine wild ungulate-human interactions. Ungulates are quite varied in Europe, and this study included species such as the wild boar, European bison, moose and roe deer.

Paper of the Week

Girls, Cats, and Problems With Peer Reviews

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Sam Perrin One comment

Image Credit: Kennet Kjell Johansson Hultman, CC0 1.0, Image Cropped

Last week saw International Day of Women and Girls in Science. It’s an important day, recognising the importance of a strong female presence in the scientific community, and how far all scientific disciplines have to go to achieve gender equality.

So naturally the journal Biological Conservations decided to release a paper entitled Where There Are Girls, There Are Cats*. It’s an ill-informed, ill-conceived paper that essentially blames women for free-ranging cat populations. It is insulting to women, and quite frankly insulting to any scientist who has had a paper rejected in the last year (yes, I’m bitter). It’s also kind of hilarious in all the wrong ways. As such, there was justifiable mockery and jaw-droppage on Twitter. Yet as with the recent #PruittGate debacle, most of the community has veered away from directly attacking the researchers. They’ve been focussing on the real problem here – in this case the peer review system.

Opinions

Daniella Rabaiotti: Fitting Flatulence Facts Into a PhD

Posted on November 14, 2019 by Sam Perrin 3 comments

Image Credit: Daniella Rabaiotti, CC BY 2.0, Image Cropped

A PhD can be an incredibly stressful experience for a young scientist. Time runs low, stress levels run high. Just yesterday, Nature released an article that claimed the situation could be worsening, with more than a third of PhD students surveyed globally having sought help for mental health problems related to their PhD.

Furthermore, universities often place pressure on young career researchers to publish as many journal articles as possible, despite the fact that a large number of us don’t go on into academic careers. This can often leave PhD students with little time to develop skills outside of scientific writing.

The Forefront

Fredrik Widemo: The Manifold Conflicts Behind the Hunting Industry

Posted on November 4, 2019 by Sam Perrin 4 comments

Image Credit: USFWS Endangered Species, CC BY 2.0, Image Cropped

Rewilding is a tricky business. Bringing back species that once roamed a country as their native land may seem like a worthy cause, but it is often fraught with conflict. People don’t want predators threatening their safety, or herbivores destroying their crops. Rural vs. urban tensions come into play. Local and federal politics get thrown into the mix.

With that in mind, I sat down with Associate Professor Fredrik Widemo, currently a Senior lecturer with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Fredrik has previously worked at both the Swedish Association for Hunting and Wildlife Management (where he was the Director of Science) and the Swedish Biodiversity Centre. We explored some of the complexities behind the rewilding of wolves and its effects on the hunting and forestry industries in Sweden.

The Forefront

Biodiverse Gardens: Where Doing Less is More

Posted on June 27, 2019 by tanjakp Leave a comment

Kiftsgate Court Garden: The Wild Garden 1. An example of a “wild garden” in the UK, where the plants have been left to grow (Image Credit: Michael Garlick, CC BY-SA 2.0, Image Cropped)

How do you make your garden more biodiversity-friendly? During my time at the Futurum exhibition at The Big Challenge Science Festival, I spent a lot of time talking to people who expressed a desire to be manage their gardens for more plants and animals, but were unsure where to start. So I’ve compiled a brief guide on what to do, and it’s your lucky day – it involves not doing anything.

Opinions

The Wild Boar

Posted on April 26, 2018 by Lara Veylit One comment

The wild boar, originally native to Norway, is now making a return after being wiped out. So how do the locals feel? (Image Credit: Richard Bartz, CC BY-SA 2.5, Image Cropped)