initiative for effective, science-driven management of cats must be broader political and legisla... more initiative for effective, science-driven management of cats must be broader political and legislative recognition of free-roaming cats as a non-native, invasive species. Designating cats as invasive is important for developing and implementing science-based management plans, which should include efforts to prevent cats from becoming free-roaming, policies focused on responsible pet ownership and banning outdoor cat feeding, and better enforcement of existing laws.
Traffic noise is known to negatively affect many wildlife species by interfering with foraging be... more Traffic noise is known to negatively affect many wildlife species by interfering with foraging behavior. Frogs often lay their eggs in roadside ditches because they are predator-free, but it is possible that traffic noise could reduce the survival and fitness of tadpoles, creating an ecological trap. In a series of lab experiments, we tested whether traffic noise has a negative impact on tadpole feeding behavior, whether this is mediated by changes in tadpole activity, and whether there is any impact on tadpole growth rate or metamorphosis. Traffic noise exposure significantly reduced the amount of food consumed by Cuban Treefrog (Osteopilus septentrionalis) tadpoles. Traffic noise exposure also increased the activity level of both Southern Toad (Anaxyrus terrestris) and Cuban Treefrog tadpoles, which could possibly make them more noticeable to predators in the wild. However, these behavioral changes were not associated with changes in growth rate or timing of metamorphosis. We caution, however, that this study aimed to isolate the specific impact of traffic noise, and did not investigate other road effects that may be damaging to tadpoles.
Global targets for the percentage area of land protected, such as 30% by 2030, have gained increa... more Global targets for the percentage area of land protected, such as 30% by 2030, have gained increasing prominence, but both their scientific basis and likely effectiveness have been questioned. As with emissions-reduction targets based on desired climate outcomes, percentage-protected targets combine values and science by estimating the area over which conservation actions are required to help achieve desired biodiversity outcomes. Protected areas are essential for achieving many biodiversity targets, in part because many species cannot persist even at relatively low levels of human-associated disturbance. However, because the contribution of protected areas to biodiversity outcomes is contingent on their location, management, governance, threats, and what occurs across the broader landscape matrix, global percentage-protected targets are unavoidably empirical generalizations of ecological patterns and processes across diverse geographies. Percentage-protected targets are insufficient in isolation but can complement other actions and contribute to biodiversity outcome goals within a framework that balances accuracy and pragmatism in a global context characterized by imperfect biodiversity data. Ideally, percentage-protected targets serve as anchors that strengthen comprehensive national biodiversity strategies by communicating the level of ambition necessary to reverse current trends of biodiversity loss. If such targets are to fulfill this role within the complex societal process by which both values and science impel conservation actions, conservation scientists must clearly communicate the nature of the evidence base supporting percentage-protected targets and how protected areas can function within a broader landscape managed for sustainable coexistence between people and nature. A new paradigm for protected and conserved areas recognizes that national coordination, incentives, and monitoring should support rather than undermine diverse locally-led conservation initiatives. However, the definition of a conserved area must retain a strong focus on biodiversity to remain consistent with the evidence base from which percentage-protected targets were originally derived.
Comprehensive biodiversity assessments play an essential role in strengthening global and nationa... more Comprehensive biodiversity assessments play an essential role in strengthening global and national conservation strategies. The recently announced first US National Nature Assessment provides a unparalleled opportunity to comprehensively review status and trends of biodiversity at all levels; this broad context can then help coordinate actions to conserve individual species and ecosystems. The scientific assessments informing the Global Biodiversity Framework adopted at the 2022 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) conference of parties provide models for synthesizing information on trends at multiple levels of biodiversity, including decline in abundance and distribution of species, loss of populations and genetic diversity, and degradation and loss of ecosystems and their services, along with data on drivers of biodiversity loss and pathways to their mitigation. The US national assessment can augment such global analyses and avoid the pitfalls encountered by previous US effort...
Comprehensive biodiversity assessments play an essential role in strengthening global and nationa... more Comprehensive biodiversity assessments play an essential role in strengthening global and national conservation strategies. The recently announced first US National Nature Assessment provides a unparalleled opportunity to comprehensively review status and trends of biodiversity at all levels; This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. 2 this broad context can then help coordinate actions to conserve individual species and ecosystems. The scientific assessments informing the Global Biodiversity Framework adopted at the 2022 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) conference of parties provide models for synthesizing information on trends at multiple levels of biodiversity, including decline in abundance and distribution of species, loss of populations and genetic diversity, and degradation and loss of ecosystems and their services, along with data on drivers of biodiversity loss and pathways to their mitigation. The US national assessment can augment such global analyses and avoid the pitfalls encountered by previous US efforts by ensuring policy-relevant design, data accessibility, and inclusivity in both process and product, and by incorporating spatial data relevant to both national and subnational audiences. Although the US is not formally a CBD party, an effective NNA should take full advantage of the global context by including targets and indicators adopted at the 2022 meeting and incorporating an independent review mechanism that supports periodic stocktaking and ratcheting up of ambition in response to any identified shortfalls in stemming biodiversity loss. The challenges to design of an effective US assessment are also relevant globally as nations develop assessments and reporting to support the post-2020 global biodiversity targets. By considering and incorporating the diverse ways in which society values and benefits from nature, such assessments can help bridge the gap between research and conservation practice and communicate the extent of the biodiversity crisis to the public, fostering broad-based support for transformative change in humanity's relationship to the natural world.
Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing... more Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.
Biodiversity hotspots are conservation priorities. We identify the North American Coastal Plain (... more Biodiversity hotspots are conservation priorities. We identify the North American Coastal Plain (NACP) as a global hotspot based on the classic definition, a region with > 1500 endemic plant species and > 70% habitat loss. This region has been bypassed in prior designations due to misconceptions and myths about its ecology and history. These fallacies include: (1) young age of the NACP, climatic instability over time and submergence during high sea-level stands; (2) climatic and environmental homogeneity; (3) closed forest as the climax vegetation; and (4) fire regimes that are mostly anthropogenic. We show that the NACP is older and more climatically stable than usually assumed, spatially heterogeneous and extremely rich in species and endemics for its range of latitude, especially within pine savannas and other mostly herbaceous and firedependent communities. We suspect systematic biases and misconceptions, in addition to missing information, obscure the existence of similar...
There has been much recent interest in the concept of rewilding as a tool for nature conservation... more There has been much recent interest in the concept of rewilding as a tool for nature conservation, but also confusion over the idea, which has limited its utility. We developed a unifying definition and 10 guiding principles for rewilding through a survey of 59 rewilding experts, a summary of key organizations’ rewilding visions, and workshops involving over 100 participants from around the world. The guiding principles convey that rewilding exits on a continuum of scale, connectivity, and level of human influence and aims to restore ecosystem structure and functions to achieve a self‐sustaining autonomous nature. These principles clarify the concept of rewilding and improve its effectiveness as a tool to achieve global conservation targets, including those of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and post‐2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. Finally, we suggest differences in rewilding perspectives lie largely in the extent to which it is seen as achievable and in specific interven...
Because resources are finite, conservation practices can be based on shortcuts (i.e., a quicker w... more Because resources are finite, conservation practices can be based on shortcuts (i.e., a quicker way to a desired outcome). For example, indicator species are often used as a shortcut to justify conservation at greater organizational levels (i.e., communities, ecosystems, landscapes). Conversely, "coarse-filter" approaches to protect landscapes are often assumed to conserve organizational levels nested within that landscape. But is conservation biology fundamentally different from other applied sciences, in which shortcuts appear rare or absent? To evaluate this question requires a rarity; much data across organizational levels in numerous well-defined systems. We used data collected in vernal pools (N = 61) in greater San Diego, California and seasonal wetlands (N = 70) in Florida. Data for plant species of concern, plant community diversity, ecosystem function, and landscape integrity were evaluated using partial least-squares structural equation models. Three a priori alternative models for each of the indicator species and coarse-filter approaches were tested, where models varied in complexity and included shortcuts between organizational levels. We found little support for shortcuts connecting distant levels, but species of concern and community diversity were always significantly and strongly interrelated. We conclude that species of concern often predict community diversity (and vice versa) but shortcuts between more distant organizational levels are hard to find. Given that study systems here were numerous, discrete and relatively small (i.e., well-described), we expect that effective shortcuts will be difficult to demonstrate for many other systems that do not share all those attributes. Thus we suggest that regional ensemble conservation goals and approaches will be more often effective than relying on assumed conservation shortcuts with little evidence.
Roads and their associated effects (road-kill, pollution, etc.) have a largely negative impact on... more Roads and their associated effects (road-kill, pollution, etc.) have a largely negative impact on animals, especially amphibians, but not all species are affected to the same degree. Variation in life histories may explain some of these differences. Here, we examine how abundance of anuran species in roadside habitats is correlated with an aspect of reproductive life history: number of eggs produced by a female per year. Using data from a 1.5-year monitoring project in Central Florida, we found a positive correlation between the number of eggs produced by an average female of a species and the proportion of individuals found in roadside habitats compared to control habitats. This implies either that populations of species with a greater reproductive rate are able to rebound more quickly from negative road impacts, or that there is a strong selective pressure on species with low reproductive rates to avoid roads.
Gay Bradshaw is a renaissance woman, with a bachelor's degree in linguistics (Chinese), a master'... more Gay Bradshaw is a renaissance woman, with a bachelor's degree in linguistics (Chinese), a master's degree in geophysics, and two Ph.D. degrees: one in ecology and another in psychology. She is therefore well equipped to unite multiple fields into a new synthesis. Her first book, Elephants on the Edge: What Animals Teach Us About Humanity, was the first work to document Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in non-human animals. It won numerous awards, was featured in a cover article in the New York Times Magazine, and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. In her latest book, Carnivore Minds, Bradshaw synthesizes ethology, psychology, neuroscience, natural history, ecology, and evolutionary biology to build a convincing case that many animals have complex cognitive abilities, behaviors, and social systems not fundamentally different from what we find in humans. Hence, they are worthy of equivalent moral consideration. Her beautiful writing makes this case powerfully. The animals Bradshaw focuses on in this book are carnivores. I initially supposed this meant members of the mammalian order Carnivora. A grizzly bear, an omnivorous member of this order, is featured on the front cover. The animals Bradshaw discusses, however, include not only bears, pumas, and coyotes, but also sharks, orcas, sperm whales, crocodilians, and rattlesnakes, among others. What all these species have in common, besides eating other animals, Bradshaw argues, is that they are targets of human persecution. This harassment disrupts their social systems and mental health, causing aberrant and maladaptive behavior. The focus of the book would have been clearer if she had used the term "predator" rather than "carnivore," though Bradshaw argues (not quite convincingly) that "predator" also includes herbivores. But this is a minor quibble. What does this book offer to conservation scientists? Most important, this work clearly demonstrates that the conventional attention of conservationists to habitat quantity and quality and population dynamics is not nearly enough to save intelligent wild animals. We must also, Bradshaw insists, "take action to prevent psychosocial trauma." Among the human actions that cause this trauma are hunting, trapping, poisoning, other persecution, habitat alteration, captivity, and translocations. Although probably most conservationists oppose hunting of predators, except under unusual circumstances, Bradshaw sometimes extends her harsh criticism of killing predators to a generic condemnation of hunting, which will irritate some readers. Although I would personally prefer to see herbivore populations controlled by native predators, many cases exist in which superabundant herbivore populations occur in human-dominated landscapes where large native predators could not survive. Human hunting or trapping is often needed to control these herbivores, which can cause great damage to vegetation, flora, and animals that depend on intact herbaceous or shrub-level vegetation. This should have been acknowledged in this book. The feral hogs that overrun the conservation areas of Florida remind me daily of the need for increased hunting and trapping. A recurring theme in Carnivore Minds is that the stress imposed by human persecution disrupts animal social systems and causes a breakdown of normal behavioral patterns and an increase in murders of conspecifics and attacks on humans. These behaviors are all linked by Bradshaw to PTSD. Bradshaw makes a strong case that orcas, for instance, have a strong social taboo against killing each other or killing humans. As the story of Tilikum, the orca who killed his trainer at Sea World-Orlando (after two previous fatal attacks) illustrates, the psychological stress of capture, separation from family members, and a long period of demeaning captivity, can turn these intelligent animals into psychopaths. Parallels to human behavior are made throughout the book, which might raise some eyebrows, but Bradshaw cites primatologist Frans deWaal in rejecting "anthropodenial" and herpetologist Gordon Burghardt in calling for "critical anthropomorphism," whereby researchers recognize cross-species similarities, but are careful not to impose their experiences onto their subjects. The field of epigenetics is often invoked in this book to explain the interacting influences of nature and nurture on animal behavior. Carnivore Minds is full of fascinating, heartwarming stories about individual animals and their families and friends, as well as their natural histories. It includes compelling examples of close friendships between individual animals and the humans they've learned to trust, and of acts of interspecies kindness and compassion. It shows that animals as ostensibly primitive and "mindless as sharks" are not only intelligent, but in some cases are social and cooperative, with distinct individual personalities. Most of the stories, however, turn out to be sad tales of human insensitivity and brutality. It is not always easy reading. Given the subject matter, much of the information in this book is subjective, anecdotal, and speculative. The evidence linking predator attacks on humans to psychological trauma, for example, may not be quite as strong as Bradshaw presents. The predators might just be hungry! This is not a serious flaw of the book, however. Speculation is to be expected, even welcomed, in any new science, especially such an enormously broad, interdisciplinary science that Bradshaw has been in the forefront of creating. It might be that Bradshaw would object to her field being called a science, as she is harshly critical of much of conventional ethology and wildlife and evolutionary biology, among other traditional disciplines. A note at the beginning of the book by naturalist and bear enthusiast Charlie Russell states that most scientists do not tell the truth. This statement is insulting to scientists, and sounds like what we hear so often these days from anti-intellectual populists. Finding truth is the ultimate objective of science, and most scientists follow this mission rigorously and honestly. Surely Bradshaw wants scientists on her side. After the "naturalist's note" by Russell, the book begins with an interesting foreword by eminent neuropsychologist Allan Schore. This is followed
The authors report on a regional conservation planning exercise for the Klamath/Siskiyou region o... more The authors report on a regional conservation planning exercise for the Klamath/Siskiyou region of northwestern California and southwestern Oregon. In order to incorporate the habitat needs of large carnivores into the conservation strategy, the ...
initiative for effective, science-driven management of cats must be broader political and legisla... more initiative for effective, science-driven management of cats must be broader political and legislative recognition of free-roaming cats as a non-native, invasive species. Designating cats as invasive is important for developing and implementing science-based management plans, which should include efforts to prevent cats from becoming free-roaming, policies focused on responsible pet ownership and banning outdoor cat feeding, and better enforcement of existing laws.
Traffic noise is known to negatively affect many wildlife species by interfering with foraging be... more Traffic noise is known to negatively affect many wildlife species by interfering with foraging behavior. Frogs often lay their eggs in roadside ditches because they are predator-free, but it is possible that traffic noise could reduce the survival and fitness of tadpoles, creating an ecological trap. In a series of lab experiments, we tested whether traffic noise has a negative impact on tadpole feeding behavior, whether this is mediated by changes in tadpole activity, and whether there is any impact on tadpole growth rate or metamorphosis. Traffic noise exposure significantly reduced the amount of food consumed by Cuban Treefrog (Osteopilus septentrionalis) tadpoles. Traffic noise exposure also increased the activity level of both Southern Toad (Anaxyrus terrestris) and Cuban Treefrog tadpoles, which could possibly make them more noticeable to predators in the wild. However, these behavioral changes were not associated with changes in growth rate or timing of metamorphosis. We caution, however, that this study aimed to isolate the specific impact of traffic noise, and did not investigate other road effects that may be damaging to tadpoles.
Global targets for the percentage area of land protected, such as 30% by 2030, have gained increa... more Global targets for the percentage area of land protected, such as 30% by 2030, have gained increasing prominence, but both their scientific basis and likely effectiveness have been questioned. As with emissions-reduction targets based on desired climate outcomes, percentage-protected targets combine values and science by estimating the area over which conservation actions are required to help achieve desired biodiversity outcomes. Protected areas are essential for achieving many biodiversity targets, in part because many species cannot persist even at relatively low levels of human-associated disturbance. However, because the contribution of protected areas to biodiversity outcomes is contingent on their location, management, governance, threats, and what occurs across the broader landscape matrix, global percentage-protected targets are unavoidably empirical generalizations of ecological patterns and processes across diverse geographies. Percentage-protected targets are insufficient in isolation but can complement other actions and contribute to biodiversity outcome goals within a framework that balances accuracy and pragmatism in a global context characterized by imperfect biodiversity data. Ideally, percentage-protected targets serve as anchors that strengthen comprehensive national biodiversity strategies by communicating the level of ambition necessary to reverse current trends of biodiversity loss. If such targets are to fulfill this role within the complex societal process by which both values and science impel conservation actions, conservation scientists must clearly communicate the nature of the evidence base supporting percentage-protected targets and how protected areas can function within a broader landscape managed for sustainable coexistence between people and nature. A new paradigm for protected and conserved areas recognizes that national coordination, incentives, and monitoring should support rather than undermine diverse locally-led conservation initiatives. However, the definition of a conserved area must retain a strong focus on biodiversity to remain consistent with the evidence base from which percentage-protected targets were originally derived.
Comprehensive biodiversity assessments play an essential role in strengthening global and nationa... more Comprehensive biodiversity assessments play an essential role in strengthening global and national conservation strategies. The recently announced first US National Nature Assessment provides a unparalleled opportunity to comprehensively review status and trends of biodiversity at all levels; this broad context can then help coordinate actions to conserve individual species and ecosystems. The scientific assessments informing the Global Biodiversity Framework adopted at the 2022 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) conference of parties provide models for synthesizing information on trends at multiple levels of biodiversity, including decline in abundance and distribution of species, loss of populations and genetic diversity, and degradation and loss of ecosystems and their services, along with data on drivers of biodiversity loss and pathways to their mitigation. The US national assessment can augment such global analyses and avoid the pitfalls encountered by previous US effort...
Comprehensive biodiversity assessments play an essential role in strengthening global and nationa... more Comprehensive biodiversity assessments play an essential role in strengthening global and national conservation strategies. The recently announced first US National Nature Assessment provides a unparalleled opportunity to comprehensively review status and trends of biodiversity at all levels; This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. 2 this broad context can then help coordinate actions to conserve individual species and ecosystems. The scientific assessments informing the Global Biodiversity Framework adopted at the 2022 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) conference of parties provide models for synthesizing information on trends at multiple levels of biodiversity, including decline in abundance and distribution of species, loss of populations and genetic diversity, and degradation and loss of ecosystems and their services, along with data on drivers of biodiversity loss and pathways to their mitigation. The US national assessment can augment such global analyses and avoid the pitfalls encountered by previous US efforts by ensuring policy-relevant design, data accessibility, and inclusivity in both process and product, and by incorporating spatial data relevant to both national and subnational audiences. Although the US is not formally a CBD party, an effective NNA should take full advantage of the global context by including targets and indicators adopted at the 2022 meeting and incorporating an independent review mechanism that supports periodic stocktaking and ratcheting up of ambition in response to any identified shortfalls in stemming biodiversity loss. The challenges to design of an effective US assessment are also relevant globally as nations develop assessments and reporting to support the post-2020 global biodiversity targets. By considering and incorporating the diverse ways in which society values and benefits from nature, such assessments can help bridge the gap between research and conservation practice and communicate the extent of the biodiversity crisis to the public, fostering broad-based support for transformative change in humanity's relationship to the natural world.
Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing... more Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.
Biodiversity hotspots are conservation priorities. We identify the North American Coastal Plain (... more Biodiversity hotspots are conservation priorities. We identify the North American Coastal Plain (NACP) as a global hotspot based on the classic definition, a region with > 1500 endemic plant species and > 70% habitat loss. This region has been bypassed in prior designations due to misconceptions and myths about its ecology and history. These fallacies include: (1) young age of the NACP, climatic instability over time and submergence during high sea-level stands; (2) climatic and environmental homogeneity; (3) closed forest as the climax vegetation; and (4) fire regimes that are mostly anthropogenic. We show that the NACP is older and more climatically stable than usually assumed, spatially heterogeneous and extremely rich in species and endemics for its range of latitude, especially within pine savannas and other mostly herbaceous and firedependent communities. We suspect systematic biases and misconceptions, in addition to missing information, obscure the existence of similar...
There has been much recent interest in the concept of rewilding as a tool for nature conservation... more There has been much recent interest in the concept of rewilding as a tool for nature conservation, but also confusion over the idea, which has limited its utility. We developed a unifying definition and 10 guiding principles for rewilding through a survey of 59 rewilding experts, a summary of key organizations’ rewilding visions, and workshops involving over 100 participants from around the world. The guiding principles convey that rewilding exits on a continuum of scale, connectivity, and level of human influence and aims to restore ecosystem structure and functions to achieve a self‐sustaining autonomous nature. These principles clarify the concept of rewilding and improve its effectiveness as a tool to achieve global conservation targets, including those of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and post‐2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. Finally, we suggest differences in rewilding perspectives lie largely in the extent to which it is seen as achievable and in specific interven...
Because resources are finite, conservation practices can be based on shortcuts (i.e., a quicker w... more Because resources are finite, conservation practices can be based on shortcuts (i.e., a quicker way to a desired outcome). For example, indicator species are often used as a shortcut to justify conservation at greater organizational levels (i.e., communities, ecosystems, landscapes). Conversely, "coarse-filter" approaches to protect landscapes are often assumed to conserve organizational levels nested within that landscape. But is conservation biology fundamentally different from other applied sciences, in which shortcuts appear rare or absent? To evaluate this question requires a rarity; much data across organizational levels in numerous well-defined systems. We used data collected in vernal pools (N = 61) in greater San Diego, California and seasonal wetlands (N = 70) in Florida. Data for plant species of concern, plant community diversity, ecosystem function, and landscape integrity were evaluated using partial least-squares structural equation models. Three a priori alternative models for each of the indicator species and coarse-filter approaches were tested, where models varied in complexity and included shortcuts between organizational levels. We found little support for shortcuts connecting distant levels, but species of concern and community diversity were always significantly and strongly interrelated. We conclude that species of concern often predict community diversity (and vice versa) but shortcuts between more distant organizational levels are hard to find. Given that study systems here were numerous, discrete and relatively small (i.e., well-described), we expect that effective shortcuts will be difficult to demonstrate for many other systems that do not share all those attributes. Thus we suggest that regional ensemble conservation goals and approaches will be more often effective than relying on assumed conservation shortcuts with little evidence.
Roads and their associated effects (road-kill, pollution, etc.) have a largely negative impact on... more Roads and their associated effects (road-kill, pollution, etc.) have a largely negative impact on animals, especially amphibians, but not all species are affected to the same degree. Variation in life histories may explain some of these differences. Here, we examine how abundance of anuran species in roadside habitats is correlated with an aspect of reproductive life history: number of eggs produced by a female per year. Using data from a 1.5-year monitoring project in Central Florida, we found a positive correlation between the number of eggs produced by an average female of a species and the proportion of individuals found in roadside habitats compared to control habitats. This implies either that populations of species with a greater reproductive rate are able to rebound more quickly from negative road impacts, or that there is a strong selective pressure on species with low reproductive rates to avoid roads.
Gay Bradshaw is a renaissance woman, with a bachelor's degree in linguistics (Chinese), a master'... more Gay Bradshaw is a renaissance woman, with a bachelor's degree in linguistics (Chinese), a master's degree in geophysics, and two Ph.D. degrees: one in ecology and another in psychology. She is therefore well equipped to unite multiple fields into a new synthesis. Her first book, Elephants on the Edge: What Animals Teach Us About Humanity, was the first work to document Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in non-human animals. It won numerous awards, was featured in a cover article in the New York Times Magazine, and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. In her latest book, Carnivore Minds, Bradshaw synthesizes ethology, psychology, neuroscience, natural history, ecology, and evolutionary biology to build a convincing case that many animals have complex cognitive abilities, behaviors, and social systems not fundamentally different from what we find in humans. Hence, they are worthy of equivalent moral consideration. Her beautiful writing makes this case powerfully. The animals Bradshaw focuses on in this book are carnivores. I initially supposed this meant members of the mammalian order Carnivora. A grizzly bear, an omnivorous member of this order, is featured on the front cover. The animals Bradshaw discusses, however, include not only bears, pumas, and coyotes, but also sharks, orcas, sperm whales, crocodilians, and rattlesnakes, among others. What all these species have in common, besides eating other animals, Bradshaw argues, is that they are targets of human persecution. This harassment disrupts their social systems and mental health, causing aberrant and maladaptive behavior. The focus of the book would have been clearer if she had used the term "predator" rather than "carnivore," though Bradshaw argues (not quite convincingly) that "predator" also includes herbivores. But this is a minor quibble. What does this book offer to conservation scientists? Most important, this work clearly demonstrates that the conventional attention of conservationists to habitat quantity and quality and population dynamics is not nearly enough to save intelligent wild animals. We must also, Bradshaw insists, "take action to prevent psychosocial trauma." Among the human actions that cause this trauma are hunting, trapping, poisoning, other persecution, habitat alteration, captivity, and translocations. Although probably most conservationists oppose hunting of predators, except under unusual circumstances, Bradshaw sometimes extends her harsh criticism of killing predators to a generic condemnation of hunting, which will irritate some readers. Although I would personally prefer to see herbivore populations controlled by native predators, many cases exist in which superabundant herbivore populations occur in human-dominated landscapes where large native predators could not survive. Human hunting or trapping is often needed to control these herbivores, which can cause great damage to vegetation, flora, and animals that depend on intact herbaceous or shrub-level vegetation. This should have been acknowledged in this book. The feral hogs that overrun the conservation areas of Florida remind me daily of the need for increased hunting and trapping. A recurring theme in Carnivore Minds is that the stress imposed by human persecution disrupts animal social systems and causes a breakdown of normal behavioral patterns and an increase in murders of conspecifics and attacks on humans. These behaviors are all linked by Bradshaw to PTSD. Bradshaw makes a strong case that orcas, for instance, have a strong social taboo against killing each other or killing humans. As the story of Tilikum, the orca who killed his trainer at Sea World-Orlando (after two previous fatal attacks) illustrates, the psychological stress of capture, separation from family members, and a long period of demeaning captivity, can turn these intelligent animals into psychopaths. Parallels to human behavior are made throughout the book, which might raise some eyebrows, but Bradshaw cites primatologist Frans deWaal in rejecting "anthropodenial" and herpetologist Gordon Burghardt in calling for "critical anthropomorphism," whereby researchers recognize cross-species similarities, but are careful not to impose their experiences onto their subjects. The field of epigenetics is often invoked in this book to explain the interacting influences of nature and nurture on animal behavior. Carnivore Minds is full of fascinating, heartwarming stories about individual animals and their families and friends, as well as their natural histories. It includes compelling examples of close friendships between individual animals and the humans they've learned to trust, and of acts of interspecies kindness and compassion. It shows that animals as ostensibly primitive and "mindless as sharks" are not only intelligent, but in some cases are social and cooperative, with distinct individual personalities. Most of the stories, however, turn out to be sad tales of human insensitivity and brutality. It is not always easy reading. Given the subject matter, much of the information in this book is subjective, anecdotal, and speculative. The evidence linking predator attacks on humans to psychological trauma, for example, may not be quite as strong as Bradshaw presents. The predators might just be hungry! This is not a serious flaw of the book, however. Speculation is to be expected, even welcomed, in any new science, especially such an enormously broad, interdisciplinary science that Bradshaw has been in the forefront of creating. It might be that Bradshaw would object to her field being called a science, as she is harshly critical of much of conventional ethology and wildlife and evolutionary biology, among other traditional disciplines. A note at the beginning of the book by naturalist and bear enthusiast Charlie Russell states that most scientists do not tell the truth. This statement is insulting to scientists, and sounds like what we hear so often these days from anti-intellectual populists. Finding truth is the ultimate objective of science, and most scientists follow this mission rigorously and honestly. Surely Bradshaw wants scientists on her side. After the "naturalist's note" by Russell, the book begins with an interesting foreword by eminent neuropsychologist Allan Schore. This is followed
The authors report on a regional conservation planning exercise for the Klamath/Siskiyou region o... more The authors report on a regional conservation planning exercise for the Klamath/Siskiyou region of northwestern California and southwestern Oregon. In order to incorporate the habitat needs of large carnivores into the conservation strategy, the ...
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