Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen that dingoes play a variety of roles in the environment, and the extent and importance of those roles is hotly debated by researchers. Dingoes may help native wildlife by keeping exotic predator numbers down, but they may also prey upon threatened species in Australia. Dingoes are apex predators […]
Archive for the ‘Mammals’ Category
Building a better dingo house
Keeping up with the pack
Dingoes seem to be pretty controversial animals, and I think I even found about as close as you’ll get to a fight in the scientific community over the ecological roles of the dingo (what was fascinating about the exchange was not just what was said, but how it was said- scientists can be mean). A […]
It’s a dog’s life
Going to the dogs
I’ve spent the last few days going back and forth in my mind about this month’s topic. I am fascinated by canids (and quite amazed, when I look at my dog, to think of her progenitors), and there are so many species to choose from- I wanted a topic that was outside of North America […]
Sharing the elephants’ burden
As I looked for ways that we all can get involved in elephant protection, I kept coming upon the same request- “Donate Now”- and, in some ways, that was very disappointing because I was hoping to get more directly involved. But, after investigating some of the issues in elephant conservation, I began to feel this […]
How do you measure an elephant?
As I mentioned in my last post, researchers are still learning about the ways in which elephants, and other large herbivores, impact the environment around them. In many ways, the goal is to figure out how many elephants can fit into an area before their resource needs lead to environmental degradation. One way to do […]
Elephants on a tight-rope
I spent the last week looking through lots of documents on elephants (even a few theses, so there was a mountain of reading), and I’ve learned quite a bit about what elephants eat, how populations have changed, and the impact that these mega-herbivores can have on the environment around them- they definitely live on a […]
An elephant in the room
Anyone who has seen the most recent issue of National Geographic will understand why I chose this topic. The cover article looked at the resurgence in poaching for the ivory trade, and the journalist talked to a wide variety of people involved in the illegal trade to provide an understanding of what is driving demand. […]
What’s your role?
Hopefully the past few weeks have provided some new insight into an impressive and, at least in the Northeast, common predator. Fishers aren’t abundant in all parts of their range, but they are active members of the community where I live, and information provided by Dr. Kays’ research, as I mentioned last week, indicates they […]
Fisher-Man
In my last post, I provided a glimpse of fisher history and ecology, talking about changes within the Northeast population, fisher diversity along the Pacific coast, and their impact on prey populations. This week I pondered the fisher-human relationship and how they react to the ways in which we’ve changed the environment around us and […]