In my last post, I provided a long (and depressing) list of squirrel species and subspecies facing challenging situations. The very good news is that there are quite a few people conducting research to better understand exactly why certain populations are in decline and how to most effectively reverse those trends. Not all of their […]
Archive for the ‘Mammals’ Category
Building a better squirrel conservation program
The many faces of Prof. Squirrel
When I said last week that I was interested in squirrel conservation, I had imagined that I would find a lot of papers talking about the decline of European red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) in response to the presence of gray squirrels in the UK- and, I did. But I also found so much more: more […]
What ever happened to Squirrel Nutkin?
Last week I read a news story about an investigation launched by police after a squirrel was shot in Scotland- the issue here is not just that a squirrel was shot, but that a red squirrel was shot. In the UK, red squirrels are a protected species and various organizations are engaged in trying to […]
Making room for large carnivores
Over the last few posts, I’ve mentioned that a number of groups around the world are working to reduce human-carnivore conflict- some of those strategies have been more successful than others, but we do have a better sense of what helps limit conflict, both from the human and the wildlife perspective. To get insight into […]
The large carnivore in the room
In the past few years there has been an emphasis on assessing what makes a carnivore conservation effort successful (or not) and what the long-term prospects are for the variety of strategies in use. The reality is that there is no magic bullet or guarantee of success, but we certainly have a better sense of […]
What it means to live large
When looking at large carnivore conservation this past week, it became evident that there are lots of layers to this topic. It’s about more than habitat availability or prey populations- it also includes the individuality of species and human attitudes. To begin with, there is the nature of carnivore ecology– these animals have large home […]
Is there room at the top?
A friend of mine recently returned from a year of field work in the Southwest- she’s investigating how carnivore species respond to each other and different levels of human activity in an arid environment. Some of the pictures from her camera traps make me completely jealous- she’s dealing with mountain lions and badgers and ringtails, […]
If you give a mouse a conservation program…
As you might expect after looking through my blog posts from this month, I found a pretty distinct dichotomy in terms of conservation programs that deal with rodents: some projects are trying to get rid of them, and others are trying to protect them. Either way, there are a variety of options for us in […]
There goes the neighborhood?
When I started looking into rodent conservation, what I had expected to find was a tail of two species groups: 1) invasive, introduced rodent species dominating the natives, and 2) disappearing native species and simplified ecosystems as a result of habitat loss to human activities. It would appear, however, that the global situation is a […]
Many endangered mice, see how their ranges contract
As I mentioned in my first post of the month, I’m interested in learning about the conservation status of rodent species. I think I may have overlooked the threats facing them because several species (notably the black and Norwegian rats) have been incredibly successful invasive species. When I started looking through the literature, I found […]