Location, Location, Location
It’s easy for people who live far from wildlife to criticize management and/or policies without considering how people who live near wildlife feel about the salient issues. Particularly with species which may have an economic impact or are potentially dangerous, regulators ignore the human dimensions of human-wildlife interactions at their peril. This article (open) investigates the spatial scale of attitudes towards brown bear reintroduction in France. Unsurprisingly, the authors find that attitudes towards bears are more negative the closer that people live to the animals. Whether people have directly interacted with the animals may not matter, it is the proximity that is concerning and policy makers around the world must understand these concerns for effective conservation.
CRISPR is Coming
All the rage in molecular biology right now, the genome editing system CRISPR-Cas9 is now being considered for use as a conservation tool. While this topic deserves a full post (and we’ll work on that), this paper (open) begins to outline how conservationists could utilize this rapidly advancing technology.
It’s almost as if this page didn’t applaud the long-game of conservation just last week!
WildlifeSNPits 