To the extreme

Today I want to talk about extremes. About the extreme activism that is going on and about how adopting an extreme viewpoint may not benefit wildlife what so ever. Once again this is my opinion so feel free to disagree with me if you wish but keep it civil please.

People tend to dislike extreme reactions. It throws people off, it antagonizes them and sometimes it will probably yield worse results than a casual conversation.  An example of this is P.E.T.A . Ahh the great protectors of animals are always there to save the day. Now as I have touched on before, P.E.T.A often does a good job at making sure that animals are treated right and so forth. Why are they hated though? Well because most of their times their ways are radical and extreme enough to push people off the edge. Not to mention the fact that they often channel their energy on the wrong stuff. Lab animals are one of them. I understand that lab animals do not live in the best of conditions. They are often miserable and mistreated and will live a short life. But those animals are needed. Cosmetics aside, lab animals are needed to test new treatments, create a better understanding of the animal and it’s physiology, used for genetic experiments and onwards. A lot of the benefits people enjoy medically wise are a result of lab animals. Do I think that this warrants a poor treatment of animals? No. Can I tolerate it? Yes. This is up to each individual but in my mind there needs to be a set of priorities in what you would like to fix in the world. Advocating for no wildlife trade, animal welfare and being against captivity is all fine but you need to sort out which one should be your highest priority and focus on that. The world will not just wake up one day, abolish all the practices you deem as cruel and unnatural and continue going as it did.  If all animals are treated fairly then you will have a harder time buying beef as it will be scarcer and a lot more expensive. If lab animals are abolished then a cure for many diseases could be set back years and years. So tolerate what you can and channel your energy towards your priority goals.

 To continue with that you have to understand this: Extremists are not liked. Whether you are an activist for animal rights, animal abuse, conservation or the protection of wildlife, there are very few circumstances that being on the extreme actually helped.  There are like-minded people out there who try and reason with the “enemy” instead of going extreme. People who would rather talk and try and convince the Japanese out of whaling, reduce quotas and use science to determining whaling instead of going out and blocking  the Japanese fleet.  These people are often part of an NGO and will often try and fight the good fight to help conservation or animal rights along. Guess who is giving them a bad name? Extreme/radical organizations. People like to pigeon hole and stereotype and while it is not good practice most groups are usually placed in the same category as the more extreme groups.  It’s sad to see conservation organizations have their work undermined because no one takes them seriously due to the actions of another organization which acts much more extremely. 

And this is unfortunately another point which frustrates me. Extremist organizations are almost never satisfied unless the measures they see fit are implemented.  For examples many conservation organizations are willing to give out some ground in a dispute. They would prefer that a small portion of animals are hunted or harvested but the overall protection and survival of the species remain the same or similar. They would prefer that small areas of forests are cut down if it means that the remain forest is secured.  A compromise for them is often a victory enough. It’s a stepping stone to which greater things can be achieved and let’s face it, humanity as a whole will never have the same viewpoints. So for the conservation organizations, every victory counts.  Now imagine that a treaty has been signed protecting a large area of prime habitat with a lot of endangered species. In return an x amount of animas deemed appropriate by science, can be harvest throughout the year and an y amount of trees can be felled. This has been scientifically proven to have little effect to the habitat and hence the habitat will survive and thrive. Then along come extremists which protest and want the whole area protected and so on. This automatically gives the conservationists a bad name as greedy, puts the logging/hunting party on the defensive and achieves nothing more than create tension where it was just relieved. Hence more damage done that good.

If you want to be part of extremist groups then it is your own right to do so. I am simply underlining the damage that can be done by such groups. If you feel strong about a subject then the best thing to do is study more about it, support people working on the subject and try and educate more people through calm and peaceful means. Understand when someone just wants to kill animals and rest your case. Not all of humanity can be swayed towards your way.

What being a field scientist is really about.

Canines have always been a passion for me.  I loved dogs ever since I can remember and I got more and more interested in wolves in my late teens. It was since then that I decided I would like to specialize on wolves in the future, study them and help in their conservation.  I am currently on my way towards trying to achieve that by becoming a researcher. When I am done with my undergraduate, I will apply for a Masters and a PhD, get a Dr. slapped in front of my name and begin a life of wolf studying. The main reason why I am writing this article is because people tend to have a skewed notion of what this will entail. Not just wolves but other animals as well. The media have exposed the public to people who love animals(either through documentaries, reality shows or viral videos) and people either expect you to end up that way or expect themselves to end up that way.

Case and point is Steve Irwin. For those who don’t know Steve Irwin was a brilliant naturalist, a man with a passion in conserving the Australian wildlife and he had a strong love for crocodiles. He is often seen jumping around, being really energetic, picking up animals, wrestling crocodiles and the sort.  Now Steve Irwin was a brilliant passionate person and a great conservationist but he was never a scientist. Not in the conventional sense at least.  Any scientist passionate about crocodiles would not do what he did. It’s not to say that what he did was wrong.  By all means Steve educated generation upon generation (including me) about the Australian wildlife and he was a brilliant TV persona. He was not however a scientist. As much as we all would like  to have a life similar to Steve’s, a scientist’s research is either done in the lab or in the field for a while, then data analysis and then writing. If any biologist is intrigued by crocodiles, then they will either monitor them from afar, breed them in lab conditions or take data from somewhere else.  It all depends on what you would like to investigate on a particular animal.

When I tell people I want to study wolves I often get send videos of Shaun Ellis, usually with comments along the lines of “this will be you in a few years”and so forth. I hope it is not.  The closest I can hope to be is any videos you see from field biologists conducting wolf research such as Doug Smith. Although they handle wolves, most of the science done is either through observation or non-invasive behavior. And at times where humans actually get involved with wolves it is under controlled situations. Allow me to explain why. If you were to bond with a pack of wolves, a pride of lions etc you skew animal behavior, you mess with the data. This sort of data would not be accepted by the scientific community due to biased nature in which they were gathered. Hence if I ever were to become a TV persona  then it will probably mean I am not a scientist.

There needs to be a clear distinction. The people you see on TV handling animals are rarely scientists and what they are doing most of the times is not science. While some documentaries feature recordings of the methods that are used in scientific research, they do not show the painstaking statistical analysis or the paper analysis. I am not saying don’t be a scientist. Just be wary of what the media pass on as science and just take everything with a pinch of salt.

Finally, Steve Irwin was a great influence in my life. This article is by no means meant to be a disrespectful to him what so ever. I just thought I could clear the lines for people who don’t get the differences.

Let's meet halfway

Today’s article is because of some recent events that I observed.  As I already said, I have been accepted into a center to study wolf behavior over the summer as part of my dissertation. Naturally worried family and friends are all anxious about my health. What if the wolves turn on me? Won’t they rip me to shreds? Will the insurance policy cover it?

Joking aside I was still shocked by the misinformation and lack of proper scientific knowledge the general public has. I am not expecting a person to know the latin names of each wolf subspecies or all of their behavior. I do however expect at least a common understanding. Wolves won’t attack humans. This isn’t about wolves though. It’s about science and communication.  Science and the general public rarely mix.

It is only recently that scientists acknowledged that the general public should understand the weight that some papers and experiments have on the way the world is shaped. Will the general public ever know though? Highly doubt it. For this scientists are to blame. By publishing papers that are too specialized, by underestimating the general public and not believing them able to grasp the concepts of science, we are alienating the public.

Now I am in no means a proper scientist yet. Even if I was I am more versed in Biology and mostly Zoological matters. This means that although I can read a scientific paper, it doesn’t always mean I can understand it.  This is particularly annoying when the subject is one that I am familiar with. If it was a physics paper then I understand why I failed to grasp it. But I am third year into my Zoology degree and there are papers that are still hard for me to read.

Imagine then a person interesting in animals. Let’s say they are interesting in physiology. Let’s say that they got a textbook and got a general grasp of the subject but they are rather inquisitive and want to know more. Now someone recommends a more advanced textbook or an academic paper. The frustration of not understanding what you are reading may be enough to make this person abandon their curiosity because they can’t understand the subject.  Wouldn’t that be frustrating for the scientist? It’s not a lie that research grants are hard to come by. If however the general public knew exactly what your research was about then maybe scientists would have an easier time trying to sort out grants, approvals etc.  Also if the public were slightly more aware about certain scientific issues then some policies can be removed or prevented. Policies that are not supported by scientific evidence but are instead pushed forward by mass public hysteria.

Now it’s not just the scientists fault though. Dear general public. Sometimes you can be so gullible or so pre-occupied that you refuse to question what you read or hear.  In one of the social media I am part of, a picture of a small pink elephant appeared under the caption “Newborn baby elephant”. The comments were regarding how cute it is, and how they have never seen elephants so tiny before. It didn’t take more than a few second to realize that what people were commenting on was in fact a dead elephant fetus. I mean come on guys. A lot of the general public may have never been around elephants before but most of you must have watched at least one documentary with them. Since when are elephants born that way? It’s not the picture that angers me. It’s the fact that people refuse to so much as double check the facts.  Search engines and encyclopedias are right in our fingertips and yet I still hear that a shark cull is a good thing.

By believing in pretty much everything they read sometimes the general public can bring scientists to a point where decide that they won’t actually bother anymore because no matter what they try and do, they feel the general opinion won’t change.

And this is what I propose. Let’s meet half way huh? What if scientists decided to try and make their publications easier to read but also the general public decided to try and keep up with science news and question everything that they are being told. If that were to happen then perhaps science wouldn’t be under a public media barrage and perhaps scientists wouldn’t be angry when legislations are passed that defy scientific work. It’s a simple solution that is really hard to implement and perhaps that is one of the sad things. But slowly we are getting there. The more educated the public and the less specialists the scientists become then the more science can be embraced as a tool to discovering the world.

Pay to volunteer

As a Zoology student, I can tell you two things for sure. One, I am interested and intrigued by animals and two I would love to get some hands on experience with them. Today's discussion(although will probably be more of a rant), regards the recent situation some of my fellow students and myself found ourselves into. Most students tend to be really enthusiastic about their degree. They tend to be happy that they are doing something interesting and want to contribute. Some students want to volunteer spare time to help animals, participate in research or do something relevant to their degree. A search on the internet will reveal a lot of organizations willing to take you everywhere. The return is a commodity most students can't afford. Money.

Firstly, I want to say that I am not going to rant about these organizations. They need funding and money to keep things going and so they will ask for money. What I want to point out though is that the amounts asked are ridiculous. Let's take an example. John(random name) is in his first year Zoology. He loves animals and would really like to volunteer as this will teach him skills related to his degree and get him much needed experience for his CV. He doesn't have a lot of free time so decides to devote an entire month of summer holidays to do this. He does a brief internet search and finds a brilliant program in Africa to study lions. Now John, like many students doesn't have a lot of money. He gets by and can put some money aside to buy his tickets and food. However the organization asks for $4000 in order for John to join them for a month in Africa. John can start fund raising and working double shifts but in the end of the day some money are going to come out of his pocket. At least the cash deposit which most organizations ask for. This is my main problem and a problem I see other students having. They want to get out there and are willing to lose some money in the process but paying the organization to volunteer for them is a step too far for most. Some students will be lucky enough to fund raise enough. Others not so much.

When you ask such amounts out of students to volunteer for something they want to do, then you chop down their wings. If a student still wants to volunteer, then he will have to find something local which will probably limit them or won't give them experience. I would like to think that most students(especially the more enthusiastic ones) would jump at an opportunity to spend their entire summer working with animals if the only thing they had to pay for, was food, tickets and their own expenses. I know I would. With that in mind students have the potential to be an incredible work force that will do good where it's needed.

Of course it's not really the organizations fault is it? They require funds to keep them going and make up for the services they provide(housing, security etc). I don't know exactly where their funds go and I don't have a counter suggestion for this. Apart from perhaps a government trust, set up to “reward”students who actively volunteer, by paying the fees that volunteer organizations require. Or perhaps an addition to an organization's budget when volunteers are included.

Which leads us to my second point. Last year I volunteered at a wolf sanctuary(I will write about that experience soon enough) and the owner was kind enough not to ask for any money at all. All I paid for was my travel and food expenses. However one of the great advice the owner gave me was that working for a sanctuary or a zoo really doesn't reflect the fact that I am interested in field research. Although I gained some skills, it doesn't compare to field research. So since September, I have been emailing researchers, universities, government agencies and organizations trying to find some sort of field related position. A lot of the above don't have need for volunteers or interns. Why? Aside from insurances, dangerous work etc I can't see why governments can't encourage research institutes to take volunteers or trainees. Graduates are rejected from job applications because they lack experience.Trying to gain experience on your own initiative can be quite costly and hence that leads to lack of experience, hence no job. Fund raising could work but again you are relying to people around you being able to give you money and let's face it, the way things are going people will think twice before giving John here some money to go help animals in Africa. Naturally governments don't really have money to spare for students to pay for students volunteering abroad but why not? In the future, the governments of such countries will have more experienced individuals who will probably be better and more efficient at their jobs. It will allow for people to realize what some aspects of their degree really are about and whether they want to do it or not and will definitely aid conservation,research or welfare efforts.

Universities should be the main drivers of this in my opinion. Universities that include undergraduate students in their research will have more rounder graduates who know what they are doing, will be more experienced and more employable. They will also benefit because their academics or researchers will be available for other projects/conferences etc while the student can take some of the more”menial” tasks. Students will gain experience, get their hands dirty and will feel more involved in the University's activities.

Unfortunately I cannot see the other side of the coin and I must admit to that. I don't know the logistics or bureaucracy behind having volunteers working for you and neither do I know if the volunteer organizations actually make money by charging potential volunteers. I am just discussing the situation students like myself are in at this present moment where either very few positions can be found or they charge an amount a lot of students consider at least three months worth of money.

Science and advocacy

This is an issue that has been crossing my mind for a few days now. The result of this was an article that I read which debated whether scientists can actually advocate for animals or habitats they are studying. Some people say they shouldn't, while others say they should and both arguments have some validity to them.
If you define the purpose of a biology scientist, it is to discover how the field of biology works through observation and experimentation. For the results and the data to be of any significance then the science must be completely objective and not biased. Arguments for the validity of data collected by scientists who are advocating for conservation can come into discussion as well. People tend to believe that researchers fond of a particular animal will skew data their way to show how the animals they are studying require a lot more conservation efforts. Predators tend to get the spotlight as trophic cascades have allowed an inside view into how top predators affect the community of an ecosystem. However where does it stop? Naturally with trophic cascades you can go as far as you would like and still attribute certain effects to predators or herbivores. This is what worries scientists as some of them may end up attributing way to much into certain animals while that may not be the case.
However advocating scientists tend to the ones most passionate about the subject they study. They often advocate because no science or even false science is used in conservation efforts and to create management plans. An example of that is Jay Mallone who recently published a paper criticising the science behind the Montana wolf management plan. Although this sort of action can be viewed from both sides of the same coin(one being that he is right and the other being that he is being favourable of the animal thus refusing to see the reason of the management plan), I think that advocates tend to be in favour of good proper science that will give the animals/habitats they are trying to preserve a fighting chance.
I suppose it is up to each individual researcher and scientist to know when to distance themselves. It is a crucial skill to learn and accept that perhaps a portion of the animals you love and study will have to be shot down as part of a government’s management plan or for development. Of course there will be those scientists who fail to see when it is time to accept things due to their attachment to animals but then again what is right for habitats or animals may not be as objective as we think. People opinions differ and probably will, which is why science is constantly a debate and a challenging world.