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Paul McCarney
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In March 2022, I sat down with Wendy Keefover of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to chat about a petition the HSUS submitted to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The petition requested that the California Fish and Game Commission suspend the black bear hunt in the state. I wanted to chat with Wendy about what the HSUS hoped to achieve in California related to black bear hunting… Read More
Conservation is complex. The current conservation issues we face are layered and interactive. The people affected by conservation issues are complex; they are motivated by a range of values and bring diverse knowledge and perspectives to the issues. The ways in which we produce knowledge, make decisions, and take action on important conservation issues must be similarly complex. As conservationists, we need to consider the full range of knowledge available to us… Read More
Scientific consensus continues overwhelmingly conclude that lead contamination negatively impacts wildlife, the environment, and human health. In many cases, the primary source of lead contamination is from ammunition. Rachel Carson drew the world’s attention to the environmental and human health impacts of the widespread use of the pesticide DDT throughout the first half of the 20th century in her ground-breaking book Silent Spring, published in 1962. One of the wildlife species impacted… Read More
This post is essentially an unedited transcript of my discussion from Episode 13 – Enhancing the Social License to Hunt of the Hunt To Eat Show covering recent initiatives to suspend black bear hunting in California. California has had a busy year with bear hunting. In February 2021, State Senator Scott Wiener proposed Senate Bill 252 (SB-252), which was sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), to end black… Read More
When a new species is identified, its discoverer typically has the privilege of naming it. Hundreds of wildlife and plant species around the world are named for explorers, scientists, and celebrities. Species such as the Humboldt squid, Steller sea lion, Douglas fir, and Stasimopus mandelai, a species of South African spider named in honour of Nelson Mandela, are named for specific people. We talk about these species often but may not always… Read More
We often assume that if we convince people to care about wildlife they will support conservation. Of course, people are unlikely to support something they don’t feel personally attached to. Unfortunately, simply caring about wildlife does not always lead to positive conservation behaviour or support for policies. So the task is not only to make people care about wildlife but to do so in a way that will inspire them to take… Read More
When the naturalist and ornithologist George Ord formally named pronghorn in 1815, he was unsure whether the species was an antelope or a goat. In the journals of their famous expedition from 1804-1806, Lewis and Clark made over 200 references to what they described as “wild goats or antelopes”. Pronghorns are also featured in the petroglyphs and pictographs of Indigenous nations throughout the continent. Over the years, and perhaps serving as a… Read More
If you derive any enjoyment from the largely intact suite of wildlife that lives in North America, you have benefitted from the interactive roles of scientific research and management in North American conservation over the last century.
It is a generally accepted truth among hunters that heavy winters with deep snow are bad for deer, making it especially difficult for them to evade predators like wolves and coyotes. As I was looking for some recent science that might be interesting to hunters, I came across a new study about boreal woodland caribou that sheds some new light on the effects of snow depth and wolf predation on calf recruitment…. Read More
I have no real personal connection with wild sheep (Ovis spp.). I’ve never seen one, eaten one, and know relatively little about them. Perhaps because of this lack of opportunity to interact with them on some personal level, I’m somewhat fascinated by them. At least a part of this fascination has to do with some pretty remarkable life history, physical characteristics, and habits of the species. I’ve also been reading some pieces by Canadian biologist Valerius… Read More
Paul McCarney