From deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains to densely populated subdivisions, black bears in North Carolina are a conservation success story. In the 1970s populations were estimated at fewer than 1,000. Today, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) considers black bears (Ursus americanus) fully restored.
In the latest episode of “Our Wild Lives,” Katie Perkins sits down with Colleen Olfenbuttel, TWS member, longtime bear biologist and the NCWRC game mammals and survey unit supervisor, to unpack how science-based management helped the rebound of the once-rare species. They also talk about how wildlife managers are tackling coexistence in a quickly urbanizing state.
From bears causing crop circles to educating the public about BearWise guidelines, listen in for practical tips and exciting stories from Olfenbuttel’s more-than-17 years working with black bears.
“Our Wild Lives” is The Wildlife Society’s weekly podcast, sharing compelling stories from wildlife professionals doing critical work around the world. Your hosts, Katie Perkins and Ed Arnett of The Wildlife Society, bring you thought-provoking conversations with leading experts and emerging voices.
New episodes are released weekly wherever you get your podcasts. Please email comms@wildlife.org with feedback or future episode suggestions.
The bird flu has caused a massive loss in breeding females in the world’s largest populations of southern elephant seals on a remote island in the South Atlantic.
Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) is deadly to birds and other animals, causing widespread wildlife deaths around the world. HPAI’s arrival on South Georgia in 2023 appears to have severely impacted the island’s largest southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina) population.
Researchers used drone surveys to count elephant seals at three South Georgia beaches during the 2022 breeding season, before the virus arrived, and again in 2024, after HPAI had spread then estimated the impact on the entire island’s population.
Breeding females were the focus of the study because they maintain the population’s reproductive capacity and care for the next generation. Losing large numbers of breeding females in a species with late sexual maturity can threaten long-term population stability.
At the three monitored beaches, researchers observed a nearly 50% drop in breeding females between 2022 and 2024. Scaled to the entire island, this suggests that roughly 53,000 females were absent during the 2024 breeding season, representing a 33.7% decrease from projected numbers for South Georgia
Although several hypotheses could explain this decline, the timing of HPAI’s arrival and its spread in the elephant seal population, alongside the sharp drop in numbers, the authors stated, “is too pronounced to be coincidental.”
In the midst of reports reiterating the dire state of climate change, the Trump administration appears to be taking the United States in the opposing direction—a stance that presents risks for wildlife and wildlife professionals alike.
On October 29th, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Oregon State University released their 2025 State of the Climate Report, and the findings were bleak. The report claims, “We are hurtling toward climate chaos. The planet’s vital signs are flashing red. The consequences of human-driven alterations of the climate are no longer future threats but are here now.”
Less than a week later, the United Nations Environment Programme released its 16th edition of the Emissions Gap Report, which concluded: “On the10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement, the message is clear: only decisive, accelerated [greenhouse gas] emission reductions can align the world with the goals of the Paris Agreement and limit the escalation of climate risks and damages that, already today, are severe, and hit the poorest and most vulnerable the hardest.” The Paris Agreement is an international treaty adopted in 2015 to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, but preferably less than 1.5 degrees Celsius, above pre-industrial levels.
Both reports spotlight that greater losses are expected for ecosystems and wildlife in the future. The Potsdam Institute report states that “more than 3,500 assessed wild animal species are threatened by climate change and numerous examples of climate-related species population collapse have been documented.”
While melting ice caps, biodiversity loss, rising seas, or greenhouse gas emissions are troubling trends, political influence in scientific discourse around climate change may be far more troubling.
“The political objective…is often some trivial tinkering with the laws, some useless appropriation, or some pasting of pretty labels on ugly realities.”—Aldo Leopold, Conservation Ethic, Journal of Forestry, Volume 31, Issue 6, October 1933
The growing politicization of climate change
This year, the Trump Administration has announced seven actions that include the term “climate change.” Each action frames climate change as a social or political issue rather than a topic of scientific importance. This affects the availability of funding for climate science, opportunities for international collaboration and access to information and other resources that support the work of wildlife professionals.
Of the seven actions announced this year:
Four rescinded or called for the recission of past Executive Orders or regulatory actions that mention climate change.
One called for the immediate withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement and for the “United States’ withdrawal from any agreement, pact, accord, or similar commitment made under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.” Accordingly, the U.S. did not send a delegation to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) this November.
One seeks to identify and legally remove any “State laws purporting to address ‘climate change’ or involving ‘environmental, social, and governance’ initiatives.”
The final action defines “Gold Standard Science” which places the “generation, use, interpretation, and communication of scientific information” for each agency under the direction of a political appointee. The order also calls for “unbiased peer review,” which is not further defined and appears to de-emphasize reliance on studies that occur outside of a controlled environment (like most climate science) by emphasizing reproducibility, uncertainty and consideration of alternative scientific opinions.
In response to the last order, the U.S. Department of Energy released a non-peer-reviewed report in July that casts doubt on the current state of climate science while regularly highlighting “the important positive effect” of increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. A quick search also finds several news headlines reporting politics-driven word choice manipulation from leaked government memos, though federal agencies deny such memos exist.
These actions clearly signal that climate change is no longer a priority of the federal government. This political framing of a topic with scientific importance will undoubtedly have long-term effects on the work of wildlife biologists, and not just due to rising temperatures.
U.S. climate science on the cusp
A recent court filing in a case challenging reductions in force (RIFs) directives issued during the government shutdown revealed that the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) had “intended on imminently abolishing” well over 50% of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) employees at national and regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers (CASC). While a temporary restraining order has blocked implementation of the RIFs for now, the reductions would severely disrupt hundreds of climate projects nationwide. These projects provide essential scientific information and tools to wildlife biologists and land managers from other government agencies universities, and nonprofits to adapt to the effects of climate change on fish, wildlife, water, land and people.
Sea-level rise has become “saltwater intrusion” or “nuisance flooding” due to pressures to not use the term “climate change.” Credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority
The Wildlife Society has a long history of supporting CASCs and the centers are a core resource in the development of important wildlife management documents like State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAPs). Even if the centers are spared from the RIFs, the administration’s proposed Fiscal Year 2026 budget seeks to cut climate funding across the entire federal government, framing it as funding for “climate ideologies antithetical to the American way of life.” This includes a proposed USGS budget that “eliminates programs that… focus on social agendas (e.g., climate change) to instead focus on achieving dominance in energy and critical minerals.”
Politics as an influencing force on wildlife science and management
A 2022 paper published in Conservation Science and Practice reports that “the local, state, or national political climate influenced the way that climate change information was used in SWAPs.” The paper, which included information from interviews with authors of the influential state plans, noted that some authors had difficulty getting approval to use terms like “climate change” and others relied on alternative language to “avoid arousing negative feedback from the public or elected officials.” SWAPs are science-based blueprints developed by each U.S. state and territory to proactively conserve wildlife and their habitats before they become endangered.
The potential effect of political influence on science is noticeable when looking at papers published in TWS journals over the past five administrations. During Republican administrations, fewer papers mention the term “climate change” when compared to the 30-year trend line of climate change mentions. There is also a spike in papers referencing “climate change” in the year following a Republican administration. This spike may indicate that some papers were held back from the scientific literature during those years or that the authors did not feel comfortable connecting climate change to the management implications of their research. It could also indicate opposing political pressure from Democratic administrations to produce counter messaging, after which we see mentions stabilizing around the general trend line. Regardless of the administration, references to climate change in TWS journals continue to climb at a steady rate, reflecting the growing impact of rising global temperatures on wildlife management.
The evolving lexicon of climate science and the role of TWS
While many wildlife professionals are struggling with how to navigate political pressures, nearly all that I have spoken with about their work and climate change have emphasized that their underlying science is unaffected by politics. In some cases, they even claim the science is improved through forcing authors to use more descriptive or precise language.
“It has happened before that great ideas were heralded by growing pains in the body politic, semi-comic to those onlookers not yet infected by them. The insignificance of what we conservationists, in our political capacity, say and do, does not detract from the significance of our persistent desire to do something.”- Aldo Leopold, Conservation Ethic, Journal of Forestry, Volume 31, Issue 6, October 1933
The challenge in turning that desire and science into something productive, however, lies in deciphering the patchwork of euphemisms that result from actual and perceived political pressures:
Climate change becomes “extreme weather”
Adaptation becomes “resilience”
Sea-level rise becomes “saltwater intrusion” or “nuisance flooding”
Species and habitat loss become “ecosystem shifts”
If the quality of science remains intact, why should TWS care about what terminology is used? Well, a 2022 study published in Ecological Economics, found that “even subtle word changes can significantly influence opinion and behavior, well beyond what is usually assumed.” Politicians, advocacy groups, lawyers and journalists on both sides of the aisle understand the power of words and can use that to drive desired outcomes.
During Republican administrations, fewer papers published in TWS journals mention the term “climate change” when compared to the 30-year trend line of climate change mentions. Credit: The Wildlife Society
Using shared terminology also allows professionals to collaborate, compare data, and build consensus. Substitutions may seem benign, but they can dilute urgency, obscure the underlying cause of scientific observations, and affect the ability of policymakers, the public and other scientists to find relevant research. By omitting familiar terms in favor of scientific precision or in response to political pressures, wildlife professionals may numb the public with scientific jargon. This may also reduce the impact of their findings with policy makers and other scientists who must sift through documents several hundred pages long all while maintaining the cognitive ability to quickly detect and decipher euphemistic language relevant to climate change.
Supporting climate change as a scientific inquiry
As we contemplate the role of TWS in the evolving lexicon around climate change, the Society remains vigilant in monitoring and promoting the highest science standards in setting wildlife policies and decisions. This includes continuing to support necessary scientific dialogue on climate change as it relates to wildlife through committees, Working Groups, policy positions and our publications. One example is the explicit inclusion of a “Climate Implications” section in the Journal of Wildlife Management, which helps institutionalize climate change as a subject of scientific inquiry as opposed to a political issue.
Such changes empower wildlife professionals to discuss climate change topics that they may otherwise view as being politically risky. Other organizations like the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA), a nonprofit trade association, also recognize the politically charged nature of climate change and follow a similar model for providing tools and support to agency employees in crafting SWAPs. In 2022, AFWA released the Second Edition of its Voluntary Guidance for States to Incorporate Climate Change into State Wildlife Action Plans and other Management Plans. Thanks in part to these efforts, all 50 states and territories now include climate change information within their plans—a significant increase from just four states in 2005.
Building dialogue for the future
To quote a Buffalo Springfield song from 1966, a time also characterized by divisive politics, “Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.” The politicization of science has legitimate consequences. Both political parties have used climate change to further partisan divides and wildlife professionals must now navigate the repercussions of science as a political issue. Your feedback can help shape how TWS moves forward. The goal is to reflect the unified voice of the profession in navigating an issue with consequences that extend far beyond our members and U.S. politics.
I encourage everyone in TWS to continue this dialogue. Talk to your representatives in Congress and in your state legislature, but don’t stop there. Reach out and let TWS know how we can best support you. Contact your representative on Council and discuss your big ideas for the future of the wildlife profession. Share your frustrations, success stories, challenges and disagreements. At the end of the day, the true issue we’re talking about is not which political party you belong to, but rather how we maintain the integrity of the wildlife profession, our mission and the legacy of TWS—an organization that has seen a lot of politics in its time.
“A professional organization, from which their political masters are excluded, offers the only hope for the young wildlife managers to achieve satisfactorily independent careers, and of really participating in the shaping of policies in the conservation field.”— W.L. McAtee, first editor of the Journal of Wildlife Management in a 1936 letter to Paul Errington regarding the formation of The Wildlife Society,
To read the climate change reports referenced in this article click the links below:
Join fellow TWS members in supporting this year’s Giving Tuesday campaign. The funds from this year’s campaign will support TWS policy engagement, including bipartisan dialogue with policymakers on the importance of wildlife science and wildlife professionals in resource management decisions.
Australian researchers discovered two distinct adaptations that help bettongs bite through the shells of nuts that would break the jaws of most animals. The rabbit-sized marsupials often eat seeds from the sandalwood genus, including Australia’s native peach, or quandong. While most bettong species typically feed on softer foods, the burrowing bettong (Bettongia lesueur) and the brush-tailed bettong (Bettongia penicillata) go for the harder-to-reach but more nutritious nuts. But researchers were surprised to find that these two species have different adaptations. The burrowing bettong has a shorter face, allowing it to bite harder than other species. Meanwhile, the part of the skull responsible for seed-biting on the brush-tailed bettong is reinforced, giving extra support. Because they also spend time searching for soft foods like roots, tubers and fungi, bettongs are ecosystem engineers. When they dig for food, they till the soil, helping with water filtration, seed germination and improving overall soil health. As the marsupials have been dwindling due to predation and habitat loss, researchers hope that the new study will help wildlife managers find better areas to reintroduce bettongs. “Understanding animal dietary needs and their associated adaptations is invaluable information for conservation of threatened species,” said Rex Mitchell, a coauthor on the study and researcher at Flinders University, in a release.
Researchers in Germany found that nearly a quarter of a local bat’s diet is made up of common pests. But only with enough nearby natural areas such as wetlands to supplement their diet. Researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research and the University of Potsdam tracked 128 common noctule bats (Nyctalus noctula) in northeastern Germany over the span of three years. They attached tiny radio transmitters to the bats, each weighing less than 1.5 grams, to track their movements while foraging. The researchers found that while farms make up about 95% of the landscape in the study area, the bats only spend around 55% of their time foraging there. While natural areas like forests, grasslands, wetlands and other water bodies only made up around 0.5% of the study area, bats spent about a third of their time foraging in these areas. “If we compare the proportionate habitat use with how frequently this habitat type occurs in the landscape, it becomes clear that bats only visit agricultural areas out of necessity and clearly prefer other landscape types,” said Marit Kelling, lead author of the paper and Ph.D. student at the University of Potsdam and Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, in a statement. In order to preserve these agricultural pest control services, the authors said it is critical to maintain natural habitats around farmland.
Hyper-realistic artificial intelligence-generated photos and videos are flooding social media, spanning the spectrum of wildlife footage from cute to terrifying.
These tools advance the way people perceive wildlife, potentially in ways detached from reality. In a society already distanced from nature and heavily influenced by digital and social media platforms, these generated depictions often outside the bounds of reality can distort public perception.
José Guerrero-Casado
Misinformation of this nature can sway real-world conservation outcomes. Some wildlife professionals are concerned that AI-generated videos may have the potential to influence attitudes, policy debates, and funding priorities. As AI-generated content becomes more common and harder to detect, the big question for conservationists, educators, and policymakers is: How do we ensure the public can distinguish fact from fiction?
José Guerrero-Casado and his collaborators addressed this topic recently in a paper published in Conservation Biology. For our latest Q&A, The Wildlife Society caught up with Guerrero-Casada, a professor at the University of Córdoba in Spain to discuss the potential problems AI might cause for wildlife conservation. His responses have been edited for style and brevity.
What inspired this work?
Previous research, including our own, highlights a concerning disconnect between society and the natural world—particularly in terms of knowledge about native wildlife. For example, children often recognize African charismatic mammals more easily than common native species found in their own surroundings. In this context, children can be easily confused by AI-created videos, which usually do not show real animal behaviors.
How do AI-generated videos affect wildlife?
The interaction between AI-generated videos and wildlife can be quite concerning. In societies where knowledge about nature is limited, and where gaining attention on social media with sensational or misleading content is prioritized over sharing accurate information for biodiversity conservation, the production of realistic AI-generated videos is likely to increase dramatically in the coming years. For example, videos created by AI that portray wild animals as pets can go viral on social media, shaping public perception in harmful ways, even increasing the demand of this animals as pets, which can increase the illegal wildlife trade.
What challenges do AI-generated videos pose to conservation?
As a general rule, conservation actions should be supported by society and all stakeholders to be successful, for which a well-informed people is essential. However, fake videos can spread misinformation, and therefore, they can decrease the public awareness about biodiversity, making the implementation of some conservation actions more difficult.
For instance, some AI-generated videos depict highly implausible or exaggerated human-wildlife interactions—such as large carnivores entering homes, attacking pets, even harming people. Or wolves or bears attacking livestock. These videos are often presented in a format that imitates low-quality security footage, which can make them appear more authentic, increasing the appearance of human-wildlife conflict. This misinformation may even lead to increased demand for controlling or eradicating these species, reinforcing negative attitudes toward wildlife.
What management or policy implications do AI videos have for conservation?
It is crucial to develop reliable tools for detecting AI-generated content. Currently, social media platforms often rely on users to disclose when a video has been created using AI. However, this approach is problematic because many users do not provide that information. Some platforms have started implementing automatic labeling systems that tag content as “AI-generated” when detected, even if the creator does not disclose it. Nevertheless, as numerous examples show, accurately identifying AI-generated videos remains a significant challenge. Improving these detection and labeling mechanisms is essential for preventing misinformation and protecting conservation efforts.
How can we protect the public from harmful AI-generated videos?
One of the most urgent actions is to improve public awareness and critical thinking around digital content. When users encounter suspicious wildlife videos, they should be encouraged to verify the information using reliable sources—such as scientific publications, environmental agency websites, reputable NGOs, or even trusted social media profiles that specialize in nature education.
What can wildlife managers do?
Wildlife managers should prioritize identifying AI-generated fake content as early as possible. When such content is detected, it is essential to inform the public that the material is not real and explain why it can be harmful. Providing information about the potential negative consequences—such as spreading misinformation and influencing negative attitudes toward wildlife—can help raise awareness and reduce the impact of these videos.
Shortened snouts, white patches, and floppy ears aren’t just cute quirks — they’re hallmark traits of “domestication syndrome,” the suite of changes that emerges when a subpopulation begins adapting to a new human-shaped niche. Urban environments may provide space for the experiment, recreating the ancient commensal niche that once drew wolves into the glow of human campsites, by giving raccoons the chance to scavenge our urban leftovers.
To test whether urban raccoons (Procyon lotor) exhibit one hallmark of domestication syndrome, shortened snouts, researchers recently analyzed 19,495 raccoon images submitted to iNaturalist from across the contiguous United States. Researchers calculated a snout-to-skull ratio for each raccoon by measuring snout length from the nose tip to the tear duct and skull length from the nose to the midpoint between the ear’s attachments.
The study found that urbanization exerts a measurable, directional, selective pressure, with urban raccoons consistently showing a 3.56% reduction in snout length compared to rural raccoons. Shorter snouts in urban areas persisted across climate zones even after accounting for naturally shorter snouts in warmer regions.
Raccoons may not make the perfect Christmas pet yet, but researchers have a rare gift—the chance to watch the first steps of domestication play out in real time, right outside our doors.
In some ways, the spread of invasive wild pigs across the U.S. resembles the path of a hurricane. They are nearly impossible to stop, destroying entire crops and ruining human property. The widespread destruction they engineer in native ecosystems may be even longer lasting than a tropical storm.
What’s more, new research shows that Missouri’s strategy of responding to the pig problem like it’s a hurricane with a collaborative task force is part of the reason for the state’s unique success in pig control.
“The incident command systems are really born out of disaster response systems,” said Megan Cross, a social scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services, describing the holistic program created for wild pig control.
In a study published recently in the Wildlife Society Bulletin, Cross and her co-author, Keith Carlisle, also with Wildlife Services, examined the reasons for Missouri’s unique success in controlling wild pigs (Sus scrofa).
Wild pigs can devastate human infrastructure, agriculture and the native ecosystem when they take hold. They are found in more than 30 states and populations are well-established in many, including some that border Missouri. But a bevy of new rules and measures have beaten back the rising tide of wild pig invasion in Missouri, turning the Show Me State into more of a We’ll Show You How State.
A change in pig perspective
As Cross and Carlisle began to look into the reason for the state’s success, they found that Missouri was unprepared when wild pigs started to appear there in the 1990s. Interviews with wildlife managers who were around in the early years revealed that Missouri approached the problem in much the same way as other states now overflowing with swine. They used limited state funds to trap and remove some animals while encouraging hunters and trappers to pick up the slack.
Pigs are invasive ecological engineers as they create wallows, changing the suitability for native species as well as agriculture. Credit: NASA
But this method has proven not to work. Other research has shown that states that open up hunting laws to allow for the public harvest of wild pigs may inadvertently create an economic incentive to promote the spread of wild pigs, especially when rules prohibiting the transportation of wild pigs are lax or nonexistent. Outfitters and guides can earn a lot from these kinds of hunts. In some cases, the potential for big money leads to political lobbies that seek to weaken anti-swine regulations.
In Missouri, it took more than a decade for the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) to change their approach. Cross and Carlisle conducted surveys with 37 people from 15 agencies and organizations in Missouri to determine what changed and how they achieved success.
The MDC began to realize that its current plan was not working by 2007, when the agency partnered with private landowners, the federal government and nonprofit organizations and began to get a handle on the growing problem. As part of Missouri’s strategy, the state banned the transport of pigs, which started a process to help control their spread.
By 2015, the Feral Hog Elimination Partnership had begun to form between the various stakeholders.
These partnerships were incredibly important, Cross said, as the MDC wouldn’t have been able to accomplish what they have without broad buy-in. It involved entities like the Missouri Farm Bureau, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Wildlife Services, the Nature Conservancy, private landowners, the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service.
By the end of 2019, most partners had banned wild pig hunting on their lands, but perhaps the most consequential move came when the U.S. Forest Service moved to stop the practice in the Mark Twain National Forest—a place where pig-hunting enthusiasts had already begun to transfer the animals for the sake of sport.
Cross said this move was critical due to the sheer size of Mark Twain, which is about 1.5 million acres of land across 29 counties. But the move was controversial, and the partnership needed to produce results that proved that the move, unpopular among some hunters and trappers, would actually work. The MDC began to implement pig removal via staff and partners in Mark Twain and other areas.
Wild pig strike team
The partnership created an incident command system (ICS)—a management team that coordinated pig removal efforts across lands managed or owned by the various state, federal, private and nonprofit stakeholders involved.
Wild pigs move through a soy crop. Credit: USDA/APHIS/Wildlife Services
The group divided the whole state into territories that “blurred the lines” between the stakeholders. Responding to hotline calls or other reports of pigs or pig damage, strike teams made up of MDC and staff from Wildlife Services could move freely onto lands managed by organizations participating in the Partnership. They conducted removal efforts and responded to reports of damage from private land owners.
“If you’re in Missouri and you have pigs on your property, the ICS is going to handle it,” Cross said.
The team created systematic baiting in the Mark Twain National Forest and other areas, set up traps on a grid system, and shared resources between partners in the ICS. They also shared information on best practices and strategies and the movement of pigs across the land. Finally, the ICS developed agreements with stakeholders in some neighboring states, allowing the strike teams to cross borders while tracking pigs. This helps to reduce the likelihood of the animals crossing the border and establishing populations in Missouri.
The ICS has been successful in reducing wild pig numbers in Mark Twain National Forest—perhaps their main stronghold 20 years ago—and in other parts of the state. “Full-time specialists were much more effective than people who were only trapping pigs part-time,” Cross said.
In effect, this system worked similarly to those set up to manage and respond to natural disasters like hurricanes or tornadoes. But while those systems are usually formed for a short period of time to respond to the disaster, Missouri’s swine control ICS has been around for years now—the longest such ICS that Cross and Carlisle could identify in scientific literature.
Aside from directly controlling wild pigs on the landscape, the ICS also coordinated with law enforcement officers in Missouri, which helps in the enforcement of laws against hunting and transporting the animals. The inability to hunt pigs on public land had already reduced the incentive for people to pull up with a trailer full of pigs and release them on public lands, Cross said.
“Missouri was a standout in the effort,” Cross said. “These laws and hunting closures are one piece of the puzzle. Their operations on the ground are also quite sophisticated.”
Click here to read The Wildlife Society’s issue statement on feral swine in North America.
You might brush aside the cobwebs in your door frame without thinking twice, but researchers have found that those fragile threads capture more than unlucky insects.
New research compared spiderwebs with active air samplers, wind-powered samplers, bare filter media, soil and swabbed vegetation surfaces as potential passive samplers of environmental DNA (eDNA) sources near the Perth Zoo, a rich controlled source of biodiverse species, as well as the Karakamia Wildlife Sanctuary in Western Australia. The researchers aimed to compare how different eDNA sampling methods perform, identify which substrates capture the most representative vertebrate biodiversity, and assess how distance from the source affects detection.
The results found that spider webs performed similarly to active air samplers, capturing the widest range of species and often detecting similar communities. Overall, the study found that each sampling method had its own strengths. Vegetation swabs were better at detecting tree-dwelling mammals, while water samples mostly detected aquatic species and semi-aquatic species. Overall, the study found that no single method captures everything.
Broadly the study concluded that choosing the right eDNA tool depends on the animals and habitats the researcher intends to monitor, and the methodology should consider the uneven distribution of eDNA across ecosystems. Combining different techniques may provide a more comprehensive picture of vertebrate biodiversity.
A century ago, wild turkeys were a rare sight in many parts of the United States. Populations were estimated to be 200,000 or less across the country. Through science-based conservation and management, education, and sound policy, the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) helped grow turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) populations to over 6 million.
In this episode,Katie Perkins and Ed Arnett of The Wildlife Society join Mark Hatfield, former national director of science and planning, Jen Davis, hunting and shooting R3 coordinator for Michigan and Teresa Carroll, education and outreach program coordinator of the NWTF at turkey camp to share how their work has contributed to this remarkable recovery.
Through a mentored hunt, we learn what it took to bring wild turkey populations back from the brink and the role hunting can play in wildlife conservation.
“Our Wild Lives” is The Wildlife Society’s weekly podcast, sharing compelling stories from wildlife professionals doing critical work around the world. Your hosts, Katie Perkins and Ed Arnett, of The Wildlife Society, bring you thought-provoking conversations with leading experts and emerging voices.
New episodes are released weekly wherever you get your podcasts. Please email comms@wildlife.org with feedback or future episode suggestions.
From left to right, Ed Arnett, Teresa Carroll, Jen Davis, Mark Hatfield and Katie Perkins at a turkey hunt camp. Credit: Katie Perkins
