Giraffes in North American zoos are genetic hybrids—giving them little conservation value to wild populations. While giraffes used to be classified as a single species with multiple subspecies, new research shows that there are actually four distinct species of giraffes that rarely interact—though they can interbreed. With less than 100,000 individuals between the four species, all four were listed as vulnerable by the IUCN last year, with some populations classified as critically endangered. A recent study analyzing the genetics of 52 giraffes in North American zoos showed that only eight giraffes were about 90% genetically similar to a given giraffe species. The remaining zoo giraffes were genetic mixes of two or even three species. “Captive breeding programs in zoos would be better off restarting with fresh stocks from the wild, if they want to maintain assurance stocks for the purposes of conservation,” said senior study author Alfred Roca, researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, in an interview with the university. The study’s authors recommended phasing out hybridized giraffes in captive breeding programs and including genetics in conservation decisions to benefit giraffe populations in Africa.
Many of us have worked for decades to protect wildlife, restore habitats, and ensure that science remains central to decision-making. Through our dedication, we have made significant strides in wildlife conservation.
Since January 1, 2025, our profession has faced an onslaught of changes that make our dedicated work even harder.
Across the United States, our profession has watched programs lose critical funding. Colleagues are rethinking the trajectories of their careers and agencies struggle to do more with less. Federal pressures have weakened the programs that safeguard the natural resources we manage in the public trust.
The Wildlife Society stands firm in our belief that science-based, transparent wildlife management must be supported and sustained, not sidelined. We’ve heard from our community, who are feeling the strain and uncertainty. We know that the future of our field depends on our ability to make our voices heard where it matters most: on Capitol Hill. That’s what we intend to do.
This Giving Tuesday, TWS is launching a new public campaign to build momentum on the Hill and elevate the voices of wildlife professionals to ensure the value of wildlife conservation is fully understood.
With your support, we will
Meet with members of Congress to advocate for strong, well-funded, science-based management
Amplify the voices of our members through public engagement and storytelling
Reinforce that effective wildlife management requires stable investment, collaboration, and transparency
Wildlife professionals know better than anyone that conservation takes persistence, teamwork and long-term commitment. Policy work is no different. Every contribution, no matter the size, helps us take one more step toward restoring the resources and respect our profession deserves.
After World War I, dozens of wooden steamships were brought to Mallows Bay in the Potomac River so a local company could burn them and scavenge the remains for scrap metal. Over the next century, the skeletons of many of these ships have been partly swallowed by the local environment. A new paper mapping the Ghost Fleet was published in Scientific Data, showing that the ships have become a haven for local wildlife, including birds like osprey (Pandion haliaetus) as well as several marine species. “I’m sure that this was, in many ways, environmentally catastrophic when it first happened,” study coauthor and Duke University marine biologist David Johnston told Scientific American. “But life is so strong that it just takes that and makes it its own.” The ships are a part of the Mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary, a protected ecological and historic site established in 2019 using data collected via drones by Jonston’s Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing Lab. As factors like sea level rise continue to threaten marine and coastal environments, Johnston said the new maps will help them understand how the biodiversity and ecosystem function of each ship occurs “in a rapidly changing world.”
For years, conservation scientists have struggled to predict the locations of critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, often relying on models of environmental signals to estimate their movements.
But understanding where and why these whales travel is critically essential as interest groups and researchers work to reduce deadly entanglements with lobster gear and collisions with vessels —two of the leading causes of right whale deaths on the east coast of the United States.
Now, after years of uncertainty, scientists may have found a breakthrough by mapping the distribution of key zooplankton prey.
“This makes sense ecologically,” said Camille Ross, an associate research scientist at the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life. “Right whale distributions are likely prey-driven, so increased abundance of [certain zooplankton] in a region should theoretically lead to higher right whale density, assuming whales can detect those high-density prey patches.”
Historically, Cape Cod Bay and the Great South Channel have been crucial feeding grounds for whales, particularly in late winter and spring. In this image North Atlantic right whale a mother and her calf are foraging in the Gulf of Maine. Credit: New England Aquarium, taken under NMFS permit # 25739
Researchers are gaining a clearer picture of the whales’ movements, renewing hope in managing one of the United States’ most imperiled species.
ID by land and by sea
North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) were hunted to the brink of extinction in the 20th century by the whaling industry. Even though that ended decades ago, late maturity has delayed recovery. Contemporary recovery is also hampered by ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear—prominent causes of whale death.
To help facilitate recovery and mitigate human-caused death, researchers have monitored the species extensively from birth for decades. Pilots fly systematic track lines over known whale habitats, photographing and recording individuals from above, while research vessels collect additional sightings and environmental data from the water’s surface. Despite this work, gaps remain as researchers can’t be everywhere at once. Surveys cover limited areas and times of year. Spotting whales can be dependent on weather, equipment, and whale behavior.
In the past, researchers have relied on chlorophyll-a as a proxy for whale food to help predict where the species was likely to be. Chlorophyll-a is a green pigment used by tiny plant-like organisms called phytoplankton for photosynthesis. Researchers used the amount of the pigment detected by satellites to measure the amount of phytoplankton. Zooplankton, small oceanic organisms, eat phytoplankton. Previous models assumed that more phytoplankton would mean more zooplankton, which would then attract the whales.
A new perspective
After years of relying on broad environmental indicators like chlorophyll-a to estimate where endangered North Atlantic right whales might appear, researchers are now taking a more targeted approach that focuses on the ocean features that matter most to the whales themselves: the distribution of their prey.
Calanus finmarchicus is a species of copepod and a component of the zooplankton, small oceanic organisms, that the North Atlantic right whale feed upon. Credit: Cameron Thompson/ Northeastern Regional Association of Coastal Ocean Observing Systems
In a joint effort between the Anderson Cabot Center, the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences and the University of Maine published in Endangered Species Research, Ross and her collaborators used statistical models to combine whale sightings with environmental variables and data on three zooplankton prey species: Calanus finmarchicus, Centropages typicus and species of the genus Pseudocalanus.
By incorporating these three species that the right whales eat, the models better predicted right whale movements than those that included chlorophyll-a more generally. In other words, by linking whale sightings directly to their prey, scientists can more accurately predict where the animals are likely to appear, in hopes of mitigating conflicts and understanding their movement in a changing ocean.
Looking to the future
Historically, Cape Cod Bay and the Great South Channel have been crucial feeding grounds for whales, particularly in late winter and spring. However, the timing and intensity of prey availability are shifting in response to climate change. “The timing of habitat use is just becoming less predictable than it was in the early 2000s,” said Ross. “That’s why models like this are so valuable; they help managers adjust as conditions change.”
While this study focuses on past and current patterns, researchers could expand future models to forecast whale distributions under climate change scenarios, thereby aiding in the management of North Atlantic right whales.
YouTube influencer Logan Paul’s viral Tweet on invasive lionfish removal turned the species into a global talking point on social media, demonstrating how celebrity influencers can direct public attention to ecological issues. Such virality is not a one-off event. Social media has become a powerful driver in shaping the public understanding of invasive species, but who is the driver, and what’s powering the engine? New research examining invasive species on social media revealed that just 1% of users created 60% of all retweeted invasive species content. Domestic cats (Felis catus) emerged as one of the most mentioned and highly contentious invasive species mentioned. Additionally, engagement spiked around particular locations. The Great Lakes and Florida were specifically trendy, highlighting how public concern can be geographically focused. Understanding user-generated content and engagement provides a continuous stream of information that can serve as “human sensors” for public understanding of wildlife management more broadly. Prominent contributors’ attention can be directed to specific species or events raising awareness, sparking debate and even influencing conservation priorities, underscoring the growing intersection of ecology, media and public perception.
Each night, a constellation of glowing nets drifts through the dark seas, illuminated by glow sticks and LED lights in a growing effort to prevent sea turtles from being caught in coastal driftnet fisheries. However, the effort comes with waste. LED lights require replaceable batteries, and glow sticks only last 24 hours. Conservationists have raised concerns over the sustainability of the practice as well as the rising costs fishers face with this single-use method, as dead batteries and burned-out plastic glow sticks pile up with every trip to sea. Responding to the concerns, a team of researchers designed a solar-powered buoy light that integrates directly into standard fishing gear, harnessing sunlight during the day and then flashing through the night. When tested at sea, the solar-powered flashing nets cut sea turtle bycatch by 63% without significantly impacting the fishers’ haul. The flashing solar lights performed the same as, and sometimes better than, the other light-based methods tested over the past decade. This innovation offers a potential win-win, reducing the impact on sea turtles while providing fishers with a practical, low-waste alternative.
The Journal of Wildlife Management is a benefit of membership in The Wildlife Society. Published eight times annually, it is one of the world’s leading scientific journals covering wildlife science, management and conservation, focusing on aspects of wildlife that can assist management and conservation.
Join today for access to The Journal of Wildlife Management and all the other great benefits of TWS membership.
In the featured article for this issue, researchers addressed how to better integrate the population and behavior of hunters with the population and behavior of waterfowl with a new modeling framework.
A special section of the issue features studies adopted from the now Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management, published until recently by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Journal of Wildlife Management is publishing “orphaned” articles that were somewhere in the process of publication at the Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management. The latter journal ceased publication due to budget cuts by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Articles in this issue include piscicide use in fish, lead exposure in waterfowl, long-term monitoring of Indiana bats in Kentucky and the conservation genetics of imperiled map turtle species.
Heli-skiing in the backcountry of south-central British Columbia may be driving down numbers of southern mountain caribou already facing a growing litany of existential threats from their last remote sanctuaries.
“More than half of the herds have been extirpated in recent years,” and mostly in the southern end of the range, said TWS member Michael Noonan, an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia Okanagan.
But new research reveals that much of prime heli-skiing territory doesn’t overlap with the winter habitat of southern mountain caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou), pointing to a potential pathway to reduce pressure that skiers inadvertently cause.
Southern mountain caribou have declined precipitously in recent decades throughout their range, which includes much of the southern two-thirds of British Columbia and the Alberta Rocky Mountains. There are various reasons for this drop, but the main problem relates to forestry practices that have opened up territory for white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and moose (Alces alces). An influx of these ungulates in areas that were formerly old-growth forest has led to an increase in predators like gray wolves (Canis lupus), which also incidentally prey on caribou. The loss of old-growth forest has also led to a decline in lichen forage. Southern mountain caribou have been listed as endangered under Canada’s federal Species at Risk Act since 2002.
Southern mountain caribou are considered endangered in Canada. Credit: Cory Legebokow
Backcountry problems
Meanwhile, in interior British Columbia, heli-skiing operations occur within a vast area of public land, about 40,000 square kilometers of which overlaps closely with caribou habitat. Caribou in the Monashee and Selkirk mountain ranges have declined at a faster rate than populations farther north. But caribou migrate to higher elevation areas, which have deeper snow, during the winter to get away from the competition from other ungulates and the predators they attract. “Those are just the type of habitats that make for great skiing,” Noonan said.
Noonan and his colleague Ryan Gill, an independent wildlife consultant, wanted to see what effect backcountry heli-skiing was having on caribou. A master’s student had conducted unpublished thesis work in 2007 showing that caribou living in areas with more heli-skiing and snowmobiling had higher stress levels than those in areas without. But little research had been done since then, and the heli-skiing industry often argued that their activities had little effect on caribou, despite concern from the provincial government. “They’ve been at loggerheads on this issue for decades,” Gill said.
High elevation, late winter habitat in the Kirbyville Creek area in British Columbia is highly suitable for southern mountain caribou in the late winter and late summer. Heli-skiing tracks are visible on the peak in the background. Credit: Aaron Reid
Researchers had been monitoring GPS-collared southern mountain caribou for years throughout the Columbia and Rocky mountains. Then, in the winter of 2020-2021, quarantine restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic suddenly stopped skiing in the area.
Caribou and the anthropause
In a study published in 2023 in Animal Conservation, Noonan, Gill and their colleagues looked at four winters starting in 2018-2019 and finishing in 2021-2022, encompassing the time before, during and after the quarantine. “COVID provided us an opportunity to see what was happening when humans were removed from the landscape while everything else was held constant,” Gill said.
They found that southern mountain caribou responded to the lack of recreationists in the interior of British Columbia. “We saw caribou home ranges were much bigger—almost twice as big during the period where skiers were absent,” Gill said. But when the helicopters and skiers returned in the winter of 2021-2022, the caribou range contracted to pre-pandemic levels once again.
But the researchers still couldn’t tell directly where those effects were occurring. In a study published recently in the Journal of Wildlife Management, Gill, Noonan and their colleagues overlaid GPS tracking collar data of caribou with information they pulled from Strava, a phone- or watch-based fitness tracking application. Strava uploads the location data taken from publicly available accounts onto an anonymous heat map that shows user activity. Heli-skiing involves helicopter drop-offs to remote mountain peaks in the backcountry for skiers who pay top dollar in search of “champagne powder” and fresh tracks. “These [areas] are so remote that there’s no way that it was someone going for a jog in the winter—we’re pretty confident these were skiers,” Gill said.
The team modeled the presence of skiers and compared it to caribou presence. They identified about 400 square kilometers of conflict area often used by both caribou and skiers. This was out of 3,116 square kilometers of area they identified as suitable for heli-skiing.
“Only a small percentage of the total area is a high-conflict area,” Gill said.
Flatter areas that are high elevation like this is suitable for caribou and also sought after by snowmobilers but less suitable for skiers. Credit: Ryan Gill
This is good news, as it presents plenty of opportunity for skiers to use the backcountry area with less effect on caribou. However, it’s difficult to know how amenable the industry will be to taking these findings into consideration—Noonan said he and his team know nothing about the logistics of the industry in terms of optimal ski areas, helicopter staging locations or backcountry lodging. But there are more than 20 operators in the area, each of which has different practices.
But these two studies have opened more dialogue about possible measures to prevent unnecessary interactions between skiers and caribou. “It’s started to move the needle, I think, on this issue,” Noonan said.
While recreation like skiing definitely has a much lesser effect than logging and predator infusion, Gill said that the only southern mountain caribou herds that are stable are due to wildlife managers taking as many measures as they can to boost numbers. This includes habitat restoration, maternity pens, supplemental feeding, predator control and moose suppression.
In order for the population to improve in the heli-skiing areas, Gill said it’s important to consider all activities affecting caribou, including recreation.
This article features research that was published in a TWS peer-reviewed journal. Individual online access to all TWS journal articles is a benefit of membership. Join TWS now to read the latest in wildlife research.
Whether biologist or park ranger, ecologist or conservationists, most wildlife professionals are driven by passion for their work and the natural world. While this passion is most often expressed in sweaty field clothing or late nights in the laboratory, a love for conservation can also inspire music.
This episode brings together members of The Wildlife Society, Emily Thoroski, and Merlin Shoesmith, to show how science and art can collide.
Emily shares how she works with children in her school workshops to co-write songs about nature. Merlin brings a lifetime of wildlife experience, including an incredible story about facing over a dozen grizzlies in Yellowstone. Together, they explore the balance between the scientist’s need to explain everything and the songwriter’s goal to say just enough.
Their song “The Eyes of the Wolf,” reimagines Aldo Leopold’s famous insight about predators and ecological balance, turning a key conservation lesson into music.
“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.
Hellbenders in Kentucky have likely disappeared from more than half of the streams they previously lived in.
A new environmental DNA (eDNA) study tested new and historic sites for Eastern hellbenders (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis). Researchers found only 44% of streams with past records of hellbenders currently have hellbender eDNA.
“It’s loss of habitat, through and through,” said TWS member Sarah Tomke, a postdoctoral researcher in disease ecology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and lead author on the study. “The rivers have changed, and the quality isn’t what it used to be.”
Out of the 90 sites sampled, the team only detected hellbender eDNA at 22 of them. “I was really hoping for more,” Tomke said.
Searching for the snot otter
Historically, the hellbender range covered most of Kentucky. But waterways have changed a lot in the past several decades, with silt covering the bottom of many streams. Runoff and sedimentation from mining, development and agriculture fill up the nooks and crannies in the rocks that the salamanders rely on to hide and lay their eggs. “It touches every single life stage,” Tomke said.
Hellbender snorkel surveys are labor intensive and slow going. Credit: Sarah Tomke
Courtney Hayes, a wildlife biologist at KDFWR, said the lack of knowledge is due in part to their cryptic nature. “Sightings are so rare that the species requires a lot of time and effort to study,” she said. Traditional surveys include snorkeling in shallow montane streams, peering under rocks for the animals. Sometimes crews of five or six people must lift up huge boulders in their search, which can be disruptive to the streambed.
But eDNA is much easier, and faster. For a study published recently in Freshwater Biology, Tomke and her advisor Steven Price with the University of Kentucky Department of Forestry and Natural Resources sampled 90 sites, including 27 with historical sightings. They found only 22 sites with hellbender eDNA.
Tomke then used occupancy modeling to analyze what factors influenced hellbender presence. She found that stream substrate was most important, and that hellbenders were more likely to be in streambeds made of gravel or cobble with big, chunky rocks or bedrock. “You’ll find then under enormous rock slabs the size of the hood of a car,” she said. The females find a mate who has a large den under a rock. They lay their eggs and take off. The male—known as a denmaster—will guard them until hatching. They can live up to 25 years in the wild and even more in captivity. “They can spend their entire life under that one rock.”
Tomke sampled three times throughout the year to determine which environmental factors affected detection. She found the fall was the worst time to sample for eDNA as an excess of organic matter interfered with the molecular analysis of the water samples, making the eDNA more difficult to detect. But salamanders are a lot more active during the breeding season in late August and early September, which leads to more genetic material in the water. Tomke found that was the best time for eDNA detection.
Hellbenders, which can grow up to 29 inches long, are the largest salamanders in the Americas. Credit: Sarah Tomke
Making sense of declines
Because most of the sites were in good-looking streams in the Appalachians, Tomke expected to see more positive results. But it was clear that the declining quality of Kentucky’s streams is having an effect on hellbenders.
Tomke said that stream habitat restoration is our best attempt to preserve hellbenders in the state. “Our stream quality has drastically declined across the country—this isn’t just a Kentucky problem,” Tomke said. Indeed, research in Virginia has shown that upstream tree cover was the major factor in determining whether male denmasters cannibalized their eggs before hatching downstream—possibly because tree cover improved the water chemistry and decreased silt levels.
Eastern hellbenders are currently up for listing under the Endangered Species Act in all of the 15 states where they’re found. The Ozark subspecies (C. a. bishopi) was listed as federally endangered in 2011.
While Hayes said KDFWR still doesn’t have a great grasp on the current range of hellbenders in Kentucky, she said that the results of the study made the team more hopeful that hellbenders still persist across the state, despite declines. After the study, KDFWR successfully captured hellbenders at one stream where Tomke had detected eDNA, just at a different location along the stream. They also trapped hellbenders at another eDNA positive site that had historical records of the species.
While they haven’t found any new populations using eDNA so far, Hayes said this is partly due to the fact that they use eDNA in combination with historical records to create sampling strategies that prioritize areas where the likelihood of finding hellbenders is high. “For example, streams with a historical record and positive eDNA results will be higher priority for further surveys than a stream with a historical record and negative eDNA results,” Hayes said.
Sarah Tomke takes a photograph of an Eastern hellbender in a Kentucky stream. Credit: Steven Price
Hays said that KDFWR doesn’t currently consider positive eDNA results as confirmation of hellbender presence, but rather a tool for creating more targeted, cost-effective snorkeling and live trapping sampling strategies. “We are hoping to continue following Sarah’s methodology of eDNA collection and analysis as we locate areas that appear to have good habitat for hellbenders but we have not been able to confirm their presence or absence yet,” Hayes said.
While still present in many streams, hellbenders are long living. But there is only one known actively reproducing population of hellbenders in the state, which is “really scary,” Tomke says. Besides of the environmental implications of losing any species, Tomke doesn’t want to see the hellbenders completely disappear for another reason: “Hellbenders have been essentially unchanged for millions of years,” she said. “To me, they are these ancient creatures that I don’t want to go away.”
