This volume reviews, for the first time, the broad range of issues that affect the welfare of commercially farmed ratites. Although ratites incorporate several families of flightless birds this book focuses on the most commonly farmed ratites, the ostrich, emu and rhea. The readers are taken on a journey through all sectors of the industry, which include breeding, incubation, hatching, brooding, rearing, growth, transport and processing, with an emphasis on husbandry and management protocols that can impact bird welfare and health. Also discussed is the structure and sensory innervation of the skin and digits of the birds, and the potential welfare implications of industry practices on these structures. Each chapter in this volume focuses on a particular aspect of the commercial farming of ratites with contributing authors from a broad range of disciplines.

The Apostle Islands are a solitary place of natural beauty, with red sandstone cliffs, secluded beaches, and a rich and unique forest surrounded by the cold, blue waters of Lake Superior. But this seemingly pristine wilderness has been shaped and reshaped by humans. The people who lived and worked in the Apostles built homes, cleared fields, and cut timber in the island forests. The consequences of human choices made more than a century ago can still be read in today's wild landscapes. A Storied Wilderness traces the complex history of human interaction with the Apostle Islands. In the 1930s, resource extraction made it seem like the islands' natural beauty had been lost forever. But as the island forests regenerated, the ways that people used and valued the islands changed - human and natural processes together led to the rewilding of the Apostles. In 1970, the Apostles were included in the national park system and ultimately designated as the Gaylord Nelson Wilderness. How should we understand and value wild places with human pasts? James Feldman argues convincingly that such places provide the opportunity to rethink the human place in nature. The Apostle Islands are an ideal setting for telling the national story of how we came to equate human activity with the loss of wilderness characteristics, when in reality all of our cherished wild places are the products of the complicated interactions between human and natural history. Watch the book trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frECwkA6oHs

Each fall and spring, millions of birds travel the Pacific Flyway, the westernmost of the four major North American bird migration routes. The landscapes they cross vary from wetlands to farmland to concrete, inhabited not only by wildlife but also by farmers, suburban families, and major cities. In the twentieth century, farmers used the wetlands to irrigate their crops, transforming the landscape and putting migratory birds at risk. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service responded by establishing a series of refuges that stretched from northern Washington to southern California. What emerged from these efforts was a hybrid environment, where the distinctions between irrigated farms and wildlife refuges blurred. Management of the refuges was fraught with conflicting priorities and practices. Farmers and refuge managers harassed birds with shotguns and flares to keep them off private lands, and government pilots took to the air, dropping hand grenades among flocks of geese and herding the startled birds into nearby refuges. Such actions masked the growing connections between refuges and the land around them. Seeking Refuge examines the development and management of refuges in the wintering range of migratory birds along the Pacific Flyway. Although this is a history of efforts to conserve migratory birds, the story Robert Wilson tells has considerable salience today. Many of the key places migratory birds use - the Klamath Basin, California's Central Valley, the Salton Sea - are sites of recent contentious debates over water use. Migratory birds connect and depend on these landscapes, and farmers face pressure as water is reallocated from irrigation to other purposes. In a time when global warming promises to compound the stresses on water and migratory species, Seeking Refuge demonstrates the need to foster landscapes where both wildlife and people can thrive.

Designed for use in the field, this small-format guide provides valuable information on techniques for environmental audit. Information is contained on the rationale and history of Phase 1 survey, giving advice on planning the survey, habitat mapping, and compiling target notes. This edition is a reprint of ISBN 0-86139-637-5.

Bees play a vital and irreplaceable role in pollinating our flowers, fruits and vegetables. The more bees in your garden the healthier, more productive and more pleasant a place it will be. Yet bees are declining rapidly and many people, even if they do not wish to keep bees themselves, are asking what can be done on an individual basis to help the bee. This book is a response to that request. It will demonstrate in one accessible volume how each of us can play our part in providing a bee-friendly environment, no matter how much gardening space and/or time we may have. It includes: * How bees forage, what bees you can expect to find in your garden and what plants are best for them. * Why honey bees are so important; what they need to thrive and how they detect and access those requirements; and what varieties of plants are best suited to provide those needs. * How the gardener can offer and maintain a bee-friendly garden, followed by a season-by-season account of what beefriendly plants are in flower and when, and what jobs the gardener can be doing during these times to help bees thrive. * A gazetteer of selected bee-friendly plants, arranged by type of plant in seasonal sub-sections. * Illustrative, practical planting plans, including a culinary herb garden, a potager, a wild flower garden, and a 3 seasons traditional border.

Yellowstone National Park, a global icon of conservation and natural beauty, was born at the most improbable of times: the American Gilded Age, when altruism seemed extinct and society’s vision seemed focused solely on greed and growth. Perhaps that is why the park’s “creation myth” recounted how a few saintlike pioneer conservationists labored to set aside this unique wilderness against all odds, when in fact, the establishment of Yellowstone was the result of complex social, scientific, economic, and aesthetic forces. Paul Schullery and Lee Whittlesey, both longtime students of Yellowstone’s complex history, present the first full account of how the fairy-tale origins of the park found universal public acceptance, and of the long process by which the myth was reconsidered and replaced with a more realistic and ultimately more satisfying story.

This book brings together scientific evidence and experience relevant to the practical conservation of wild bees. The authors worked with an international group of bee experts and conservationists to develop a global list of interventions that could benefit wild bees. They range from protecting natural habitat to controlling disease in commercial bumblebee colonies. For each intervention, the book summarises studies captured by the Conservation Evidence project, where that intervention has been tested and its effects on bees quantified. The result is a thorough guide to what is known, or not known, about the effectiveness of bee conservation actions throughout the world. Bee Conservation is the first in a series of synopses that will cover different species groups and habitats, gradually building into a comprehensive summary of evidence on the effects of conservation interventions for all biodiversity throughout the world. By making evidence accessible in this way, we hope to enable a change in the practice of conservation, so it can become more evidence-based. We also aim to highlight where there are gaps in knowledge. Evidence from all around the world is included. If there appears to be a bias towards evidence from northern European or North American temperate environments, this reflects a current bias in the published research that is available to us. Conservation interventions are grouped primarily according to the relevant direct threats, as defined in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s Unified Classification of Direct Threats.

In the first decades of the twentieth century, fish in the Great Lakes and Puget Sound, seals in the North Pacific, and birds across North America faced a common threat: over harvesting that threatened extinction for many species. Progressive era conservationists saw a need for government intervention to protect threatened animals. And because so many species migrated across international political boundaries, their protectors saw the necessity of international conservation agreements. In The Dawn of Conservation Diplomacy, Kurkpatrick Dorsey examines the first three comprehensive wildlife conservation treaties in history, all between the United States and Canada: the Inland Fisheries Treaty of 1908, the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention of 1911, and the Migratory Bird Treaty of 1916. In his highly readable text, Dorsey argues that successful conservation treaties came only after conservationists learned to marshal scientific evidence, public sentiment, and economic incentives in their campaigns for protective legislation. The first treaty, intended to rescue the overfished boundary waters, failed to gain the necessary support and never became law. Despite scientific evidence of the need for conservation, politicians, and the general public were unable to counter the vocal opposition of fishermen across the continent. A few years later, conservationists successfully rallied popular sympathy for fur seals threatened with slaughter and the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention was adopted. By the time of the Migratory Bird Treaty of 1916, the importance of aesthetic appeal was clear: North American citizens were joining chapters of the Audubon Society in efforts to protect beautiful songbirds. Conservationists also presented economic evidence to support their efforts as they argued that threatened bird species provided invaluable service to farmers. Dorsey recounts the story of each of these early treaties, examining the scientific research that provided the basis for each effort, acknowledging the complexity of the issues, and presenting the personalities behind the politics. He argues that these decades-old treaties both directly affect us today and offer lessons for future conservation efforts.

The 2nd international tagging and tracking symposium was held in San Sebastian, Spain, in October 2007, seven years after the first symposium was held in Hawaii in 2000 (Sibert and Nielsen 2001). In the intervening seven years, there have been major advances in both the capability and reliability of electronic tags and analytical approaches for geolocation of tagged animals in marine habitats. Advances such as increased data storage capacity, sensor development, and tag miniaturization have allowed researchers to track a much wider array of marine animals, not just large and charismatic species. Importantly, data returned by these tags are now being used in population analyses and movement simulations that can be directly utilized in stock assessments and other management applications.

Papers in this volume are divided into three sections, the first describing insights into behavior achieved using acoustic, archival, and novel tags, the second reporting on advances in methods of geolocation, while the final section includes contributions where tag data have been used in management of marine species. Accurate documentation of animal movements and behaviors in critical marine habitats are impossible to obtain with other technologies. The management and conservation of marine species are critical in today s changing ocean environment and as electronic tags become more accurate and functional for a diversity of organisms their application continues to grow, setting new standards in science and technology."

"The Game of Conservation" is a brilliantly crafted and highly readable examination of nature protection around the world.
Twentieth-century nature conservation treaties often originated as attempts to regulate the pace of killing rather than as attempts to protect animal habitat. Some were prompted by major breakthroughs in firearm techniques, such as the invention of the elephant gun and grenade harpoons, but agricultural development was at least as important as hunting regulations in determining the fate of migratory species. The treaties had many defects, yet they also served the goal of conservation to good effect, often saving key species from complete extermination and sometimes keeping the population numbers at viable levels. It is because of these treaties that Africa is dotted with large national parks, that North America has an extensive network of bird refuges, and that there are any whales left in the oceans. All of these treaties are still in effect today, and all continue to influence nature-protection efforts around the globe.
Drawing on a wide variety of primary and secondary sources, Mark Cioc shows that a handful of treaties--all designed to protect the world's most commercially important migratory species--have largely shaped the contours of global nature conservation over the past century. The scope of the book ranges from the African savannahs and the skies of North America to the frigid waters of the Antarctic.

This book by the renowned naturalist and writer Paul A. Johnsgard tells the complex biological and environmental story of the western Great Plains under the black-tailed prairie dog's reign-and then under a brief but devastating century of human dominion. An introduction to the ecosystem of the shortgrass prairie, Prairie Dog Empire describes in clear and detailed terms the habitat and habits of black-tailed prairie dogs; their subsistence, seasonal behavior, and the makeup of their vast colonies; and the ways in which their "towns" transform the surrounding terrain-for better or for worse. Johnsgard recounts how this terrain has in turn been transformed over the past century by the destruction of prairie dogs and their grassland habitats. This book also offers a rare and invaluable close-up view of the rich history and threatened future of the creature once considered the "keystone" species of the western plains. Included are maps, drawings, and listings of more than two hundred natural grassland preserves where many of the region's native plants and animals may still be seen and studied.

One of the most dire consequences of global climate change for coral reefs is the increased frequency and severity of mass coral bleaching events. This volume provides information on the causes and consequences of coral bleaching for coral reef ecosystems, from the level of individual colonies to ecosystems and at different spatial scales, as well as a detailed analysis of how it can be detected and quantified. Future scenarios based on modelling efforts and the potential mechanisms of acclimatisation and adaptation are reviewed. The much more severe coral bleaching events experienced on Caribbean coral reefs (compared with those of the Indo-Pacific) are discussed, as are the differences in bleaching susceptibility and recovery that have been observed on smaller geographic scales.

This engaging personal account of one of America's most contested wildlife conservation campaigns has as its central character the black-footed ferret. Once feared extinct, and still one of North America's rarest mammals, the black-footed ferret exemplifies the ecological, social, and political challenges of conservation in the West, including the risks involved with intensive captive breeding and reintroduction to natural habitat.
David Jachowski draws on more than a decade of experience working to save the ferret. His unique perspective and informative anecdotes reveal the scientific and human aspects of conservation as well as the immense dedication required to protect a species on the edge of extinction.
By telling one story of conservation biology in practice--its routine work, triumphs, challenges, and inevitable conflicts--this book gives readers a greater understanding of the conservation ethic that emerged on the Great Plains as part of one of the most remarkable recovery efforts in the history of the Endangered Species Act.

It is the world's best-known national park, with a controversy that no amount of snow can bury. Rosy-cheeked snowmobilers extol the glories of riding through a winter wonderland, while environmentalists decry the noise, the air pollution, and the harm to wildlife. There seems to be no room for compromise. In this first book-length study of winter use in any national park, Michael Yochim examines the long standing conflict between the National Park Service and groups who favor or object to snowmobiles in Yellowstone. By illuminating the fundamental drivers of the controversy - American values, community identity, industry influence, and political tampering with policy - he doesn't merely document the debate but shows how increasingly politicized battles have taken a toll on the autonomy of the NPS and its ability to protect the park. The debate itself, Yochim observes, is not over whether one mode of transportation is more appropriate than another, but whether it is more important to embrace nature's sacredness or one's personal liberties. With motorized snow travel sanctioned for forty years, snowmobilers see their sport as an expression of freedom and rugged individualism, and attempts to curtail their activity as un-American. Conversely, environmentalists see parks as sacred space, so snowmobiles to them are inappropriate in what they regard as a temple. Yochim discusses the political and legal intricacies of arguments on both sides in a balanced presentation - one that does not spare the NPS from close scrutiny - and he examines influence on the Park Service from both political parties. Along the way, he teases out the role of science as a policy guide, the place of values in the controversy, and the influence of strident personalities in the debate. In tracing the history of motorized winter recreational use of the park from the earliest days of winter visitation in the 1930s to the present, Yochim shows that what is at stake is more than recreation in one park but the very mission of the NPS - and whether political machinations will keep it from protecting the park and accomplishing that mission. ""Yellowstone and the Snowmobile"" allows readers to better understand this controversy, one that is unlikely to go away any time soon.

This is a comprehensive approach to the human dimensions of fish and wildlife management.As human populations around the world continue to expand, reconciling nature conservation with human needs and aspirations is imperative. The emergence in recent decades of the academic field of human dimensions of fish and wildlife management is a proactive response to this complex problem."Wildlife and Society" brings together leading researchers in the range of specialties that are relevant to the study of human dimensions of fish and wildlife work around the globe to provide theoretical and historical context as well as a demonstration of tools, methodologies, and idea-sharing for practical implementation and integration of practices.The chapters document the progress on key issues and offer a multifaceted presentation of this truly interdisciplinary field. The book: presents an overview of the changing culture of fish and wildlife management; considers social factors creating change in fish and wildlife conservation; explores how to build the social component into the philosophy of wildlife management; discusses legal and institutional factors; and, examines social perspectives on contemporary fish and wildlife management issues."Wildlife and Society" is uniquely comprehensive in its approach to presenting the past, present, and future of human dimensions of fish and wildlife research and application. It offers perspectives from a wide variety of academic disciplines as well as presenting the views of practitioners from the United States, Europe, Africa, and Latin America. It is an important new reference for anyone concerned with fish and wildlife management or environmental conservation and protection.

This study analyses the Mozambique experience of protecting and promoting fisheries with an emphasis on exploring geographical indication (GI) protection for the white prawn of Mozambique. It is achieved through an in-depth review of data collected from local stakeholders, reports based on past technical support provided by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the literature on GIs, and international and regional treaties and reports, among others. Fishery products such as Mozambican prawns are highly recommended for GI certification, as they have high demand from both local and international consumers

"Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Natural Resource Management" examines how traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) is taught and practiced today among Native communities. Of special interest is the complex relationship between indigenous ecological practices and other ways of interacting with the environment, particularly regional and national programs of natural resource management.
Focusing primarily on the northwest coast of North America, scholars look at the challenges and opportunities confronting the local practice of indigenous ecological knowledge in a range of communities, including the Tsimshian, the Nisga'a, the Tlingit, the Gitksan, the Kwagult, the Sto: lo, and the northern Dene in the Yukon. The experts consider how traditional knowledge is taught and learned and address the cultural importance of different subsistence practices using natural elements such as seaweed (Gitga'a), pine mushrooms (Tsimshian), and salmon (Tlingit). Several contributors discuss the extent to which national and regional programs of resource management need to include models of TEK in their planning and execution.

This volume highlights the different ways of seeing and engaging with the natural world and underscores the need to acknowledge and honor the ways that indigenous peoples have done so for generations.

Although the American bison was saved from near-extinction in the nineteenth century, today almost all herds are managed like livestock. The Yellowstone area is the only place in the United States where wild bison have been present since before the first Euro-Americans arrived. But these bison pose risks to property and people when they roam outside the park, including the possibility that they can spread the abortion-inducing disease brucellosis to cattle. Yet measures to constrain the population threaten their status as wild animals.Mary Ann Franke's To Save the Wild Bison is the first book to examine the ecological and political aspects of the bison controversy and how it reflects changing attitudes toward wildlife. The debate has evoked strong emotions from all sides, including park officials, environmentalists, livestock growers, and American Indians. In describing political compromises among competing positions, Franke does not so much champion a cause as critique the process by which federal and state officials have made and carried out bison management policies. She shows that science, however valuable a tool, cannot by itself resolve what is ultimately a choice among conflicting values.

Breeding on remote ocean islands and spending much of its life foraging for food across vast stretches of seemingly empty seas, the albatross remains a legend for most people. And yet, humans are threatening the albatross family to such an extent that it is currently the most threatened bird group in the world. In this extensively researched, highly readable book, Robin W. Doughty and Virginia Carmichael tell the story of a potentially catastrophic extinction that has been interrupted by an unlikely alliance of governments, conservation groups, and fishermen. Doughty and Carmichael authoritatively establish that the albatross's fate is linked to the fate of two of the highest-value table fish, Bluefin Tuna and Patagonian Toothfish, which are threatened by unregulated commercial harvesting. The authors tell us that commercial fishing techniques are annually killing tens of thousands of albatrosses. And the authors explain how the breeding biology of albatrosses makes them unable to replenish their numbers at the rate they are being depleted. Doughty and Carmichael set the albatross's fate in the larger context of threats facing the ocean commons, ranging from industrial overfishing to our habit of dumping chemicals, solid waste, and plastic trash into the open seas. They also highlight the efforts of dedicated individuals, environmental groups, fishery management bodies, and governments who are working for seabird and fish conservation and demonstrate that these efforts can lead to sustainable solutions for the iconic seabirds and the entire ocean ecosystem.

*Selected as a Top 10 Must-Read Book About Antarctica by the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators Poet-naturalist Elizabeth Bradfield's fourth collection, Toward Antarctica, documents and queries her work as a guide on ships in Antarctica, offering an incisive insider's vision that challenges traditional tropes of The Last Continent. Inspired by haibun, a stylistic form of Japanese poetry invented by 17th-century poet, Matsuo Basho to chronicle his journeys in remote Japan, Bradfield uses photographs, compressed prose, and short poems to examine our relationship to remoteness, discovery, expertise, awe, labor, temporary societies, "pure" landscapes, and tourism's service economy. Antarctica was the focus of Bradfield's Approaching Ice, written before she had set foot on the continent; now Toward Antarctica furthers her investigation with boots on the ground. A complicated love letter, Toward Antarctica offers a unique view of one of the world's most iconic wild places.

This practical manual of freshwater ecology and conservation provides a state-of-the-art review of the approaches and techniques used to measure, monitor, and conserve freshwater ecosystems. It offers a single, comprehensive, and accessible synthesis of the vast amount of literature for freshwater ecology and conservation that is currently dispersed in manuals, toolkits, journals, handbooks, 'grey' literature, and websites. Successful conservation outcomes are ultimately built on a sound ecological framework in which every species must be assessed and understood at the individual, community, catchment and landscape level of interaction. For example, freshwater ecologists need to understand hydrochemical storages and fluxes, the physical systems influencing freshwaters at the catchment and landscape scale, and the spatial and temporal processes that maintain species assemblages and their dynamics. A thorough understanding of all these varied processes, and the techniques for studying them, is essential for the effective conservation and management of freshwater ecosystems.

In recent decades, there has been increased interest in understanding ecosystems in order to be able to manage and conserve them. Yet examples of how research directly supports conservation are rare. Protected area managers and policy makers need scientific information from protected areas for policy development and to effectively devise, revise, and implement management strategies. Researchers seek a clear understanding of what types of research can directly support conservation efforts to guide them in the design of such projects. A variety of perspectives of what constitutes 'conservation' or 'applied' wildlife research may exist, and indeed conservation priorities do differ between sites so that ultimately, what we describe here is from one perspective and designing projects that directly support site conservation depends on a prior understanding of issues at the site. This book is intended to encourage thinking about what constitutes conservation research to be able to better develop projects that directly support conservation. The aim of this book is to support research that directly benefits conservation by reviewing applied research and providing examples in which it has been used for conservation purposes.

Habitat Conservation examines the relationship between habitat and ecosystem dynamics. Over the last decade scientists have made advances in their understanding of this relationship and this has had major impacts on their approach to nature conservation management.
In many habitats conservation management needs to take into account the physical dynamic processes such as the impact of air, soil and water as well as the biological processes.
Covering habitats ranging from mountains to floodplains to coastal dunes and rivers this text discusses:

• how the biological and physical processes interact in each habitat
• explores the current and future impact of global warming and sea-level rise and;
• uses case studies to demonstrate how different habitats can be naturally managed and restored.

Written by geomorphologists, hydrologists, climatologists and limnologists this is a fundamental text for masters and undergraduate students studying nature conservation, habitat ecology and environmental management. It will also be essential reading for all conservationists, environmental consultants, managers and engineers.

Cynthia Moss has studied the elephants in Kenya's Amboseli National Park for over twenty-seven years. Her long-term research has revealed much of what we now know about these complex and intelligent animals. Here she chronicles the lives of the members of the T families led by matriarchs Teresia, Slit Ear, Torn Ear, Tania, and Tuskless. With a new afterword catching up on the families and covering current conservation issues, Moss's story will continue to fascinate animal lovers.
"One is soon swept away by this 'Babar' for adults. By the end, one even begins to feel an aversion for people. One wants to curse human civilization and cry out, 'Now God stand up for the elephants!'"--Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, "New York Times"
"Moss speaks to the general reader, with charm as well as scientific authority. . . . [An] elegantly written and ingeniously structured account." --Raymond Sokolov, "Wall Street Journal"
"Moss tells the story in a style so conversational . . . that I felt like a privileged visitor riding beside her in her rickety Land-Rover as she showed me around the park." --Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, "New York Times Book Review"
"A prose-poem celebrating a species from which we could learn some moral as well as zoological lessons." --"Chicago Tribune"