carnivore ecology and conservation

© 2001 Blackwell Science Ltd. http://www.blackwell-science.com/geb

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Blackwell Science, LtdOxford, UKGEBGlobal Ecology and Biogeography Letters1466-822XBlackwell Science, Ltd1022001154Library LettersLibrary LettersLIBRARY LETTERS100Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong

WHY EXPERIMENTS ARE GOOD (AND OTHER IMPORTANT INSIGHTS)

Resetarits, W.J., Jr. & Bernardo, J. (eds) (1998)

Experimental ecology: issues and perspectives

.Oxford University Press, Oxford. xvii + 470 pp,figs, tables, index. Hardback: Price £65.00. ISBN0-19-510241-X.

This book arises from an American Society ofZoologists symposium. As the editors admit, theparticipants were assembled with ‘… no agendaother than a shared belief that experiments playan important role in ecological research and thatthe role of experiments needs to be more criticallydebated and clearly defined.’ Unfortunately, I thinkthat the book largely fails to accomplish this goal.The book is curious for its lack of argument.Although the oppositions’ views are sometimesalluded to, they are never explicitly tackled. Thisis a book by experimentalists, for experimentalists.I had to wonder why the opposition wasn’t invitedto make it a proper critical debate? Even within theadopted framework, the authors shy away fromcontroversy. Many of the authors cite Hurlbert’sclassic 1984 monograph for one reason or another.But the thing that made Hurlbert’s paper so influ-ential was that he picked out specific papers asexamples of what not to do. That aspect is lackingfrom the present volume (except perhaps for Petraitiswho uses an example from his own work). I was leftwondering if any of the problems the authors discussare genuine problems or perceived problems.

The predominant (although not exclusive) patternfollowed throughout the book is for the authorsto discuss their own ‘theory of method’ and thegrounds of knowledge in ecological research andthen to review their own work as an exampleof such an approach. I suspect that this sort ofintrospection of research programmes is more oftenthan not

post hoc

. Leibold & Tessier are the mostforthcoming about this; in the introduction totheir review they state ‘

Though in the developmentof our research we did not consciously pursue theframework outlined above

…’ (p. 102).The book consciously restricts itself to animal

ecology, suggesting that plant ecologists are far

ahead of animal ecologists in the practice ofexperimental ecology (p. viii). Otherwise, Resetarits& Bernardo have brought together people work-ing in a wide selection of systems, at a variety oftemporal and spatial scales and on a variety ofdifferent questions. They state that their goal isnot to provide ‘something for everyone’ and theyhope that the reader will consider the entire workrather than select the chapters that apply to theirspecific level of organization, system or taxa. I guessas a means of furthering this goal, the editors madeno apparent attempt to organize the volume at all.The 22 chapters are not divided into any of theseveral obvious groupings (spatial scale, temporalscale, taxa, ecosystem, etc.). This lack of structureleads to curious juxtapositions of chapters, forexample we have Lodge

et al.

’s chapter: ‘Insightsand applications of large-scale, long-term ecologicalobservations and experiments’, followed by Lawler’schapter: ‘Ecology in a bottle: using microcosmsto test theory’. As unappealing as I found thelack of organization, I was even less happy thatthere was no final chapter to provide a criticalsynthesis of the volume; it just ends. Resetarits &Bernardo could have at least drawn the worktogether and provided a discussion of the ‘emergentinsights that arise from consideration of the entirework’ (p. ix). This lack of synthesis weakens whatis otherwise a useful book. The editors state thatone of their goals was to ‘…

synthesize a cogentstatement about the role of experimentation as ananalytical paradigm for ecology and to foster itsconscious and thoughtful incorporation into thefabric of ecological research.

’ Where is this state-ment? I guess the editors would say that the bookis the statement. However, the book does notmakes it clear that experimentation is not alreadyconsciously and thoughtfully incorporated intothe fabric of ecological research, nor does it provideany particular synthetic statement about the roleof experimentation as an analytical paradigm.

What’s good about this book? Well, it willcertainly be interesting and useful to graduatestudents who are just forming their ideas aboutwhat a research programme is and how it shouldbe developed. In fact the book has ‘graduate sem-inar’ written all over it. The authors are certainly

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successful, respected ecologists, and we can alllearn something from their experiences, andindividually from their mostly well written andthoughtful essays. Although, having said that thebook would be useful for a graduate studentseminar, it is expensive. At £65 (US$95) I can’tsay I would recommend to my graduate studentsthat they should rush out and buy it.

Jonathan Newman

Department of ZoologyUniversity of OxfordU.K.

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CARNIVORE ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION

Clark, T.W., Curlee, A.P., Minta, S.C. & Karieva, P.M.(eds) (2000)

Carnivores in ecosystems: the Yellowstoneexperience

. Yale University Press, London. xii +429 pp, tables, figs, black and white photos, index.Hardback: Price £25.00. ISBN 0-300-07816-1.

The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) is foundwithin approximately 8 million acres of the RockyMountains of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. Itcontains Yellowstone National Park, the world’sfirst national park, and is home to over 1700 speciesof plants and 400 species of vertebrates. The GYErepresents one of the ecosystems that has been leastaffected by pressures of anthropogenic origin; ofparticular note is the fact that all of the nativecarnivores (18 + species) that were present priorto European settlement currently can be foundwithin the GYE. This richness in biodiversity servesas testament to both the resilience of the GYE toexternal pressures, and the efforts and resolve ofthe many biologists, conservationists, and legislatorsthat have worked over the last century to preserveits integrity.

Against this backdrop, Tim Clark and col-leagues have compiled a series of papers on theecology and conservation of carnivores in theGYE. The focus of this book is particularlyrelevant, given the recent restoration of wolves tothe GYE and the recognition that many carnivorepopulations found in other ecosystems currentlyare facing declines and possible extinctions. Thebook is organized into 12 chapters authored byscientists that are either directly involved in car-nivore research in the GYE or else working more

generally in the fields of carnivore conservationor population biology.

The book begins with a general description ofthe geography and biodiversity of the region,followed by a chapter tracing historical human–animal relationships from ungulate market hunt-ing and predator control through to species pre-servation and restoration. The next five chaptersfocus on the biology, population demography, andconservation of specific groups of GYE carnivores.Chapters on some taxonomic groups (i.e. bearsand cougars) offer scant data specifically from theGYE, and rather focus either on supplementarydata collected elsewhere or else emphasize non-biological aspects, such as species managementpolicy. Doug Smith

et al.

nicely document theexploitation and ultimate extermination of wolvesin the GYE over 60 years ago, and describe thenumerous political and biological factors thatneeded to be overcome to accomplish recent wolfrestoration to the area. The chapters on coyotesand mesocarnivores review relevant literature ontheir respective taxonomic groups, and establisheach group in the context of the guild of GYEcarnivores.

Francis Singer and John Mack contributed aninteresting chapter reviewing the history andpopulation dynamics of ungulate management inthe GYE. The authors project, through modellingexercises, the probable long-term responses ofungulate populations to changes from the 1988fires and recent wolf restoration. The next chapterdescribes non-ungulate prey of carnivores in theGYE, and highlights the presumed importance ofeach species to predator populations. In what isarguably the most significant contribution in thisvolume, Mark Boyce and Eric Anderson modelpotential interactions between vegetation, elk, andwolves in the GYE, and compare results of theirsimulations to limited field data. The model pre-dicts that stochastic, density-independent factors,such as effects of inclement weather on primaryproductivity or elk winter mortality, can profoundlyaffect whether populations in the system are con-trolled by top-down or bottom-up forces. This chapteris followed by a review of the genetic considerationsfor conservation of GYE carnivores. The final con-tribution by Steven Minta

et al.

reviews limitationsof previous carnivore studies in the GYE and else-where, and outlines future research and conservationneeds. This chapter is noteworthy because it offers

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a synthesis that is both comprehensive in scopeand recondite in its recommendations.

This book is generally well written and edited,and provides a reasonable overview of carnivoreecology and conservation in the GYE. However,the content of chapters is rather inconsistent, withthe modelling and synthesis chapters tending tobe considerably more quantitative and/or noveland informative than most of the taxon-specificchapters. Indeed, this latter set often is deficientin data and relies on qualitative assessments of theperceived and potential (rather than documentedand actual) role of species in the GYE. I recognizethat the paucity of reliable field data may precludepresentation of quantitative findings on the ecologyof many carnivore species in the GYE. However,it seems that a more rigorous assessment of theimportance of these species in other systems,and extrapolation to their probable role in theGYE, should have been possible. For example, thepotential effects of fire or wolf restoration couldhave been modelled for several species, withexplicit reference to theories related to trophiccascades and trophic releases as part of theprojected outcomes. Furthermore, it seems likelythat mitigation of the negative impacts of recrea-tional activity, vehicular traffic, resource exploita-tion, exotic introductions, habitat loss, etc., willbe the most important issues facing GYE preser-vation over the next century; inclusion of modelsexploring these issues doubtless would provide abook that is of greater relevance to ecologists andconservation biologists. However, these criticismsnotwithstanding, I feel that portions of this bookshould be of interest to a professional audience,and several chapters could be recommended tograduate students specifically interested in carnivoreecology and conservation.

Dennis Murray

Department of Fish and Wildlife ResourcesUniversity of IdahoU.S.A.


CONSERVATION: A STOCKTAKING

Stolton, S. & Dudley, N. (1999)

Partnerships forProtection

, Earthscan, London, U.K. xvii + 283 pp,figs, tables, index. Hardback: Price £45.00, ISBN1-85383-614-1. Paperback: Price £18.95. ISBN 1-85383-609-5.

This book is described in the preface as ‘theresult of a collaborative project between IUCN —The World Conservation Union, its WCPA [WorldCommission on Protected Areas] and the WorldWide Fund for Nature … involving many of theworld’s leading conservation experts’. All this istrue, but the title of the book is misleading, asit is more of a stocktaking of current issues inconservation than a discussion of partnerships ofthose who have a stake in conservation. For this,the reader would be better directed to

Expandingpartnerships in conservation

(McNeely, 1995) or

Beyond fences: seeking social sustainability in con-servation

(Borrini-Feyerabend & Buchan, 1997).It is also notable that nearly a third of the papersare reprinted (sometimes in abridged or updatedversions) from elsewhere.

The book is divided into five parts, but thelogic of placing particular papers in this frameworkis not always clear, and the short introductions toeach part do not explain much. The book startswith a chapter on ‘challenges for protected areasin the 21st century’ and ends with very briefconclusions. Both of these chapters are by largenumbers of authors from the IUCN/WWF family.In between these are 26 chapters with a focus vary-ing from the global to the very local and specific(e.g. fish reserves in Samoa). Those in the first twoparts are good overviews of specific issues andinitiatives, and other good overviews are foundin the other three parts, which have more regionalor smaller-scale case studies. All of the over-views are valuable for anyone interested in thestate of conservation at the beginning of the 21stcentury, although some (especially that on ‘people-orientated conservation’ by Sally Jeanrenaud)could have benefited from a longer bibliography.Also, surprisingly, almost no websites are men-tioned in the book.

Two major strands of current thinking emergefrom the papers. The first is that conservationmust no longer be confined to protected areas, apoint made by many authors, notably Miller (onbioregionalism), Phillips (on working landscapes),and Davey (on national system planning). How-ever, if regional approaches are so essential, it isperhaps worth asking why so much attention iscurrently being given to developing strategies andguidelines for measuring the effectiveness of indi-vidual protected areas, rather than the broadereffectiveness of conservation at the regional or


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landscape scale? The second — and connected —strand, which does relate to the title of the book,is that conservation is no longer primarily onlythe concern of ‘protected area professionals’. Asdiscussed in various chapters, there are manystakeholders and partners, including NGOs andprivate land owners (who may explicitly manageland for conservation purposes), extractive indus-tries at all scales (including fisheries and forestry),the tourism industry, governments on other sidesof national frontiers, and those who recognize thesacred value of many ecosystems that also haveconservation value. Both of these strands are integralto the concept of biosphere reserves, developedby UNESCO since the mid-1970s; it is surprisingthat these are barely mentioned in the book, notleast because the recent Statutory Frameworkfor the World Network of Biosphere Reservesaddresses many of the issues raised in the book.

Overall, this is a good introduction to most ofthe central issues in conservation today, and it isworth noting that three chapters are devoted tothe conservation of marine ecosystems, a topicreceiving increasing recognition. However, onefeels that the editors could have put more thoughtinto the structure and logic of the book, and mostparticularly to the conclusions — the issues arethere, but they are never really drawn together. Asnoted in the conclusions, it is to be hoped that thiswill be done for the fifth World Parks Congressin 2002.

Martin Price

Centre for Mountain Studies Perth CollegeUniversity of the Highlands and Islands ProjectU.K.

REFERENCES

Borrini-Feyerabend, G. & Buchan, D. (eds) (1997)

Beyond fences: seeking social sustainability in con-servation

. IUCN, Gland.McNeely, J. A. (ed.) (1995)

Expanding partnershipsin conservation

. Island Press, Washington, DC.


FOREST CONSERVATION IN RUSSIA: ISSUES AND STRATEGIES

Deutz, A., Cantin, D., Laletin, A., Teplyakov, V.& Moshkalo, V. (eds) (1999)

The future of forest

conservation in Russia: the challenges facing forestsand strategies for addressing them

. ProgrammeDevelopment Workshop Reports, IUCN Temperateand Boreal Forest Programme, Montreal, Canadaand Moscow, Russia. 72 pp. Paperback: Price £10.00.ISBN 2-8317-0491-X.

This book examines the role of the IUCN as wellas governmental bodies and nongovernmentalorganizations (NGO) agencies in forest conservationand management in Russia. It summarizes findingsand strategical decisions of three programme devel-opment workshops organized by the IUCN in June–October 1998 and focused on different parts ofthe country: Russian Far East, Siberia, and European-Ural region. The final national workshop wasorganized in Golitsyno, Moscow region, to con-tinue discussion of regional and national forestconservation issues. IUCN’s Temperate and BorealForest programme has identified Russia as a firstpriority for the development of a country-levelprogramme to promote conservation and sustain-able forest management initiatives in temperate andboreal countries.

The purpose of the overall series of IUCNworkshops was to determine how the IUCN couldhelp the Russian government and people to improveforest conservation and management. The work-shops generated lists of priority issues for eachgeographical region of the country and mappedout general strategies to address these issues. Thefinal, national level workshop allowed the IUCNto synthesize the regional data and examine thefeasibility of the developed strategies for the IUCNand its partners. At the national level, particularattention was given to such important issues of forestmanagement as the assessment of forest benefits,lessening damages from fire and pollution, develop-ing an ecosystem approach to forest managementand the conservation of old-growth forests.

The book comprises four sections, which cor-respond to four IUCN workshops. Each sectionoutlines the list of issues identified, and strategiesdeveloped, by the regional or national workinggroup during the workshop. It also includes thedetailed list of participants of each workshop. Anannex contains various statistical data about majorcategories of Russian forests and their dynamicssince 1966, including forest area, standing volume,annual increment, productivity and yield, as wellas forest fire statistics. It also outlines briefly the


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main principles and elements of a new nationalforest policy in Russia.

Being a short but very efficient review of forestconservation and management in Russia, this bookmay be interesting for natural and social scientists,planners, students, and anyone who is concernedwith nature conservation issues.

Elena Lioubimtseva

Department of Geography and PlanningGrand Valley State UniversityU.S.A.


CHARISMATIC MEGAFAUNA WALLOWING IN A SEA OF UNCERTAINTY

Twiss, J.R., Jr. & Reeves, R.R. (eds) (1999)

Conservation and management of marine mammals

.Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC20560–0959, USA. xi + 471 pp, figs, tables, photos,index. Hardback: Price £35.95, US$60.00. ISBN1-56098-778-2.

This is a substantial book that deals with theconservation and management of a single groupof animals: marine mammals. A question that mustbe answered is whether marine mammals are suf-ficiently different from other groups of marine orterrestrial animals to deserve this special treatment.Marine mammals exhibit a variety of special char-acteristics, some biological, others to do with theway in which they are perceived by humans or dealtwith by our legal and legislative systems, which domake them a qualitatively different group. Theirbasic biology is relatively poorly known, and, becausethey are large intractable animals usually living mostof their lives at sea, research to elucidate this isdifficult and expensive. With marine mammals, morethan most groups, managers must work withuncertain data. Human activities that might affectcetaceans at sea are also difficult to monitor andcontrol. (The recent revelations of widespreadmisreporting of catches by the Soviet Whaling fleet,makes this point most clearly).

For centuries, the exploitation of marine mam-mals for their meat, oil, bones and skins has beenthe basis of highly lucrative industries, but marinemammals reproduce slowly, and directed huntinghas, almost without exception, overexploited popu-lations and even caused some species to go extinct.

In the latter half of the 20th century, attitudes tomarine mammals (in industrialized western nationsat least) changed: they have come to be valuedfor aesthetic, educational and spiritual reasonsand some have become icons for a new conser-vation ethic. Many of the early successful cam-paigns that established some of today’s largestconservation organizations were to save whales,seals and dolphins. Although directed takes havegenerally reduced and become better managed,marine mammals are vulnerable to a number ofnew man-made threats, including pollution, hab-itat loss, disturbance and fisheries bycatch (whichnow probably constitutes the most serious acutethreat). The following features justify a bookdedicated solely to this topic: (1) animals with aunique but poorly understood biology; (2) animalswith a limited potential for monitoring and control;(3) animals with distributions that often straddlethe territorial waters of several nations; and (4)animals which can have high consumptive value(while being inherently unsuitable for consumptiveutilization) and which are highly valued by manysections of society. The publication of the currentvolume, the first dedicated to an examination ofMarine Mammal Conservation and Management,is both welcome and overdue.

The book’s 20 chapters deal with a broad rangeof subjects: changing societal attitudes to marinemammals; legislation governing marine mammalconservation in North America; examples of majorconservation issues and how they have been resolved(conflicts with fisheries, marine debris, mass mor-talities and marine mammals in captivity); thehistories and workings of two relevant Inter-national Organizations (the International WhalingCommission and the Antarctic Treaty System);some case studies of endangered species and attemptsto conserve them. It also includes chapters thatoffer insights into marine mammals in ecosystemsand conserving endangered species. Each chapteris written by a team of appropriate experts. Theadvantage of a book in this format is that it benefitsfrom a broader range of experience and perspect-ive, and a greater depth of specialist knowledgethat any one author could achieve. The danger,especially for a text book, is that chapters can betoo specialized and may not be well co-ordinated,leading to uneven coverage of the subject. Theeditors have done a good job of avoiding overlapbetween the chapters, and where appropriate, the


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authors have included sections which explore thegeneral principles and lessons to be learned frommore specific examples. There are, however, someobvious important subjects that are not coveredat all. Detailed consideration of chemical pollution,acoustic disturbance, habitat degradation and anydiscussion of the pros and cons of establishingprotected areas for marine mammal conservationare all missing. Perhaps the book’s most seriousshortcoming is that it provides such a stronglyNorth American perspective of the subject. Of 32authors, three are from the United Kingdom andthe other 29 are North Americans, most from theUnited States. The US provides some interestingexamples of marine mammal management, evensome inspiring conservation successes, but thesehave all been achieved in a country that is unusualin being rich and highly developed. It has strongconservation Non-Government Organizations, amanagement system that responds to a mixture ofpublic opinion and litigation, and, most importantly,enacted strong legislation specifically for marinemammal conservation (the Marine Mammal Pro-tection Act). The obvious question, which is largelyunanswered by this book, is whether and howlessons learned in North America can be trans-ferred to other developed countries without suchlegislation, and to less prosperous countries. Thecontrast between the apparent inability to address

pressing problems such as fisheries by catch inEurope and the progress (albeit painfully slow andoften driven by litigation) achieved in USA, mightlead one to conclude that little can be achievedwithout legislation that specifically addresses thespecial problems of marine mammals combined witha strong NGO sector to make managers stick to it.

Notwithstanding its somewhat biased geo-graphical perspective and less than comprehensivecoverage, this will be a very useful book at manylevels to both students and established scientists,legislators and campaigners. Some chapters willserve as a useful reference to the often arcanehistory and workings of important legislation,agreements and major conservation issues. Mostimportantly, the book illustrates how conserva-tion proceeds in the real world in fits and startsthrough a messy and far from pure interactionof science, policy and public opinion. This is auseful reminder for many of us, and a vital lessonfor any biologists who are graduates of purescience degrees and who yet want to make a positivecontribution to wildlife conservation.

Jonathan Gordon

Sea Mammal Research UnitGatty Marine LaboratoryUniversity of St. AndrewsScotland


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