josh donlan
Posts by this author
May 25, 2008
Back in 2005 when my colleagues and I proposed using closely related species to ecological replace extinct large North American animals, there were many who cried foul. Too risky, won't work, impossible to measure - were among the top of the list.
Danish ecologist Dennis Hansen and his colleagues…
April 13, 2008
The state of the world can be measured by the state of the wild. The Wildlife Conservation Society takes on that challenge by publishing their annual State of the Wild series with Island Press. The 2008-09 volume is fresh off the presses. This edition considers the integration of wildlife health,…
April 10, 2008
US environmentalists are up in arms on farms across the nation because of a recent downward trend in the Conservation Resource Program. The program, established about 25 years ago, pay farmers not to grow on some of their fields. The result has been impressive: 400,000 participating farmers and an…
April 8, 2008
Here's one for all you beachcombers out there. The organization COASST (Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team) is busy establishing a baseline on a beach near you. And they want your help.
COASST is a partnership between volunteer members of the general public and academic scientists.…
April 7, 2008
A new study published this month in the journal Ecology elucidates an ecological dance between wolves, coyotes, and pronghorn. Wildlife Conservation Society ecologist Kim Berger and colleagues analyzed wolf distribution data from the Yellowstone Ecosystem to evaluate the whether the observed…
April 6, 2008
Paper or plastic? You know the drill. Well if you live in Seattle, you might want to throw those cloth bags in your trunk so you won't forget them. Otherwise...it will cost you. Seattle mayor Greg Nickels put forth a proposal that would charge Seattle shoppers a 20-cent "green fee" for every new…
April 5, 2008
In some Asian countries (e.g., India, China, South Korea), it is well documented that male births often far exceed female births. In India the ratio is 1.39:1 and in China it is 2.25:1. Many point to China's one-child policy, high-dowry payments in India, or reliance on children for support as…
April 1, 2008
Avocados and Osage Oranges only make sense in the light of megafauna. That is because American gomphotheres (related to elephants) and ground sloths ate and dispersed those large-seeded fruits. While those megafauna went extinct around 10,000 years ago, many large-seeded plants in the Americas are…
March 30, 2008
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that 25-30% of plant species will be extinct or endangered in the next century. Any way you cut it - that is a very bad thing. Many of those plant species will be crops - food we eat. Some of you may have caught the announcement of the "…
March 30, 2008
Spring is in the air. And birds are starting to show up in America and elsewhere from their wintering grounds, gearing up to sing their little hearts out. Unfortunately, many of us are contributing to the decline of those birds by the food we choose to buy.
It is a complicated, globalized world…
March 26, 2008
The Pew Environment Group and the Conserve Our Ocean Legacy Campaign just launched the new online game Ocean Survivor. It is designed to draw attention to the perils of overfishing and provide people with an opportunity to sign a petition to make a difference.
March 25, 2008
Thanks to everyone who participated in the short survey - all 286 of you. Below shows the percentage of folks that were in favor of reintroducing our case studies under a scientific framework. Interesting indeed, although one person made the comment that the questions were slightly loaded to…
March 23, 2008
spending money on your friends and strangers? According to new research published in Science, spending money on other people has a more positive impact on happiness than spending money on oneself. This may come to a surprise to some, but makes perfect sense to others.
Given that we are creatures of…
March 21, 2008
Now this is some pretty interesting research. Here's the punch-line: Lap dancers earn more when they are fertile.
Because ScienceBlogs readers may be unfamiliar with the gentlemen's club sub-culture, some background may be necessary to understand why this is an novel setting for understanding real…
March 19, 2008
Ok, I would really like people to weigh in on this one. Jennifer is in the Galapagos, so I figured I might as well write about them. And what better topic to write about than rewilding the Galapagos. Here's the scenario: the Galapagos National Park and the Charles Darwin Foundation has spent the…
March 17, 2008
So I think this is the first-ever Shifting Baselines survey. I hope you're keen, and I hope you will forward the survey to friends and colleagues far and wide.
Here's a bit of background.
In 2005, my colleagues and I published a paper proposing that we should consider reintroducing large animals -…
March 16, 2008
Last summer, one million square miles of Arctic Ocean melted. The Arctic icecap is half the size that it was 50 years ago. The Northwest Passage is now a reality, and territory and resource claims are starting to show up at the United Nations. While the UN has rejected all Arctic claims, things are…
March 14, 2008
Shifting Baselines' very own Jeremy Jackson was awarded the 11th Annual Roger Tory Peterson Medal presented by the Harvard Museum of Natural History. The Harvard Museum initiated the award in 1997 to honor the pioneering naturalist and author of the classic Peterson Field Guide to Birds. Dr.…
March 13, 2008
We all would love to see a moose and its calf along the roadside, right? I woke up to one on my front deck last week. Well in Yellowstone National Park, your chances are better than ever. Moose may be smarter than you think though: they are using you and your car as a shield. Human shields.…
March 11, 2008
You can now contribute to the study of climate change by reporting on the trees and plants in your backyard. Project BudBurst is a national field campaign for citizen scientists designed to engage the public in the collection of important climate change data based on the timing of leafing and…
March 7, 2008
You know what a natural stream looks like, right? The Yukon in northern Canada or the Onega in Russia come to mind. If you are like me, you are pondering images of a sinuous stream with meandering channels after meandering channels. Ever since scientists started studying fluvial geomorphology - the…
March 6, 2008
A new study by Wildlife Conservation Society chronicles the disappearance of white-tailed jack rabbits from the Yellowstone ecosystem. The scary part is that the bunnies have disappeared from Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks - those treasures set aside to "preserve, protect, and share…
March 5, 2008
Everyone has a bad Monday every now and then, right? Here's one for you: at 7a.m. spilled an entire cappuccino on my laptop and at 7p.m. I hit some black ice on the highway and rolled (and totaled) my truck. That is what I call a rough Monday...but what a banner, no?
Carl Buell is one of the most…
March 2, 2008
I'm lying. But here I am blogging on Shifting Baselines. Over the past six years or so, I've spent a decent part of my energy thinking and writing about ecological history and its role in biodiversity conservation and society. That thinking and writing has included proposals that toy with the idea…