Is field work a thing of the past?

It may not be a new paper, but this afternoon I came across an article by Mark Hafner published in the Journal of Mammalogy called "Field Research in Mammalogy: An Enterprise in Peril" that definitely struck a chord with me. When I decided to enter into the ecology & evolution major at Rutgers, I assumed that I would eventually be introduced to some field work and be able to focus on vertebrate zoology, but much to my dismay no such program seemed to exist. Much of the learning involved taxonomy in the lab, which (don't get me wrong) is important, but field studies seemed to be entirely absent. Other disciplines within the department like forestry, dendrology, and other plant-centered sciences were more attuned to offer students field-based experience, but for someone like me who is more interested in mammals than trees there was little opportunity to get hands-on experience. Could this lack of a field program just be my imagination or restricted only to my school?

According to Hafner's piece, I'm not alone in my concerns of the lack of field programs for students interested in mammalogy, although the problem extends further than university colloquia. Hafner cites five areas that are contributing to the decline of field work in mammalogy;

1) "The decline in natural history studies in United States universities."

Laboratory science has definitely given field science a run for its money, and even though field studies are often cheaper to carry out than lab work in biology, field researchers still suffer from being perceived as less-serious scientists. The fact that field scientists probably won't bring in as much money in terms of research grants (making them less commercially viable) has also influenced the shift away from field studies in universities.

2) "The increasing number and complexity of regulations."

Field work of any sort usually requires adherence to a tangle of local, government, and international regulations, especially if it involves the collection and transport of research specimens. While field workers can manage to navigate through these problems, some would rather work in the lab and not have to worry about the morass of laws. Likewise, the overall beneficial oversight of ethical field practices by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees can make things a little more difficult for field workers in coming up with research plans, an obstacle that some people might consider enough of a headache to forget about field work.

3) "Increased visibility of animal rights groups."

While some animal rights groups have helped to improve the care and ethical use of animals in research, more extreme groups don't want humans to have interactions with animals whatsoever, discounting any benefits from research (in the lab or otherwise) if they feel animals are being harmed. As such, field work often involves trapping and even killing animals as part of research, and some students refuse to take part in field work as they perceive it as unethical.

4) "Our increasing fear of nature."

People are simply spending more and more time indoors, especially children, electronic versions of real games like baseball becoming popular enough to keep kids indoors through much of the summer. Even when people do go outside it is rarely to go hiking or visit a national park, and "Those who venture into our national parks face a frightening barrage of signs and pamphlets warning them about bears, mountain lions, snakes, spiders, poison ivy, heat prostration, drowning, and a host of other disclaimers required in an increasingly risk-averse and litigious society." Such warnings are necessary, but the public has increasingly come to fear the outdoors, be it the threat of child abduction in suburbia or bear-attack in a national park, and these fears are not always justified.

5) "Failure to understand risk."

Tied to the overall fear of nature mentioned in #4, those who might be interested in field work may not pursue such a career path because they are bothered by many of the risks involved. Hafner draws up a short list;

...falling rocks and trees, spider bites, dengue fever, malaria, rabies, attacks by cougars, bears, wolves, and Africanized bees, tick bites, wasp stings, forest fires, centipede stings, lightning strikes, quicksand, sunburn, spotted fever, murine typhus, dehydration, thistles, scorpion stings, snake bites, tularemia, allergy attacks, histoplasmosis, bubonic plague, toxoplasmosis, chigger bites, frostbite, flash floods, Lyme disease, flea bites, tetanus, rodent bites, exposure, Pasteurella, and a host of other potential dangers, many of which may seem trivial but are potentially life-threatening. Add to this list the risk of a car accident on the way to or from the field, and we might begin to wonder why we do fieldwork at all.

The risk for any of these problems can be reduced with proper education and experience, but field work requires a scientist to get dirty and put themselves in somewhat risky situations, and that's something not everyone is willing to do. As Hafner recounts in detail in much of the rest of the paper, the potential threat of a disease carried by rodents called Hantavirus resulted in many mammalogists discontinued taking students on field trips altogether. In the end it turned out that the risk the disease presented was overblown, the use of the phrase "emerging infectious disease" in descriptions making it sound like there was a deadly outbreak in the American west. A misleading statistic added to the social problem, as about 30 people per year are diagnosed the disease and about 10 of those people die, so while it's correct to report that the disease has about a 35% mortality rate such a percentage by itself is dangerously out of context (misdiagnosed instances of the disease caused the percentage to climb even higher, above 60%).

Hafner concludes that a series of social factors from an increasing amount of regulations to students who not only lack any passion for field work (but also have no experience with anything wilder than their front yards) may cause mammalogy to collapse until some of the problems can be fixed. Such a view is consistent with my own experience, but I know there are some people among the readers of this blog that have (and still do) carried out field studies. What do you think? Is field work really in peril of suffering a generation gap where there are precious few mammalogists (or zoologists in general) who carry out field work?

References;

Hafner, M. (2007) "Field Research in Mammalogy: An Enterprise in Peril.' Journal of Mammalogy Vol. 88 (5), pp.1119-1128