Austin, C, Tuft, K, Ramp, D, Cremona, T & Webb, JK 2017, 'Bait preference for remote camera trap studies of the endangered northern quoll (Dasyurus hallucatus)', Australian Mammalogy, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 72-72.
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Estimating population size is crucial for managing populations of threatened species. In the Top End of northern Australia, populations of northern quolls (Dasyurus hallucatus), already affected by livestock grazing, inappropriate burning regimes and predation, have collapsed following the spread of the toxic cane toad (Rhinella marina). Cane toads are currently invading the Kimberley, where they pose a threat to quoll populations. To manage these populations, we need reliable methods for detecting and estimating quoll abundance. We deployed camera traps with lures containing tuna, peanut butter or no bait and found that baited cameras performed better than the unbaited control. Cameras with a tuna lure detected more individuals than cameras baited with peanut butter or no bait. Cameras with a tuna lure yielded more photographs per quoll than those baited with peanut butter or no bait. We identified individual quolls from unique spot patterns and found multiple photographs improved the accuracy of identification. We also found that population estimates for the sample area derived from camera trapping were consistent with those from live trapping using mark–recapture techniques.
Dubois, S, Fenwick, N, Ryan, EA, Baker, L, Baker, SE, Beausoleil, NJ, Carter, S, Cartwright, B, Costa, F, Draper, C, Griffin, J, Grogan, A, Howald, G, Jones, B, Littin, KE, Lombard, AT, Mellor, DJ, Ramp, D, Schuppli, CA & Fraser, D 2017, 'International consensus principles for ethical wildlife control', Conservation Biology, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 753-760.
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AbstractHuman–wildlife conflicts are commonly addressed by excluding, relocating, or lethally controlling animals with the goal of preserving public health and safety, protecting property, or conserving other valued wildlife. However, declining wildlife populations, a lack of efficacy of control methods in achieving desired outcomes, and changes in how people value animals have triggered widespread acknowledgment of the need for ethical and evidence‐based approaches to managing such conflicts. We explored international perspectives on and experiences with human–wildlife conflicts to develop principles for ethical wildlife control. A diverse panel of 20 experts convened at a 2‐day workshop and developed the principles through a facilitated engagement process and discussion. They determined that efforts to control wildlife should begin wherever possible by altering the human practices that cause human–wildlife conflict and by developing a culture of coexistence; be justified by evidence that significant harms are being caused to people, property, livelihoods, ecosystems, and/or other animals; have measurable outcome‐based objectives that are clear, achievable, monitored, and adaptive; predictably minimize animal welfare harms to the fewest number of animals; be informed by community values as well as scientific, technical, and practical information; be integrated into plans for systematic long‐term management; and be based on the specifics of the situation rather than negative labels (pest, overabundant) applied to the target species. We recommend that these principles guide development of international, national, and local standards and control decisions and implementation.
Granjou, C, Walker, J & Salazar, JF 2017, 'Guest Editorial to the special issue ‘Politics of Anticipation: On knowing and governing environmental futures’', Futures, vol. 92, no. 92, pp. 1-4.
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Granjou, C, Walker, J & Salazar, JF 2017, 'The politics of anticipation: On knowing and governing environmental futures', Futures, vol. 92, pp. 5-11.
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© 2017 Elsevier Ltd In this article we describe how the historical emergence and rise of future studies, since the founding issue of Futures in 1968, has been intricately connected to the emergence and development of environmental anticipation as discourse and practice. We trace a dialectical and inter-twined relationship between technologies of environmental anticipation and forecasting, and technologies of anti-environmentalist anticipation and counter-intervention, one which we argue shapes not only the contemporary politics of anticipation, but in a very material sense, the future conditions of biological and social life on Earth. In so doing we want to address the possible contributions that the field of futures studies can make to reimagining collective agency and ways of being on Earth, whilst reflecting critically upon its genealogical relations to the political reason and strategic horizons of powerful fossil fuel interests, from the crisis of the 1970s to the present. The article also offers a more in-depth contextualization to the other articles in this special issue of Futures on “The Politics of Environmental Anticipation”. The aim is to bring to the fore the role that social scientists play in environmental anticipation − i.e. drawing attention to the fact that the future could always have been otherwise.
Walker, J & Granjou, C 2017, 'MELiSSA the minimal biosphere: Human life, waste and refuge in deep space', Futures, vol. 92, pp. 59-69.
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© 2017 Elsevier Ltd MELiSSA (Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative) is a long-term technology program of the European Space Agency. Its aim is to construct autonomous habitats in deep space, supplying astronauts with fresh air, water and food through continuous microbial recycling of human wastes. This article considers how anticipated futures of space travel and environmental survival are materialized in the project to engineer the minimal biosphere capable of reliably sustaining human life: a human/microbe association with the fewest possible species. We locate MELiSSA within a history of bio-infrastructures associated with colonisation projects: refugia in which organisms dislocated from their originary habitats are preserved. Analysis of MELiSSA's sewage-composting technology suggests that the disordering complexity of human waste presents a formidable “bottle-neck” for the construction of the minimal biosphere, in turn suggesting our dependence on microbial communities (soil, the human gut) of potentially irreducible biocomplexity. MELiSSA researchers think of themselves as pragmatic enablers of space exploration, yet a wider family of space colonisation projects are now imagined in terms of the prospect that the Earth might cease to function as the minimal biosphere capable of supporting civilisation. MELiSSA's politics of anticipation are paradoxical, promising technologies with which to escape from the Earth and through which it may be sustained.
Walker, JR & Granjou, C 2017, 'The faecal frontier: miniaturising the biosphere and managing waste in deep space', Wildlife Australia, vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 18-21.
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An experiment with lettuces was underway when we visitedthe pilot plant of the MELiSSA Project located within theDepartment of Chemical, Biological and EnvironmentalEngineering at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. The pilotplant itself, although modelled on natural aquatic ecosystems suchas ponds and lakes, appeared rather like a highly sophisticated,sterile tangle of machinery. The lettuces, their roots sunk in ahydroponic system circulating nutrient-enriched water, werepositioned on a conveyor belt that slowly ferried them towardsthe end of the growth chamber as they matured. Stainless-steeltanks were connected by various tubes and pipes, their vital flowscarefully monitored and reconditioned by computer. Althoughthe lettuces were otherwise indistinguishable from gardenvarietysalad greens, we knew these were no ordinary plants; theirpurpose was to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and food. Theirgermination was staggered sequentially, their growth meticulouslymanaged to help stabilise oxygen levels within the chamberand allow for harvesting over time. In another sealed chamber,photosynthesising algae converted light, water and carbon dioxideinto oxygen and edible biomass (‘spirulina’). These were part of acomplicated bioengineering project that could provide incredibleoutcomes for both space travel and waste management.
Wallach, AD, Lundgren, E, Yanco, E & Ramp, D 2017, 'Is the prickly pear a ‘Tzabar’? Diversity and conservation of Israel’s migrant species', Israel Journal of Ecology and Evolution, vol. 63, no. 3-4, pp. 9-22.
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Human-assisted biotic migration is a hallmark of the Anthropocene. Populations introduced outside their native ranges (‘migrant species’) have commonly been viewed as a threat to be addressed with lethal control programs. Israel has a long history of anthropogenic changes, and conservation has typically focused on ameliorating direct human impacts rather than eradicating migrant species. However, this may be changing with the growing influence of invasion biology worldwide. We conducted a review of the diversity, conservation status, and academic attitudes toward Israel’s migrant species (IMS). We identified 199 plants and animals from 85 families that have immigrated into Israel from across the globe, and 122 species from 64 families considered native to Israel that have emigrated to every bioregion and to two oceans, although few species have become cosmopolitan. The conservation status of most immigrant (84.9%) and emigrant (55.7%) species has not been assessed, and even the native ranges of eleven immigrants (5.5%) remains unknown. Of those assessed, 27% of immigrants are threatened or decreasing in their native ranges, and 62% of emigrants are globally decreasing or locally threatened and extinct. After accounting for local extinctions, immigration has increased Israel’s plant and vertebrate richness by 104 species. Israel’s immigrants are increasingly being viewed from an invasion biology perspective, with 76% of studies published in the past decade, reaching over a quarter of local conservation publications. Incorporating principles of compassionate conservation could help foster a more socially acceptable and morally grounded approach to the immigrant wildlife of the Middle East.
Wallach, AD, Ramp, D & O’Neill, AJ 2017, 'Cattle mortality on a predator-friendly station in central Australia', Journal of Mammalogy, vol. 98, no. 1, pp. 45-52.
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© 2017 American Society of Mammalogists. Large predators are declining worldwide primarily due to hunting and persecution by humans, driven in large part by the livestock industry. Some ranchers are transitioning to predator-friendly farming by adopting nonlethal predator deterrents. On very large rangeland properties, such as the vast stations of the Australian arid zone, ending lethal control may in itself reduce livestock losses by enabling the predators social structure to stabilize. The dingo (Canis dingo), Australia's apex predator, is commonly subjected to eradication campaigns to protect livestock. We analyzed causes of cattle (Bos taurus) deaths on Evelyn Downs, a 2,300-km2 predator-friendly station in central Australia, for 2 years after dingo protection was established. Husbandry-related challenges, associated with deteriorating environmental conditions, were the leading causes of deaths of cattle. Predation by dingoes was minor and declined as the indices of dingo abundance stabilized and social stability increased. Shifting from killing predators to improving husbandry standards is likely to improve livestock survival and welfare.
Webster, E, Ramp, D & Kingsford, RT 2017, 'Incorporating an iterative energy restraint for the Surface Energy Balance System (SEBS)', Remote Sensing of Environment, vol. 198, pp. 267-285.
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© 2017 Elsevier Inc. The Surface Energy Balance System (SEBS) has proven itself as an effective remotely sensed estimator of actual evapotranspiration (ETa). However, it has several vulnerabilities associated with the partitioning of the available energy (AE) at the land surface. We introduce a two stage energy restraint process into the SEBS algorithm (SEBS-ER) to overcome these vulnerabilities. The first offsets the remotely sensed surface temperature to ensure the surface to air temperature difference reflects AE, while the second stage uses a domain based image search process to identify and adjust the proportions of sensible (H) and latent (λE) heat flux with respect to AE. We effectively implemented SEBS-ER over 61 acquisitions over two Landsat tiles (path 90 row 84 and path 91 row 85) in south-eastern Australia that feature heterogeneous land covers. Across the two areas we showed that the SEBS-ER algorithm has: greater resilience to perturbed errors in surface energy balance algorithm inputs; significantly improved accuracy (p < 0.05) at two eddy covariance flux towers in heavily forested (RMSE 62.3 W m− 2, R2 0.879) and sub-alpine grassland (RMSE 33.2 W m− 2, R2 0.939) land covers; and greater temporal stability across 52 daily actual evapotranspiration (ETa) estimates compared to a temporally stable and independent ETa dataset. The energy restraint within SEBS-ER has reduced exposure to the complex errors and uncertainties within remotely sensed, meteorological, and land type SEBS inputs, providing more reliable and accurate spatially distributed ETa products.
