This week I went to a couple lectures outside the normal and learned about Red Wolves and their conservation, big cats and their behaviors, and photo elicitation from my advisor. This last one proved to be way more interesting and meaningful to my work than I thought it would be.

Red Wolves
About 45 Red Wolves exist today. They are threatened with a few things but right now they are threatened by poor management and loud anti-wolf voices. A Defenders of Wildlife speaker came to campus this last week and described the Red Wolf situation. I knew they were in a rough spot but I remember reading about them a couple years ago and I remember the take-away being that the numbers aren’t great but they’re improving and the population has been steadily increasing for the past couple decades. Apparently I didn’t misremember too poorly: they were doing fairly well and on the right trajectory two years ago. However, two years ago some significant changes started occurring. The major changes were: the USFWS (the Federal agency in charge of the wolf) terminated the Red Wolf position and divvied up the responsibilities amongst an already stretched workforce, they reduced the necessary range for a healthy population by 89%, and they started under-enforcing poaching. Given the information is from a fairly pro-wolf biased source but it is also one of the only organizations looking out for the wolves and also a source I trust.
The last piece of news that does not bode well for the Red Wolf conservation is something that I was aware of but not its implications. This summer genetic analysis came out saying that the Red Wolfs are genetically indistinguishable from wolf/coyote hybrids and do not constitute a separate species. On the surface of this it could potentially eliminate the Red Wolf from Endangered Species Act Protection. The DOW has good arguments stating why this would be silly including the fact that they are still ecologically relevant, morphologically dissimilar, and that the genetics do not fully account for separate species. The best argument however is that the only reason that they are hybrids are because their numbers are so low and so they have had to mate with only coyotes for the past half a century. Their argument actually uses this genetic information as stating that the only way to save what’s left of the Red Wolf genetics is to save what’s left of the Red Wolf
They summarized the talk saying that if current trends continue it will be impossible for the species to beat extinction by 2025. I was unaware the Red Wolf situation was so dire and I would imagine this is news to most people.
 
Cheetahs and Lions, Jaguars and Ocelots
Another speaker came by school this week on her way to presenting at The Wilderness Society’s conference. Dr. Marcella Kelly of Virginia Tech spoke about her work on carnivores in Africa, Madagascar, Borneo, and Central America. Her hour long lecture was captivating and had gems quite relevant to carnivore researchers, ecologists, and conservationists alike.
Two of the topics that I think are interesting to everyone though are the relationships she discovered between some big cats. Her work in Africa showed that as lion numbers increase, cheetah numbers decrease. The reason why is both logical and mystifying. Lions apparently are kleptoparasitic upon cheetahs and steal cheetah kills – this is the logical part to understanding why cheetah numbers go down. Just based on this though you would think that cheetahs and lions would set up a mutual benefit relationship or something. However, lions are also known to eat cheetah cubs – this is the mystifying part. Why would lions kill cheetahs that provide them with food? Wouldn’t you want cheetahs around to provide more free meat for you?
            The central American Jaguar/Ocelot relationship is the opposite. As Dr. Kelly was describing her team’s work of trekking through the impossible rainforests full of dense trees, muddy roads that eat rental cars, and armed locals, she shared decades’ worth of data tracking big cats and mesopredators. Based on her Africa work she expected to find that wherever jaguars roam, ocelots would decrease. However, the relationships were constant and ran parallel with each other – where one succeeded, the other did. This has yet to be explained and the causality may or may not be there either.
 
Photo Elicitation
My work is qualitative work. I am trying to understand the social interactions and implications of conservation. This is partially because I believe that conservation is a social act and a social value (as opposed to an ecological or biological decision) and partially because my mind does not work very well quantitatively. In trying to understand quantitative methods and processes we learned about Photo Elicitation this past week. I was skeptical reading the readings and looking into it. However, the moment my advisor/professor explained it I immediately recognized the benefit it could pose to conservation.
Basically photo elicitation is art theory. On another level it flips the power structure of the objective/subjective and the interviewer/interviewee. How this method occurs is by having the subject either take photos of something meaningful to them, share photos meaningful to them, or review photos they are involved in somehow. From there, you get the interviewee to then explain the photo and their responses. This takes the ‘known’ knowledge (the objective, the positivistic knowledge) out of the hands of the researcher and puts it in the hands of the subject. The subject holds all the information and the researcher is absorbing it from the subject. The power of this technique is that it gives communication to something that does not have language or does not readily open itself to description.
One of the examples used was of a researcher trying to understand what “old” meant in a community and why it was valued. However, if you were to ask someone valued old buildings the data received did not hold much substance. In essence, people don’t know why they value ‘old’ things. But, if you give them a camera and tell them to take photos of things in their community/city that they hold dear and are special to them they will take photos of old things and then you can get them to describe them according to a rubric you develop. From here you can track trends and code similar responses. The whole time, throughout the whole process you never have asked the question “why do old things matter” but have instead allowed it to come out of the objects presented by interviewees authentically.
I thoroughly believe that we do not know why conservation matters. I mean this in a few ways, one of them being that the general public cannot explain it. Another reason being that even the most knowledgeable and well trained people will give you either local answers or subjective morality answers – both of which are unsatisfying to me. I do think conservation matters both objectively and subjectively and we are closer than ever to figuring it out. I also think that we haven’t created the language to explain it. I think a technique like photo elicitation can help me give words to a value that we cannot explain.

An interdisciplinary study requires engaging in sometimes contrasting studies. For example, statistics and qualitative research. Also, who knew that grad school would bring some enlightenment on my own life. Bring it on.

1. A "Life in Balance" versus "Moderation" in life
In our philosophy class this week the professor said she values the idea of balance in life. I immediately shrugged away and made a face like I sucked on a lemon. She caught that and during one of our breaks she and another student asked me why I responded the way I did to a life in balance. My response was that it sounds horrible and that every meaningful and life affirming thing I’ve done has been at the expense of something else in my life (attention to health, friends, family, rest, finances, etc). For example, one of the most life-affirming things I’ve done was create and build the company I had. To do this, I had no significant relationship, I was fairly unhealthy, and spent almost all of my time on my company and things related to my company. The satisfaction I received in life was related to that effort. With a little reflection, most other things in my life run that way: giving up that company to travel and explore, relationships, and then moving from everything familiar to get over to South Carolina for graduate school. But then I also search out activities that are more intense than a moderate life too: fighting, backcountry explorations, and even studying and reading. Maybe that’s just how I’m wired (needing higher ‘doses’ of a weird cocktail of serotonin/dopamine/adrenaline/epinephrine to stay motivated).
 
But then the professor drew some line on the whiteboard and said that I am talking about a disgust of ‘moderation’ not a ‘life in balance.’ Moderation is the even keel, the steady line. Life in Balance is equaling out the intensity with the downtime. Here is my interpretation of her graphic:

She went on to explain that Life Balance can be either line (the wavy or the zig zag) but Moderation can only be the wavy one. I like this dichotomy. I like how it distinguishes between two motivations. My only addition to it would be that everyone’s need for a peak or a trough, people’s respective need for rest or excitement, is subjective and independent to each person’s neurochemical needs. My serotonin baseline is obviously way higher than someone who can live a life in moderation contently.
 
 
2. Qualitative Research and specifically Pragmatism
I have an Independent Research course and right now we are focusing on Qualitative Research and what it is. The moment I was sold on it was when my advisor said “I think you’ll like this; I think you will be a Pragmatist Researcher.” After looking into the different types of Qualitative research methods and frameworks, she is 100% correct. Pragmatism research is defined as doing whatever necessary to answer the question. If you have to use Qualitative Research, use that. If you have to use interpretative and subjective reflections, use that. That’s what I’m interested in: I don’t care what method I’m using as long as I can effectively answer my questions of how and why humans and non-human wildlife and habitats should exist appropriately. If I need to learn a Marxist-Feminist approach because that answers the question/s best, bring it on.
 
A quick summary of what I understand to be Qualitative vs Quantitative research and simple definitions of various Quantitative methods:
Quantitative Research:
Quantitative Research: emphasize objective measurements and the statistical, mathematical, or numerical analysis of data collected through polls, questionnaires, and surveys, or by manipulating pre-existing statistical data using computational techniques.
 Qualitative Research: (textbook definition) a situated activity that locates the observer in the world. … They turn the world into a series of representations, including field notes, interviews, conversations, photographs, recordings, and memos to the self… Qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them.
PostPositivism: A single reality exists beyond ourselves, “out there”
Interpretitivism/Constructivism: Multiple realities are constructed through our lived experiences and interactions with others
Critical Theory: Reality is based on power and identity struggles
Deconstruction: Changing ways of thinking and bringing to the surface concealed hierarchies as well as dominations, oppositions, inconsistencies, and contradictions.
 
Pragmatism isn’t necessarily a type of research but rather more of a type of approach – use any of the above research type and more to help answer your question. Yes, I’m definitely a Pragmatist.
 
3. Critical Periphery – Top-Secret Design Strategies for Increasing Effectiveness of Presentations (How to give a good Powerpoint presentation)

Over 12 years, I’ve given about 50 public presentations. Like, proper presentations with audiences of 4 to 150 people, a projector, a whole slideshow, and the nice(ish) clothes that go with it. As an informal science and arts educator at museums, nature centers, and out in the wetlands I’ve lead, taught, or facilitated at least 700 talks. I have gone through trainings, orientations, and lectures about how to educate but most of what I have learned about proper presentations has come from failing miserably and from my ex-business partner. His art form is Microsoft Powerpoint and he is good at it. Yesterday, I got my first actual lesson in how to develop a proper and professional slideshow talk.
 
Dr. Bixler went through a highly entertaining “meta-presentation” (a presentation about how to give a presentation). Emphasizing an “emotional affectation test” Bixler highlighted that an audience is going to automatically and unconsciously rank and value the information you propose as “is this worth putting into my long-term memory?” Basically, if you haven’t got into people’s heads with your talk than you have failed. How do you get into people’s heads then?
 
You don’t get into people’s heads by telling them how smart you are and how great your information is. You don’t get into people’s heads by giving them a lecture about all the stuff you know and they would be better for if they knew it too.
 
You get in there through narrative devices: building anticipation, speaking to Universals (things we all share in common -birth, death, life, food, family, etc), circling back to constant themes in the talk (emphasizing the points regularly), and surprises of humor and/or wordplay. You get in their heads through non-verbal communication of physically moving on stage, giving pauses at appropriate times, and acting out what you’re saying. You get into people’s heads by treating the presentation as theater and like good theater you have the ability improve someone’s life during the activity and into their lived existence afterwards.
 
Bixler ended with something so poignant from a responsibility standpoint, something I hadn’t really considered in my own talks. He mentioned that there were 57 people in the class and he spoke for one hour. That means that he just used 57 productive hours of time in sharing his message. Imagine what can be accomplished in 57 hours. I had always thought about the size of my audience in regards to how many people I was getting my message across to. But now, speaking to the Pragmatist in me, this responsibility of utilizing our potentially productive hours well I will think of my audience and my message differently.