Kenya Wildlife Agents Kill 2 Elephant Poachers : NPR

Kenya Wildlife Agents Kill 2 Elephant Poachers : NPR: "The Kenya Wildlife Service on Friday said its agents shot dead two suspected poachers who they saw shooting at a herd of elephants in one of the country's famous national parks.

This brings the number of poachers shot dead by agents of the wildlife service to five, the most killed in a month, said spokesman Paul Udoto."

Rhino warriors

Wildlife Extra News - Show your support for the rhino warriors: "August 2010: WWF has launched a campaign to raise support and funding for those rangers who put their lives on the line to protect Africa's rhinos. Rhino poaching has increased dramatically over the past year-and-a half, fuelled by demand for horn in Asia for use in traditional medicines.


SHOW YOUR SUPPORT: WWF is asking for the public
to show their support on Make Noise for Rhinos Day
South Africa, proud stronghold of the African black and white rhino with more than 90 per cent of Africa's rhino populations, has been losing at least 20 of the animals per month. In the past four years, about 600 rhinos were poached across the African continent."

Employing participatory surveys to monitor the illegal killing of elephants across diverse land uses in Laikipia–Samburu, Kenya - Kahindi - 2009 - African Journal of Ecology - Wiley Online Library

Employing participatory surveys to monitor the illegal killing of elephants across diverse land uses in Laikipia–Samburu, Kenya - Kahindi - 2009 - African Journal of Ecology - Wiley Online Library: "Levels and trends of illegal killing of elephants are measured by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) programme in sites across Africa and Asia. In the mostly unprotected Laikipia–Samburu MIKE site in northern Kenya, elephant mortality data were collected using both standard law enforcement monitoring procedures, relying on patrolling, and participatory methods involving local communities. Qualitatively, traditional patrolling techniques were more successful in protected areas whereas participatory approaches provided more information outside protected areas, where elephant were most at risk from ivory poachers."

The home range fractal: From random walk to memory-dependent space use

ScienceDirect - Ecological Complexity : The home range fractal: From random walk to memory-dependent space use

We present theoretical developments of the multi-scaled random walk (MRW) model for cognitive map-influenced space use by animals. The extensions include a unified space–time scaling function, and further details with respect to statistical properties of the spatial distribution of a set of locations. Supported by numeric simulations we show how memory effects may open for a complex, multi-scaled and self-organized – i.e., intrinsically driven – habitat utilization pattern with fractal dimensional properties. These properties allow for testing for MRW compliance by using parameters from classic movement models like Brownian motion, correlated random walk and Levy walks as null models.

The ontologies of complexity and learning about complex systems

SpringerLink - Instructional Science, Online First™: "This paper discusses a study of students learning core conceptual perspectives from recent scientific research on complexity using a hypermedia learning environment in which different types of scaffolding were provided. Three comparison groups used a hypermedia system with agent-based models and scaffolds for problem-based learning activities that varied in terms of the types of text based scaffolds that were provided related to a set of complex systems concepts."

ScienceDirect - Ecological Modelling : A parsimonious optimal foraging model explaining mortality patterns in Serengeti wildebeest

Wildebeest follow a single decision rule in good and poor rainfall years, viz. move when foraging elsewhere increases your rate of intake of nutritious food. Similarly, predators follow a single decision rule in good and poor rainfall years, viz. take the prey item that maximizes the intake of energy per unit effort expended. This parsimonious model does not require differences in predator sensitivity as required by Sinclair and Arcese's (1995) model. I indicate ways in which my model can be falsified.

ScienceDirect - Ecological Modelling : A parsimonious optimal foraging model explaining mortality patterns in Serengeti wildebeest

Multimodel inference and adaptive management

ScienceDirect - Journal of Environmental Management : Multimodel inference and adaptive management

Ecology is an inherently complex science coping with correlated variables, nonlinear interactions and multiple scales of pattern and process, making it difficult for experiments to result in clear, strong inference. Natural resource managers, policy makers, and stakeholders rely on science to provide timely and accurate management recommendations. However, the time necessary to untangle the complexities of interactions within ecosystems is often far greater than the time available to make management decisions. One method of coping with this problem is multimodel inference. Multimodel inference assesses uncertainty by calculating likelihoods among multiple competing hypotheses, but multimodel inference results are often equivocal. Despite this, there may be pressure for ecologists to provide management recommendations regardless of the strength of their study’s inference. We reviewed papers in the Journal of Wildlife Management (JWM) and the journal Conservation Biology (CB) to quantify the prevalence of multimodel inference approaches, the resulting inference (weak versus strong), and how authors dealt with the uncertainty. Thirty-eight percent and 14%, respectively, of articles in the JWM and CB used multimodel inference approaches. Strong inference was rarely observed, with only 7% of JWM and 20% of CB articles resulting in strong inference. We found the majority of weak inference papers in both journals (59%) gave specific management recommendations. Model selection uncertainty was ignored in most recommendations for management. We suggest that adaptive management is an ideal method to resolve uncertainty when research results in weak inference.