Barrows Lecture Series

Megan Parker
Asst. Director, North American Program, Wildlife Conservation Society
Director, Working Dogs for Conservation

Biography: Megan grew up in Montana, where she couldn’t help but gain an appreciation for wildlife and wild places. She attended Middlebury College for her B.A., and Boise State University for her M.S. in raptor biology, working on falcons in Tikal, National Park in Guatemala. She studied African wild dogs in the Okavango Delta of Botswana for her Ph.D. work at the University of Montana.  Megan has trained dogs since she was 10 and this led her to combine her passion for conservation biology with dog training to partner with other experts and co-found Working Dogs for Conservation. As director she develops projects, trains conservation detection dogs and helps explore new avenues for conservation applications with dogs, such as detecting scats of endangered species, elusive live animals and rare or invasive plants and animals.  She is currently Assistant Director of North American Programs for the Wildlife Conservation Society, based in Bozeman, Montana.

Brief Description: When we consider the impact of predators on prey populations, we usually focus on the most obvious effect of predation – the direct killing of prey. We rarely consider less the obvious effects that can arise from the simple presence of predators on the landscape. Prey animals respond to predation risk with a wide range of behavioral and ecological responses, which reduce the odds of being killed, but also carry costs. Using the example of responses by elk to the presence of wolves in the Yellowstone Ecosystem, I will show how such antipredator responses can have a large effect on prey numbers by altering patterns of reproduction. I will then discuss how we are extending this research to examine the ecology of lions, spotted hyenas and other large carnivores as part of an integrated conservation and development effort with the Maasai tribe on a Community Conservation Area in Kenya’s Rift Valley.

Biography: Scott Creel is a Professor of Ecology at Montana State University. He has studied the behavior, ecology and conservation of many carnivores, beginning with a study of dwarf mongooses in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park in the late 1980s. For six years, he and his wife Nancy conducted a study of endangered African wild dogs in Africa’s largest protected area, the Selous Game Reserve, which resulted in a book, The African Wild Dog: Behavior, Ecology and Conservation. He recently completed a six year study of interactions between wolves and elk in the Yellowstone Ecosystem, and has returned to research in East Africa, assisting the Maasai tribe with a study of predators and prey on a Community Conservation Area that the tribe has established on two collectively-owned areas, Olkiramatian and Shompole. He lives in Bozeman Montana with his wife Nancy and two daughters, Andie and Bridget.

Publications: For a complete list of recent publications, see http://www.montana.edu/wwwbi/staff/creel/creel.html

Description: This talk will describe what geographies are likely to allow plants and animals to survive rapid climate change and what conservation strategies are needed to conserve them using examples from South and Central America. Elevational gradients where the eastern Andes meet the Amazon and a huge amount of biodiversity is concentrated will be discussed in detail. Finally, the threat of climate change will be compared with the threat posed by large-scale habitat loss due to energy and mineral development and agriculture.

Biography: Dr. Adrian Forsyth is Vice President for Programs at blue moon fund. He previously served on the blue moon fund board while working as Director of Biodiversity Science for the Andes/Amazon at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. He received his PhD in tropical ecology from Harvard University. He has worked as vice president of Conservation International, is currently a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution, and serves as President of the Board of the Amazon Conservation Association, USA. Adrian has supported his fieldwork as a university professor, professional conservationist, and consultant. He is also one of North America's finest natural history writers and the author of nine books, including Tropical Nature, Mammals of the Canadian Wild, The Natural History of Sex, The Nature of Birds, Exploring the World of Insects, and Portraits of the Rainforest.