Large Carnivore Conservation: Integrating Science and Policy in the North American West

Abstract

Clark, S. G, and M. B. Rutherford (eds.). 2014. Large Carnivore Conservation: Integrating Science and Policy in the North American West. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, xiii + 407 pp. ISBN 978-0-226-10740-0, price (hard cover), $60.00. The management and conservation of large carnivores is of worldwide concern and is as much about human values, interactions, and governance as carnivore biology. Susan Clark and Murray Rutherford continue their work on coexisting with large carnivores (Clark et al. 2005) with a new edited volume Large Carnivore Conservation: Integrating Science and Policy in the North American West . Large Carnivore Conservation that expands on the same themes as their previous work with case studies from Arizona to the Yukon. While focusing on the North American West, Clark and Rutherford hope to provide a holistic approach to carnivore management in general. We reviewed Large Carnivore Conservation as part of a graduate seminar at Iowa State University, and seminar participants represented the full range of readers who might be interested in the book: natural resource managers, citizen advocates, researchers, and students. Although we encountered a variety of opinions based on our different backgrounds and orientations, we discovered a surprising amount of consensus both about what the book does well and where it falls short of our expectations. Large Carnivore Conservation divides its discussion into 2 sections: the 1st section of the book (Chapters 2–7) describes case studies of large carnivore conservation throughout the North American West, while the 2nd section (Chapters 8–10) examines relevant governance and sociopolitical factors. Chapter 1 provides a brief introduction to the structure of the book and presents its primary thesis, namely, that successful management and conservation of large carnivores requires collaborative governance and an “integrative approach” to conservation. The contrast between the authors’ preferred method of collaborative decision-making and a more typical science-based, top-down management style is introduced in Chapter 1 and continues as a theme through the rest of the book. Chapter 2 presents the book’s 1st case study, describing a problematic attempt at mountain … e-mail: bklaver{at}iastate.edu.