Red wolf science and identity storylines in an online discursive community

Abstract

Predator restoration is ecologically important but politically controversial. Red wolf (Canis rufus) reintroduction is challenged by public criticism and scientific uncertainty. Red wolf taxonomy is a core issue, as researchers debate wolves’ identity and political stakeholders work to interpret technical issues and promote their favored political storylines. Red wolf reintroduction critics form a politically important discursive community. We analyzed these critics’ discourse, identifying storylines characterizing science, scientists, and red wolf identity. Our corpus was an influential internet thread, active since 2013. We found that red wolf restoration opponents accepted the authority of science, and felt that science supported their perspective. They believed peer reviewed science to be more legitimate than applied or management science, that science supported their belief that red wolves were not a real species, and that red wolves’ status as a species was an anti-scientific conspiracy. Red wolf restoration advocates on the thread countered these arguments while similarly believing in scientific authority. Restoration opponents constantly sought to promote their storylines in policy-making venues, and found the red wolf restoration program to be corrupt and the reintroduced canids themselves to be impure. These storylines parallel similar findings elsewhere, highlighting the political challenges faced by predator restoration science and policy, the issues of purity complicating many levels of the discourse, and the role of online venues as effective spaces to create and promote discursive communities and their storylines