Dale McCollough of UCB and Wayne Linklater of Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand discuss a survey of wild animals in El Cerrito and Kensington, CA that McCullough and K. Jennings did in 1995 and 98. Linklater and J. Benson repeated the survey in 2010.
Transcript
Speaker 1: [inaudible].
Speaker 2: [00:00:30] Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program with news events and interviews featuring bay area scientists and technologists. My name is Brad Swift. Today's interview is with Dale McCullough and Wayne Linklater. They're both researchers of large wild mammals. Del Macola is a professor Ameritas at the environmental science and Policy Management Department of the College [00:01:00] of natural resources at UC Berkeley. Wayne link ladder is a senior lecturer in the school of biological sciences at Victoria, University of Wellington in New Zealand. We talk about their research in wild animals in urban settings, specifically a survey of deer and other wild animals in El Sorito and Kensington, the Dale Macola and Kathleen Jennings first completed in 1995 and again in 1998 Wayne link ladder [00:01:30] and Jeffrey Benson repeated the survey in 2010 a summary report of the surveys can be downloaded from Wayne's website. Wayne's website address is really long, so if you would like it, send us an email and we'll pass it along to you. Our address is spectrum dot k a l ex@yahoo.com. This interview is prerecorded and edited.
Speaker 3: We're joined by Dale McCullough and Wayne Linklater. [00:02:00] And Dale, why don't you tell us about yourself and where you're currently positioned at UC? I know that you're a professor Ameritus, which is
Speaker 4: Professor Ameritus. Yes. Which means I am retired and ordinary person's language and I retired in 2004. Most of the things I did at UC Berkeley had have wound down and hadn't been done. But I've continued to do research on several projects that I've been interested in. So I'm have been [00:02:30] continuing research on Kangaroos and outback Australia and leopards and tigers and far east Russia and seek a deer throughout Southeast Asia.
Speaker 3: Great. And Wayne? Well, I'm a wildlife biologist from New Zealand, from Victoria University, in fact that the, it's quite a handle, but at the scene provide a of est in restoration ecology at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand and like daylight. My history is full of work on, on large mammals to [00:03:00] exciting places and phd students working in Malaysia and India on elephants and in, uh, South Africa. On Rhinoceros. What brings me here is my growing interest in the relationships between people and Wildlife, which is why I came and did a sabbatical here for six months in 2008, 2009 the year in which we replicated, um, some work that we'd done in Wellington looking at people's relationships with wildlife in their backyard. [00:03:30] So is that when you and Dale hooked up on this wildlife survey that you've done in the El Cerrito and Kensington hills or just, I guess it's the entire, it's all of Kensington and all of El Sorito. That's right, yes. What happened was that Dale pointed out a phd thesis to me from Kathleen Genie and it immediately put to my interest, I contacted Kathleen and she had done the survey in the mid 1990s with Dale's a advice [00:04:00] and I saw a really quite exciting opportunity to replicate their work 10 years later. But Dale knows better how that Sioux, they evolved in the first place.
Speaker 4: Yeah. It happened sort of accidentally in the deer population and in the East Bay was building up and becoming a problem and people were going to city councils and places like that and complaining and I live in Kensington and [00:04:30] the deer, my neighborhood had gone up so I could are going to have dinner and sit out on the deck in the evening and guarantee that there'd be going up and down the street. And then I thought, well, Geez, here I get on airplanes and fly off to Japan and Taiwan and Vietnam and so on to, to study there and I don't even know what these deer out in my street are doing. And so I decided, well, we better do a biological study of them to find out how they are behaving in the urban area [00:05:00] and how that compares with what they do in the wild.
Speaker 4: And so we started, started out with the, uh, survey to get some sort of background. It's, it's hard to apply a lot of the methods that we use in the wild to an urban situation because the high density of people and particularly in, in, uh, in places like Kensington and El Serita where the traditional law is very small and houses very big. That was the motivation. And so we did the, uh, [00:05:30] the first survey, um, on a random systematic random sample. So it covered a certain area, these two cities. And uh, and then we repeated it in 1998 because we, from our work, we're seeing something of a decline in the number of deer. And we wanted to see if that was what was happening across these, these two, uh, communities. And in general, it was [00:06:00] a lot, it was mainly in the areas on the higher parts of the hill. And just to sort of anticipate the deer continued to go down and were low levels. And one of the things that is peaked our interest recently is there is evidence that the deer are starting to build up again. And so Wayne's interest fit right into, well if we're going to have another in increase in deer [00:06:30] then it would be really good to be able to document that. And so, um, the, the, the timing from my point of view was perfect.
Speaker 3: And Wayne, with your current survey, you're picking up the laurels of this, uh, this research and so I don't have, we don't have the facility to repeat the biology on the ground and unfortunately we'd love to but we don't. But what we can do is a use this EC ground information already gathered by Kathleen Jennings [00:07:00] and Dale to look at with the pictures changed for the people in the 10 12 years since the last survey in 1998 and in particular, I'm very interested in as a seed the relationship between people and wildlife and what does, what replicating a survey like this enables us to do is to try and build a relationship or understand the relationship between people's beliefs or attitudes about wildlife in this case, deer and [00:07:30] the presence of dia themselves and how that changes over time. The reason we're interested in that is because these days when it comes to managing wildlife, understanding how to manage the problem with wildlife, data's the people in the equation is becoming more important.
Speaker 3: So it's very important to understand how are people's attitudes and beliefs change? How dynamic are they to external influences like the density of d or or, [00:08:00] or um, experience and uh, so living around the deer that's right for a longer period of time, increased tolerance or not oh, not and actually understanding that that dynamic is important for managers who need to prioritize in a landscape that's full of people whose, uh, relationship with a deer is variously extremely negative to extremely positive. It's a very challenging environment to work in. I mean, he manages to, they hear out at the sort of problem, but if we [00:08:30] could add a social dimension to this map wildlife management problem, we might be some of the wider, resolving some of those issues. I think. Is there any way within the survey to try to take account of the management of the area? Is there an overlaid management in the El Sorito Kensington area or is there really no public policy or is and,
Speaker 4: uh, a management system in most, I mean, you know, the, the way deer populations are traditionally controlled [00:09:00] is through hunting. And obviously you can't have hunting in this situation, but in places like Kensington and El Serita, you just, you can take an animal maybe under extraordinary circumstances, but the hazard is just too great.
Speaker 3: Well, does, does trapping become a solution or is that
Speaker 4: it's very, very expensive and hard to do and people think contraception, well again, if you have animals in captivity or that sort [00:09:30] of thing, contraception works great, but unfree and roaming animals is very expensive. It just won't work. So literally there is no, no good solution. And you know, again, to refer to the Monterey Peninsula where we have this longer record, people get excited, you know, and they, they finally get enough information to see that there's really not much that can be done. And by that time the deer start going down on their own and people forget [00:10:00] about the problem and 15 years later
Speaker 3: back comes back again. Yeah. One of the other interesting parts of that original survey too was that all day the deer at concentrated toward the upland, the penetration to the El Sorito down near the bat, it's actually quite deep. Although in low numbers they actually get right down there and to very high density, high traffic areas. Basically they go down pillars
Speaker 4: too much concrete, you know, and not enough deer habitat. Right. But if there's any [00:10:30] residential neighborhood with the typical local gardens and some on their there, they were on Albany Hill. Yeah, they went clear down to the bay. Were any place that there was suitable habitat that they were there? Yeah.
Speaker 3: And Wayne would the current survey and then hopefully you're going to try to continue this project. Do you need to get funding for it or how will you maintain? Well, fortunately the sort of work doesn't require large amounts of funding. I shouldn't say that publicly [00:11:00] because of course we're always after funding, but, but unfortunately, this sort of work can be data rich without large amounts of funding because we were primarily interested in people's observations and their opinions. And in a topic like this, uh, people are actually very forthcoming and very helpful for some reason. Uh, most sorts of surveys have very low response rate. So I think people fear, feel harassed and harried by surveys, political surveys, commercial surveys. But [00:11:30] when it comes to wildlife, the seems to attract people's interest and, and, um, most everyone has an opinion on wildlife in their, in their locality.
Speaker 3: And so fortunately, uh, we get very high response rates, which we're very grateful for for the sort of survey. So, um, the resources required to undertake a survey, a fairly rudimentary, which actually makes it possible to do this sort of work over the long term with some confidence. So I, I think depending on the outcomes of this one, [00:12:00] we'll almost certainly repeat it. I'd be very interested in knowing how our, uh, deer and other wildlife disperse through this landscape. What are the barriers and triggers to that widespread movement? I suspect that there are elements of the urban landscape that actually landscape architects and urban designers plan for other reasons. The deer and other wildlife I find very useful for moving about the landscape. [00:12:30] These corridors that I mentioned, for example, when people count sell land anymore under [inaudible]. So, uh, electric was our, um, these, these, my function is very important corridors for wildlife movement through the landscape, uh, in fact may be making the urban landscape much more permeable than it used to be.
Speaker 5: [inaudible] [00:13:00] you're listening to spectrum on KALX Berkeley. Today we're talking with Wayne Linklater and Dale Macola about wild animals, urban sentence. [inaudible]
Speaker 4: so you're really focused on deer because they were the past, so to speak. Well, that's what we focused [00:13:30] on, but you know, rod also keeping a very pretty close watch on what was going on with pay odis because they were one of the predators. And again, I'm not familiar with what coyotes are doing right now, but they were coming down through that Mosher corridor clear down to the middle school down there. Uh, and, uh, you know, we had some evidence that mountain lines were, you know, on the verge of coming in one case where it probably [00:14:00] was a mountain lion, it came down below Arlington Avenue and of course a that recent mountain lion, you know, Jason White, Shaddock Shaddock Avenue, I think Shotokan Cedar. And uh, so it's a problem with the disparate young dispersing animals meanly. You know, these aren't mountain lions that have territories that overlap. It.
Speaker 4: It usually when we see animals like that, they're, they're young [00:14:30] animals that are dispersing and trying to find a territory where they can, they can live. And I, and of course these, uh, sere make awfully good meals and of course we worry about an attack on a person. You know, that, right? That's the, the big concern because it, in each case, the probability is very, very low, but enough cases and then, you know, eventually will become inevitable that there [00:15:00] will be some attack and then all the wheels will come off because there would be zero tolerance for that. So then that would reintroduce hunting. Well you can't hunt here. So it would be hard to do any kind of control. That's what makes this so difficult is uh, the, the sort of example we have is down, uh, on the Monterey peninsula where the deer have periodically [00:15:30] gone up and gone down again for reasons that we don't really understand.
Speaker 4: We know it's not direct mortality, it's failure and success of reproduction, not the attempt to reproduce, but that the fond doesn't survive for reasons that we don't understand, but they've gone up and down on like a 15 to 18 year time period. So my [00:16:00] expectation is that these deer may show some sort of similar pattern. Eventually we may figure out why. And like I say, just over the last year or so, there are the signs that the deer are starting to come up. So peaked in 1995 already started going down. They went down very, very gradually. Our radio collared animals, you know, live, normal lifespans and very gradually disappeared just like [00:16:30] you would, you would expect. What is that life span? How long? Well, the urban area, uh, the equivalent of 70 would probably be about 12 or 13 years for deer and, but you know, some humans live to be a hundred, so occasionally you're gonna probably get a 16 or 17 year old, uh, deer. And then again in the urban area where the hazards aren't that great. Interestingly, the animal that was the radio animal that [00:17:00] we had that lived along this time died in a yard right across the street from the yard where we captured it.
Speaker 4: You could easily toss the rock, the spot where we captured it to where it went to its final resting. It goes back to that really small range that you were talking about in hotspots for food because of gardening and also fruit trees, [00:17:30] which isn't major attracted when, when there's fruit in the falls.
Speaker 5: [inaudible] you're listening to spectrum on KALX Berkeley. Today we're talking with [inaudible] and Dale McCullough about wild animals and urban sex. [inaudible]
Speaker 4: [00:18:00] just, uh, you know, just the recent illustration of what we're talking about, who I know, the biology of the animals, they, uh, have had some problems with deer attacks, quote on people. Also down near the the food ghetto. I was contacted indirectly by one of the graduate students in, in the [00:18:30] department here who is working with, uh, a city official on that. And I said, well, I don't, I don't know what's going on, but my guess is that people are walking dogs and it's females with Fonz that are attacking because in the wild they recognize that dog is a coyote or so on. Well, it turns out that is exactly what the situation was when they talked about it a bit. But see, just having that little [00:19:00] clue about, you know, the biology of the animal and how those interactions work puts that whole problem into a different context.
Speaker 3: Piece of information. Like that immediately informs because suddenly the options are a, the biological control of her mother, Dia. But also this becomes an information management problem, doesn't it? Because for most people, when they understand that the steer is acting in defense, they'll change the [00:19:30] behavior, but that information becomes a way of managing the problem by changing people's behavior rather than potentially the cost of managing a deer population. Right. Wildlife feeding is a classic example of this, isn't it? Where in places where the feeding of wildlife becomes a problem, the wildlife come in, they come in at last dean's states, they lose their fear of people. They immediately become more dangerous. Just that piece of information [00:20:00] and some sort of social marketing campaign to inform people that actually the magnitude of the problem, that feeling causes is sometimes often enough, enough to reduce the magnitude of the problem. People change their behavior. It also empowers people and it empowers management agencies in ways that other sorts of solutions, which grant all sorts of controls. He don't [inaudible].
Speaker 4: Yeah. The thing is it, it sensitizes people. So if you say you shouldn't be feeding them, you shouldn't be taming them. That's dangerous. [00:20:30] You should be a little afraid of the deer and the deer should be a little afraid of you. And then there are homeless nerve problems. But if the deer totally becomes on afraid, that's when the problem comes in. And most wildlife problems are of that kind. So like where there've been cases, coyotes if attack children, it's in cases where people have been feeding them, they've completely lost their fear. And the other thing, as you can tell people, you should reinforce if, if you approach the deer [00:21:00] and, and they don't go, go away, you know, get your darn broom or whatever you have, you know, but just make that deer get outta there to establish the fact that it is still not running the place. [inaudible]
Speaker 3: if we take a step back and, and think about, uh, relationships between wildlife and people in urban landscapes, one of the really interesting parts of that context to me is that this year the world's urban population just tipped 50%. [00:21:30] The world's population just took 50% of than most people in the world now live in urban areas. They live in, in areas which should depauperate of wildlife and wilderness. It's really interesting to me to try and understand what the implications of that are for the future of wildlife conservation and wilderness conservation. Because increasingly the world is going to depend on people making decisions who [00:22:00] no longer have contact with wilderness or wildlife anymore. The way that our grandparents did for instance, and other academics have talked about this idea of extinction of experience. So the voting populous in North America for instance, are going to be less and less ecologically or environmentally literate with time. The more open eyes they become, it makes you wonder, doesn't it? Hair important. Therefore, relationships with wildlife in urban areas might [00:22:30] become for facilitating this relationship with wilderness. So that's one of the things that gets me interested in in urban landscapes and these urban things like DNA. So let me just say thank you very much for your time in talking about this with us. You're most welcome
Speaker 5: [inaudible] [00:23:00] [inaudible],
Speaker 2: [00:23:30] a regular feature of spectrum's dimension, few of the science and technology events happening locally over the next few weeks. The science at cow lecture for May is associate Professor Neil Seuss. We from the Department of Environmental Science Policy and management at the College of natural resources. The lecture will be May 21st at 11:00 AM in the genetics and plant biology building room 100 he will be talking about extreme sociality, super colonies of the invasive [00:24:00] Argentine ant with the end of the semester days away. Here's an on campus resource you may find helpful. Reuse. Reuse is a student run program dedicated to promoting the reuse of materials on the UC Berkeley campus. They promote reuse by providing spaces for the campus community to freely exchange reusable goods. The reuse stations consist of shelving units placed in buildings where campus members donate and pick up reusable materials [00:24:30] to learn where the stations are located. Visit their website, reuse.berkeley.edu for those with bigger items or specific needs.
Speaker 2: Reuse now sponsors an online forum for exchanging things. The forum address is exchange.berkeley.edu you do need to have a berkeley.edu email address to use the forum Thursday May 12th his bike to work day at UC Berkeley on bike to work day. [00:25:00] UC Berkeley will host an energizer station in Sproul Plaza from 7:00 AM to 10:00 AM I have no idea what an energizer station is. If you have a bike and you need help fixing it or maintaining it, there are at least two groups on campus ready to help citizens cycle and by cy cow. Both have free sessions to repair bikes and hopefully teach you how to maintain your bike. Citizens Cycle has two free clinics a week in front of the East Asian library. The Monday clinic is held [00:25:30] from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM and the Friday clinic is from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM citizens cycle is a voluntary student group. Buy Cycle has free repair three days a week.
Speaker 2: Monday 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM Wednesday 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM Friday 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM their website is buy-side cow, B I c y c a l.com. The free repair [00:26:00] sessions are held just behind the Golden Bear cafe at Sproul Plaza by cycle is a student funded cooperative. Two news items of note. This first news story was derived from the UC Berkeley News Center story by Sarah Yang in early April, 2011 energy secretary Steven Chu announced grants totaling 112 point $5 million of funding over five years to support the development of advanced solar photovoltaic [00:26:30] related manufacturing processes throughout the United States. The Energy Department's sunshot advanced manufacturing partnerships will help the solar power industry overcome technical barriers and reduce for photo-voltaic installations. A local outgrowth of this sunshot funding is the bay area photovoltaics consortium jointly led by the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University. The consortium will receive [00:27:00] $25 million spread over five years. Industry sources will provide $1 million annually to the consortium budget.
Speaker 2: The Bay area photovoltaics consortium will fund competitive grants through a process open to all universities, national laboratories and research institutions. The consortium seeks to spur research and development of new materials and manufacturing processes that will cut the cost significantly, increased production volume and improve the performance [00:27:30] of solar cells and devices. Ali's Javi, UC Berkeley, associate professor of electrical engineering and co-director of the consortium addressed their goals by saying the cost of solar energy in 2010 was about $3 and 40 cents per watt of power installed. Our end goal is to decrease that cost to $1 per watt installed. Our collaboration with industry will be critical in achieving this goal. We are fortunate that the bay area is home to such a high density of photo-voltaic related [00:28:00] companies. Cal Green Fund grants for 2011 were announced at the eighth annual UC Berkeley Sustainability Summit. April 19th the grants were awarded to Christopher carbuncle at the UC botanical garden. Josh Mendell College of letters and science. Elizabeth Chan of the energy and Resources Class one nine zero any Gordon and Paris Yacht Chakrabarti at the UC Berkeley compost alliance and frank you [00:28:30] at UC residents hall assembly
Speaker 5: [inaudible] can use occurred during the show is from an Austin, a David album titled Volker and [00:29:00] [inaudible]. Thank you for listening to spectrum. We are happy to hear from our listeners. If you have comments about the show or we'd like to link to Wayne Linklater's website, which you can download the El Cerrito Kensington wild animal survey, send us an email or an email address is spectrum dot k a l s@yahoo.com [00:29:30] join us in two weeks at the same time. [inaudible].
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