Paper short abstract:

To know about animals, do we need to know animals? The case of naturalist Alice Manfield (1878-1960) suggests the ways in which women contributed to changing affinities with Australian native wildlife by claiming emotional intimacies with the animals they studied.

Paper long abstract:

Alice Manfield was a mountain guide, naturalist, and wildlife photographer who lived and worked on Mount Buffalo, at the beginning of the twentieth century, when initial colonial misgivings about freakish and unprofitable Australian wildlife would largely gave way to widespread affection and concern for their survival. After befriending a local lyrebird family, 'Guide Alice' was able to take the first known photographs of the notoriously shy male lyrebird, a feat enviously admired by other naturalists who had tried and failed to ‘bag’ similar animals. After publishing the ground-breaking photographs alongside descriptions of the individual animals’ personalities and behaviour, she offered to act as a guide to others who wanted to see this threatened species. I suggest that women naturalists like Alice, who lacked conventional experience in science or natural history, tended to assert their zoological and environmental expertise in terms of a long-term familiarity or emotional friendship with the animals they studied. Drawing primarily on her personal papers and published nature writing, this paper will highlight the ways in which she and other Australian naturalists contributed to radically changing settler affinities with, and understandings of, threatened native wildlife. Paying attention to women’s contributions to natural history in the early twentieth century, when access to universities remained rare, promises to expand our understanding of contested of animal ‘knowledge’ and the role of emotions in changing ideas about vulnerable species.

Paper short abstract:

This presentation will explore the near-extinction, recovery, and recent decline of eastern Pacific gray whales since 1840. In addition to archival and oral sources, it will feature an animated digital map to examine the shared history and future of gray whales and people in the North Pacific.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation will explore the shared history and intertwined future of gray whales and people in the Anthropocene. Hunted up and down the Pacific Coast of North America beginning in the 1840s, eastern Pacific (or “California”) gray whales seemed on their way to extinction by the early twentieth century. But after 1945, despite rising human impacts on their migration route in the form of commercial traffic, military infrastructure, and offshore oil drilling, this most coastal of great whale populations made a remarkable recovery. By the 1970s, the species had become an icon of ecological recovery and international tourism, spurring excitement around the promise of “friendly whale” encounters in the lagoons of Baja California. In the process, the shifting interaction between gray whales and people transformed cultural and spatial relations, bringing the species into the imagined community of the transnational Pacific Coast. Yet this environmental success story remained fragile. By the late 2010s, the impact of climate change on the species’ historic recovery had raised a range of questions, including concerns over the revival of Indigenous whaling of gray whales. In addition to drawing upon archival and oral history sources, this presentation will feature an animated digital map that juxtaposes human and gray whale history since 1840. In doing so, it will assess the possibilities and limitations of marine wildlife recovery in the age of the Anthropocene.

Paper short abstract:

Beavers, once hunted to extinction in Latvia, made a 20th century comeback through reintroduction efforts. This paper explores the evolving contexts of human-beaver relations, focusing on management practices, and unpredicted beavers’ reterritorialization in the changing landscape of amelioration.

Paper long abstract:

European beavers (Castor fiber L.), once thriving in the landscape since the early Holocene, they faced extinction in the mid-19th century due to relentless hunting. This not only disrupted the ecology of wetlands, where beavers served as keystone species, but also strained human-beaver relations. Beavers made a comeback in Latvia during the early 20th century, thanks to reintroduction efforts during the nation-state era of the 1920s and later in the Soviet period.

In this paper, we trace the histories of human-beaver relations throughout the 20th century, delving into the motivations behind their reintroduction, and conservation and management strategies. Contrary to current perceptions, historical accounts of beaver reintroduction and management reveal genuine concern for this valuable fur-bearing species, coupled with admiration for their engineering prowess and adaptability. Management practices encompassed careful habitat selection, food source provisioning, vigilant monitoring, protective measures, and relocation of individuals in case of overpopulation. Yet these practices gradually changed due to drainage system expansion-induced reterritorialization of beavers leading to their overpopulation, restart of hunting in the 1980s and human-beaver conflicts.

Basing on case studies, text analysis and interviews, our aim is to unfold the evolving context of human-beaver relations, focusing on beaver expansion and eventual negating of beavers’ role as keystone species in wetland ecologies. We also aim at analysing the incongruities within the managerial ethos itself, unfolding the intricate relationship between humans and beavers in Latvia throughout the 20th century.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing from ethnographic and archival work (2021-2023) on elephant lifeworlds in Indian state of Assam, this article aims to make sense of the other-than-human lives of wild Asian elephants in the Indian/ Assam plantationocene (1850s-Present) .

Paper long abstract:

The erstwhile ‘elephant nation’ of India-China-Myanmar-Nepal, where wild Asian elephants once roamed freely stands severely fragmented and deteriorated today. While the ‘Anthropocene’ is widely circulated as the generic marker for this rupture of elephant lives, an investigation of environmental histories of colonial and postcolonial policies and practices in this region (1850s- present) directs towards a certain ‘Plantaionocene’ to be responsible. Drawing from ethnographic and archival work (2021-2023) on elephant lifeworlds in Indian state of Assam, this article aims to make sense of the lives of wild Asian elephants in the plantationocene. The British occupation of Assam (1826-1947) set forth a deforestation-led ‘plantation logic’ of producing capital goods (tea, timber, oil, coal) by simultaneously ‘uprooting’ and ‘replanting’ human (tribal migrants) and other-than-human (elephant) labour. In the post-colonial era (1947-present), the national and sub-national interests trumped the requirements for ‘good life’ for elephants in Assam and elsewhere. With the continuation of the ‘plantation logic’ of expanding capital, elephants now lead an uncertain life and have literally become denizens of Assam plantations. With rapid adaptations, their lives (feeding, moving, resting, social interactions) are now unfolding outside their ‘animal places’ (forest) and in ‘beastly places’ of plantations and paddy fields. Living such a life in a plantation landscape also signifies increasingly stressful encounters with people. Thus, the long-living elephant bodies with long-term memories, themselves, have become historical markers of the plantationocene. While the literature on plantationocene is flourishing, this work adds the novelty of understanding this through the other-than-human lives of Assamese wild elephants.

Paper short abstract:

This ethnographic study explores the reintroduction of the Crested Ibis in Sado Island, Japan, highlighting its role in revitalizing rice fields and fostering sympoietic relationships among species, offering valuable insights for addressing contemporary socio-ecological challenges.

Paper long abstract:

Based on a year of fieldwork, this ethnographic inquiry examines the reintroduction of the Crested Ibis (Nipponia Nippon) in the multisided villages of Sado Island, Japan. First, I delve historically into why the last ibis went extinct in 2003 due to anthropogenic stressors such as the utilization of agricultural chemicals in wetlands, hunting, feather trade, and medicinal use, to name a few. Second, I trace the reintroduction efforts from 2008 with the help of gifted Crested Ibis from China and captive breeding and rewilding practices in other prefectures of Japan. Ethnographically, I interpret the reintroduction as a catalyst for another reinvigoration: a typhoon in 2004 damaged the rice fields on Sado Island, and the famous and high-quality Sado rice lost its popularity across Japan. Since then, officials took advantage of this timely occurrence and created a cohabitation story in which the reintroduced ibis played a vital role in revitalizing the damaged rice fields. Lastly, this study elucidates sympoietic modes emerging as previously uninvited species thrived in the wetlands. These developments resulted from interdisciplinary approaches, collaborative agricultural practices, and infrastructural reforms. By meticulously scrutinizing the reintroduction of the Crested Ibis on Sado Island, this study makes a substantial contribution to the overarching discourse on Anthropocene histories and anthropologies of wildlife, thereby showcasing how such perspectives can be instrumental in addressing the urgent socio-ecological challenges confronting our contemporary milieu.

Paper short abstract:

By 1900, European rabbits occupied the worst possible categories for non-human animals in Australia: introduced, pest, wild and prolific. This paper explores disgust as a necessary component of the long, but ultimately unsuccessful, campaign of eradication waged against the rabbit in Australia.

Paper long abstract:

European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) entered Australia’s ecocultural networks slowly at first and then rapidly after wild rabbits arrived in Wadawurrung country in western Victoria in the 1850s. By 1900, rabbits occupied the worst possible categories for non-human animals in Australia: introduced, pest, wild and prolific. Perceived by settler colonists as a serious threat to the pastoral industry, rabbits became outsiders. They were no longer appealing to hunt for sport or meat, but were liable to mass killing through poisoning, deliberate infection with disease, exclusion by continental scale fencing and other lethal measures. To naturalist David Stead in 1928, rabbits were a noxious and insidious menace, proper objects of disgust.

The transformation of rabbits from charismatic and cherished denizen of the English countryside and children’s storybooks to antipodean trash animal (Nagy and Johnson, eds., 2013) will be explored in this paper, drawing upon scientific studies, popular accounts, newspaper correspondence and visual material. This shift was something of an intellectual feat. Rabbits had little in common with classically disgusting things, which are slimy, slithery, wriggly, oily and viscid (Miller, 1997). Instead, contemporaries focused to their large numbers and irregular movement, sometimes describing them as a grey blanket laid over the land. Rabbits were at their worst, however, when the measures taken against them took their toll. Images of dead and dying rabbits were circulated to be viewed with both disgust and satisfaction. Disgust was a necessary component of the long, but ultimately unsuccessful, campaign of eradication waged against the Australian rabbit.

Paper short abstract:

This presentation traces the Przewalski's horse's journey through the 20th century. Focusing on life stories of individual horses spanning different historical periods, it explores how human interventions have shaped this species and how the understanding of these changes has evolved over time.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation traces the Przewalski's horse's journey through the 20th century, a unique yet representative story of charismatic endangered species in the Anthropocene. Hunted and persecuted by humans, the last Przewalski’s horses (takhi in Mongolian) living in the Dzungarian Gobi, were declared extinct in the wild by 1969. But the species endured due to the capture and global trade of several dozen foals at the dawn of the 20th century. They were prized as the last wild horses on Earth, exceedingly rare. Eleven of these edgy potbellied horses bred successfully in captivity within zoos and reserves, setting the stage for worldwide zoo trade and intensive breeding efforts. By the onset of the 1990s, their numbers increased to hundreds, and their survival was hailed as a zoo-based conservation success. However, concerns emerged as signs of domestication and troubling impacts of inbreeding on fertility and longevity came to light. When reintroductions returned horses to Mongolia, it became clear that while the captive-bred horses retained certain skills, such as defending against predators, they had lost vital features and behaviors - for instance immunity to deadly local parasites and knowledge of territory that enabled winter survival. The speed of their adaptation 'back to the wild' remained uncertain.

This presentation focuses on the life stories of several individual horses spanning different historical periods. Drawing from various sources, including archives, scientific publications, interviews and brief fieldwork, it explores how human interventions have shaped this species and how the understanding of these alterations has evolved over time.

Paper short abstract:

This intervention examines how brown bears in Romania and their ecology were altered by historical management during communism, commercial trophy hunting in post-socialist years and recent regimes of protection by showing how habituation and ursine transgressions made the species ungovernable.

Paper long abstract:

Brown bears are the largest strictly protected carnivores within the European Union, and their recent strong comeback poses significant challenges to understanding conservation interventions across the continent. In Romania, while their recovery is celebrated by conservation practitioners, the management of the species is highly politicised, creating factions, brewing discontent and developing a landscape of distrust in public authorities, while questioning the legitimacy of scientific knowledge of hunters and conservationists alike. The paper discusses how brown bears and their ecology were altered by historical management during communism, commercial trophy hunting during post-socialist years and recent regimes of conservation. It shows how recent and current management practices triggered complex habituation responses. To captive breeding attempts, bears responded by seeking safety around human settlements. After decades of supplemental feeding at the hunting ground, they started raiding the waste bins in mountain resorts, while also crowding popular tourist roads. Governing bears is a messy endeavour in Romania; they belong to the state, are managed by hunters, and have enjoyed strict protection since 2016. However, they live their lives regardless of administrative boundaries, legal protection status and human-made thresholds of wilderness. These transgressions between wild and domesticated, wilderness and urban, wildlife and game, from being objects of human enjoyment to objects of human intervention, have made bears become ungovernable subjects. This intervention into the complexities of how ursine lives adapted to human intervention in Romania is done by bringing together insights from environmental history, green criminology and other-than-human political ecologies.

Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses wildlife overabundance using the case of wild boar in Central Europe and the African Swine Fever epizootic. The contrast between attention to livestock and wildlife health will be discussed in relation to agricultural development, industrial capitalism, and climate change.

Paper long abstract:

Wild boar (Sus scrofa) is among the most widely distributed large mammals across the world. Their perceived overabundance in Europe has recently raised serious concerns over human-wildlife conflict and emergent pathogenic ecologies. Feral pigs and wild boar are considered invasive in many areas where they have been introduced, but even in their native range in Europe the latter also gained the status of unwanted pests whose populations are highly regulated with hunting and control over reproduction (e.g. breeding wild boar was prohibited in the Austro-Hungarian Empire). Since the 1980s wild boar numbers grew rapidly in both rural and urban areas across Central Europe. The epidemic of African Swine Fever is expected to kill one-quarter of the world’s domestic pig population by the end of next year, thus, endangering the pork industry. This viral disease endemic to Central Africa is neither infectious nor dangerous to humans, but it spreads among wild boars and domestic pigs and is deadly for both swine. Wild boars are targeted with mass culls as suspected disease vectors. This paper discusses the idea of wildlife overabundance as a facet of the Anthropocene that stands in direct contrast to the concerns over species extinction and biodiversity loss. The contrast between attention to livestock and wildlife health will be discussed in relation to agricultural development, industrial capitalism, and climate change. Thinking with wild boar, and the long history of human-porcine relations, helps to reconceptualize the effects of the Anthropocene on species biopolitics.