A huge thanks to everyone who donated and supported our crowd funding campaign.

We met our goal and successfully raised $12,455.

The donations will assist with the costs of aerial capturing deer via helicopter this coming winter.

We had 95 donors, which means the average donation was around $130. This is extremely generous and we even had three donors give $1500, which provided a huge boost to our campaign.

If you would like to follow our research you can join the Facebook group called Washington Wolf Project.

Alternatively, the Predator Ecology Lab at the University of Washington now have an active blog.

The crowd funding team (from left to right): Apryle Craig, Thomas Newsome, Justin Dellinger, Aaron Wirsing, Carolyn Shores.

Alan Newsome with red kangaroo

This week the journal Historical Records of Australian Science launched a special issue exploring sciences contribution to the understanding of the arid interior of Australia.

My contribution came though an article summarising the early research on the red kangaroo and the dingo.

You will note from my title, Makings of Icons: Alan Newsome, the Red Kangaroo and the Dingo, that my contribution is a rather personal piece.

Below is a copy of the abstract and link to the journal web page.

ABSTRACT

The red kangaroo (Macropus rufus) and the dingo (Canis dingo) are two of Australia’s iconic mammals. Both are ingrained in the national psyche and well known internationally. For the red kangaroo, recognition has come despite the fact that the highest densities of the species occur well away from most of the human population. The dingo has achieved its status despite being present on the continent for perhaps as little as 3,000 years. This article considers the question of how, and why, these two animals became so elevated in the popular imagination and the scientific literature. It is a story of both the integers and consequences of scientific research, a story best told with a particular focus on the contribution made by one individual. Alan Newsome changed our understanding of the interactions between agriculture, introduced species and native wildlife, and was one of the first to understand the possibilities of enriching western science with Indigenous knowledge. He was a pioneer in explaining—particularly by reference to the red kangaroo in central Australia—the remarkable story of how Australian wildlife has adapted to survive some of the harshest conditions on the planet. His work across the landscape of the arid zone has had profound implications for management and conservation in Australia. This, then, is the story of three icons: the red kangaroo, the dingo and Alan Newsome.

WEB LINK

On the 15th October 2014 I posted a blog outlining an exciting crowd funding campaign led by the Predator Ecology Lab at the University of Washington.

The goal of the campaign is to raise $12,000 to help fund research that is assessing the impacts of recolonising wolves on other carnivores, deer populations and plants.

We have been overwhelmed by the support so far, but we haven’t met our goal.

We are currently 81% funded, which means we have 6 days to raise approximately $2,300.

You can help by donating here or by simply sharing the link below with as many friends as possible over the next 6 days.

https://uw.useed.net/projects/129/home

Hopefully the title of my next blog will be “We made it!”.

Thanks for your support!