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Wild Science
Unexpected Encounters When Working in Nature
Edited by Helen P. Waudby
Paperback
November 2024
9781486317639
More details
- Publisher
CSIRO Publishing - ISBN 9781486317639
- Language English
- Pages 216 pp.
- Size 6" x 9"
$25.99
What’s it like to study polar bears in the wild? How do you raise children among large carnivores? And how do you find a frog that no-one has seen for 40 years?
From deserts to rainforests and even the polar Arctic, scientists venture into the field to collect, observe, and study the world’s organisms and the environments they live in. But even with the best planning, unexpected weather, unpredictable animals and unforeseen encounters can occur.
Wild Science: Unexpected Encounters When Working in Nature explores the precarious, hilarious and thought-provoking stories "behind the science." It shows the value of these experiences, even when things don’t go right, and the importance of fieldwork for understanding our own place in the world.
Features:
- Over 20 fascinating and entertaining stories of success, challenges and unexpected events from fieldwork around the world.
- Highlights what happens "behind the science" and the lessons learned, even if unplanned.
- Features encounters with polar bears, carnivorous plants, mountain gorillas and many other creatures great and small.
“Stories from the field that read like adventure movie scripts.”
From the Foreword by Dr. Ann Jones, Presenter, ABC Science
"Ecologists are pivotal in bringing nature to the attention of other people in their communities. Here they tell their stories with a combination of humour and awe, inspiring the reader to look more closely at the wonders that surround us."
Dr. Steve Morton, author of Australian Deserts
Foreword
--Ann Jones
Preface
About the editor
Acknowledgements
List of contributors
1: Ngarridjarrkbolknahnan kunred: Looking after Country together in West Arnhem Land--Cara Penton, Terrah Guymala and Warddeken Rangers
2: Avoiding arrest while chasing hedgehogs--Christopher R. Dickman
3: The Big Roo Count: kangaroos, kids and calamity--Euan G. Ritchie
4: In search of a kingdom--Pam Catcheside
5: A leopard at the nursery door-- Neil R. Jordan
6: If the gators don’t get you, the bugs will--Laura Kojima
7: Raising rays--Leonardo Guida
8: In pursuit of pollinators--Manu E. Saunders
9: Of absences and Amazonia--David M. Watson
10: Caving for spiders--Jessica Marsh
11: Some cockatoos I’ve met--Erika M. Roper
12: What a botanist can learn from a dog--Laura M. Skates
13: Bears, drugs and guns--Andrew E. Derocher
14: Clever Aotearoa New Zealand birds--Isabel Castro
15: Expect the unexpected when dealing with the devil--David G. Hamilton
16: Outfoxed by a jackal, and other tales from the Indian savanna--Abi T. Vanak
17: Finding frogs in the most unexpected of places--Jodi J. L. Rowley
18: Encounters with mountain gorillas--Wayne Boardman
19: Lazy lions and hungry hyaenas--Robert Heinsohn
20: Don’t be a lemming--Jo Isaac
21: Places where a kea’s beak shouldn’t be--Lydia McLean
22: Coral slime, feisty fish, shark encounters and the importance of looking up--Tracy Ainsworth
23: People are strange: studying nature in cities--Dieter F. Hochuli
24: A dingo gold mine--Bradley P. Smith
25: Bogged in the desert--Helen P. Waudby
Index to locations and species
Helen P. Waudby
Dr. Helen P. Waudby is an Adjunct Research Fellow with the Gulbali Institute at Charles Sturt University, and a conservation biologist with the NSW Government. She has over 20 years' experience in wildlife research and conservation, and also co-edited the book Wildlife Research in Australia: Practical and Applied Methods.
conservation; ecology; natural history; field work