The Value of Wildlife in Canada: Four & Twenty per Pound

Preface

I decided to write this essay during the summer of 2011, while I was up in Northern New Brunswick. On the way up to our field sites one morning, we say a juvenile (probably less than a month old) moose dead on the side of the road, as well as a deer and multiple porcupines, skunks, and crows.  Later that day, on our way home, we pulled over to try and herd a mortally wounded young black bear off the highway while we called the local ranger office.  It was a cub, probably less than 4 months old, with one eye lying in a puddle of blood on the roadside and barely enough strength in his broken little body to crawl.  It was a tragedy to behold. As I watched, it struck me that this little bear had no value to anyone but me and my crew – the truck driver didn’t even slow down!  I couldn't help but wonder if there was some way to put this implied value into numbers, so here's what I came up with. 

Four & twenty per pound

What is the value of wildlife to us in Canada?  At first glance, it seems like an open-ended, esoteric question that could keep ecotourism professionals, hunters, biologists, and animal rights activists going for a long time.  In fact, as a professional conservation biologist, I will admit that I have spent a considerable amount of time pondering this very thing.  But that time was spent unnecessarily.  I realized today that most wild animals are worth between $20 and $20,000 to us.  My explanation for this is forthcoming, but before you get too caught up in considering the reasons for this, I’ll mention a few of the more common estimates we learn about as conservation biologists.  

Hunters might suggest that a game animal is worth hundreds of dollars. This money is not paid for the animal specifically, but for the licence (both to hunt and to use the weapon, depending where you live), the weapon, the ammunition, locally-purchased supplies, the cost of meat or trophy preparation and value of the food one gets from the animal.  Ecotourism leaders (which can include hunters, depending on the type of ecotourism) would probably agree with the hunters, but might raise the value to thousands of dollars, once you factor in the money spent on accommodations, transportation, and guides.  Biologists might bring the total value of a wild animal up to tens of thousands of dollars, once ecosystem services are factored in.  Ecosystem services include things like redistribution of nutrients (e.g., salmon and other anadromous fish), keeping potentially destructive species under control (e.g., sea otters, aerial insectivores), or pollinating important crops (e.g., bats and birds).  A passionate animal rights activist might say that wild animals are priceless, because they are individuals, each with their own genetic makeup, ecological role, and (perhaps) even their own personality, which can never be truly replaced.  . 

The cost that is implied by our actions (which speak louder than words) varies somewhat, based on the size of the animal and the number of them that live in an area, but I maintain it is somewhere between $20 and $20,000.  Why?  Let me explain. (get ready for some sloppy calculations...)

On average, while driving on highways in Canada (I’ve lived in B.C., Alberta, and New Brunswick and travelled in several other provinces as well), I’ve noticed that I see a dead large animal (deer, bear, moose, etc.) about once every 3 hours.  Mid-sized animals (porcupine, coyote, etc.) are seen dead on the roadside at least every hour, and small animals (crows, rabbits, squirrels, etc.) are not really even worth counting, because you usually lose track after a few dozen over the course of a 2 hour trip.  So let’s say that, over the course of a 9-hour day of driving (at ~100 km/h), you see three large animals, nine mid-sized ones, and about 100 small ones dead on the roadside.  

If I recall correctly, the average truck driver (cube van to semi-tractor trailer) is paid $25.00 per hour, which is about $225 for a 9-hour day.  And let’s assume that to drive one of these trucks costs about $1.00 to $2.00 per km, or about $900 to $1800 for a 900-km day (I’ve never gauged the fuel economy on a semi, but have driven cube-vans, and so feel confident in the lower limit).  For the sake of argument, let’s assume that these figures represent an optimal combination of driver paid time and fuel economy, and minimizes the markup on the goods we purchase on a daily basis.  

Rodgers and Robins (2006) suggest that moose can be detected at sufficient stopping distances for passenger vehicles at between 60 and 90 km/h, depending on the lights, vehicles, and drivers, during the night.  Given that a full load on a delivery truck adds significant momentum, I think it is fair to say that the truck would need to go a fair bit slower to avoid hitting animals at night.  I myself have seen large trucks simply keep driving as if nothing has happened after hitting deer, moose, or bear, during the day and at speeds of 80-100 km/h.  Data published by the US Department of Transportation suggests that animal-vehicle collisions only occur (or only cause significant enough damage to be reported) above speeds of 25 mph (40 km/h). Surely a semi-truck moving at 40 km/h could stop for a moose or bear on the road?  

But in our fast-paced society, would we ever consider reducing highway speeds to such a low number that we reduced animal-vehicle collisions to zero?  What would such a change cost us?  Well, therein lays the answer to my original question.  If we reduced the speed limit on all roads to 40 km/h, it would take approximately 2.5 times as long to drive 9 hours, so the truck driver would have to be paid $562 dollars to deliver that same load.  Furthermore, fuel economy would likely decline, increasing costs by a factor of about 1.5 (estimated from my own experience with the difference between city and highway driving in trucks), or $1350-$2700. The total cost increase would be $787.50-$1237.50 per load. 

Presumably, the number of trucks driving on a particular 900 km stretch of road would vary with road location, road size, and a number of other things – but for simplicity’s sake, let’s use some simple numbers to estimate truck density. There are approximately 156,700 transport trucks inCanada, and I think it’s a safe bet that they’re not ALL moving all the time, since drivers need to sleep, eat, load, unload, etc. Let’s assume 9 hours of each day is spent driving for each truck (again, to match up nicely with calculations), so we can then estimate that ~58,800 are on the road at any given time. Since Canada has about 900,000 km of road, that means the average truck density on any given stretch is ~0.065/km. Driving at 40 km/h for 9 hours covers 360 km, and over a 360 km stretch, there should be approximately 23 trucks. Given that most trucks do 2-way hauling, let’s assume they’re all full for now. 

With 23 loads, the average increased cost of slowing down to 40 km/h would be $18,420-28,945, and this would likely be passed onto us, the consumers.  I’m not sure what the increased cost would look like on a per-person, per-week basis, and it would certainly be a worth-while exercise for an economist, but let’s assume there are no hidden costs here, and that it can be directly translated into the differences in transportation cost.  

So the three large animals, nine mid-sized ones, and 100 or so small ones that would be seen in the course of a 9-hour highway-speed drive are collectively worth between $18,427 and 28,945, or an average of about $23,686. If we distribute this money on a per-pound basis (~$24 per pound, using the average sizes of 300 lbs, 30 lbs, and 3 lbs for the size-classes), and extrapolate based on the average weight of several representative adult animals, we find that an adult moose is worth about $19,000, a black bear is worth about $6000, a coyote is worth about $700, and a crow is worth about $20. Remarkably, this amount seems to match with the ranges that I initially suggested – in the hundreds to thousands of dollars’ range, but it’s probably closer to the lower end. 

I’m not arguing that we should reset the highway speed limits to 40 km per hour, or that wildlife is definitively worth about $23 per pound.  In fact, I’ve almost certainly overestimated the implied value here, because those crashes with large animals do damage to our vehicles as well, and vehicles other than transport trucks are certainly involved in many of these collisions, thereby potentially doing damage to our own health – both of these factors would reduce the animal’s implied value, so my estimate here should be seen as an upper-limit. And while I believe that we should be using highway transportation considerably less (due to negative impacts of greenhouse gases), I’ll leave that for another post.  What I’m arguing is that the IMPLIED value of wildlife in North America (as implied by our actions) is probably different from the THEORETICAL values we are taught in economics, philosophy, or biology classes.  Motor-vehicle accidents are a huge cause of mortality for most wildlife populations, and depending on where you live, they can be the primary killer.  Our current socio-economic system does not place significant value on wildlife, and that per-pound value seems only to be declining further as we build more roads, increase demand for consumer goods to be delivered by truck, and purchase more vehicles.  

Does the implied value match the theoretical one you lean towards?  If not, does the mis-match between theoretical and implied values make us hypocrites?  Maybe, but more likely it just reflects the disconnect we have between our ordinary 'operating' scale, and the larger temporal and spatial scales that include wildlife and wild places around us.  

Now here’s the real take-home message: our actions, even such apparently disconnected actions as setting highway speeds for the transportation system we all rely upon, have consequences for the ecosystems in which we live. We need to stop thinking of ourselves as isolated entities and start thinking of ourselves as part of a larger community that includes wild animals and places.  When a bear cub or crow is killed on the highway, the ecosystem is diminished because of it. Perhaps if everyone thought this way, we would not need to continue placing price tags on wildlife, because their value to us (personally and collectively) would be crystal clear. 

1.   

Why I'm an environmental scientist, and why you should be too

Preamble

I presented this as the closing address for the 2015 New Brunswick Envirothon competition, held at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John. The Envirothon is a competition for highschool students that gives them a taste of what it would be like to be an environmental scientist - they learn some field skills, write plans and reports, and present their research to the group. Several of their teachers asked me to share it online. I'm not much for making videos, so here's a copy of the transcipt. Enjoy!

Why I'm an environmental scientist, and why you should be too!

I’m an environmental scientist – more specifically, I’m a PhD student, nearing the end of a 5 year project on conserving plants in New Brunswick forests. I’m here today because I thought you might like to know a little bit about what being an environmental scientist means, and why I’ve chosen this career, because I suspect that most of you are thinking about making the same choice.

Since my first field job in 2002, I’ve seen and done more than I’d ever hoped. 

I've met the sunrise over hundreds of lakes across northern Canada – with the air so crisp and clean you don't need coffee to stay awake; with loons falling into mournful grace notes to compliment the howling wolves in the distance, while both are accompanied by the hundreds of soloist songbirds that rise and fall in the great symphony of sound that is the boreal spring.  

I've traced the trails of elk, moose, deer, lynx, coyote, bear, wolf, mountain lion, caribou and bison through field and forest, heathland and parkland with eyes searching for movement, seeing animals in every shadow and stump, and ears perked to the smallest rustle in the leaves – a robin, a squirrel, a gentle breeze.  Then found the object of my attention to be staring at me – sometimes only a few steps away - whilst I was unaware.  

I've flown in helicopters, float planes, and jet planes, driven everything with four wheels (and some with only two), paddled or motored across lakes and rivers, and worn out countless boot soles while travelling thousands of miles.  I've known the backroads of Alberta, BC and New Brunswick as few do, learned how to navigate wildlands with compass and wit, and to find my destination with little more than the sun and the moss on the trees.  

I've climbed giant trees over 100 feet tall, fire towers almost 200 feet, and mountains over 9000 feet.  I've walked on glaciers, and swam through their waters.  

I've eaten the sweetest fruits of the forest after stumbling upon them in a clearing (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, saskatoons and currants), sipped on tea made from Pyrola and Rhododendron, fried up wild mushrooms and trout over an open fire, chewed the bitter roots of wild sarsaparilla, and been surprised by the tangy zest of wood sorrel. 

And I've learned the names and traits of thousands of plants and animals – trees, grasses, mosses, lichens, mammals, birds, beetles, and fish – I've probably forgotten more at this point than most have ever learned. I’ve seen the microscopic jungle that exists within the tiny green mosses that grow on rotting logs. 

That’s the National Geographic version of being an Environmental Scientist – I’ve done it all.  But being an environmental scientist isn't all a great big adventure.  

For every hour I spend in the field, I spend at least eight in the office or lab – writing, crunching numbers, desperately trying to meet the next funding deadline so I can buy groceries and pay tuition. It's often monotonous, usually difficult, and always stressful. And even in the field, it's often far from a free ride.

I've been enveloped by swarms of biting bugs so thick I gasped for air, torn and bloodied by rose and devil's club thorns so that my raincoats were useless, whipped by wind, rain and hail in violent storms only to learn that a tornado passed by within a few hundred meters, shredded my legs on lake ice, been made sodden and hypothermic, frustrated and sick, and humbled in every sense of the word. 

I've hauled backpacks with 50-100 pounds of equipment and samples for miles through the woods, had cold hot-dogs and granola for supper because I was too tired to cook, then slept on the hard ground in a cold and damp tent. 

I've had chainsaws kick back, engines fail, and data loggers disappear from their posts, along with any hope of ever knowing what happened. 

I've wrecked trucks, flipped ATVs, and hit animals on dimly lit roads – sparrows, hares, a kestrel, a deer.

I've lost friends because we were both so sick and tired that we forgot how to be civil to each other, and never spoke again. I've lost friends and colleagues permanently to truck and plane crashes, to drowning, and to avalanches. 

I've left my wife for weeks at a time, when all she wants is to spend a few days together.

And for the past 15 years, I've been frustrated by watching my friends and colleagues maligned and laid off while our politicians ignore almost all the advice that environmental scientists like me have to offer.  Maybe this is the way it's always been, I've really only paid attention for the last 15 years or so. 

So why do I do it?  Why should you do it? 

Believe it or not, it’s not for the beautiful sunrises, birdsong, love of encyclopaedic knowledge, or sense of adventure, though these things certainly help.  I do it because my community (indeed, the entire world) needs scientific skills and ethical input.  

The world needs scientifically literate people.  Science is about finding the truth about how the world works.  Fundamentally, it's about predicting the future – if we know all the consequences of our actions, we can always make the correct decisions, right?  

But environmental science is about more than just helping you to become scientifically literate. It's about helping you to connect with the place you live in a visceral way a way that that few people experience these days. In the words of Aldo Leopold, you develop a "land ethic".  

When you know the names, the colours, the tastes and sounds – the very essence of the ecosystems around you, you begin to think about them in a very different way. You appreciate them a little more – you care about what happens to them, and you get curious about why things are happening. From knowledge of nature comes connection to nature, which leads to better knowledge. And fundamentally, when we are connected to it, we understand its intrinsic value in a way that can’t be factored into the cost-benefit analyses of industry. 

Financial analysts don’t consider that the 125+ species of liverwort in the province are part of the most ancient lineage of plants on earth, that they elegantly function as an inside-out vascular plant, or that they have vastly complicated systems of genetic exchange that we are only just beginning to understand. They can't be harvested, bought, sold, or traded. My training as a scientist tells me that they perform a few minor ecosystem services – production of Oxygen and sequestering of CO2, helping to initiate soil formation on rocks, providing a damp place for nitrogen-fixing bacteria to live, etc.  But they don’t do anything that a dozen other plants can’t also do.  Ultimately, my estimation as a scientist is that little would happen if we were to lose a few species. But my land ethic tells me that they deserve to exist as part of the landscape because they are part of the rich biological heritage to which we belong, and upon which we rely.

Sure, we can rely on forests for timber, employment, and many other great things, but as an environmental scientist, you need to see the forest for more than just the trees – you need a land ethic. And when you've developed such a land ethic, you will find yourself at a third reason for doing the sort of things that I've done: because you must. 

Watch Dr. Wingari Maathai's hummingbird story (2 minute video):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGMW6YWjMxw

The fact that you are reading this now tells me that you care, that you are capable, and that you have courage. With those three traits, you can't possibly sit on the sidelines while the planet is going down the tubes – if you tried to do so, you would end up a bitter and cynical person. 

For all that I've seen and done, my contributions to science have been small. I've helped caribou biologists figure out the best way to apply caribou range reclamation techniques, I've helped forest companies figure out how to improve the plant biodiversity in their spruce plantations, and I've helped collect information on what species are rare and possibly ofconservation concern. But I've planted MANY seeds in other ways.  I sing in a choir, coach and play rugby, participate in two community gardens, and help to run a student environmental group, where we've had some great impacts on campus. I approached it like the hummingbird – always moving, always working, despite often feeling insignificant and overwhelmed. I certainly haven’t come close to solving the litany of environmental problems we face, but I’ve done the best I can. And, perhaps more importantly, because I’ve stayed involved in the community in so many ways, I’ve had many people watching me behave like the hummingbird.   

The hummingbird doesn’t waste time judging other’s poor behaviour, or lecturing friends about why they should help – but when the others ask, he/she takes a moment to explain before continuing the work. The best leaders lead by example. When others see that in you, it makes them curious – it makes them ask why – and that’s your chance to help them make the same connections. 

You have already begun learning science and developing a land ethic – that’s what this competition was about. And it’s in this spirit that I’m offering you a gift of milkweed seeds. For those of you that don’t know, milkweed is a scraggly looking, pink-flowered weed of fields, pastures and roadsides. Environmental scientists tell us that our emphasis on weed-free crops in recent years has reduced milkweed plants across the continent, which has also contributed to a 90% decline in populations of the monarch butterfly, an amazing insect that migrates between Mexico to the Northern US and Canada – an amazing insect that has no dollar value. And I’m asking you now to be a hummingbird for milkweed and monarchs. 

I’m sure you’re tired after a busy couple of days. But instead of going home and watching TV tonight, get together with your teammates, and plant some seeds. Find a spot where they won’t be cut down or trampled, poke them into the earth, and add some water. Watch them grow, let them mature and flower, and when the next generation of seeds is ready, do it all over again. The Monarchs might come back, or they might not, but the hummingbird never stops while the fire is still burning.

Teaching biodiversity in universities: a question of ethics

Preamble: 

I wrote this as part of an application package when I recently applied for an academic position at a university. I was rather proud of it, so I thought I would share - please enjoy :)

Teaching biodiversity in universities: a question of ethics

Biodiversity is both essential and fanciful – structural and decorative. We depend upon the varieties of life for virtually everything: the air we breathe, the food we eat, the clothes we wear all come from the millions plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi that live around us. The appearances, names, physiological quirks, and natural or cultural history of our native flora, fauna, and fungi can entertain, inspire, stimulate innovation, and call us to action. 

Unfortunately, much of the world's biodiversity is in peril, and particularly for the tiny plants and fungi that form the foundations of our ecosystems, those who know enough to bear witness are few in number. Few non-experts ever experience the joy that comes with recognizing a tree, moss, or mushroom, or even a fruit in the grocery store, as though it were an old friend, let alone noticing its absence. It is a rarity for primary and secondary school curricula to include more than a nod to natural history, despite the widely recognized ability of those same pupils to recite hundreds of names for other things (commercial brands, professional athletes, etc.), and the formative importance of natural science for many of our greatest thinkers today. Obscurity and indifference are threats to biodiversity.  

By teaching the names, the natural history, and the stories that belong to our native (or culturally important) flora, fauna, and fungi, we help our pupils to connect to the land, and to develop a deep sense of responsibility towards it. This connection, and this sense of responsibility, are what  Aldo Leopold termed a "land ethic". For generations, the strongest land ethics were possessed by the professional botanists – the foresters, farmers, and foragers who made their living from plants and fungi – and it was these professionals that became our ethical leaders. We are now on the cusp of a botanical renaissance, one driven by curiosity, creativity, and connectivity. Those of us who are professionals have a responsibility to use this momentum to assist future generations in developing their own land ethic.  

The opportunities for helping students to learn about biodiversity have never been more promising. From plant-recognition applications and citizen science projects, to popular science blogs, books, and documentary films, our students are awash in inspiration. The applications of biodiversity have never been more creative: from bio-engineering solutions to wastewater treatment, to using fungal mycelia as replacements for Styrofoam packaging, no student should feel a lack of entrepreneurial opportunities from botany or mycology. Combined with traditional resources, such as museum collections and constantly expanding literature databases, we also have a plethora of opportunities for students to contribute to scientific content in concrete ways. Inspiration, information, entrepreneurial potential, and concrete opportunities to contribute are what our students crave, and what they will receive from studying biodiversity.

Those who teach at universities bear a special responsibility to our communities and the natural world, because we do more than teach the future biologists – we teach politicians, lawyers, physicians, engineers, and perhaps most importantly, we teach the future teachers. As biodiversity experts, our ability to influence society for the better is magnified many times over when we teach. To truly engage students, we must allow them to contribute. If we encourage their curiosity with simple tools, embrace their creativity through applied tasks, and celebrate their connectivity by asking them to share, their scientific skills and passion for biodiversity will grow alongside their land ethic – the few will become the many. Just as our understanding of one another is fostered by knowing each others' personal stories, a land ethic is fostered by learning the stories of the flora, fauna, and fungi around us.

Here's an interesting podcast from the radio show "Q" - on the possible overdiagnosis or overtreatment of ADHD in North America.

http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/qpodcast_20140116_40022.mp3

It's related to some of my recent posts on ADHD-like symptoms - and although we aren't exposed to the same level of pharmaceutical advertising that US citizens are, I'm inclined to agree that the environment (e.g., the overstimulation from video media) probably contributes to the rising symptom rates.