Cats and Conservationists

Dara M. Wald is an assistant professor of environmental communication in the Greenlee School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Iowa State University. Her research explores the drivers of environmental conflict, the barriers to effective environmental communication, and the potential pathways for collaboration over water, wildlife, and land. Her work has been published in scholarly journals, including Frontiers in Ecology and Conservation, Conservation Biology, and the Journal of Environmental Management. She is an associate editor for the Science and Environmental Communication specialty section within Frontiers in Communication. She has received grants from the Morris Animal Foundation and the National Science Foundation. Anna L. Peterson is a professor of religion at the University of Florida. She writes and teaches about social and environmental ethics, religion and politics, and animal studies. Her recent books include Being Animal: Beasts and Boundaries in Nature Ethics and Everyday Ethics and Social Change: The Education of Desire. She is also a coauthor of Working Toward Sustainability: Ethical Decision-Making in a Technological World.

Contents Acknowledgments Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: The Cat Problem Chapter 3: The Science Problem and Framing Chapter 4: The Values Problem Chapter 5: The Social Problem Chapter 6: Conclusions Notes References Index

"Cats and Conservationists provides a fascinating look at how social conflicts arise and become entrenched. People on all sides of the outdoor cat problem are extremely passionate about their respective positions--kill them all, kill some, trap, sterilize, and release them, or leave them alone--and Dara M. Wald and Anna L. Peterson clearly show how these polarized and often personalized debates require us to carefully study not only how science is done, but also to come to an understanding of how people use and misuse scientific data and the social implications of these practices. While the ecological role and fate of outdoor cats continue to be a hot topic, so too are questions about humans' place in nature and what nature really means. This refreshing look at the outdoor cat problem makes it clear that both the data side and the social side of science need to be given equal consideration, and that people can strongly disagree about how to deal with problems we originally caused and from which we often casually stroll away as if we are the perfect animals."