Doctoral Student, Wulan Pusparini’s, Research “Saving the Last Groups of Wild Sumatran Rhinoceros” Featured

Doctoral Student, Wulan Pusparini’s, Research “Saving the Last Groups of Wild Sumatran Rhinoceros” Featured

Courtesy of UMass News and Media Saving the Last Groups of Wild Sumatran Rhinoceros UMass Amherst, Wildlife Conservation Society use enhanced population survey techniques September 16, 2015 Contact: Janet Lathrop 413/545-0444   AMHERST, Mass. – Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) Indonesia Program carried out an island-wide survey of the last wild population of Sumatran rhinoceros, and now recommend that wildlife conservation managers consolidate the small population, provide strong protection for the animals, determine the percent of breeding females remaining and “recognize the cost of doing nothing.” Lead author Wulan Pusparini, a UMass Amherst environmental conservation doctoral student who also works for the WCS, says the new study provides vital data to support a final attempt to prevent the Sumatran rhino’s extinction. She notes, “Sumatran rhinos can still be saved in the wild, but we must secure these protection zones, which would require significant investments in additional law enforcement personnel.” The study for the first time identifies priority forest protection zones...
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UMass Wildlife Biology alumnus James E. Cardoza, B.S. ’66, M.S.’76, has authored an illustrated book titled “A History of MassWildlife 1866-2012.”

This 334 page, exceedingly well referenced, volume documents the history of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife from its inception in 1866 as a two-member Board of Commissioners of Fisheries to its present configuration of over 100 staff members responsible for the management and protection of over 400 species of plants and animals and over 200,000 acres in wildlife management areas and lands under conservation easements. The book was published in a limited bound edition by the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, 1 Rabbit Hill Road, Westborough, Mass. as it approaches its 150th anniversary. It will soon be available to the public in digital form....
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Michelle Staudinger and Toni Lyn Morelli release “Integrating Climate Change into the State Wildlife Action Plans”

Michelle Staudinger and Toni Lyn Morelli release “Integrating Climate Change into the State Wildlife Action Plans”

Courtesy of UMass News and Media Relations UMass Amherst Scientists Assist State Wildlife Managers with Conservation, Climate Science Data June 29, 2015 Contact: Janet Lathrop 413/545-0444 AMHERST, Mass. – State fish and wildlife agencies across the Northeast and Midwestare now updating their 10-year state wildlife action plans and climate change is a bigger concern than ever before. To help them gauge what’s ahead, scientists at the Northeast Climate Science Center (NECSC) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst today offer a report on response to climate change for hundreds of regional species of greatest conservation need. Authors Michelle Staudinger and Toni Lyn Morelli, both ecologists with U.S. Geological Survey, and adjunct faculty in the department of environmental conservation at UMass Amherst, with NECSC postdoctoral fellow Alexander Bryan released the report synthesizing the latest information on ecological vulnerability and species response to climate variation and change in the center’s 22-state area, which stretches from Maine to Minnesota in the west and south to Virginia. Species of greatest conservation...
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