The role of governance in rewilding the United States to stem the biodiversity crisis.

A critical but underattended feature of the biodiversity crisis is the contraction of geographic range experienced by most studied terrestrial vertebrates. In the United States, the primary policy tool for mitigating the biodiversity crisis is a federal law, the Endangered Species Act (ESA). For the past two decades, the federal agencies that administer the ESA have interpreted the act in a manner that precludes treating this geographic element of the crisis.

Effect of semantics in the study of tolerance for wolves.

As conservation scholars increasingly recognize the critical role of human thought and behavior in determining the persistence of biodiversity across the globe, a growing line of inquiry regarding the validity and comparability of previous applications of core psychological concepts has emerged. Specifically, inconsistent measurement and use of terms, such as attitudes and acceptance, reveal important questions about previous approaches. Given that these concepts differ by definition, yet have been used interchangeably, we explored what drives differences in people's responses when each concept is operationalized in the context of a contested wildlife species, the gray wolf (Canis lupus).

Finding Purpose in the Conservation of Biodiversity by the Commingling of Science and Ethics.

Averting the biodiversity crisis requires closing a gap between how humans tend to behave, individually and collectively, and how we ought to behave-"ought to" in the sense of behaviors required to avert the biodiversity crisis. Closing that gap requires synthesizing insight from ethics with insights from social and behavioral sciences. This article contributes to that synthesis, which presents in several provocative hypotheses: (i) Lessening the biodiversity crisis requires promoting pro-conservation behavior among humans.

Emotion as a source of moral understanding in conservation.

Recent debates around the meaning and implications of compassionate conservation suggest that some conservationists consider emotion a false and misleading basis for moral judgment and decision making. We trace these beliefs to a long-standing, gendered sociocultural convention and argue that the disparagement of emotion as a source of moral understanding is both empirically and morally problematic. According to the current scientific and philosophical understanding, reason and emotion are better understood as partners, rather than opposites.

The changing sociocultural context of wildlife conservation.

We introduced a multilevel model of value shift to describe the changing social context of wildlife conservation. Our model depicts how cultural-level processes driven by modernization (e.g.

Exploring nationality and social identity to explain attitudes toward conservation actions in the United States and Australia.

Understanding human attitudes toward wildlife management is critical to implementing effective conservation action and policy. Understanding the factors that shape public attitudes toward different wildlife management actions is limited, however, which can result in unpredictable public responses to interventions. We drew on comparisons between residents of 2 countries on separate continents to explore differences in attitudes toward wildlife management and determine factors important in shaping these attitudes.

A conceptual framework for understanding illegal killing of large carnivores.

The growing complexity and global nature of wildlife poaching threaten the survival of many species worldwide and are outpacing conservation efforts. Here, we reviewed proximal and distal factors, both social and ecological, driving illegal killing or poaching of large carnivores at sites where it can potentially occur. Through this review, we developed a conceptual social-ecological system framework that ties together many of the factors influencing large carnivore poaching.

Why social values cannot be changed for the sake of conservation.

The hope for creating widespread change in social values has endured among conservation professionals since early calls by Aldo Leopold for a "land ethic." However, there has been little serious attention in conservation to the fields of investigation that address values, how they are formed, and how they change. We introduce a social-ecological systems conceptual approach in which values are seen not only as motivational goals people hold but also as ideas that are deeply embedded in society's material culture, collective behaviors, traditions, and institutions.

Expert judgment and uncertainty regarding the protection of imperiled species.

Decisions concerning the appropriate listing status of species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) can be controversial even among conservationists.

Predators and the public trust.

Many democratic governments recognize a duty to conserve environmental resources, including wild animals, as a public trust for current and future citizens. These public trust principles have informed two centuries of U.S.

Evaluating whether nature's intrinsic value is an axiom of or anathema to conservation.

That at least some aspects of nature possess intrinsic value is considered by some an axiom of conservation. Others consider nature's intrinsic value superfluous or anathema. This range of views among mainstream conservation professionals potentially threatens the foundation of conservation.