Wildlife Window: Time to study up on the gray wolf – Loveland Reporter-Herald

In 1990 I had the remarkable good fortune to spend a week with Roger Tory Peterson. I could write a book about that one week, but for now I only want to emphasize the importance of one particular conversation.

Peterson changed the interaction between people and wildlife when he invented the field guide a concise yet detail-packed book for identifying species but small enough to carry comfortably in the field.

When you invented the field guide, I said, you made it possible for people to identify birds without having to learn about birds.

After a quiet moment, Peterson replied, Youre right.

Our ensuing conversation made it quite clear that it was a subject that bothered him. As he mentally developed the concept and physically assembled it, he never thought of birding as a replacement for ornithology. He conceived it as an adjunct that would augment the degree to which the human-bird interface would produce positive outcomes.

This one particular unintended outcome progressively became a rhetorical point with profound ripple effects. The impact begins with the separating of birding and ornithology, and the ripples elaborate from there.

Just because a birder can distinguish a rock wren from a canyon wren for a checkmark on a list does not make that person an ornithologist.

Just because a person can catch a rainbow trout on bait, lure or fly does not make that person an ichthyologist.

Just because a person owns 15 wildflower identification books, spends dozens of hours afield every summer to find wildflowers and can give both American and Latin names for 100 species despite all this effort and accomplishment does not make that person a botanist.

The examples are almost endless, but three are of special importance right now.

First, just because a person hunts big game animals such as deer, elk and moose does not make that person a mammalogist.

Second, just because a person owns a ranch does not make that person an ecologist.

And third, just because a person finds aesthetic pleasure or even intellectual gratification in wildlife identification does not make that person a wildlife biologist.

All of this and other aspects as well can be collectively summarized in a single meaningful appraisal: Familiarity with selective wildlife, by itself, does not qualify as a credential of expertise.

As relevant as this concept is right now, it will be crucial when three months from now Coloradans vote whether or not to restore the gray wolf to Colorados ecosystems.

I assert without reservation that personal opinions should be based on best available knowledge and not on bondage to tradition. From this perspective I pose the earnest and legitimate question: What do you know biologically, mammalogically, ecologically and biogeographically about the gray wolf?

This question reveals the distinction between assumptive knowledge and actual knowledge. The two are not the same. So study up!

Next month, I will be quizzing you for what you actually know about the gray wolf.

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Wildlife Window: Time to study up on the gray wolf - Loveland Reporter-Herald