Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪

Interested in understanding how public access to nature can be balanced with wildlife conservation?

Check out Tom's thread on the long-running project from our English Policy Group exploring this very topic 🌳🚶

The struggle to protect wildlife around the world as Trump’s aid cuts start to bite Six months on from the US president’s order to halt all foreign assistance, Nick Ferris explores just how badly wildlife conservation programmes have been impacted – and how they have managed to keep ...

Many don't realise that USFWS and USAID supported conservation work all across the world, and now the programmes protecting nature in the world's wildest places are stuggling to adapt...

www.independent.co.uk/climate-chan...

Snow leopard prey selection on the mountain‐adapted ibex: seasonal switching between prime‐aged males and newborn kids We examined seasonal prey selection by snow leopards (Panthera uncia) on different age and sex categories of Siberian ibex (Capra sibirica) in the Tost Mountains of Southern Mongolia. Large solitary ....

2025 - Snow leopard prey selection on the mountain‐adapted ibex: seasonal switching between prime‐aged males and newborn kids. zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

OMG reintroducing animals is not rewilding

Still seeing publicity for reintroductions making this error

Based, I think, on an assumption that the reintroduction will somehow drive ecosystems to become more wild

A bit early to advertise, but why not... 👉 I will be recruiting a post-doc to work on gut microbiome variation in wild ungulates starting at some point in 2026. Strong expertise with shotgun data and host phenotype-microbiome associations would be very valuable. Email me to discuss!

Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Biodiversity Research Using Genetics - Vacancy at Aarhus University Vacancy at Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics, Aarhus University

JOB ALERT 🚨 Tenure-track assistant professor in population genetics, comparative genomics and/or bioinformatics applied to biodiversity monitoring and conservation biology at Aarhus University, Denmark.

Aarhus is super nice y'all. Apply! 🧪 🌍 🧬 #AcademicSky #ScienceJobs

tech.au.dk/en/about-the...

🔴 Russian forces conducted another massive attack on Ukraine overnight. The main target of the attack was Kyiv.

Preliminary reports suggest Shahed drones, Iskander-K missiles, and decoy drones were deployed.

Hiring/Seeking a *permanent* programmer in ecological modelling at my lab @unibonn.bsky.social. We mechanistically model plant communities, island biogeography, species range dynamics, eco-evolutionary feedbacks, diversity gradients, tropical forests, vascular epiphytes. Pls rt! shorturl.at/Bzzdt

Ungulates turn away while humans embrace solar - The Wildlife Society Despite lack of threats, utility-scale solar energy still repel pronghorn

Despite a lack of threats, utility-scale solar energy still repels pronghorn. Read the full story 👇

If you happen to remember who, send me a DM with names 🥸

A post on Facebook about a man hand feeding a wild deer

Despite concerted efforts in Ireland to prevent harmful deer-feeding by the public in city and national parks, this kind of content is rampant in Facebook groups and cheered on by people blind to the potential harm being done...

doi.org/10.1111/csp2...

They're very damaging at high-density for sure. The sustainability aspect comes into play when the balance between ecological and societal is maintained.

Interestingly, I speak to and work with hunters frequently. They are actually addressing the issues daily... Resistance is pretty rare...

Sustainable hunting is one of the cornerstones of wildlife conservation and management for many reasons.

However, Ireland suffers without science-based guidance for sustainable hunting. There are only 6000 licensed deer hunters, and lobbying for high deer numbers isn't done by any group I know of.

A small milestone passed today as I prepare the latest batch of rewilding plans

Man, I'm sorry you had to embarrass yourself so much 😂

We are discussing SIKA DEER (Cervus nippon) introduced to Ireland from Japan.

You are linking me Wikipedia articles about MULE DEER (Odocoileus hemionus) of which a subspecies is found in Sitka in Alaska.

Recommended delete your replies 🫣

Yes, I agree we need to value the ecological much higher. But we would be wrong to dismiss all historical or cultural aspects because they keep society ingrained and engaged with nature.

This is a strong component of modern conservation!

Thanks for your insight. Still waiting to find a western country where politicians have chosen "hunting season" as their expression of corruption... also there's no such thing as "sitka deer". Since you probably don't know any better on this, best listen, to rather than berate, the scientists 👍👍

Also given that with muntjac, there's simply no choice, whereas with the others we can make an ethical or welfare choice

Because historically and culturally large animals are treated differently. We make value calls on nature all the time.

Would average hunter won't hunt more in summer anyways without an ecological or financial motivation? The ecological can be sourced on private land through section 42

I'm not saying it's completely logical I'm just saying why it's like that.

Mostly because muntjac have no defined breeding season unlike sika, so in real terms to prevent the average hunter who might not know well enough from hunting females with calves at foot and leaving juveniles starve. Especially if the hunting season in an area should be sufficient to reduce numbers.

The core issue is not public safety. Safe hunting is safe hunting, public or not. The core issue is 100% access. Coillte woods are locked behind hunting leases sold for €€€s on multi year basis for exclusive access, with quotas based on out of date surveys and methods.

But with the same issues in the meadows the deer basically never use, which makes it actually quite interesting. Photo here of an oak from the central woods beside the main doe herd. Not sure it'll last but it has a chance, and wasn't the only one! 11th June 2025

Yes, absolutely right.

Herd size massively down from historic numbers so plenty of good vegetation and regeneration in some spots, plus deer only use a small % of the park area. Human trampling is really bad in all areas. And the petrol powered herbivores certainly doing more work in PP in my opinion 😁

PP is an urban parkland with the best deer mgmt and monitoring in the county, i think it would be last on my list of priority areas 😅

Exactly, so I have no expectation this will change for deer

I agree that's maybe all it does, but also for private. Re: land it's a bigger discussion than can be had on BlueSky, but public land is already easy for the govt to address, they own it. They could have put resources to deer mgmt there at any time without waiting for labels 🙃

Thanks for highlighting it! You're right, I would say it's pretty much just paperwork for now.

The other end, a sort of mandated increase in wildlife crime, from purposefully hitting deer with cars to illegal shooting to poisoning, which anecdotally are up. I met a Dublin hiker in Wicklow who told me "kill every last one of them" but couldnt name a single the species, they were all "deer" 3/3