Raf De Bont 🟥

Raf De Bont (@rafdebont.bsky.social) discusses how computers changed zoos, touching upon databases, ‘infrastructural globalism’ and transcontinental flows of Siberian tigers!

Read it here: doi.org/10.1017/S174...

Reintroduction of Przewalski's horses in the Gobi Desert, Mongolia, 1990s. Transported by aircraft, arriving in crates. Photo by ITG, Ruth Baumgartner.

1/ Happy to share that my article “Beyond Homecoming: The Reintroduction of Seven Przewalski’s Mares in the Gobi Desert” has been published in Environmental Humanities.

It is the story of seven mares flown from Australian zoos to Mongolia’s Gobi Desert in the 1990s
doi.org/10.1215/2201... #envhist

Make sure to read @monicavasile.bsky.social's wonderful new article in Environmental Humanities - arguing we should think of reintroduction projects not as a form of 'homecoming', but as 'homemaking'. #MovingAnimals read.dukeupress.edu/environmenta...

Cover of OSIRIS, volume 40. The title reads "Animal Mobilities" in yellow letters on a blue background. Above there is a colorful illustration showing animals and planets on the seabed.

New special issue of OSIRIS: "Animal Mobilities" 🐫🐠🐛

The volume was edited by MPIWG Research Scholars Tamar Novick, @lisaonaga.bsky.social, and Gabriel N. Rosenberg of the working groups "Out of Place, Out of Time" and "Proteins and Fibers."

🔗 bit.ly/amv4025

#HistSci #EnvHist #STS #Zoology

📸🪶 Congrats to Pauw Vos on securing an #NWO PhDs in the Humanities grant! His project: "Narratives of the Nest: Early Dutch Bird #Photography and the Visual Construction of Conservation (1890-1940)”. Supervised by @rafdebont.bsky.social & Miriam Meissner.

Next time it will be better!

This is not a public transportation system.

Leuven-Basel: arrival with a 2,5 hour delay (1:30 at night). Basel-Leuven: stranded in Cologne, no more border-crossing trains today, because of an electrical defect.

Warning: DB rant approaching.

The imagined student-professor relationship at Basel university looks rather, uh, Leninist.

"We are truly committed to conservation here, putting all our efforts into it. (...) We simply cannot afford to appear as animal traders at the same time."

Schenkel, on a WWF mission in Sumatra in 1969, is annoyed that the Basel zoo keeps pushing him to acquire Komodo dragons and proboscis monkeys.

"This shortsightedness is extremely disappointing to me."

Dutch conservationist Andries Hoogerwerf expresses feeling ignored by Schenkel, American biologists, WWF, IUCN, and virtually everyone else in a rambling 5-page letter (1969).

(Quite some anger noticeable in 1960s ethology and conservation)

"It is really not that much of a disaster."

Eibl-Eibesfeldt, in reply, tells Schenkel that he shouldn't be so dramatic.

(I am happy to finally be in an archive again).

"It amounts to misleading your readers scientifically and – pardon me – it is rather questionable as human behaviour."

Ethologist Rudolf Schenkel, unhappy about a reference to his work in a book by Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, expresses his frustration in an angry letter in 1968.

Did not know about that one. Quite an extraordinary story!

Certainly also take a look at the other wonderful articles in the volume, edited by Tamar Novick, @lisaonaga.bsky.social , and Gabriel N. Rosenberg - all dealing with 'animal mobilities'.

If anyone would be interested in a PDF view of the article, you can send me a message.

New article in Osiris, entitled 'Flying Rhinos', in which I follow two northern white rhinoceroses to discuss the entanglement of mid-twentieth century zoo conservation, colonialism and celebrity culture: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Tweede Kamer stemt tegen taaltoets voor anderstalige studies – universiteiten en hogescholen verheugd Internationalisering: De taaltoets waaraan het kabinet alle bachelorstudies in een andere taal dan het Nederlands wilde onderwerpen, gaat niet door. Een Kamermeerderheid ziet geen heil in de Toets And...

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Tweede Kamer stemt tegen taaltoets voor anderstalige studies – universiteiten en hogescholen verheugd www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...

Rapport KNAW: Academische vrijheid in Nederland

Academische vrijheid staat onder druk en moet beter worden beschermd. Die conclusie lees je vandaag in dit KNAW-rapport: www.knaw.nl/nieuws/knaw-... Aanbevelingen o.m.: meer vrijheid van onderzoek, bescherming tegen intimidatie en minder inhoudelijke overheidsbemoeienis.

You can't complain about a lack of intellectual stimuli in Southern Limburg.

And the evening, still in Maastricht, at the book presentation of (former improv pal) Lucas De Man - one of the most engaging public speakers I know.

The afternoon back in Maastricht, where FASoS hosted the launch of the CEEhub - our UM beehive for research, education and outreach on Central an Eastern Europe.

Spent the morning in Heerlen at Studio Europa's presentation of a new policy brief on the Digital Services Act. Interesting (and sometimes) sharp discussions on an important topic.

Congrats, Sadiah! Looking forward to reading!

An advance copy of the final hardback of Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction.

Back cover featuring the following blurbs: Illuminating and disturbing in equal measure. A poignant and powerfully written account of the intellectual revolution that birthed the concept of extinction; a concept deployed to both justify and animate colonialism and even extermination. A vital and important book DAVID OLUSOGA AUTHOR OF BLACK AND BRITISH A marvellous, troubling, moving and important book lit with hope, Vanished is an intellectually acute history of both the idea and the reality of extinction. From the fates of entire peoples to the remains of a single bird in a museum, Qureshi illumines how our ideas of extinction have been forged and shaped by myriad things, from the intellectual debates of eighteenth-century naturalists to the brutal history of colonialism' HELEN MACDONALD, AUTHOR OF H IS FOR HAWK A compelling homage to living and extinct beings, Qureshi's masterpiece is a superbly written, urgent and heart-racing volume. Oftering a new path to understanding mass extinction is a stroke of genius. Vanished is enthralling, devastating and yet empowering OLIVETTE OTELE, AUTHOR OF AFRICAN EUROPEANS

Page proofs and finished copies sitting together on a shelf.

Tiny me buying Puffin books would never have believed I would grow up to write a book for Penguin. I still have several puffin books in my library. Not only did I write a book for Penguin, but it has finally arrived in roarsome real life form.

Great time to preorder for 5 June launch (T-26 days).

Hamster numbers: biopolitics and animal agency in the Dutch fields, circa 1870-present - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences Numbers of European hamsters (Cricetus cricetus) in the Dutch Province of Limburg have been subject to much scrutiny and controversy. In the late nineteenth century, policymakers who considered them t...

More or less the same thing happened in the Netherlands. For historical context: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

After extermination campaigns in much of the twentieth century, current conservation measures do not seem to catch on.

Vlaamse regering veroordeeld voor uitsterven wilde hamster: "Overwinning voor de natuur" | VRT NWS: nieuws De rechtbank in Brussel heeft de Vlaamse regering veroordeeld omdat ze de bedreigde wilde hamster niet genoeg heeft beschermd. Het dier is al jaren met uitsterven bedreigd en komt alleen nog maar voor...

The Flemish government is condemned for the (near) extinction of the European hamster: www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/20...

Our Annual Research Report is there! It gives a general sense of what the FASoS Research Institute has been up to, and highlights the work of some of our early career Researchers. Have a look! 👇