Dissertation Research: Tracking the Wild: Surveillance Technology, Conservation Biology, and Human-Animal Relations, 1950-2000

这篇科学与社会学位论文改进基金关注的是在STS、科学史和环境史的学术交叉点上的野生动物监测。它研究动物行为学家和环境科学家对无线电和卫星跟踪技术的使用。焦点集中在50年来围绕这种科学仪器的使用而出现的争议上。特别是，学生的重点是关于乐器含义的公共背景，以及不同的参与者如何塑造这种含义，如科学家、环保主义者、当地人和野生(非人类)动物。NSF基金将支持档案研究和口述历史访谈的旅行费用，这些费用将离开学生的家乡机构。野生动物的难以捉摸一直是科学家对了解它们的行为感兴趣的障碍。20世纪60年代初，上中西部的生物学家和工程师开始在动物身上安装微型无线电发射器，以便将它们重新安置在野外。尽管这种技术解决方案具有优势，但并未受到普遍欢迎。20世纪60年代初，在明尼苏达州北部研究皱纹松鸡的生物学家就无线电标签是否扭曲了鸟类的行为发生了冲突。20世纪60年代末，黄石国家公园的管理人员禁止研究人员对灰熊和麋鹿进行无线电标记，理由是这些标记破坏了公园的自然外观。在20世纪80年代，环保人士反对对最后一只自由生活的加州秃鹰进行无线电标记，理由是有尊严地死亡比残害生物更可取。20世纪90年代，育空地区的一些土著领袖抗议使用卫星标签来研究驯鹿群，因为被标记的驯鹿不再保留它们的野性。在其整个历史上，无线电标签一直是密集的野生动物管理的标志，也是围绕人类和野生动物之间正确关系的冲突的场所。本文追溯了从20世纪50年代末到90年代的这些冲突的历史。它认为，围绕野生生物学家研究方法的斗争已经在科学家、环保主义者、当地人和野生动物之间产生了新的关系。关于野生动物种群是否应该由人类积极管理的冲突，在很大程度上已经被应该如何管理它们、谁应该管理它们以及应该为什么管理它们的冲突所取代。科学史学家描述了科学仪器在各种科学学科中创造知识和权威的作用，但关于仪器意义的公开竞争的研究仍然很少。这项研究通过展示特定仪器的使用和意义是如何由科学家以及环保主义者、当地人甚至野生动物塑造的，从而为田野科学史做出了贡献。它认为，科学仪器和实践，而不仅仅是发现、理论或应用，已经产生了强大的文化后果。这项研究还将有助于环境史、技术史和人与动物关系的跨学科研究。人类管理的生态系统越多，对环境研究和管理技术的文化意义的研究就越重要。这项研究的结果不仅对历史学家有用，而且对科学家、自然资源保护者、政策制定者和其他对科学技术在解决环境问题中的作用感兴趣的人也有用。在本研究期间收集的口述历史访谈将被贡献为档案，以供未来的学者使用。这项研究的结果将通过学术出版物和会议报告加以传播。

This Science and Society Dissertation Improvement Grant focuses on wildlife surveillance at the intersection of scholarship in STS, history of science, and environmental history. It studies the use of radio- and satellite-tracking technologies by animal behavioralists and environmental scientists. The focus is on the controversies that emerged surrounding the use of this scientific instrumentation over a 50 year period. In particular, the student's focus is on public contexts over the meaning of the instruments and how this meaning was shaped by diverse actors such as scientists, environmentalists, local people, and wild (non-human) animals. NSF funds will support travel costs for archival research and the conduct of oral history interviews away from the student's home institution. The elusiveness of wild animals has always been an obstacle to scientists interested in understanding their behavior. In the early 1960s, biologists and engineers in the Upper Midwest began attaching miniature radio transmitters to animals in order to relocate them in the wild. Despite its advantages, this technical solution has not been universally welcomed. In the early 1960s, biologists studying ruffed grouse in northern Minnesota clashed over whether radio-tags distorted the birds' behavior. In the late 1960s, Yellowstone National Park administrators prohibited researchers from radio-tagging grizzly bears and elk, arguing that the tags undermined the park's natural appearance. In the 1980s, environmentalists opposed the radio-tagging of the last free-living California condors on the basis that death with dignity was preferable to mutilative biology. In the 1990s, some indigenous leaders in the Yukon protested the use of satellite-tags to study caribou herds because tagged caribou no longer retained their wildness. Throughout its history, radio-tagging has served as an icon of intensive wildlife management and a site for conflicts over the proper relation between humans and wild animals. This dissertation traces the history of these conflicts from the late 1950s to the 1990s. It argues that battles over wildlife biologists' research methods have produced new relationships among scientists, environmentalists, local people, and wild animals. Conflicts over whether wildlife populations should be actively managed by humans have largely been replaced by conflicts over how they should be managed, who should manage them, and what they should be managed for. Historians of science have described the role of scientific instruments in producing knowledge and authority in various scientific disciplines, but studies of public contests over the meaning of instruments remain rare. This study contributes to the history of the field sciences by showing how the use and meaning of a particular instrument was shaped by scientists as well as environmentalists, local people, and even wild animals. It argues that scientific instruments and practices and not just findings, theories, or applications have had powerful cultural consequences. This study will also contribute to the fields of environmental history, the history of technology, and the interdisciplinary study of human-animal relations. The more ecological systems come under human management, the more important studies of the cultural significance of environmental research and management techniques become. The results of this study will be useful not only to historians but also to scientists, conservationists, policymakers, and others interested in the role of science and technology in addressing environmental issues. Oral history interviews collected during this study will be contributed to archives so that they will be available to future scholars. The results of this study will be disseminated through academic publications and conference presentations.