Success stories show value of conservation efforts

[Cara J]

Wildlife conservation faces challenges around the world, but conservationists can celebrate several important success stories. That is the theme of this year’s annual conference, TWS’s 25th annual conference, and it was underscored by speakers at Monday’s opening plenary “As you all know, there’s no end of crisis,” said TWS President John McDonald as he introduced the speakers. “There are lots of problems in the world, both in our sphere of conservation and in the world at large. … I thought it would be important, particularly at our anniversary meeting like this, to have a theme that focuses on some of the actual success stories.” Plenary speakers shared the story of three species that have come back from the brink of extinction thanks to conservation efforts: the Kirtland’s warbler, snow leopard and North American river otter. These are “remarkable conservation success stories,” McDonald said, “that were not accidental. These were not serendipitous things where things weren’t as bad as we thought they were. In some cases they were worse than we thought and goals were set that were very ambitious that we never thought we’d achieve in our lifetimes, and yet we’ve achieved them and surpassed them.” The story of the [...]

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