Many of the issues being addressed in wildlife conservation are ideal for educating the public about the environment and the role that science can play in preserving nature.  For example, most people in western nations love elephants.  Learning that poachers are now annihilating these majestic animals across most of Africa, and that scientific advancements in fields such as genetics and endocrinology are helping to save them, makes people think about the harmful impacts of buying animal products such as ivory, as well as appreciate that the sciences may be much more exciting than they thought.  Learning that polar bears are drowning because melting ice flows require them to swim longer distances to reach solid ground, encourages people to think about global warming and what can be done to stop it.  Such “real-life stories” increase public awareness of environmental issues in general as well as interests in the sciences among our young people.  In essence, wildlife conservation can serve as a model that can be scaled more broadly to make science and math more exciting and compelling for students.

The Center draws upon public appeal for its projects to educate the community at large in conservation biology and the sciences. We do this by creating opportunities for K-12 science teachers and students to participate in summer field and laboratory programs, television, radio, newspaper and magazine interviews, public lectures and teacher’s packets.

One of our programs works with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer and Research Center, the University of Washington, and high school teachers throughout Washington state, developing unique ways to inform K-12 students about national and international conservation issues. These same issues are also used to interest students in molecular biology. Together, we developed a teacher’s packet that describes the conservation problems surrounding poaching and trade in African elephant ivory. Molecular techniques our Center is using to address this problem

We encourage volunteers of all ages to come and work in our Canine Detection Program.  The program has great public appeal because it rescues dogs from animal shelters that would otherwise have a low probability of being adopted.  People get to see, first hand, the incredible detection abilities of these dogs and the overall effectiveness of these novel methods for monitoring wildlife.  This engenders a broader appreciation of conservation issues and their scientific solutions.  This program also receives considerable media attention that further raises these conservation issues in the public’s eyes.

Since its inception, our Center has trained five post-doctoral fellows, five graduate students and six undergraduates in our program. Each student focuses on specific projects.  However, everyone participates in all aspects of our Center's overall program. We have also assisted numerous students and scientists in other programs around the world, including Central and South America, Africa, and First Nation indigenous people throughout the Pacific Northwest.

We have been collaborating with the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (FVM) at Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania in the development of molecular and hormone laboratories as part of their Wildlife Medicine Program. Participation of this lab in Center projects is described in the two elephant projects in this document. 

One outcome of this effort has been the development of DNA methods by our Tanzanian colleagues to identify bushmeat sold illegally as domestic beef and pork to hotels in Tanzania and other East African countries.  ( Malisa , AL , P Gwakisa, S Balthazary, SK Wasser , NM Mutayoba. 2006.  The potential of mitochondrial DNA markers and polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism for domestic and wild species identification.  African Journal of Biotechnology 5: 1599-1593.)

Our Center is also working with the Lusaka Agreement Task Force (LATF) to employ DNA methods in their attack on wildlife crime throughout Africa.  LATF is an international law enforcement unit made up of African nationals from several African countries.  Their principle mission is to combat wildlife crime across international borders.  Our collaborations with LATF have already produced important results in the fight against wildlife crime.  This has enhanced LATF credibility in the international community and encouraged wildlife managers throughout Africa to incorporate DNA analysis in their fight against this rapidly growing industry.

We are involved in similar capacity building problems in Brazil, where we are working to transfer our scat dog methodology for use in several Brazilian habitats.

As part of our oil sands monitoring program in NE Alberta, we are training tribal members of the Chipewyan Denne in wildlife monitoring techniques using dogs. Tribal members are also being educated about our program through extensive outreach initiatives.

Chipewyan Denne tribal elders walking in the snow during a training session.