cwilmers
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Big cats, bigger protections: Santa Cruz County mountain lions now listed as threatened
Few people have tracked that tension more closely than UC Santa Cruz wildlife ecologist Chris Wilmers, who leads the long-running Santa Cruz Puma Project, a partnership between the university and the state. He called the listing “the appropriate thing to do,” emphasizing that it’s a long-overdue course correction for a species becoming gradually boxed in.
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California mountain lions are now considered ‘threatened.’ But only in certain regions
“If we want to maintain mountain lion populations in these coastal regions, then we’ve got some work to do,” said Chris Wilmers, a professor of wildlife ecology at the University of California, Santa Cruz and lead investigator of the Santa Cruz Puma Project.
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Protection for California mountain lions could become permanent
Chris Wilmers, a researcher at UC Santa Cruz, was one of the outside experts who reviewed the Center for Biological Diversity proposal and worked with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to provide input on how to improve it.
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‘System in flux’: Scientists reveal what happened when wolves and cougars returned to Yellowstone
“Yellowstone is a fascinating system because it’s got the full complement of large carnivores and migratory ungulates that North America used to have,” Chris Wilmers, a wildlife ecologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz who was not involved in the new study, told Live Science. “A lot of these species are coming back ––…
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Rare Mountain Lion Standoff in San Francisco Ends Peacefully After a 30-Hour Search
“Males will often travel far out,” says Chris Wilmers, an ecologist at UC Santa Cruz and the lead researcher of the Santa Cruz Puma Project. “They’re essentially trying to find a vacant territory, and the Santa Cruz Mountains are pretty trapped in by development on all sides. They wander, and they keep going, and they…
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Did wolves save Yellowstone’s aspen trees?
“Elk have declined a lot since wolves were reintroduced, but it’s not clear that that’s due to wolves,” said Chris Wilmers, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the author of another recent study that assessed the impacts of large carnivore recovery across North America.
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Have Wolves Saved Yellowstone’s Aspens?
“Most ecologists suspect that wolves and other predators have something to do with the decline of elk,” said Environmental Studies Professor Chris Wilmers. “But how much can be attributed to wolves, how much can be attributed to predators in general, how much is attributed to those other causes hasn’t been worked out yet.”
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Reintroduced Carnivores’ Impacts on Ecosystems Are Still Coming Into Focus
“It’s not that there’s not evidence consistent with a trophic cascade in Yellowstone,” said Chris Wilmers, a professor of wildlife ecology at the University of California Santa Cruz, and the paper’s lead author. “It’s that the effects are a lot more complicated and weaker than what was initially thought.”
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Don’t rush the trails: Conservation must come before recreation
An opinion column in Lookout Santa Cruz cited research by Professor Chris Wilmers on the impacts that the mere presence of people can have on mountain lions.
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Large Carnivores Are Helping To Balance Ecosystems, But It’s Complicated
The study, led by Christopher Wilmers, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, looked at the findings of more than 170 papers to clarify what we know about the ecological impacts of large carnivore recovery in North America and what mysteries remain.
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What happens to ecosystems when you restore iconic top predators? It’s more complicated than you might think.
A new study analyzes findings from more than 170 papers to clarify what we know so far about the ecological impacts of large carnivore recovery in North America and what mysteries still remain.
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An overlooked side-effect of the housing crisis may be putting Californians at increased risk from climate disasters
In a new article for the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, UC Santa Cruz researchers laid out the foundation for their highly-anticipated upcoming study of how lack of affordable housing in urban areas of California may be driving increased development in and near wildlands, leading to more severe climate change impacts.