Brian Crawford, PhD
decision scientist / conservation ecologist
Current projects
Figure: Current habitat suitability (left) and suitability by land protection status (right) for the gopher tortoise in the Southeast. Species experts helped develop and validate habitat models.
The Longleaf ARC Project:
at-risk Amphibian and Reptile Conservation in the longleaf pine ecosystem
The southeast region of the US is home to about 330 species currently up for status reviews for listing under the Endangered Species Act, termed “at-risk” species. This project focuses on 5 reptile and amphibian at-risk species that inhabit the longleaf pine ecosystem. These are the gopher tortoise, gopher frog, striped newt, southern hognose, and Florida pine snake (pictured above, respectively).
In order to inform where and how to invest in conservation resources across these species' ranges, we will:
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Build a collaborative network of partners working in the southeast, including state and federal agencies (e.g., USFWS, USFS, SEAFWA), regional entities (e.g., Landscape Conservation Cooperative Network), and private landowners,
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Comprehensively synthesize existing data and expert knowledge on the species themselves and the habitat, climatic, management, and social factors that may influence their persistence, and
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Develop models that predict species' status given current threats and management actions and their responses to potential strategies.
The results of this project will inform species' status and listing decisions and guide conservation management practices that can be implemented on public and private lands.
Conservation is about people and the ways they think about, feel about, and interact with natural resources. I have used human dimensions methods, such as sociological surveys (upper left figure), to investigate people's knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors in many conservation contexts, including:
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Students' and professionals' attitudes toward advocacy in science (lower left figure: Crawford et al. 2016)
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Public perceptions of rattlesnakes at the Claxton Wildlife Festival (Claxton, GA), with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources
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Drivers' attitudes toward wildlife-vehicle collisions (Crawford et al. 2016)
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Coastal visitors' attitudes toward management options for mitigating terrapin-vehicle collisions on Jekyll Island, GA (Crawford et al. 2015) and Cape May, NJ, with the Georgia Sea Turtle Center and Conserve Wildlife Foundation, respectively
These studies demonstrate how human dimensions research is an essential component for conservation and can provide essential information for designing better management strategies and education programs. Through collaborations with other researchers and local partners, we have used results to prioritize actions that would make people most satisfied while benefiting wildlife populations, adapt university curricula to fill knowledge gaps by addressing appropriate relationships between science and advocacy, and create outreach programs designed to shift negative attitudes and behaviors toward snakes.
Using human dimensions research for conservation management & education
