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 Conflicts over whether wildlife populations should be actively managed by humans have largely been replaced by conflicts over how they should be managed, who should manage them, and what they should be managed for.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.
