College of Forestry

NEW - PowerPoint presentations covering several aspects of large carnivore trophic cascades

The rollback of a rule banning controversial hunting methods in Alaska's national preserves has some worried the National Park Service is ceding control to states with less conservation-oriented goals.

U.S. News, Feb. 6, 2019: "Direct harvest for human consumption of meat or body parts is the biggest danger to nearly all of the large species with threat data available," said study corresponding author William Ripple. He's a professor of ecology at Oregon State University College of Forestry.

Popular Science, Feb. 6, 2019: “Humans have a long history of killing large animals, and it dates back thousands of years, and probably is why the mammoths and mastodons went extinct in North America,” said William Ripple, distinguished professor of ecology in the Oregon State University College of Forestry and co-author of a new study assessing the current state of big fauna.

Psychology Today, Feb. 6, 2019: Detailed data show size matters when humans choose to kill other animals.

OSU Press Release, Jan. 30, 2019: One hundred forty-three species of large animals are decreasing in number and 171 are under threat of extinction, according to new research that suggests humans’ meat consumption habits are primarily to blame.

The Guardian, Feb. 6, 2019: The vast majority of the world’s largest species are being pushed towards extinction, with the killing of the heftiest animals for meat and body parts the leading cause of decline, according to a new study.

Newsweek, Feb 6, 2019: More populations of megafauna are threatened and have higher rates of decreasing populations than all other vertebrates put together, Dr. William Ripple, study co-author and distinguished professor of ecology at Oregon State University College of Forestry said in a statement.

"Gray wolves, brown bears and black bears are managed in most of Alaska in ways designed to significantly lower their numbers," said study co-author William Ripple, distinguished professor of ecology in the Oregon State University College of Forestry. "Alaska is unique in the world because these management priorities are both widespread and legally mandated."

Robert Beschta and William Ripple of the OSU College of Forestry looked at stream-bank willows over a 13-year period along two forks of a creek in Yellowstone National Park, first in 2004 and again in 2017.