The next talk as part of George Mason Observatory’s ‘Evenings Under the Stars’ series (where you’ll also get to look at awesome galaxies, stars, planets and more through our 0.8 meter telescope!) will be ‘Game Management – Can Hunting Animals be the Best Way to Save Them?’ by Lauren Wilson.  As always the event is free and everyone is invited!

Some details about the event: Monday 14 October 2012: 1st talk at 730 PM, same talk at 815 PM, observing starts at 8PM until 10PM.  Directions to GMU and Research Hall here: http://eagle.gmu.edu/map/fairfax.php   Zoom in to find Research Hall next to engineering building and York River Rd.  The event has been postponed once because of weather and the talk will be held even if observing has to be cancelled because of weather – updates will be available here – Observatory Twitter

About the talk:

Hunting friendly conservation groups such as ducks unlimited and quality deer management association have been very effective in terms of conservation and have worked to conserve species in part in the hopes that eventually they’ll be hunted.  Other groups have attempted to give threatened species an economic value by creating an artificial hunting market in the hopes that such a practice and increase in value of the hunted species will increase conservation efforts.  Such conservation efforts are complicated due to the seemingly conflicting practices of conservation and hunting.  The speaker will discuss the value of and problems posed by this unexpected marriage of goals.

About the Speaker:

Lauren Wilson is an Environmental Sciences and Policy Masters Graduate and former SUNRISE scholar from GMU.  Her work focused on two swan species that may be interbreeding in Alaska because of habitat disturbance from climate change.  She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia, where she studied wildlife management.  She has an extensive natural resource use background and is passionate about wildlife and finding solutions to protect our environment and natural resources.