I appreciate your reply.
I think one disconnect here is that I believe the new advertised position is intended to help identify strategies to achieve better conservation outcomes. In my humble opinion, the reason why not enough is being done fast enough (to the satisfaction of many of us, anyway), is because the rest of the public (people who don't care or don't understand) does not demand it. So I think the strategy behind the new position is to:
1) figure out where public sentiment is (yeah I know you think a social scientist is not needed for this, got it)
2) identify the gaps between public sentiment about conservation, and WDFW's conservation goals
3) work to close those gaps (maybe this is through educating the public. maybe it is through adjust WDFW's goals. maybe some of both)
4) use the power of this newly achieved synergy between public and agency conservation goals to get stuff done. harder than it may seem when written like that, but I believe it is a logical strategy within the existing management/governmental/societal framework
Also, can I just say that the people who isolated the constituents in road runoff that are killing coho in polluted runoff, narrowed it down to something in tires out of thousands and thousands of compounds, then figured out which single tire rubber compound was the responsible one (in spite of the tire companies not working with them since their formulations are proprietary secrets), in a few freaking years, did freaking amazing work! And, at the same time, they figured out that all you have to do to treat the polluted runoff is run it through soil filters which removes the toxicity, in a few years. That is good science. You know what is needed, Rob? We need people to demand that tires not be toxic, and to demand better treatment of runoff. That takes political will, and money. Hmmm, how in the world could we get people to understand this stuff and support the changes that are needed? Maybe some better education and outreach? Maybe we should figure out what is the best way to do that education and outreach.
Scientists, legislators and manufacturers are responding in various ways to the recent groundbreaking discovery of a deadly chemical derived from automobile tires, a chemical that can rapidly kill coho salmon swimming in urban streams. Researchers are trying to better describe the chemical...
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