Wolf-related papers: the wolf and the three litlle pigs idea

The readings “The Wolf Effect” and “Valley of Fear” present similar scientific ecological information under two defined clear styles of writing.  In my opinion, “The Wolf Effect” is written in a more reader-friendly format than the “Valley of Fear”.  This does not imply that the second account was complex at all.  When communicating scientific information to the general reader (general society) is critical to combine an interesting easy-to-understand language to describe in a well articulated narrative a summary of the major scientific findings.  This information should present, as the aforementioned
papers did, numbers, authors, dates, and take home messages to back up the text (i.e, keeping the sound science behind the information).  I considered myself an extremely visual person, but I was thrilled and excited when reading the wolf effect chapter and without having pictures could immerse myself not only into the information but into the situations and landscapes being described throughout the chapter.

As concerns for the Valley of Fear, it captivated me the way how was intertwined the scientific research results with an inductive way of changing attitudes towards wolf populations in Yellowstone and other US parks over time.  We, as a society have the “malign or bad creature” picture for top predators, e.g., wolf, and this idea has come and been promoted through the mass media like traditional TV cartoons for children.  Another point that caught my attention from the Valley of Fear was that it, at least, mentioned alternative hypotheses (fact that is critical in good science) trying to explain the drastic drop of aspen populations and other plant species.  The concept of “trophic cascades” was clearly back up y framed with examples in this chapter, but the vocabulary was a little too “flamboyant” or “over-narrative” for whiles.

I enjoyed reading and comparing both styles of conveying similar ecological information and made me wonder how important is to write in a simple, clear, interesting format to communicate scientific knowledge.  Further, the idea of linking several species as part of a food web to communicate the importance of a concept such as trophic cascade was extremely appealing to me.  Lastly, I did not see a single scientific name during my reading, but it did not interfere with my interest and understanding of both readings.  This might be due to my academic background as well.  One of the major challenges for science communicators will be not just write clear complete interesting information, but strong enough to motivate a “change in attitude” in our society towards “a more environment friendly way of living and learning”.