CU News
News from the University of Colorado in Boulder.
CU study: Conservation efforts might encourage some to hunt lions
Aug 26th
Conventional wisdom holds that East Africa’s Maasai pastoralists hunt lions for two distinct reasons: to retaliate against lions that kill livestock or to engage in a cultural rite of passage. But that view reflects mistranslations of Maasai terms and a simplification of their cultural traditions and their relationship with wildlife, a team of researchers led by a University of Colorado Boulder geographer has concluded.
Further, some conservation initiatives including those designed to save lions from being hunted have either failed to work or in some cases appear to have incited Maasai to hunt more lions as a form of political protest, the researchers report.
Such nuances are important, because it’s harder to control the hunting of lions unless society knows precisely why lions are hunted, the researchers contend.
Many populations of Panthera leo—African lions—are falling, and the species is classified as “vulnerable” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources’ Red List.
Lion hunting is outlawed in Kenya and in Tanzania is limited to mostly tourists hunting with permits, unless the hunt is to eliminate a lion in defense of life or livestock. Still, lion hunting regularly occurs in both countries, usually without the hunters’ following the law.
“We saw an inaccurate representation of the exact reasons for why Maasai hunt lions, and we had a lot of ethnographic background to correct that,” said Mara J. Goldman, the assistant professor of geography at CU-Boulder who led the study.
Goldman collaborated with Joana Roque de Pinho, a postdoctoral researcher at the Instituto Superior de Ciencias Sociais e Politicas (Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Portugal), and Jennifer Perry, a CU-Boulder geography alumna now studying law at the university.
Goldman and her fellow researchers conducted 246 in-depth interviews of Tanzanian and Kenyan Maasai between 2004 and 2008. They found that Maasai hunt lions for multiple overlapping reasons, some relating to predation on livestock and some not.
In some cases, Maasai said they hunted lions to prevent the potential killing of livestock, especially by lions that had killed livestock before, rather than just as retaliation.
And while Maasai still celebrate successful lion hunts and the prowess of the warriors who hunt, that cultural tradition can be less of a motivation to hunt than political discontent.
In Kenya, for instance, conservation programs aim to curb Maasai lion hunting by financially compensating Maasai for livestock killed by lions. In Tanzania, suggestions have been made by some to start such ‘compensation’ programs, but the Maasai themselves explain why this strategy has limitations:
“We cannot agree (to compensation) because we do not have cattle to be killed every day,” an elder Maasai told the researchers. “If they pay money today, then tomorrow, they will pay every day because the lion will keep coming back to eat cattle until all the cattle are gone. And then what will we do with the money?”
These sentiments were expressed in a village bordering the Manyara Ranch, a Tanzanian conservation trust on which hunting is prohibited but over which Maasai from neighboring villages are meant to share governance. In the beginning, the elders kept the warriors from hunting lions, the researchers found.
But after Maasai representation in ranch governance was diminished, the Maasai felt disenfranchised. Lion hunting increased in frequency and severity and was no longer discouraged by elders, the researchers said.
“We have no reason to follow the rules,” one elder told the researchers.
Goldman researches human-environment relations with the Tanzanian and Kenyan Maasai, one of the most recognizable ethnic groups in Africa, known for their distinctive, colorful dress and social customs, and most recently for their lion-hunting practices.
Although the primary motivations for lion hunting differed somewhat between Tanzania and Kenya, the researchers emphasize that Maasai have multiple, overlapping reasons to hunt lions: to reaffirm the protective role of young warriors, to help select brave leaders among warrior groups, to allow individual warriors to gain prestige, to eliminate lions that prey on livestock and to prevent lions from becoming habituated to eating livestock and sometimes harming people.
The multiple reasons illustrate the limitations of explaining Maasai lion hunting “as either a cultural manhood ritual or a retaliatory act,” the researchers write.
“Participatory conservation interventions that respect Maasai knowledge and promote full engagement with management processes are likely to have far better success in persuading Maasai to change or moderate such behaviors themselves,” the research team states, adding that “lion conservation projects rarely address such complex politics.”
Goldman, also a faculty research associate at CU-Boulder’s Institute of Behavioral Science, is the first author on the study that was recently published online in the journal Oryx and is scheduled to appear in the journal’s October print edition. The study is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0030605312000907.
For more on this story, see Colorado Arts & Sciences Magazine at http://artsandsciences.colorado.edu/magazine.
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New financial educator to help CU-Boulder students navigate money matters
Aug 22nd
In an effort to help University of Colorado Boulder students make smart financial decisions about their budgets, credit, school loans and other money matters, a new campus financial educator will be available to students beginning Aug. 26, the first day of fall semester classes.
The CU Money Sense program was created by the Bursar’s Office in 2009 to provide student financial workshops and other educational opportunities including “Money Smart Week,” according to Susie Jacobs, the program’s director.
“This year our program added a new financial educator position to provide our students with one-on-one education sessions,” Jacobs said.
Niomi Williams, the new financial educator, will offer the free one-on-one sessions in order to give CU-Boulder students — and alumni — a financial leg up in what can be a challenging chapter in many young adults’ lives.
“When I was a recent college graduate, I found myself with student loan and credit card debt and not enough income,” Williams said. “I didn’t know how to manage my finances, I was a mess. My goal in this new position is to help students steer clear of money mistakes and lay the foundation for a stable financial future.”
While all individuals’ needs will be different, Williams said students can request a one-on-one session with her to cover basic financial questions such as how to organize and budget money, a challenging task for many people. Or they can just come in to talk about other financial issues or questions they may have.
“For many students, college is the first time they have to really manage their money, everything from paying rent to understanding how much their student loan payments will be when they graduate,” she said.
Williams said she won’t be offering investment or tax advice, but she hopes she can help students excel in money management.
“Once I learned how to organize and control my finances, all the pressure and financial stress I had been feeling went away,” she said.
Students who don’t want to sit down with Williams can visit the CU Money Sense website at http://bursar.colorado.edu/cumoneysense. Students also can check out the Facebook and Twitter pages, or follow the CU Money Sense blog, all of which can be accessed on the main website. CU Money Sense also puts on several workshops throughout the school year on financial topics of interest to students, free of charge.
Upcoming CU Money Sense workshops include:
- “Money Matters Information Sessions,” Aug. 21-23, 3-4 p.m. in University Memorial Center room 247.
- “Best Money Apps and Websites for Students,” Aug. 27-28, at 3 p.m. in University Memorial Center room 353.
- “Intro to Money, Banking and Budgeting in Boulder for International Students,” Sept. 18, at noon in University Memorial Center room 425.
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CU-Boulder research efforts dates oldest petroglyphs known in North America
Aug 13th
A new high-tech analysis led by a University of Colorado Boulder researcher shows the oldest known petroglyphs in North America, which are cut into several boulders in western Nevada, date to at least 10,500 years ago and perhaps even as far back as 14,800 years ago.
The petroglyphs located at the Winnemucca Lake petroglyph site 35 miles northeast of Reno consist of large, deeply carved grooves and dots forming complex designs on several large limestone boulders that have been known about for decades, said CU-Boulder researcher Larry Benson, who led the new effort. Although there are no people, animals or handprint symbols depicted, the petroglyph designs include a series of vertical, chain-like symbols and a number of smaller pits deeply incised with a type of hard rock scraper.
Benson and his colleagues used several methods to date the petroglyphs, including determining when the water level the Winnemucca Lake subbasin—which back then was a single body of water connecting the now-dry Winnemucca Lake and the existing Pyramid Lake—reached the specific elevation of 3,960 feet.
The elevation was key to the study because it marked the maximum height the ancient lake system could have reached before it began spilling excess water over Emerson Pass to the north. When the lake level was at this height, the petroglyph-peppered boulders were submerged and therefore not accessible for carving, said Benson, an adjunct curator of anthropology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History.
A paper on the subject was published this month in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Co-authors on the study included Eugene Hattori of the Nevada State Museum in Carson City, Nev., John Southon of the University of California, Irvine and Benjamin Aleck of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe Museum and Visitor’s Center in Nixon, Nev. The National Research Program of the U.S. Geological Survey funded the study.
According to Benson, a white layer of carbonate made of limestone precipitated from the ancient, overflowing Winnemucca Lake had coated some of the petroglyph carvings near the base of the boulders. Previous work by Benson showed the carbonate coating elsewhere in the basin at that elevation had a radiocarbon date of roughly 11,000 years ago.
Benson sampled the carbonate into which the petroglyphs were incised and the carbonate that coated the petroglyphs at the base of the limestone boulder. The radiocarbon dates on the samples indicated the carbonate layer underlying the petroglyphs dated to roughly 14,800 ago. Those dates, as well as additional geochemical data on a sediment core from the adjacent Pyramid Lake subbasin, indicated the limestone boulders containing the petroglyphs were exposed to air between 14,800 and 13,200 years ago and again between about 11,300 and 10,500 years ago.
“Prior to our study, archaeologists had suggested these petroglyphs were extremely old,” said Benson, also an emeritus USGS scientist. “Whether they turn out to be as old as 14,800 years ago or as recent as 10,500 years ago, they are still the oldest petroglyphs that have been dated in North America.”
While Native American artifacts found in the Lahontan Basin—which encompasses the Winnemucca Lake subbasin—date to the time period of 11,300 to 10,500 years ago, it does not rule out the possibility that the petroglyphs were carved as early as 14,800 years ago, Benson said.
The oldest dates calculated for the Winnemucca Lake petroglyph site correspond with the time frame linked to several pieces of fossilized human excrement found in a cave in Oregon, said Benson, who also is affiliated with CU’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. The caves, known as the Paisley Caves in south central Oregon, held not only fossilized human coprolites that dated to roughly 14,400 years ago, but also bones of horses and camels that went extinct in North America prior to 13,000 years ago.
The younger time interval calculated for the Winnemucca petroglyphs corresponds to dates obtained from a second significant archaeological finding in the region—Spirit Cave Man, who was discovered more than 70 years ago some 60 miles east of Reno and whose hair, bones and clothing were dated to about 10,600 years ago. The remains of the man, who was found partially mummified in a shallow grave in Spirit Cave, Nev., were discovered with a fur robe, a woven marsh plant shroud and moccasins.
Petroglyphs near Long Lake in central Oregon—which were previously thought to be the oldest examples of rock art in North America—share similar features with some of the rock art the Winnemucca site, said Benson. At least one of the petroglyph panels from Long Lake was buried by ash from an eruption of the nearby Mount Mazama volcano roughly 6,700 years ago, proof that it was carved sometime before the eruption.
“We have no idea what they mean,” Benson said of the Winnemucca Lake petroglyphs. “But I think they are absolutely beautiful symbols. Some look like multiple connected sets of diamonds, and some look like trees, or veins in a leaf. There are few petroglyphs in the American Southwest that are as deeply carved as these, and few that have the same sense of size.”
Benson obtained permission to non-invasively examine the petroglyphs from the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, which owns the land. Study co-author John Southton, a faculty member at University of California, Irvine, radiocarbon dated the material for the study.
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