Fear towards the four large carnivores in Norway; a geospatial survey from 2010 and 2019

Abstract Through the last centuries it has become high disturbances and interventions in natural areas, which has forced wildlife to interact with humans. This has led to human-wildlife conflicts (HWC), where animals have become a threat to peoples’ safety or livelihood. These conflicts have often ended with species becoming endangered or extinct globally, including Norway. There are small populations of wolverine (Gulo gulo), wolf (Canis lupus), lynx (Lynx lynx), and brown bear (Ursus arctos) in Norway. Fear of carnivores is one of the many aspects in the human-large carnivore conflict. This could be fear of being injured or even killed in an encounter, especially those living in large carnivore areas, where the probability of encountering one is much higher. Through two PhD-surveys executed in 2010 and 2019 I looked at peoples fear between years, spatial patterns of fear within and outside management areas for each large carnivore, and peoples’ perception of the population size of each large carnivore in their living area (municipality). Both methods were performed the same way, where maximum 5 people per municipality had to go through the surveys of 30-40 questions in a phone survey by NORSTAT. My results revealed a lower level of fear towards all four carnivores in 2019 compared to 2010, while fear in the spatial pattern varied between species; fear towards lynx and wolverine was higher outside their management areas, conversely fear towards wolf was higher within the management area than outside, and fear towards brown bear revealed no difference in areas. By including demographic variables, the only change that occurred in the spatial pattern was fear towards wolf, which no longer showed a difference between areas. Meanwhile, peoples’ perception of the carnivore situation in their municipality revealed low level of fear in the perception of not enough carnivores, while perception of too many carnivores showed a high level of fear. This applies for fear towards brown bear, wolf, and lynx, while it only applies for wolverine in the category of too few wolverines in their own municipality. Lynx was the only carnivore who revealed a high level of fear in the perception of uncertainty. I further discuss causes behind peoples’ fear and further measures should be studied to find ways to help people to manage their fear or even reduce fear to assist the reduce of large carnivore conflict in Norway. Key words: fear, large carnivores, human-large carnivore conflict, municipality, management area

Minimizing Direct Competitions in Complete Components of (1,2)-Step Competition Graphs

Graph theory is a useful tool for studying systems of food webs, a concept from ecology that models the predator-prey relationships between species in an ecosystem. We have used this concept to inform and motivate our exploration of graph theory. In particular we examine the characteristics of (1,2)-step competition graphs developed by Factor and Merz in 2010, which are an extension of normal competition graphs first introduced by Cohen in 1968. Factor and Merz define the (1,2)-step competition graph of a digraph D, denoted by C1,2(D), as the graph with the same vertex set as D and an edge between vertices x and y if and only if there exists some z in V(D) for which either dD\{x}(y, z) = 1 and dD\{y}(x, z) =\u3c 2 or, dD\{y}(x, z) = 1 and dD\{x}(y, z) =\u3c 2. We extend this definition and say that given x, y in V(D) such that (x, y) in E(C1,2), x and y compete directly if there exists a vertex z in D such that d(y, z) = 1 and d(x, z) = 1. We then call the edge (x, y) in E(C1,2) a direct competition between x and y. Otherwise, we say that x and y compete indirectly and we call the edge (x, y) in E(C1,2) an indirect competition between x and y. We have developed a family of digraphs that induce complete components in their (1,2)-step competition graphs that appear to have a minimum number of direct competitions

North Dakota and the Korean War, 1950-1951: A Study in Public Opinion

Frequently one hears reference to North Dakota the isolationist state. Indeed, North Dakota\u27s vociferous opposition to World Wars I and II and its Senator Gerald P. Nye\u27s investigations of the munitions industry all warrant the description of North Dakota as an isolationist state. But what of the cold war period when the enemy was Asiatic rather than European? This study of the first year of the Korean War is an attempt to determine what North Dakotans thought about fighting a war in Asia. The press which had been divided over the involvement of the United States in earlier wars now uniformly supported America\u27s involvement. It is not surprising that a majority of the individual citizens writing letters opposed the war. Support for the war among individuals came mainly from large cities, especially Fargo and Grand Forks. Opposition to the war was voiced by small town citizens and farmers writing poorly constructed letters. Although North Dakotans again proved to be isolationist in the first year of the Korean War they opposed the war not so much because they thought it was fostered by eastern financiers and industrialists to make a profit as was the case prior to World War I--but because subversion in the State Department due to ineptitude and bungling had committed American soldiers to an Asian land war which North Dakotans felt they could not win and one in which they did not belong

EGIS+ European level developments of flexible learning models within geographical information systems (GIS) for vocational training

This paper deals with experiences from a successful previous pilot project under the Leonardo da Vinci programme implemented during the time period 2002-2006. That project E-GIS www.e-gis.org, is the basis for eGIS+ in the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP). Ten partners from six European countries; Bulgaria, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Portugal participated in E-GIS. During the project period a study program, 100 % Internet based, corresponding to a one year full time study was implemented – resulting in eight course modules that were developed and tested out during the project. GIS – Geographical Information Systems – is a computer-based tool for handling and analysing digital map data to which are connected attribute data (spatially dependent phenomena), for statistical treatment – such as resource- and environmental planning, transport logistics, registration of archaeological findings etc. The main objectives of the E-GIS project was to establish a co-operation between European Universities and GIS user organisations and to develop modularised courses intended for Internet based learning. A heavy evaluation task was performed, based on digital questionnaires and interviews. eGIS+ is a pilot project, within the Leonardo Program “Transfer of Innovation”. The objectives of the project are to develop results from the previous E-GIS project. The aim is targeting a broader range of GIS user groups, test out new Learning Management System (LMS) and different media development software, translate course material into partner languages, create a larger variety of duration of course modules (modules from just few minutes duration, without credits, up to 10 ECTS) and create flexibility to a larger extent. During the new eGIS+ eight countries are involved with totally 11 partners. The duration of the project is two years (2007-2009)

Making Space For You

Making Space for You is a senior thesis submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College. I created Making Space for You over the course of 8 months in my studio and in my living room of my apartment. My intentions for my paintings are to create an aesthetically awesome image that the viewer is automatically attracted to. I use color confidently to make the paintings strong and catchy. I enjoy painting people, hands, feet and objects. The project began with oil paint and the goal to teach myself to paint an image of people in a space in a more rendered way which relied on the use of light, shadows, foreground, background, subtle color shifts, and fine tuning. Although I am happy with the first works of the series, throughout the project, my goals began to shift as people seemed to gravitate towards my spontaneous lines, colors and shapes. Abstraction in the work proved to be the most interesting to the viewer. I continuously played with a balance of graphic and spatial, sharp line and washy space, aiming to balance intuitive mark making and image recreation. Mostly working from photos, I have painted these images of people and then went back in to abstract them. At some point this shifted and a new process came with me to my living room where I finished the project with acrylic paint and ink. The new process is the opposite, an abstract start to the painting and then trying to work in space and figures. In terms of narrative, because my work is based on photos or an amalgamation of photos, my paintings are inherently narrative, but at this point in my exploration I am not too worried about the story that my work tells as long as I feel interested in the image itself, the narrative will come naturally. Along with thinking about where I paint, and space within my paintings, I ultimately want to be Making Space for You, the viewer, to interpret but simultaneously understand - possibly the underlying goal of my endeavor to mix abstraction with realism. My hope is that the audience of the paintings will be attracted to the colors and crazy shapes, but stay for the image content. Making Space for You can be seen as another chapter in my exploration of painting

Media’s portrayal of large predators in Norway from the protection by law in the 1970’s till today: an insight into local and national newspapers

CC © The Author(s). 2022 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.In the late century of 1800 till mid-1900s, large predators were eradicated worldwide, and bounties were commonly used to get rid of the predators. In the twentieth century the policy changed, and predators became protected by law. The “return” of the predators has resulted in negative human–wildlife interactions and an increase in social conficts. Media plays a key role in most social conficts, as positive portrayals can lead to an increased willingness to conserve the species, as opposed to negative portrayals. We have looked at how Norwegian newspapers portray the large predators from when they were protected by law in the 1970’s till today. Our results show that wolves represent the most articles, and the positive mentioning of wolves has decreased, while for bears this has increased. Local newspapers contained more negative portrayals than national newspapers, and changes in wolf establishment, predator management or politics impact on the number of articles. As our fndings indicate that negative experiences with predators, in particular in local areas, associate with negative articles in the local newspapers, we believe this could contribute to negative attitudes towards predators among those who are readers of the local newspapers. This is yet to be studied in more detail and would be recommended to better understand the role of media in human–wildlife conficts.publishedVersio