Blue Planet Journey

In late August, a distressed resident reported a Burmese python laying in front of his house. All Star Pest Management personnel rose to the challenge and captured the snake. Ihab and Ryan to the rescue! All Star Pest Management in Maryland was founded by wildlife biologist and NWCO Abdou El Hani. Nuisance Wildlife Control Operators (NWCOs) have a unique skill set. They deal with wildlife management within an extraordinary environment… urban and suburban areas. Traditional wildlife agency managers visit these same areas to deal with the occasional trespassing of deer, cougars, and beavers, or to give presentations at the local library or school. But they will give a pass to calls about squirrels and raccoons in the attic or chimney, bats indoors, snakes in the woodpile, woodpeckers hammering on the gutters, or moles in the lawn. Often, they will refer a concerned or panicked homeowner to a “pest control” company. Those calls often trickle down to a company with specialized training in ...

One of my most unique articles published was not on science, but on the process of reporting science. In 1985, I was a graduate student at UC Davis. I was asked by a faculty member to help two researchers from another university with a project I was familiar with. Easy enough. A few months later, in a pleasant surprise, I received a draft manuscript, with the two researchers listed as authors one and two, me as third, and the faculty member as fourth. I provided some important methodological revisions, and returned the manuscript. Later, I found that the fourth author had only a single comment... replacing me with him as third author!   As any graduate student knows, authorship is a big deal. I stewed over my "demotion" for a few weeks, then set down my thoughts on authorship (below). I submitted it to a journal in my professional area ( Wildlife Society Bulletin ), and it was rejected ("no real contribution," reviewer number 2 wrote). I resubmitted it to a non-peer...