Unlike many american adolescents, who go off to college never having paid a bill, held a problem, or lived away from home, the eaglet has had ample guided experience with adult eagle activities anterior to becoming independent. Fledgling eaglets start their flight trail by doing what they have, for months, watched their parents do – spreading their wings. Drafts of wind catch the outstretched wings and levitate the fledgling slightly from the nest, giving it a feel for flight. once this counterfeit behavior leads to the eaglet ’ sulfur first awkward, half-accidental flight, the parents begin a focused trail process designed to teach their child, footfall by tone, how to survive independently ( assuming, of course, that the eaglet survives that first flight ). During this train degree, the eagle goes to work with its parents, observing and imitating the motions of flight and the skills of search, and venturing far and further from the nest. This kind of guided model during the eaglet ’ mho final subject summer is what allows it to survive as an adult.
human parents would do well to involve their adolescent children in the cultivate of running the family and, as mentioned above, require them to secure a job and influence for their wants. Household influence and out-of-home employment teach skills and competencies that are critical to college achiever, such as teamwork, specialization, goal-setting and plan, accountability, personal means, and sustained voluntary affiliation. We can besides imitate the eagles ’ emphasis on providing their young with adventures away from the nest. Providing young people with graduate opportunities for guide independence is critical to preparing them for what can otherwise be an abrupt and consuming passage from home to a college dormitory or apartment. Studies indicate that the majority of permanent college withdrawals occur in the first six weeks of the newcomer class as the result of student choice ; one may presume that this is largely a resultant role of adaptation issues and simple homesickness. Experiences such as camp, boarding school, church trips, scholar exchange programs, and summer internships can provide accomplishable opportunities to gain the assurance necessity to live successfully away from home. possibly the core example we can learn from eagles is to make the transition to independence a action. When it comes to preparing adolescents for this transition, however, we tend to resemble ostriches more than eagles. Rather than consciously engage in a serve of training, we stick our heads in the sand, hoping against hope that the terribly apparition of our children growing up and moving out will just go away. We are then stuck with the even more awful reality of our children not growing up and not moving out, or moving out and meeting with failure .
I am broadly interested in how human activities influence the ability of wildlife to persist in the modified environments that we create.
Specifically, my research investigates how the configuration and composition of landscapes influence the movement and population dynamics of forest birds. Both natural and human-derived fragmenting of habitat can influence where birds settle, how they access the resources they need to survive and reproduce, and these factors in turn affect population demographics. Most recently, I have been studying the ability of individuals to move through and utilize forested areas which have been modified through timber harvest as they seek out resources for the breeding and postfledging phases. As well I am working in collaboration with Parks Canada scientists to examine in the influence of high density moose populations on forest bird communities in Gros Morne National Park. Many of my projects are conducted in collaboration or consultation with representatives of industry and government agencies, seeking to improve the management and sustainability of natural resource extraction.