Eagles, Marmots, Humans: Knowing Wildlife Through Fieldwork

Abstract

This article follows two biologists working in landscapes transformed by logging: Katya Karabanina, ringing golden eagles in northern Finland, and Andrew Bryant, studying Vancouver Island marmots. Both seek to understand species that persist in altered habitats. Their fieldwork is slow, physical, and deeply relational, producing not only data but bonds that sustain care. Set side by side, their stories reveal that conservation science rests as much on presence, attention, and endurance as on numbers. Field practice becomes a form of knowing, and sometimes of advocacy, showing that species recovery begins in the relationships built through work in the field.