W&M Featured Events

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[PAST EVENT] Dr. Sharon Wilcox, "Borderland and Borderline: Endangered Wild Cats in the U.S.-Mexico Frontera"

September 28, 2023
2:15pm - 3:45pm
Location
Washington Hall, Room 201
241 Jamestown Rd
Williamsburg, VA 23185Map this location
Access & Features
  • Open to the public
  • Registration/RSVP
Borderland and Borderline event flyer

Join us for Borderland and Borderline: Seeking a Path Forward for Endangered Wild Cats in the U.S.-Mexico Frontera, a talk by Dr. Sharon Wilcox.

Part of the IIC 2023-24 Conservation Speaker series: "Conservation Histories and Hope".

Wild cats including the jaguar, jaguarundi, and ocelot once roamed over great portions of the borderlands region of the southwestern United States. Today, jaguars and jaguarundi are extirpated from the region north of the border and only a small population of ocelots cling to survival in south Texas. Historically, wild cat-human interactions in U.S. borderlands were characterized by conflict. Today, these historically fraught relationships are shifting as communities that once sought to eliminate these cats are now working for their survival. Innovative ideas, shifting perspectives on the place of predators, cutting-edge technology, and new techniques in wildlife management together hold promise for a new era for wild cats in the Southwest.

This event is free and open to the public.


About Sharon Wilcox

Dr. Sharon Wilcox serves as the Senior Texas Representative for the environmental nonprofit organization Defenders of Wildlife. She has dedicated her efforts to the study, conservation and restoration of the native wild cats that call the U.S.-Mexico borderlands home, including the jaguar, jaguarundi, and ocelot. She leads Defenders’ ocelot conservation program in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.

Dr. Wilcox’s work has been featured in the Washington Post, The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, Nature, and on Texas Public Radio. Wilcox is the co-editor of the book, Historical Animal Geographies, and has written a number of scholarly articles and book chapters examining contemporary and historical interactions of humans and wild cats in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Her research has received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Science Research Council, and the Smithsonian Institution.

Dr. Wilcox is an Associate Professor of Practice in Geography and Sustainability at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She also serves on the Board of Directors for the Friends of Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge in Rio Hondo, Texas.


About the Conservation Speaker Series

Each academic year the Institute for Integrative Conservation presents a series of lectures and panels centered around a biodiversity conservation theme. The 2023-34 series, Conservation Histories and Hope, focuses on the histories of specific conservation challenges, diverse conservation knowledges and perspectives, and emerging technologies and approaches that broaden or challenge conservation narrative and storytelling, and give us hope for the future of biodiversity conservation.

The Conservation Speaker Series  is made possible through support and collaboration across W&M. The IIC thanks the many departments and units for their continued engagement in this series.

Contact

https://www.wm.edu/offices/iic/