Conservation is a human endeavor, embedded in the cultural chaos of the moment. For many of us, our first impulse is to look to Aldo Leopold as a compass for navigating emerging questions about “(t)he oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it.” Tim will reflect on Wisconsin’s recent wolf and deer controversies to consider how Leopold’s wisdom informs urgent conservation needs in a world of divisiveness, nostalgia, and climate crisis. 

Tim Van Deelen is a professor in the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology and the Beers-Bascom professor in Conservation at the University of Wisconsin - Madison and has worked there since 2004. Tim is also faculty director for GreenHouse, an undergraduate learning community interested in sustainable living housed in a dorm named for Aldo Leopold. Prior to this, Tim worked as a research scientist for the Illinois Natural History Survey and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. He is a 1995 Ph.D. graduate of Michigan State University’s Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. Tim’s professional interest is the conservation of wildlife populations in the face of human influences and he has worked on several species including black bears, wolves, deer, badgers, sandhill cranes, turkeys, and flying squirrels. Tim teaches the UW’s class on Animal Population Dynamics and the Department’s Senior Capstone class focused on deer management. With his background in working for state management agencies, Tim also brings expertise to designing and using monitoring systems, like Snapshot Wisconsin, that bridge the gap between researchers and the information needs of conservation agencies. Tim is author/coauthor of >70 peer reviewed papers on various aspects of wildlife biology but finds his greatest satisfaction in the contributions that his former students are making as wildlife professionals.