tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/buffalo-17456/articlesBuffalo – The Conversation2023-10-05T15:49:43Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2132942023-10-05T15:49:43Z2023-10-05T15:49:43ZFossil snake traces: another world-first find on South Africa’s Cape south coast<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550184/original/file-20230926-29-aodxzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Puff adders leave linear, sometimes slightly undulating traces.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EcoPrint/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Snakes are familiar, distinctive – and often feared – reptiles. And they’ve been around for a long time: body fossils found in the UK, Portugal and the US stretch all the way back to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms6996">the late Jurassic period</a>, about 150 million years ago.</p>
<p>Until now, though, there hasn’t been a single description of a surface fossilised snake trace – a mark on a surface that’s become cemented and re-exposed over time – anywhere in the world. </p>
<p>There are probably several reasons for this. One is that the tracks of large quadrupeds (four-legged animals), including dinosaurs, are easier to recognise than those of snakes. Another reason could be that snakes tend to avoid sandy or muddy areas in which their trails could be registered, preferring vegetated terrain. Maybe, as the weight of the snake is distributed over its entire length, the trails are shallow and are not easy to identify. </p>
<p>Or perhaps researchers are not adequately familiar with the types of traces that snakes can create. </p>
<p>We are part of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/my-job-is-full-of-fossilised-poop-but-theres-nothing-icky-about-ichnology-182906">ichnological team</a> – experts in identifying fossil tracks and traces. In a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10420940.2023.2250062?src=">recently published article</a> in the journal <em>Ichnos</em>, we described the first snake trace in the fossil record, which we found on South Africa’s Cape south coast. It dates to the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/Pleistocene-Epoch">Pleistocene epoch</a>, and our studies have shown that it was probably made between 93,000 and 83,000 years ago, almost certainly by a puff adder (<em>Bitis arietans</em>).</p>
<p>As this is a world first, our research team was obliged to create a new ichnogenus and ichnospecies, <em>Anguinichnus linearis</em>, to describe the distinctive pattern in the sand registered by the puff adder. </p>
<h2>A snake and a buffalo</h2>
<p>The puff adder is a not uncommon sight on the Cape south coast today and, with good reason, strikes fear into residents and visitors: its cytotoxic (tissue-destroying) venom can cause the loss of a limb or worse. It habitually suns itself on trails, staying motionless, and then strikes without warning.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-ultimate-in-stealth-puff-adders-employ-camouflage-at-every-level-53316">The ultimate in stealth, puff adders employ camouflage at every level</a>
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<p>We found the trace fossil in the <a href="https://www.capenature.co.za/reserves/walker-bay-nature-reserve">Walker Bay Nature Reserve</a> (adjacent to <a href="https://www.grootbos.com/en">Grootbos Private Nature Reserve</a>), just over 100 kilometres south-east of Cape Town. </p>
<p>Intriguingly, a <a href="https://prehistoric-fauna.com/Pelorovis-antiquus">long-horned buffalo</a> – an extinct species – had walked across the same dune surface soon after the snake left its trace. We know this because one of the buffalo’s tracks is superimposed on the puff adder trace, slightly deforming it.</p>
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<img alt="A large, smooth, light grey rock surface on which the indent of a slithering snake is visible, as are several hoof prints" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551116/original/file-20230929-21-r9kbpi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551116/original/file-20230929-21-r9kbpi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551116/original/file-20230929-21-r9kbpi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551116/original/file-20230929-21-r9kbpi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551116/original/file-20230929-21-r9kbpi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551116/original/file-20230929-21-r9kbpi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551116/original/file-20230929-21-r9kbpi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The puff adder trail, crossed by a long-horned buffalo trackway. Geological hammer for scale.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hayley Cawthra</span></span>
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<p>The puff adder and long-horned buffalo traces were found on the surface of a loose slab, 3 metres long and 2.6 metres wide, which had become dislodged and fallen down onto the beach from overlying cliffs. The slab is submerged twice a day by high tides. We were fortunate to discover it when its surface was bare, as repeat visits have shown that it is often covered in algae or by a thick layer of beach sand.</p>
<h2>Snakes in motion</h2>
<p>Snakes use four main types of locomotion. Each results in distinctive, recognisable traces. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Here’s how snakes move through the world.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Puff adders are heavy, thick-set snakes with an average adult length of less than a metre. They mostly employ rectilinear motion, leaving a linear, sometimes slightly undulating trace, often with a central drag mark registered by the tail tip. In this form of motion the snake uses its weight and its belly muscles and grips rough areas on the surface with the posterior edges of its scales. It is drawn forwards through the muscular contractions, creating a linear trace. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A puff adder in motion, filmed by research team member Mark Dixon.</span></figcaption>
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<p>We also found possible trace evidence at other sites on the Cape south coast of sidewinding and undulatory motion, but this was inconclusive. We will be looking for further, more conclusive evidence. </p>
<h2>Filling important gaps</h2>
<p>The newly described puff adder traces help fill a gap in the Pleistocene trace fossil record from the region. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.07.039">More than 350 vertebrate tracksites</a> have been identified, of mammals, birds and reptiles. Most of these sites were registered on dune surfaces, which have now become <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0012-8252(01)00054-X">cemented into aeolianites and re-exposed</a>. Our latest find is yet another global first for the Cape south coast. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/first-fossil-trails-of-baby-sea-turtles-found-in-south-africa-122434">First fossil trails of baby sea turtles found in South Africa</a>
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<p>With other vertebrate groups, such as dinosaurs and crocodiles, the trace fossil record has substantially augmented the body fossil record, providing new insights. Hopefully this discovery will act as a spur to identify other snake traces from around the world from older deposits, and thus increase our understanding of the evolution of snakes and help to fill a substantial gap in the global trace fossil record.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213294/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The trace was probably made between 93,000 and 83,000 years ago, almost certainly by a puff adder.Charles Helm, Research Associate, African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela UniversityHayley Cawthra, Specialist Scientist, Council for GeoscienceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2119902023-08-23T12:28:24Z2023-08-23T12:28:24ZLooking for a US ‘climate haven’ away from disaster risks? Good luck finding one<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544110/original/file-20230822-23-vu11ws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=274%2C0%2C4817%2C3282&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Burlington, Vt., is often named as a 'climate haven,' but surrounding areas flooded during extreme storms in July 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/burlington-vermont-church-street-downtown-with-restaurants-news-photo/558218705">Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/busca-un-paraiso-climatico-en-ee-uu-alejado-del-calor-y-los-riesgos-de-catastrofe-buena-suerte-213462">Leer en español</a>.</em> </p>
<p>Southeast Michigan seemed like the perfect “climate haven.” </p>
<p>“My family has owned my home since the ‘60s. … Even when my dad was a kid and lived there, no floods, no floods, no floods, no floods. Until [2021],” one southeast Michigan resident told us. That June, a storm dumped more than <a href="https://www.weather.gov/dtx/MetroDetroitFlooding_PortAustinTornado_June2021">6 inches of rain</a> on the region, overloading stormwater systems and flooding homes.</p>
<p>That sense of living through unexpected and unprecedented disasters resonates with more Americans each year, we have found in our research into the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/27539687231176076">past, present and future of risk and resilience</a>.</p>
<p>An analysis of federal disaster declarations for weather-related events puts more data behind the fears – the average number of disaster declarations has skyrocketed since 2000 to <a href="https://www.fema.gov/about/openfema/Datasets-disaster-declaration-summaries">nearly twice</a> that of the preceding 20-year period.</p>
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<img alt="A man and woman sit on a park bench with water up to the man's knees. The woman is sitting on the chair back. A car in the street is flooded up to the roof." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544111/original/file-20230822-17-ybv7br.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544111/original/file-20230822-17-ybv7br.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544111/original/file-20230822-17-ybv7br.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544111/original/file-20230822-17-ybv7br.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544111/original/file-20230822-17-ybv7br.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544111/original/file-20230822-17-ybv7br.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544111/original/file-20230822-17-ybv7br.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A powerful storm system in 2023 flooded communities across Vermont and left large parts of the capital, Montpelier, underwater.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/michelle-whitehouse-and-her-husband-will-whitehouse-from-news-photo/1526471468">John Tully for The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>As people question how livable the world will be <a href="https://www.climateneutralgroup.com/en/news/five-future-scenarios-ar6-ipcc/">in a warming future</a>, a narrative around <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2008.10.003">climate migration</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-021-00712-2">“climate havens”</a> has emerged.</p>
<p>These “climate havens” are areas touted by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/climate/climate-migration-duluth.html">researchers</a>, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-05/the-consequences-of-being-a-climate-refuge-city">public officials</a> and <a href="https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/oes/climate/climate-protection-green-cincinnati-plan/">city planners</a> as natural refuges from extreme climate conditions. Some <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/01/22/956904171/americans-are-moving-to-escape-climate-impacts-towns-expect-more-to-come">climate havens are already welcoming</a> people escaping the effects of climate change elsewhere. Many have <a href="https://nsglc.olemiss.edu/sglpj/vol10no2/3-phillips.pdf">affordable housing</a> and <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/climate-receiver-cities-signal-rust-belt-renaissance">legacy infrastructure</a> from their larger populations before the mid-20th century, when <a href="https://www.nlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/CS-Domestic-Climate-Migration-and-US-Cities-Report.pdf">people began to leave</a> as industries disappeared.</p>
<p>But they aren’t disaster-proof – or necessarily ready for the changing climate. </p>
<h2>Six climate havens</h2>
<p>Some of the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-021-00712-2">most cited “havens” in research</a> by <a href="https://www.nlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/CS-Domestic-Climate-Migration-and-US-Cities-Report.pdf">national organizations</a> and in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980231184466">news media</a> are older cities in the Great Lakes region, upper Midwest and Northeast. They include Ann Arbor, <a href="https://statesummaries.ncics.org/chapter/mi/">Michigan</a>; Duluth, <a href="https://statesummaries.ncics.org/chapter/mn/">Minnesota</a>; Minneapolis; Buffalo, <a href="https://statesummaries.ncics.org/chapter/ny/">New York</a>; Burlington, <a href="https://statesummaries.ncics.org/chapter/vt/">Vermont</a>; and Madison, <a href="https://statesummaries.ncics.org/chapter/wi/">Wisconsin</a>.</p>
<p>Yet each of <a href="https://glisa.umich.edu/climate-change-in-the-great-lakes-region-references/">these cities</a> will likely have to contend with some of the <a href="https://impactlab.org/map/#usmeas=change-from-hist&usyear=2040-2059&gmeas=absolute&gyear=1986-2005&usrcp=ssp245&usvar=tas_ann">greatest temperature increases</a> in the country in the coming years. Warmer air also has a higher capacity to hold water vapor, causing more frequent, intense and longer duration storms.</p>
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<p>These cities are already feeling the impacts of climate change. In 2023 alone, “haven” regions in <a href="https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/WIGOV/2023/04/18/file_attachments/2472100/EO194-FloodingEmergency.pdf">Wisconsin</a>, <a href="https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/local/vermont/2023/07/11/rain-totals-damage-and-road-closures-from-vermont-storm/70403051007/">Vermont</a> and <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2022/08/31/power-outage-dte-energy-restoration-michigan/65464577007/">Michigan</a> suffered significant damage from <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/07/climate-change-safe-states-vermont-floods/674780/">powerful storms</a> and flooding. </p>
<p>The previous winter was also catastrophic: Lake-effect snow fueled by moisture from the still-open water of Lake Erie dumped over 4 feet of snow on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/29/nyregion/western-new-york-storm.html">Buffalo</a>, leaving nearly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/01/19/buffalo-blizzard-deaths-emergency-response/">50 people dead</a> and thousands of households without power or heat. <a href="https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/local/duluth-could-near-snowfall-record-as-winter-weather-returns">Duluth</a> reached near-record snowfall and faced significant flooding as <a href="https://www.wdio.com/front-page/top-stories/rapid-snow-melt-causes-high-flows-in-wlssd-collection-system/">unseasonably high temperatures</a> caused rapid snowmelt in April.</p>
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<img alt="Two people shovel knee-deep snow off a roof." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496230/original/file-20221118-24-nv4slv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496230/original/file-20221118-24-nv4slv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496230/original/file-20221118-24-nv4slv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496230/original/file-20221118-24-nv4slv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496230/original/file-20221118-24-nv4slv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496230/original/file-20221118-24-nv4slv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496230/original/file-20221118-24-nv4slv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A lake-effect snowstorm in November 2014 buried Buffalo, N.Y., under more than 5 feet of snow and caused hundreds of roofs to collapse. A similar storm hit in December 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/residents-work-to-remove-snow-from-the-roof-on-november-21-news-photo/459384792">Patrick McPartland/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Heavy rainfall and extreme <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indic.2021.100126">winter storms</a> can cause widespread damage to the <a href="https://assets.climatecentral.org/pdfs/PowerOutages.pdf">energy grid</a> and significant flooding, and heighten the risk of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jason-Kalmbach/publication/334773442_Climate_Change_and_Energy/links/5d897b9d92851ceb793a9af0/Climate-Change-and-Energy.pdf">waterborne disease outbreaks</a>. These effects are particularly notable in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/mjs.12333712.0002.004">legacy Great Lakes cities</a> with <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/bio/meghan-hassett/midwest-states-leading-clean-energy-need-power-grid-catch">aging energy</a> and <a href="https://infrastructurereportcard.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Stormwater-2021.pdf">water infrastructure</a>.</p>
<h2>Older infrastructure wasn’t built for this</h2>
<p>Older cities tend to have older infrastructure that likely wasn’t built to withstand more extreme weather events. They are now scrambling to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.119-a514">shore up</a> their systems. </p>
<p>Many cities are investing in infrastructure upgrades, but <a href="https://www.midstory.org/when-roads-turn-to-rivers-rethinking-detroits-flood-infrastructure/">these upgrades tend to be fragmented</a>, are <a href="https://www.startribune.com/aging-stormwater-systems-weren-t-built-for-this-volume-of-rain/558826472/">not permanent fixes</a> and often lack long-term funding. Typically, they also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/12/climate/us-electric-grid-energy-transition.html">are not broad enough</a> to protect entire cities from the effects of climate change and can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764214550306">exacerbate existing vulnerabilities</a>.</p>
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<img alt="Workers in a rock cavern underground look up at a giant hole in the ceiling and pipe." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544117/original/file-20230822-25-y4l19w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544117/original/file-20230822-25-y4l19w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544117/original/file-20230822-25-y4l19w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544117/original/file-20230822-25-y4l19w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544117/original/file-20230822-25-y4l19w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544117/original/file-20230822-25-y4l19w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544117/original/file-20230822-25-y4l19w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Crews in Minneapolis work on a new stormwater tunnel underneath downtown. It’s designed to help protect part of the city, but not all of it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/unseen-to-most-of-the-city-above-crews-are-building-a-large-news-photo/1415867893">Alex Kormann/Star Tribune via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Electricity grids are extremely vulnerable to the mounting effects of severe thunderstorms and winter storms on <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/mpsc/consumer/electricity/customer-outage-history">power lines</a>. Vermont and Michigan are ranked 45th and 46th among the states, respectively, in <a href="https://www.citizensutilityboard.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Electric-Utility-Performance-A-State-By-State-Data-Review_final.pdf">electricity reliability</a>, which incorporates the frequency of outages and the time it takes utilities to restore power. </p>
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<p>Stormwater systems in the Great Lakes region also <a href="https://toolkit.climate.gov/regions/great-lakes">regularly fail to keep pace</a> with the heavy rainfall and rapid snowmelt <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07447-1">caused by climate change</a>. Stormwater systems are routinely designed in accordance with precipitation analyses from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration called <a href="https://hdsc.nws.noaa.gov/pfds/">Atlas 14</a>, which <a href="https://www.weather.gov/owp/hdsc_faqs">don’t account for climate change</a>. A <a href="https://www.weather.gov/media/owp/hdsc_documents/NOAA_Atlas_15_Flyer.pdf">new version</a> won’t be available until 2026 at the earliest.</p>
<p>At the confluence of these infrastructure challenges is <a href="https://www.hrwc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Stormwater-and-Climate-Guide-1.pdf">more frequent</a> and <a href="https://www.mprnews.org/story/2013/06/19/anatomy-of-the-2012-duluth-flood">extensive</a> urban <a href="https://www.startribune.com/scattered-thunderstorms-flood-some-twin-cities-roads-down-trees/600281765/">flooding</a> in and around haven cities. An analysis by the <a href="https://report.firststreet.org/8th-National-Risk-Assessment-The-Precipitation-Problem.pdf">First Street Foundation</a>, which incorporates future climate projections into precipitation modeling, reveals that five of these six haven cities face moderate or major flood risk.</p>
<p>Disaster declaration data shows that the counties housing these six cities have experienced an average of six declarations for severe storms and flooding since 2000, about one every 3.9 years, and these are on the rise.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An aerial photo shows the shoreline of Lake Mendota and the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543839/original/file-20230821-10846-wcajxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543839/original/file-20230821-10846-wcajxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543839/original/file-20230821-10846-wcajxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543839/original/file-20230821-10846-wcajxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543839/original/file-20230821-10846-wcajxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543839/original/file-20230821-10846-wcajxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543839/original/file-20230821-10846-wcajxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Madison, Wis., has seen warmer summers and more precipitation in the past decade.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aerial_View_of_Campus,_with_Helen_C._White_Hall_in_foreground_%2814070186173%29.jpg">Jeff Miller/UW-Madison</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Intensified precipitation can further stress stormwater infrastructure, resulting in <a href="https://www.insidehalton.com/news/burlington-couple-expecting-baby-struggling-with-100k-in-flood-damage/article_12899b7e-7c40-5d1b-9d75-df8c8deb93be.html?">basement flooding</a>, <a href="https://www.startribune.com/duluth-flooding-leads-to-sewage-overflow/600269305/">contamination</a> of <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2023/02/27/heavy-rains-lead-to-sewer-overflow-in-milwaukee/69949853007/">drinking water sources</a> in <a href="https://mienviro.michigan.gov/ncore/external/overflow/list">cities</a> with <a href="https://www.epa.gov/npdes/combined-sewer-overflows-great-lakes-basin">legacy sewage systems</a>, and <a href="https://www.insidehalton.com/news/burlington-couple-expecting-baby-struggling-with-100k-in-flood-damage/article_12899b7e-7c40-5d1b-9d75-df8c8deb93be.html?">hazardous road</a> and <a href="https://www.audacy.com/wwjnewsradio/news/local/storms-and-flooding-cause-freeway-closures-in-metro-detroit">highway</a> flooding. <a href="https://www.nyserda.ny.gov/-/media/Project/Nyserda/files/Publications/Research/Environmental/EMEP/climaid/ClimAID-Transportation.pdf">Transportation systems</a> are also contending with <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/heat-buckles-section-of-highway-610-in-maple-grove/">hotter temperatures</a> and pavement not designed for extreme heat.</p>
<p>As these trends ramp up, cities everywhere will also have to pay attention to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s40572-022-00360-w">systemic inequalities in vulnerability</a> that often fall along lines of race, wealth and mobility. <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/bio/meghan-hassett/midwest-states-leading-clean-energy-need-power-grid-catch">Urban heat island effects</a>, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-38084-6">energy insecurity</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.11.039">heightened flood risk</a> are just a few of the issues <a href="https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2021-09/climate-vulnerability_september-2021_508.pdf">intensified by climate change</a> that tend to hit poor residents harder.</p>
<h2>What can cities do to prepare?</h2>
<p>So, what is a haven city to do in the face of pressing climate changes and population influx?</p>
<p>Decision-makers can hope for the best, but must <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-016-1766-2">plan for the worst</a>. That means working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change, but also <a href="https://mi-psc.force.com/sfc/servlet.shepherd/version/download/0688y000004R91BAAS">assessing the community’s physical infrastructure</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2022.04.015">social safety nets</a> for <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/mpsc/consumer/electricity/customer-outage-history">vulnerabilities that become more likely</a> in a warming climate. </p>
<p>Collaborating across sectors is also essential. For example, a community may rely on the same <a href="https://new.nsf.gov/news/grid-reliability-under-climate-change-may-require">water resources</a> for energy, drinking water and recreation. Climate change can affect all three. <a href="https://doi.org/10.5539/eer.v5n2p1">Working across sectors</a> and including community input in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2020.1811655">planning for climate change</a> can help highlight concerns early.</p>
<p>There are a number of innovative ways that cities can fund infrastructure projects, such as <a href="https://www.nga.org/projects/state-resource-center-on-innovative-infrastructure-strategies/">public-private partnerships</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/using-green-banks-to-solve-americas-affordable-housing-crisis-and-climate-change-at-the-same-time-208098">green banks</a> that help support sustainability projects. <a href="https://dcgreenbank.com/press/dc-green-bank-and-rainplan-announce-a-2000000-deal-to-support-commercial-and-residential-stormwater-management-projects/">DC Green Bank</a> in Washington, D.C., for example, works with private companies to mobilize funding for natural stormwater management projects and energy efficiency. </p>
<p>Cities will have to remain vigilant about reducing emissions that contribute to climate change, and at the same time prepare for the climate risks creeping toward even the “climate havens” of the globe.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211990/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Earl Lewis is affiliated with 2U Board of Directors; ETS Board of Trustees; American Funds/Capital Group Board of Directors; American Academy of Arts and Sciences Board of Trustees</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brad Bottoms and Julie Arbit do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Even ‘climate havens’ face a riskier future, and infrastructure often isn’t built to handle climate change. But there are steps cities can take to prepare.Julie Arbit, Researcher at the Center for Social Solutions, University of MichiganBrad Bottoms, Data Scientist at the Center for Social Solutions, University of MichiganEarl Lewis, Director and Founder, Center for Social Solutions, Professor of History, Afroamerican and African Studies, and public policy, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1949532022-11-18T20:03:54Z2022-11-18T20:03:54ZWhat causes lake-effect snow like Buffalo’s extreme storms?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496302/original/file-20221120-6248-3fwep2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C13%2C2995%2C1976&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Parts of the Buffalo area saw more than 6 feet of snow over three days in November 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXWintryWeather/aeeb2499dca64e22ab85c9da7ae267ad/photo">AP Photo/Joshua Bessex</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s hard for most people to imagine more than 4 feet of snow in one storm, but such extreme snowfall events happen along the eastern edges of the Great Lakes.</p>
<p>The phenomenon is called “lake-effect snow.”</p>
<p>It starts with cold, dry air from Canada. As the bitter cold air sweeps across the relatively warmer Great Lakes, it sucks up more and more moisture that falls as snow.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A satellite image shows wind blowing snow across Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario on Nov. 20, 2014" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496201/original/file-20221118-12-5hv833.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C18%2C6032%2C4027&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496201/original/file-20221118-12-5hv833.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496201/original/file-20221118-12-5hv833.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496201/original/file-20221118-12-5hv833.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496201/original/file-20221118-12-5hv833.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496201/original/file-20221118-12-5hv833.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496201/original/file-20221118-12-5hv833.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Canadian winds pick up moisture over the Great Lakes, turning it into heavy snowfall on the far shore.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/noaa_glerl/16056567472/">NOAA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=h3tGrwsAAAAJ&hl=en">climate scientist</a> at UMass Amherst. In the Climate Dynamics course I teach, students often ask how cold, dry air can lead to heavy snowfall. Here’s how that happens.</p>
<h2>How dry air turns into snowstorms</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.theweatherprediction.com/winterwx/lesnow/">Lake-effect snow</a> is strongly influenced by the differences between the amount of heat and moisture at the lake surface and in the air a few thousand feet above it. </p>
<p>A big contrast creates conditions that help to suck water up from the lake, and thus more snowfall. A difference of 25 degrees Fahrenheit (14 Celsius) or more creates an environment that can fuel heavy snows. This often happens in late fall, when lake water is still warm from summer and cold air starts sweeping down from Canada. More moderate lake-effect snows occur every fall under less extreme thermal contrasts.</p>
<p>The wind’s path over the lakes is important. The farther cold air travels over the lake surface, the more moisture is evaporated from the lake. A long “fetch” – the distance over water – often results in more lake-effect snow than a shorter one.</p>
<p>Imagine a wind out of the west that is perfectly aligned so it blows over the entire 241-mile length of Lake Erie. That’s close to what Buffalo experienced during a storm that brought 6 feet of snow to the region in November 2022.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An animation overlays wind direction on satellite imagery of snow accumulation during a lake-effect event." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496208/original/file-20221118-11-imi2ax.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496208/original/file-20221118-11-imi2ax.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496208/original/file-20221118-11-imi2ax.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496208/original/file-20221118-11-imi2ax.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496208/original/file-20221118-11-imi2ax.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496208/original/file-20221118-11-imi2ax.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496208/original/file-20221118-11-imi2ax.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wind directions from a storm in 2016 show how lake-effect snow piles up.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://noaaglerl.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/lakeeffectsnow_dec2016.gif">NOAA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Once the snow reaches land, elevation contributes an additional effect. Land that slopes up from the lake increases lift in the atmosphere, enhancing snowfall rates. This mechanism is termed “<a href="https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-is-orographic-precipitation.html">orographic effect</a>.” The <a href="https://tughill.org/tug-hill-region/">Tug Hill plateau</a>, located between Lake Ontario and the Adirondacks in western New York, is well known for its impressive snowfall totals.</p>
<p>In a typical year, annual snowfall in the “lee,” or downwind, of the Great Lakes approaches 200 inches in some places.</p>
<p>Residents in places like Buffalo, New York, are keenly aware of the phenomenon. In 2014, some parts of the region received upwards of 6 feet of snowfall during an <a href="https://www.weather.gov/buf/lake1415_stormb.html">epic lake-effect event</a>. The weight of the <a href="https://www.weather.gov/buf/lake1415_stormb.html">snow collapsed hundreds of roofs</a> and led to over a dozen deaths. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two people shovel knee-deep snow off a roof." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496230/original/file-20221118-24-nv4slv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496230/original/file-20221118-24-nv4slv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496230/original/file-20221118-24-nv4slv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496230/original/file-20221118-24-nv4slv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496230/original/file-20221118-24-nv4slv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496230/original/file-20221118-24-nv4slv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496230/original/file-20221118-24-nv4slv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A lake-effect snowstorm in November 2014 buried Buffalo, N.Y., under more than 5 feet of snow and caused hundreds of roofs to collapse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/residents-work-to-remove-snow-from-the-roof-on-november-21-news-photo/459384792">Patrick McPartland/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lake-effect snowfall in the Buffalo area is typically confined to a narrow region where the wind is coming straight off the lake. Drivers on Interstate 90 often go from sunny skies to a blizzard and back to sunny skies over a distance of 30 to 40 miles.</p>
<h2>The role of climate change</h2>
<p>Is climate change playing a role in the lake-effect snow machine? To an extent. </p>
<p><a href="https://climatechange.chicago.gov/climate-impacts/climate-impacts-midwest">Fall has warmed across the upper Midwest</a>. Ice prevents lake water from evaporating into the air, and it is forming later than in the past. Warmer summer air has led to warmer lake temperature into fall.</p>
<p>Models predict that with additional warming, more lake-effect snow will occur. But over time, the warming will lead to more of the precipitation falling as lake-effect rain, which already occurs in early fall, rather than snow.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194953/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael A. Rawlins receives funding from the Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>Snowstorms that sweep across the Great Lakes can dump several feet of snow on the other side. A climate scientists explains why.Michael A. Rawlins, Associate Director, Climate System Research Center, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1833192022-05-27T15:17:11Z2022-05-27T15:17:11ZThe ‘sonnenrad’ used in shooters’ manifestos: a spiritual symbol of hate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465597/original/file-20220526-17-o613sf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C25%2C5718%2C3786&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A person visits a makeshift memorial near the scene of the fatal shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, on May 19, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RacialInjusticeMentalToll/1132399bfef84f2fa1ec2f392e854919/photo?Query=buffalo&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=129846&currentItemNo=19">AP Photo/Matt Rourke</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Just before the <a href="https://theconversation.com/accused-buffalo-mass-shooter-had-threatened-a-shooting-while-in-high-school-could-more-have-been-done-to-avert-the-tragedy-183455">supermarket shooting</a> that killed 10 people on May 14, 2022 in Buffalo, New York, the suspected terrorist <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/16/us/buffalo-shooting-replacement-theory-christchurch-el-paso.html">posted a manifesto online</a>. The top is adorned with a “sonnenrad,” or “black sun,” <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814731550/black-sun/">an old Nordic symbol</a>.</p>
<p>The sonnenrad is composed of 12 repeated runes – letters from ancient Germanic languages – arranged in a wheel. Each rune <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vikings/runes.html">represents a sound</a>, like in the Latin alphabet, but they also have a meaning when they stand alone.</p>
<p>The sonnenrad is <a href="https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/sonnenrad">a well-known Nazi and neo-Nazi symbol</a> that has been seen in other white supremacist attacks. For the Nazis, the rune in the design <a href="https://reportingradicalism.org/en/hate-symbols/movements/nazi-symbols/ss-emblem">stood for “victory</a>.” What is less discussed but nonetheless important is that the symbol has a spiritual component. It is connected to a contemporary religious movement, folkish Heathenry – a form of <a href="https://uscpress.com/Solitary-Pagans">contemporary Paganism</a>.</p>
<p>Today, “Heathen” is an umbrella term used by people who practice various forms of spirituality inspired by Nordic cultures. <a href="https://press.syr.edu/supressbooks/1510/radical-religion-in-america/">Folkish Heathenry</a>, specifically, was resurrected from Nazi spirituality. In the 1960s, a group in Florida began spreading spiritual ideas inspired by Nazi writings, and they gained adherents throughout the United States. In turn, they also influenced some other heathen groups to embrace white identity politics.</p>
<p>Understanding the sonnenrad’s spiritual roots can provide a better grasp of the implications of its use and its importance to members of the far right. </p>
<h2>Many kinds of paganism</h2>
<p>Heathens are a minority form of contemporary Paganism, which is itself a minority religion. Adherents not only live throughout the United States but are active in Northern Europe, Australia and New Zealand.</p>
<p>All forms of <a href="https://uscpress.com/A-Community-of-Witches">contemporary Paganism</a> are shaped by pre-Christian spiritual practices. Contemporary Pagans rely on archaeological, historical and mythological accounts, mixed with modern occult practices, to create a religion that speaks to their lives in the 21st century but is inspired by past practices.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=S1kXj-gAAAAJ&hl=en">sociologist of religion</a> who has studied contemporary Paganism for over 30 years, I know that all forms of Paganism share a number of similarities. <a href="https://uscpress.com/Solitary-Pagans">Contemporary Pagans</a> venerate gods and goddesses, view the Earth as sacred, celebrate the changing seasons in a set of yearly holidays and participate in magical practices. Most members of these religions are white. In a survey I conducted with religion scholar <a href="https://whu-cn.academia.edu/JamesLewis">James Lewis</a>, which I discuss in my book “<a href="https://uscpress.com/Solitary-Pagans">Solitary Pagans</a>,” we found that the majority are socially liberal and open to variety in all aspects of life, including ethnic and racial differences.</p>
<p>People <a href="https://tupress.temple.edu/book/1182">who identify as “Heathens”</a> differentiate themselves in several ways from other Pagans. They celebrate the ancient Norse gods once worshiped in Scandinavia, Iceland and Germany. When discussing ethical issues or exploring how best to know and celebrate the gods, they rely on medieval Icelandic texts about them: most importantly, two called <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/18947/18947-h/18947-h.htm">the Prose Edda</a> and <a href="https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/index.htm">Poetic Edda</a>. Runes, normally carved or drawn on stones, are used in their rituals and divination – that is, foretelling the future.</p>
<p>Within Heathenism, there is a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/11/asatru-heathenry-racism/543864/">growing divide</a> between those who are more liberal or middle of the road politically and folkish Heathens who are politically right-wing. Inclusive Heathens believe all who “hear the Norse gods’ call” should be welcomed into the religion, regardless of race or ethnic background. </p>
<p><a href="https://press.syr.edu/supressbooks/1510/radical-religion-in-america/">Folkish Heathens</a>, on the other hand, state that the religion should be restricted to those of “pure” northern European heritage; in other words, a religion for white people only. They view the religion itself as <a href="https://tupress.temple.edu/book/1182">part of their white identity</a> and have incorporated Nazi writings into their spirituality.</p>
<p>Folkish Heathens joined in the <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/sites/default/files/Unite_the_Right_Rally_in_Charlottesville_Timeline.pdf">Unite the Right rally</a> in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, and since then, more inclusive Heathens <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/11/asatru-heathenry-racism/543864/">have been declaring</a> that folkish Heathens do not represent their religion.</p>
<h2>Nazi occultism</h2>
<p>Adolf Hitler was not particularly religious, but some of his lieutenants embraced a form of <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814730607/occult-roots-of-nazism/">occult worship</a> that focused on the ancient Norse gods. They viewed it as a religion of the “volk” or folk – the common man and woman who the Nazi Party romanticized as the heart of the nation.</p>
<p>Since extreme antisemitism was at the heart of Nazi ideology, the fact that Jesus was Jewish and Christianity grew out of Judaism <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.680">troubled some Nazis</a>. Therefore, they viewed Norse traditions as an appealing alternative and imagined it as the “true” faith, the religion of the original occupants of Northern Europe. Their religion emphasized healthy outdoor living and a connection of the folk to “their” land. The people and the nation were <a href="https://qz.com/1052725/the-definition-of-the-nazi-slogan-chanted-by-white-nationalists-in-charlottesville/">tied to the land</a> in a mystical manner.</p>
<p>Propaganda suggested that people considered “outsiders” or “others” were like weeds: They needed to be eliminated both for the health of the nation and for the health of the folk, who were imagined as <a href="https://press.syr.edu/supressbooks/1510/radical-religion-in-america/">the “true” people of the land</a>. The runes, the worship of Norse gods – particularly of Odin, <a href="https://historiska.se/norse-mythology/odin-en/">who was viewed as a warrior god</a> – and the sonnenrad were all part of this spiritual component that infused elements of the Nazi agenda. <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbol/sonnenrad">The sonnenrad</a>, for example, was embedded on the <a href="https://reportingradicalism.org/en/hate-symbols/movements/nazi-symbols/black-sun">floor of a palace</a> for SS officers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A white wheel design on a black background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465400/original/file-20220525-12-5rdcq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C15%2C2111%2C1393&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465400/original/file-20220525-12-5rdcq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465400/original/file-20220525-12-5rdcq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465400/original/file-20220525-12-5rdcq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465400/original/file-20220525-12-5rdcq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465400/original/file-20220525-12-5rdcq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465400/original/file-20220525-12-5rdcq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The black sun symbol, embraced by some Nazis, now appears in white supremacist propaganda.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/black-sun-drawn-on-a-blackboard-royalty-free-image/1089029384?adppopup=true">Gwengoat/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Folk’ views today</h2>
<p>Similarly, folkish Heathens in the U.S. have come to see the land as <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/1998/new-brand-racist-odinist-religion-march">“belonging” to white people</a>, even though everyone except Indigenous peoples immigrated or were brought here. As with the Nazis, the land is viewed as <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814730607/occult-roots-of-nazism/">connected spiritually to a “people</a>.”</p>
<p>In his manifesto, the suspected shooter in Buffalo contends that he is not religious, although he ends with the words “I will see you in Valhalla,” <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Valhalla-Norse-mythology">the Norse afterlife</a> for warriors. This was the same ending that the terrorist who had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/19/technology/mass-shootings-livestream-online.html">killed 51 people at two mosques in New Zealand in 2019</a> used in his manifesto. The 2022 manifesto relied on this earlier one as a model, <a href="https://religionnews.com/2022/05/16/how-blacks-and-jews-are-bound-together-in-white-supremacist-acts-of-violence/">and both illustrate the racist conspiracy theory known as the “great replacement</a>.”</p>
<p>The use of Heathen imagery in both of these manifestos is not, however, simply an act of imitation. Folkish Heathens are part of the far right and their imagery, <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/gods-of-the-blood">that of a “pure” white world</a>, is appealing to other members of the far right. Folkish Heathens interact with both other Pagans and others on the far right online and in person. Heathen religious rituals and imagery are <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2001/swedish-academic-mattias-gardell-discusses-rise-neo-paganism-america">becoming integrated</a> into far-right groups.</p>
<p>Images like the black sun do not just emerge from the ruins of Nazi Germany, but directly from those who are practicing a contemporary religion. The participation of folkish Heathens is an important piece of the puzzle in understanding the far right.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183319/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen A. Berger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The far-right today shares more than just ideas with white supremacists of yesterday – they also share some pagan-inspired symbols.Helen A. Berger, Affliate Scholar at the Women's Studies Research Center, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1834922022-05-25T12:55:05Z2022-05-25T12:55:05ZReplacement theory isn’t new – 3 things to know about how this once-fringe conspiracy has become more mainstream<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465146/original/file-20220524-13-yz1f8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People pray at the scene of the mass shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., on May 15, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/people-pray-at-the-scene-of-a-mass-shooting-at-tops-friendly-market-picture-id1240708947?s=2048x2048">Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recent grocery store mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, is placing a spotlight on white supremacy.</p>
<p>Eighteen-year-old Payton Gendron drove three hours from his home in Conklin, New York, to the Tops grocery store on May 14, 2022, and shot 13 people – most of them Black – killing 10 shoppers. Gendron’s gun had racist expletives written on it, and his 180-page online <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/16/us/buffalo-shooting-replacement-theory-christchurch-el-paso.html">manifesto also</a> repeated key elements of <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/05/16/in-buffalo-ny-the-mass-shooting-committed-by-paton-gendron-was-racist-and-premeditated_5983688_4.html">replacement theory</a>. </p>
<p>This conspiracy theory, with roots in French nationalism of the 20th century, falsely warns that Western elites and Jews are bringing immigrants into a country to replace white people. </p>
<p>Since the shooting, several Republican <a href="https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-republicans-replacement-theory-00800c89953aa58e746988ed591e7ed9">politicians and commentators</a> have used language that echoes this idea. </p>
<p>For example, Missouri Senate candidate Eric Schmitt, the state attorney general, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/republican-senate-candidates-promote-replacement-theory-84780285">said in May</a> that Democrats are “fundamentally trying to change this country through illegal immigration.” </p>
<p>As scholars of white supremacy, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00380237.2000.10571160">white nationalism and extremism</a>, we think it is important to understand what replacement theory means and how it shapes various white supremacist conspiracies, which motivate violent extremism. </p>
<p>Our research shows that this once-fringe theory has been gaining traction in the U.S. over the past few decades. It is <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10511250100086211">necessary to understand</a> the various elements that lead people to commit domestic violent extremism in order to stop it from happening. Here are three key points about replacement theory to keep in mind. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465121/original/file-20220524-18-83n532.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two Black women embrace and stand next to a celebration of life poster honoring Aaron Salter Jr., a Black man killed during the mass shooting in Buffalo." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465121/original/file-20220524-18-83n532.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465121/original/file-20220524-18-83n532.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465121/original/file-20220524-18-83n532.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465121/original/file-20220524-18-83n532.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465121/original/file-20220524-18-83n532.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465121/original/file-20220524-18-83n532.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465121/original/file-20220524-18-83n532.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Janate Ingram and Cariol Horne, both of Buffalo, attend a vigil near the Tops Friendly Market on May 17, 2022, in Buffalo, N.Y.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/janate-ingram-and-cariol-horne-both-of-buffalo-attend-a-vigil-across-picture-id1240735398?s=2048x2048">Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What is replacement theory?</h2>
<p>Those who believe in replacement theory think there is an organized, conspiratorial effort across all levels of society to establish a “great replacement” of white people, white civilization and white culture. </p>
<p>For those who <a href="https://theweek.com/race/1013589/replacement-theory">accept this false idea</a>, the threat poses an existential danger to white identity and society. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/new-census-data-shows-the-nation-is-diversifying-even-faster-than-predicted/">Four out of 10</a> Americans identify as nonwhite, and the numbers of white people in the U.S. are <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/14/the-us-will-become-minority-white-in-2045-census-projects/">expected to continue</a> to decline, according to U.S. Census projections. </p>
<p>That ultimately means less influence and power over time for white people. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/great-white-replacement-theory-explainer-c86f309f02cd14062f301ce6b9228e33">Replacement theory</a> believers think that they must correct the declining influence of <a href="https://www.apmresearchlab.org/white-voters-declining">white voters</a> and white identity through whatever means they can. </p>
<p>One key element of replacement theory targets immigrants, and the belief that immigrants are part of a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/great-replacement-theory-is-a-grand-delusion/2022/05/18/c6da99fc-d699-11ec-be17-286164974c54_story.html">plot to replace</a> the political power and culture of white people living in Western countries.</p>
<p>But the theory isn’t just about immigrants. Like the rest of <a href="https://religionnews.com/2022/05/16/how-blacks-and-jews-are-bound-together-in-white-supremacist-acts-of-violence/">white supremacist ideology</a>, replacement theory also extends to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-is-the-great-replacement-what-are-its-origins-2022-05-16/">Jewish people</a> and Black people, seeing them as inferior and a threat to white people. The Buffalo shooter <a href="https://apnews.com/article/buffalo-shooting-what-to-know-bcb5e0bd2aedb925d20440c2005ffef8">targeted victims</a> in a predominantly Black neighborhood, and because they were Black.</p>
<h2>What’s the history of replacement theory?</h2>
<p>Replacement theory traces back to the early 20th-century writings of French nationalist <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/05/16/1099034094/what-is-the-great-replacement-theory?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews">Maurice Barres</a>, who warned of a new population of immigrants that would take over and “<a href="https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20211108-how-the-french-great-replacement-theory-conquered-the-far-right">ruin our homeland</a>.”</p>
<p>The idea of a Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world was articulated in the antisemitic document “<a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/protocols-of-the-elders-of-zion">The Protocols of Elders of Zion</a>,” first published in 1903 in Russia, and then moving west into Europe and the U.S. Replacement <a href="https://jewishunpacked.com/white-replacement-theorys-antisemitic-origins/">theory also guided</a> the Nazis’ genocide of 6 million Jewish people during World War II. </p>
<p>In the 1960s and 1970s, many American white supremacists, like Klu Klux Klan leader Thomas Robb, reiterated replacement ideas <a href="https://aafa.galileo.usg.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/95033">in their racist political advocacy</a>. White supremacists <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/glossary-terms/white-supremacy">generally believe</a> white people are superior to all other people. </p>
<p>In the 1980s, Klu Klux Klan leader David Duke, white supremacist Don Black and others centered conversations about replacement theory in the U.S. on immigration and the idea that immigrants will reshuffle <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/white-nationalism/white-supremacist-david-duke-i-inspired-donald-trump-and-tucker-carlson-too">demographics, eventually replacing white people</a>. </p>
<p>Throughout the 1990s, racist skinhead groups and the growing online networks of white supremacists also promoted variations of the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/great-white-replacement-theory-explainer-c86f309f02cd14062f301ce6b9228e33">replacement theory</a> to justify their politics and violence.</p>
<p>Around this time, the internet became a main forum for recruiting more white supremacists. And one of the common ideologies shared across online groups and forums was a replacement narrative – now closely tied to immigration.</p>
<p>Many white supremacist and nationalist groups and <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/jared-taylor">leaders</a> in the U.S. continue to embrace replacement narratives. This conspiracy theory has become a standard element of white nationalism that motivates violence in the U.S. and <a href="https://theconversation.com/white-nationalism-born-in-the-usa-is-now-a-global-terror-threat-113825">across the globe</a>. A <a href="https://www.vox.com/23076952/replacement-theory-white-supremacist-violence">shooter who killed</a> at least 50 Muslim people at mosques in New Zealand in 2019, for example, wrote about an alleged “assault on European people.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465122/original/file-20220524-17-pnfsc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="White men crowd together and appear to shout while carrying torches on a dark night," src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465122/original/file-20220524-17-pnfsc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465122/original/file-20220524-17-pnfsc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465122/original/file-20220524-17-pnfsc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465122/original/file-20220524-17-pnfsc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465122/original/file-20220524-17-pnfsc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465122/original/file-20220524-17-pnfsc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465122/original/file-20220524-17-pnfsc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Peter Cvjetanovic, center, along with other people at a neo-Nazi and white supremacist protest, march with torches in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/peter-cvjetanovic-along-with-neo-nazis-altright-and-white-encircle-picture-id830617832?s=2048x2048">Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Is this now gaining popularity in the US?</h2>
<p>Conspiracy narratives, like the replacement theory, often find fertile ground during a period of cultural change. </p>
<p>As the U.S. population becomes more diverse, replacement narratives have moved from the margins of extremism into the mainstream.</p>
<p>A May 2022 Associated Press public poll <a href="https://apnews.com/article/immigration-2022-midterm-elections-covid-health-media-2ebbd3849ca35ec76f0f91120639d9d4">found that</a> about 1 in 3 adults in the U.S. “believes an effort is underway to replace U.S.-born Americans with immigrants for electoral gains.” </p>
<p>The Buffalo shooting is only the latest deadly incident in which a violent perpetrator was motivated <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/great-replacement-theory-inspired-terror-attacks-recent-years-1706953">by the replacement theory</a> – and it is unlikely to be the last. The shooter’s decision to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/16/buffalo-shooting-live-stream/">livestream his rampage </a>could motivate <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/05/16/live-streaming-buffalo-shooter">other extremists</a> to hurt others, some experts say. </p>
<p>The violent extremist who attacked the <a href="https://www.adl.org/education/resources/tools-and-strategies/shooting-at-a-pittsburgh-synagogue">Tree of Life synagogue</a> in Pittsburgh in 2018 targeted Jewish people and killed 11. The <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/10/10/769013051/el-paso-walmart-shooting-suspect-pleads-not-guilty">shooter in the attacks at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas</a>, in 2019 wanted to target Hispanic people, and killed 23. </p>
<p>The replacement theory also featured during a white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in August 2017, when hundreds of white nationalists protested the removal of a Confederate statue in Charlottesville, Virginia. They marched and chanted, “You will not replace us” and “Jews will <a href="https://cdn.theguardian.tv/mainwebsite/2017/08/12/170812charlottesville3_desk.mp4">not replace us</a>.” A 21-year-old white supremacist <a href="https://time.com/charlottesville-white-nationalist-rally-clashes/">also drove his car</a> through a crowd of counterprotesters, killing one woman and injuring dozens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183492/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Buffalo mass shooting reignited discussion of replacement theory. This conspiracy isn’t new, but understanding its roots is helpful to understand its connection to extremism.Paul J. Becker, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of DaytonArt Jipson, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of DaytonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1830982022-05-15T16:52:10Z2022-05-15T16:52:10ZMore mass shootings are happening at grocery stores – 13% of shooters are motivated by racial hatred, criminologists find<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463131/original/file-20220515-35526-n9i0ha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C191%2C4928%2C3083&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Racial hatred is a factor in 13% of mass shootings at grocery stores.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/buffalo-police-on-scene-at-a-tops-friendly-market-on-may-14-news-photo/1240669163?adppopup=true">John Normile/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>An apparently <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/14/us/buffalo-ny-supermarket-multiple-shooting/index.html">racially motivated</a> attack at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, resulted in 10 deaths on May 14, 2022, with the teenage suspect allegedly targeting Black shoppers in a prominently African American neighborhood.</p>
<p>Mass public shootings in which four or more people are killed have become <a href="https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/public-mass-shootings-database-amasses-details-half-century-us-mass-shootings">more frequent, and deadly</a>, in the last decade. And the tragedy in Buffalo is the latest in a recent trend of mass public shootings taking place in retail establishments.</p>
<p><iframe id="LRXUH" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/LRXUH/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>We <a href="https://www.hamline.edu/faculty-staff/jillian-peterson/">are criminologists</a> <a href="https://www.metrostate.edu/about/directory/james-densley">who study</a> the <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/">life histories of public mass shooters</a> in the United States. Since 2017, we have conducted <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Violence-Project-Stop-Shooting-Epidemic-ebook/dp/B08WJV7W3P">dozens of interviews</a> with incarcerated perpetrators and people who knew them. We also built a <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/mass-shooter-database/">comprehensive database</a> of mass public shootings using public data, with the shooters coded on over 200 different variables, including location and racial profile.</p>
<h2>What do we know about supermarket mass shootings?</h2>
<p>Only one shooting in our database prior to 2019 took place at a supermarket. In 1999, a 23-year-old white male with a history of criminal violence <a href="https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/drugs-abuse-and-a-zest-to-kill-zane-floyds-path-to-nevada-death-row-limbo">killed four people at a supermarket in Las Vegas</a>. However, there has been a raft of mass shootings at American supermarkets since.</p>
<p>The Buffalo shooting on May 14, 2022, is similar to an August 2019 shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. On that occasion, the 21-year-old white suspect posted <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/us/patrick-crusius-el-paso-shooter-manifesto.html">a racist rant on social media</a> before allegedly driving some distance to intentionally target racial and ethnic minority shoppers. He has been charged with killing 23 people.</p>
<p>Another shooting in 2019 took place at a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/12/11/jersey-city-shootout/">Kosher grocery store in Jersey City, New Jersey</a>. Two perpetrators, a man and woman, both Black and around the age of 50 with a criminal and violent history, murdered four people before being killed in a shootout with police. Social media posts and a note left behind indicated an antisemitic motive.</p>
<p>Then in March 2021, a 21-year-old man of Middle Eastern descent with a history of paranoid and anti-social behavior entered a King Soopers in Boulder, Colorado, and <a href="https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/boulder-shooting/boulder-king-soopers-shooting-one-year/73-cc012646-e3b8-4972-a28f-953915c3d322">shot dead 10 people</a>. Six months later, in September 2021, a 29-year-old Asian man killed one person and injured 13 others at a Kroger supermarket in Tennessee. The perpetrator, who worked at the store, was asked to leave his job that morning. He died by suicide before the police arrived on the scene.</p>
<h2>No one profile of a retail shooter</h2>
<p>Mass shootings are <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/08/06/748767807/mass-shootings-can-be-contagious-research-shows">socially contagious</a>. Perpetrators study other perpetrators and learn from each other, which may explain the rise in supermarket shootings in the past few years. However, the data shows there is no one profile of a supermarket mass shooter.</p>
<p>Racial hatred is a feature of about 10% of all mass public shootings in our database. Our analysis suggests that when it comes to retail shooters, around 13% are driven by racism – so slightly above the average for all mass shooting events.</p>
<p>Some grocery stores by their nature may be frequented predominantly by one racial group – for example, Asian markets that cater to local Asian communities.</p>
<p>But racial hatred appears to be just one of many motivations cited by retail shooters. Our data points to a range of factors, including the suspect’s own economic issues (16%), confrontation with employees or shoppers (22%), or psychosis (31%). But the most common motivation among retail shooters is unknown (34%).</p>
<p>Like the Buffalo shooter, 22% of perpetrators of retail mass shootings left behind something to be found, a “manifesto” or video to share their grievances with the world. And nearly half of them leaked their plans ahead of time, typically on social media.</p>
<p>The lack of a consistent profile doesn’t leave us helpless. <a href="https://www.startribune.com/two-minnesota-professors-have-devoted-their-careers-to-researching-mass-shooters/600123369/">Our research</a> suggests many strategies to prevent mass shootings – from <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/05/02/1095489487/trigger-points-mark-follman-how-to-stop-mass-shootings">behavioral threat assessment</a> to restricting <a href="https://rockinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/policy-solutions-public-mass-shootings.pdf">access to firearms</a> for high-risk people. And the way to stop the social contagion of mass shootings is to stop providing perpetrators with the <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.1177/0002764217730854">fame and notoriety</a> they seek.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183098/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jillian Peterson receives funding from the National Institute of Justice</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Densley receives funding from the National Institute of Justice</span></em></p>A suspect apparently motivated by a white supremacist agenda shot dead 10 shoppers. Analysis shows that mass shootings – and those at grocery stores – are on the rise.Jillian Peterson, Professor of Criminal Justice, Hamline University James Densley, Professor of Criminal Justice, Metropolitan State University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1804752022-04-15T12:12:46Z2022-04-15T12:12:46ZI’ve studied stadium financing for over two decades – and the new Bills stadium is one of the worst deals for taxpayers I’ve ever seen<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458186/original/file-20220414-24-huglhv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=371%2C97%2C3068%2C2191&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Buffalo Bills owners Kim and Terry Pegula received a sweetheart deal from the state to finance their new stadium.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/terry-pegula-the-new-owner-of-the-buffalo-bills-and-his-news-photo/457118438?adppopup=true"> Brett Carlsen/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After New York lawmakers blew past the deadline to approve the state budget, they finally came to an agreement <a href="https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-highlights-historic-fy-2023-new-york-state-budget">on April 9, 2022</a>, that included <a href="https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2022/03/29/18635/hochul-announces-plan-to-funnel-record-1-01b-to-bills-owners-but-its-okay-because-economic-impacts/">a US$850 million subsidy</a> for a new stadium in Buffalo for the NFL’s Bills. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jR65pQoAAAAJ&hl=en">As a sports economist</a> who has studied stadium deals for over two decades, I am not exaggerating when I write that the New York Legislature has managed to craft one of the worst stadium deals in recent memory – a remarkable feat considering the high bar set by other <a href="https://www.nevadacurrent.com/2021/04/07/raiders-go-on-defense-to-keep-tax-exemption/">misguided state and local governments</a> across the country.</p>
<p><a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4022547">Study after study</a> has shown that stadiums are terrible public investments. The taxpayers financing them rarely want to pay for them. So why are governments willing to subsidize them?</p>
<h2>A return to the bad old days</h2>
<p>There were many things to dislike about the Bills stadium project. At $850 million, it is the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-07/nfl-s-bills-get-600-million-stadium-subsidy-in-n-y-budget">largest taxpayer handout</a> for a new stadium in U.S. history even before additional subsidies such as annual maintenance costs, property tax exemptions and tax exemptions for municipal bond interest are considered. These factors could easily drive the total government price tag well over $1 billion. </p>
<p>With taxpayers footing over 60% of the $1.4 billion price tag, <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/04/the-bills-stadium-deal-is-indefensible-and-understandable.html">it also runs counter to the trend of the past decade</a> toward lower levels of public funding for stadium construction. </p>
<p>State and local governments on average had covered roughly <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/p/hcx/wpaper/1102.html">two-thirds of stadium construction costs</a> during the first wave of the modern stadium boom that began in 1991. During the Great Recession, however, government leaders found it <a href="https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-financial-crisis-reaches-a-new-arena-professional-sports/">politically unpalatable</a> to hand over hundreds of millions of dollars to billionaire owners as they were laying off teachers and firefighters. </p>
<p>Over the past decade, my ongoing research has shown that public subsidies have fallen to only one-third of building costs, on average. In fact, the most recent Super Bowl was played in the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2020-09-04/stan-kroenke-nfl-owners-coronavirus-workers-sofi-stadium-rams-chargers">entirely privately financed</a> SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.</p>
<p>The Bills deal evokes the bad old days.</p>
<p>Stadium subsidies in general are terrible public policy, and this arrangement is no exception.</p>
<p>The Bills and their owners, Terry and Kim Pegula, don’t need a handout. With a net worth of $5.8 billion, Terry Pegula ranks as the <a href="https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfls-richest-owners-revealed-cowboys-rams-and-panthers-top-list-of-15-wealthiest-for-2022/">ninth-richest owner in the NFL</a>. The generous revenue-sharing structure of the NFL means that even playing in one of the league’s smallest markets, the Bills <a href="https://www.forbes.com/teams/buffalo-bills/">have earned over $300 million</a> in operating income since the Pegulas <a href="https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/terry-and-kim-pegula-submit-aggressive-1-4-billion-bid-to-acquire-bills-franchise/article_2e33bbba-d682-5813-8487-f1d95ff6f23f.html">purchased the team for $1.4 billion</a> just seven years ago. And since then, the value of the Bills has risen by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/teams/buffalo-bills/">another $900 million</a>. The Pegulas have earned enough on their investment in just seven years to pay for the entirety of a new stadium on their own.</p>
<p>But the only thing better for a team owner than a new stadium is a new stadium that someone else pays for. Indeed, the new stadium is likely to further drive up the value of the Bills far more than the $350 million the Pegulas are contributing to the stadium’s construction costs.</p>
<h2>Stadiums make poor neighbors</h2>
<p>These taxpayer-funded deals are <a href="https://cbcny.org/research/determining-appropriate-buffalo-stadium-subsidy">often pitched</a> as an investment in the local economy, but <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4022547">two decades of academic research</a> on the topic have conclusively shown that stadiums and franchises have little or no impact on local economies. The Bills are not likely to be an exception. </p>
<p>For one, most of the customers at a sports venue are residents of the metro area who would simply spend money elsewhere in the local economy in the absence of the team. Second, stadiums often make poor neighbors. NFL venues, like the Bills’ current home, Highmark Stadium, are huge facilities that are rarely used: The Bills play eight home games each year in the regular season. This creates little incentive for investing in the surrounding neighborhoods. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Aerial view of football stadium." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458185/original/file-20220414-20-4bhig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458185/original/file-20220414-20-4bhig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458185/original/file-20220414-20-4bhig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458185/original/file-20220414-20-4bhig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458185/original/file-20220414-20-4bhig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458185/original/file-20220414-20-4bhig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458185/original/file-20220414-20-4bhig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Buffalo Bills’ current home, Highmark Stadium, sits perched upon an island of concrete.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-aerial-view-of-the-ralph-wilson-stadium-as-the-buffalo-news-photo/78689906?adppopup=true">Claus Andersen/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And don’t think that NFL stadiums typically host a multitude of other events. Over its 50 years of existence, aside from a pair of annual high school football games and a few miscellaneous competitions, Highmark Stadium has hosted a grand total of 30 major concerts, three college football games and two large hockey games. And Buffalo’s venue is not out of the ordinary for any large, outdoor stadium.</p>
<p>Rather than creating a dense area of housing, retail establishments and restaurants, Highmark Stadium instead sits alone as an island of concrete in a sea of parking lots. </p>
<h2>The threat of relocation</h2>
<p>The stadium project is deeply unpopular, with one survey finding that <a href="https://www.wivb.com/sports/buffalo-bills-stadium-discussions/poll-majority-of-nyers-oppose-850m-for-bills-stadium/">55% of New Yorkers are opposed</a> to the plan, versus only 22% in favor of it.</p>
<p>So why did it get included in the state budget?</p>
<p>For one, stadiums are a perfect example of the classic special-interest problem. For a handful of passionate fans in Buffalo, a new stadium may determine which candidate gets their vote. But for the rest of the state, a small increase in their tax burden is unwelcome but not problematic enough to compel a voter to switch sides.</p>
<p>Teams have also gotten smart about <a href="https://www.gothamgazette.com/state/11210-buffalo-bills-stadium-hochul-ethics-legislature">minimizing transparency</a>, which is bad for public policy but good for team owners. The Bills stadium proposal was added to the state budget and dropped on unsuspecting taxpayers <a href="https://www.gothamgazette.com/state/11210-buffalo-bills-stadium-hochul-ethics-legislature">just days before a final vote</a> was scheduled in the Legislature. With such a short timeline, it was impossible for lawmakers to fully analyze the issue, and there was little time for public interest groups to mobilize against the handouts.</p>
<p>The Pegulas were essentially able to extort New York taxpayers by <a href="https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/bills-future-in-buffalo-uncertain-after-2022-team-wont-renew-lease-in-city-without-new-stadium-deal-in-place/">threatening to relocate</a> the team if they didn’t pay up. Buffalo is only <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area">the 49th-largest metro area</a> in the U.S. At least half a dozen cities across the U.S. without NFL franchises are both richer and at least twice as populous, including San Diego, St. Louis, Portland and Austin, not to mention <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/nfl/nfl-london-2021-franchise-fixtures-b1942220.html">the possibility of a franchise in London</a>. </p>
<p>With their current lease expiring in 2023, the team had already indicated that the 2022 season could have been its last in Buffalo.</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>This threat was a slap in the face of loyal Bills fans who have supported the team for over 60 years through subzero temperatures, <a href="https://www.foxweather.com/weather-news/buffalo-shatters-daily-snowfall-record-as-lake-effect-snow-brings-near-whiteout-conditions-to-western-new-york">lake-effect snow</a>, <a href="https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/revisiting-super-bowl-xxviii-bills-lost-fourth-straight-20-years-ago-today/article_9e3f9bac-c5f7-546b-9bf4-131f2622a3df.html">four straight Super Bowl losses</a> in the 1990s and more losing seasons than winning ones.</p>
<p>The NFL has long kept the number of teams lower than the number of cities that could profitably support a franchise. So as long as owners are willing to use the threat of relocation, I don’t believe any city’s fans – and any state’s taxpayers – are safe.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victor Matheson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Study after study has shown that stadiums are terrible public investments. Taxpayers rarely want to pay for them. So why do governments keep subsidizing them?Victor Matheson, Professor of Economics and Accounting, College of the Holy CrossLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1487802020-12-02T19:34:47Z2020-12-02T19:34:47ZHistorical photo of mountain of bison skulls documents animals on the brink of extinction<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372394/original/file-20201201-12-l1x262.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C16%2C1794%2C1484&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Men standing with pile of buffalo skulls, Michigan Carbon Works, Rougeville MI, 1892.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We are living through <a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1400253">a period of unprecedented species extinction</a> due to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09678">human-induced changes to the planet’s ecosystems</a>. This is not the first time human activities radically changed relationships between land and life. Illustrated by a famous photograph of remains, the extermination of bison from the North American West in the 19th century is one key example of catastrophic species loss. </p>
<p>As a visual studies researcher, I use photographs to analyze the impacts of colonization on human and non-human lives. Images of bison bones provide a window into the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2019.1677134">cultural and ecological relations that tie animal and human lives together</a>. Through photographs, we can also think about <a href="https://www.depauw.edu/site/humanimalia/issue%2020/taschereau%20mamers.html">bison extermination as part of a history of relationships</a>.</p>
<h2>An iconic image</h2>
<p>The most famous photograph of bison extermination is a grisly image of a mountain of bison skulls. It was taken outside of Michigan Carbon Works in Rougeville, Mich., in 1892. At the close of the 18th century, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/destruction-of-the-bison/8D2DA1D99CDCD220EB134040265AF627">there were between 30 and 60 million bison on the continent</a>. By the time of this photograph, that population was reduced to <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17748/17748-h/17748-h.htm">only 456 wild bison</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366250/original/file-20201028-21-2w0p5o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man stands on top of enormous pile of buffalo skulls; another man stands in front of pile with his foot resting on a buffalo skull; rustic cage is at foot of pile." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366250/original/file-20201028-21-2w0p5o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366250/original/file-20201028-21-2w0p5o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366250/original/file-20201028-21-2w0p5o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366250/original/file-20201028-21-2w0p5o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366250/original/file-20201028-21-2w0p5o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366250/original/file-20201028-21-2w0p5o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366250/original/file-20201028-21-2w0p5o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Men standing with pile of buffalo skulls, Michigan Carbon Works, Rougeville Mich., 1892.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Increased colonization of the West led to the large-scale slaughter of bison. The arrival of white settler hunters with their weapons, as well as <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w12969">growing market demand for hides and bones</a>, intensified the killing. Most herds were exterminated between 1850 and the late 1870s. </p>
<p>The photograph shows the massive scale of this destruction. A man-made mountain emerging from the image’s grassy foreground, the pile of bones as appears part of the landscape. The image can be read as an example of what Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky has called “<a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300099430/manufactured-landscapes">manufactured landscapes</a>.” What was taken from prairie land to make this manufactured landscape in Michigan?</p>
<p>The Rougeville photograph is often used to illustrate the scale of bison extermination. It appears in <a href="https://bioone.org/journals/natural-areas-journal/volume-34/issue-3/043.034.0312/Bison-Yesterday-Today-and-Tomorrow/10.3375/043.034.0312.pdf">conservation publications</a>, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/bison-bison-bison-americas-new-national-mammal">magazines</a>, <a href="https://collider.com/the-revenant-images-leonardo-dicaprio-tom-hardy/">films</a> and recent <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CGft8NZJuy6/">protest memes</a>. The photograph has become an icon of this animal’s slaughter. But this photograph is more than just a symbol of human-caused destruction and hubris. Analyzing the image with multiple lenses illustrates a history of relationships.</p>
<p>The mound of skulls also indicates the abundance of bison life. But what was life on the Prairies like before bison extermination? What relationships did bison have before their deaths? </p>
<h2>Human-bison relationships</h2>
<p>We know that Indigenous Nations and bison herds were closely linked. The vast number of bison herds shaped the lives of Indigenous Nations by facilitating the formations of large, politically and socially complex communities across the Prairies. Many Indigenous scholars demonstrate the interrelation of Plains Indigenous Nations and bison herds, sometimes referred to as buffalo. </p>
<p>For example, Cree political scientist <a href="http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/departments/political_studies/faculty/3707.html">Keira Ladner</a> studied the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07078552.2003.11827132">non-hierarchical organization of Blackfoot communities and practices of collaborative decision-making</a>. These community practices are rooted in close relationships to bison herds, which work as non-coercive collectives in which no single animal dominates.</p>
<p>Similarly, the <a href="https://www.buffalotreaty.com/treaty">Buffalo Treaty</a>, an Indigenous-led effort to reintroduce wild bison <a href="https://www.buffalotreaty.com/relationships">first signed in 2014</a>, describes the buffalo as a relative of Plains Indigenous peoples. The treaty states: “Buffalo is part of us and we are part of buffalo culturally, materially and spiritually.” </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/no1MYbYkTgY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Buffalo Calling,’ a film by Tasha Hubbard.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cree scholar and filmmaker <a href="https://apps.ualberta.ca/directory/person/thubbard">Tasha Hubbard</a> has documented <a href="https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/11023/3272">stories about bison extermination from many Plains Indigenous Nations</a>. These stories mourn the trauma of losing bison — a non-human community many Indigenous Nations see as relations. Extermination radically undermined possibilities of life for Indigenous and bison communities. Hubbard argues that <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/216/chapter-abstract/109060/Buffalo-Genocide-in-Nineteenth-Century-North?redirectedFrom=fulltext">bison extermination was a form of genocide</a>.</p>
<p>Through the lens of interrelationship, the photograph takes on additional meaning. As Dakota scholar <a href="https://kimtallbear.com/">Kim TallBear</a> reminds us: “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/581600/pdf">Indigenous peoples have never forgotten that non-humans are agential beings engaged in social relations that profoundly shape human lives</a>.” The pile of skulls is not only symbolic of the destruction of an ecosystem. It is also a symbol of the loss of relations.</p>
<h2>Multi-species relationships</h2>
<p>Bison made the Prairies hospitable for many other communities. Each skull represents one 600-kilogram animal — bison are the largest land mammals in North America. Bison are not just massive in size, they are also a keystone species in the West, meaning they <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1312122">have a dramatic influence on an ecosystem</a>. If one of these species disappears, no other species can fill its ecological role, and the whole ecosystem changes as a result. </p>
<p>The skulls in the photograph do not just represent the loss of bison, but the disruption of an entire ecosystem. Each bison killed meant the end of grazing, wallowing and migrating practices that make the land hospitable for other species. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3375/043.039.0405">hundreds of species of insects live in bison dung</a>, providing food for birds, turtles and bats. When bison roll in dirt, they create depressions called wallows, which fill with spring rain and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1674/0003-0031(2003)150%5B0158:UOBWBA%5D2.0.CO;2">provide homes for tadpoles and frogs</a>. Without the presence of bison, habitats and food for these and many other species disappear.</p>
<h2>Colonial capitalist relationships</h2>
<p>The bison skulls are not alone in the photograph. Two men in suits pose proudly with the skulls. Their presence signifies another aspect of human-animal relationships: commodity or market relations. </p>
<p>Each skull was collected from across the Prairies and shipped east by train or steamship. Once they arrived at facilities like Michigan Carbon Works, bison bones were rendered as fertilizer, glue and ash. The bones produced commodities, like bone china, which were sold in European and North American cities. Crates — like the large one in the foreground of the image — were <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17514517.2017.1387087">technologies of colonial capitalism</a>, moving bones from prairies to factories and then finished products to market.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man stands in front of pile of bison skulls with his foot resting on a buffalo skull; rustic cage is at foot of pile." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366282/original/file-20201028-13-6rwgmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366282/original/file-20201028-13-6rwgmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366282/original/file-20201028-13-6rwgmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366282/original/file-20201028-13-6rwgmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366282/original/file-20201028-13-6rwgmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366282/original/file-20201028-13-6rwgmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366282/original/file-20201028-13-6rwgmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Detail from photograph of men standing with pile of buffalo skulls, Michigan Carbon Works, Rougeville, Mich., 1892.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The photograph also represents the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-8177747">network of infrastructures</a> that settler colonial agents imposed across North America. Settler infrastructure — from <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520296640/empires-tracks">railways</a> and roads to factories and markets — radically intensified the <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/animal-capital">transformation of animals into commodities</a>. The <a href="https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/blood-of-extraction">extractive industries of colonial capitalism</a> devastated habitat and biodiversity, as well as relationships between bison, other plant and animal species and Indigenous Nations. <a href="https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=779">Similar industries are driving the large-scale extinctions happening today</a> and predicted to continue in the near future.</p>
<h2>Looking ahead</h2>
<p>There are currently 31,000 wild bison living in conservation herds in North America. The species is considered <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/2815/123789863">“near threatened” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List</a>. This indicates that conservation efforts have improved chances for bison species survival, but protections are still needed. </p>
<p>These remaining animals are the descendants of those few hundred bison who survived the 19th-century extermination. With the help of conservation projects, including the Indigenous-led <a href="https://www.buffalotreaty.com/">Buffalo Treaty</a> and <a href="https://itbcbuffalonation.org/">InterTribal Buffalo Council</a>, bison continue to survive. </p>
<p>As a close reading of the Rougeville photograph from multiple perspectives demonstrates that the scale of bison loss is dramatic. Relationships on the Prairies were forever changed by the extermination of the species in its wild, free-ranging form.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148780/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Danielle Taschereau Mamers receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies. </span></em></p>Historical photographs of bison extermination are a window into a history of relationships between humans, bison and the environment.Danielle Taschereau Mamers, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, English and Cultural Studies, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1318202020-07-07T12:14:05Z2020-07-07T12:14:05ZShould architecturally significant low-income housing be preserved?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345894/original/file-20200706-3975-1ugyem5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C2986%2C2034&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A 1974 photograph of Buffalo's Shoreline Apartments.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NEWLY_CONSTRUCTED_APARTMENTS_IN_DOWNTOWN_BUFFALO_NEAR_THE_WATERFRONT_-_NARA_-_552042.jpg">George Burns/National Arcvhives at College Park </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This past January, in Buffalo, New York, <a href="https://buffalonews.com/2020/01/23/contractors-begin-demolition-of-shoreline-apartments/">the second phase of demolition</a> for a low-income housing complex called Shoreline Apartments commenced. </p>
<p>The property owner <a href="https://archinect.com/news/article/85320829/plan-to-raze-five-paul-rudolph-buildings-in-buffalo">had long wanted to replace the crumbling buildings</a>. Residents also sought <a href="https://www.buffalorising.com/2015/05/niagara-falling-shoreline-apartments-coming-down/">a safer and more welcoming living space</a> that better blended in with the rest of the neighborhood.</p>
<p>It sounds like a win-win for all parties. But Shoreline, designed by famed architect Paul Rudolph, had been considered an exemplar of modern architecture in the Western New York area. For this reason, local preservationists wanted to <a href="https://www.citylab.com/equity/2015/06/the-slow-death-of-a-brutalist-vision-for-buffalo/394574/">landmark the complex</a> – and save it from the wrecking ball.</p>
<p>As historic preservation scholars, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/preseducrese.11.2019.0056">we were drawn to this controversy</a> because it highlights one of the key tensions of preserving modern architecture: how to balance the needs of occupants with historically significant designs. </p>
<h2>The ups and downs of low-income housing</h2>
<p>Low-income public housing <a href="https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/Sec1.03_Historical-Overview_2015.pdf">can trace its roots to the Great Depression</a>.</p>
<p>In 1934, the U.S. government launched the Federal Housing Administration to make home ownership more affordable. Three years later, Congress passed the U.S. Housing Act to set up low-income housing in order to solve a <a href="https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/w12-5_von_hoffman.pdf">severe affordable housing shortage</a>.</p>
<p>After World War II, <a href="https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/w12-5_von_hoffman.pdf">millions of returning GIs</a> created another housing crisis. <a href="http://dnr.alaska.gov/parks/oha/publications/pubhouseusa.pdf">The Housing Act of 1949</a> followed, allocating funds to help clear slums and replace them with high-rise apartment buildings deemed more sanitary and efficient.</p>
<p>Architect <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Preservation+of+Modern+Architecture-p-9780471662945">Theodore Prudon</a> has written about how America’s low-income housing boom coincided with the arrival of Modernist architects from Europe. For this reason, many low-income housing complexes were built in this style, known for its economy, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26326884?seq=1">simplicity</a> and functionality. Because concrete <a href="https://savingplaces.org/stories/defending-brutalism#.XmfjDyFJGBY">was both cheap and popular with Modernist architects</a>, it was the obvious choice for state and federal housing authorities limited by taxpayer funding.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Some of the low-income housing projects built during this era remain in use today and are considered <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/public-housing-success/406561/">successes</a>. For example, residents of Austin’s <a href="https://www.hacanet.org/location/santa-rita-courts/">Santa Rita Courts</a>, which was built in 1939, continue to appreciate the <a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/santa-rita-courts-and-the-fight-for-affordable-public-housing/">location and convenience</a> of the property.</p>
<p>Chicago’s Rosenwald Court Apartments is another success story. The historically and architecturally significant low-income housing complex was built in 1929 for the city’s African American community. By 1999, the complex sat empty and, despite the fact that it was on the National Register of Historic Places, was slated for demolition. However thanks to a public-private partnership that funded a US$132 million <a href="https://www.rosenwaldchicago.com/">rehabilitation</a> project, the units <a href="https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20160930/bronzeville/rosenwald-ribbon-cutting/">were transformed</a> into subsidized and market-rate apartments in 2016. </p>
<p>But these represent outliers; the vast majority of projects built during this period have been either <a href="https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2018/01/landmark-commission-pushes-full-preservation-rosewood-courts/">redeveloped</a> or torn down. </p>
<p>One of the most famous failures was the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/apr/22/pruitt-igoe-high-rise-urban-america-history-cities">Pruitt Igoe Housing Complex</a> in St. Louis. Designed by famous Japanese architect Minoru Yamasaki, the 33-building high-rise complex was completed in 1956 and <a href="https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_article_110314.html">demolished</a> just 20 years later after life in the development – rife with neglectful maintenance, crime and high vacancy – <a href="http://www.pruitt-igoe.com/">became unbearable</a>. Other projects, like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/magazine/the-towers-came-down-and-with-them-the-promise-of-public-housing.html?auth=login-email&login=email">Cabrini Green Housing</a> in Chicago, met a similar fate.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338689/original/file-20200530-78885-14sbu1g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338689/original/file-20200530-78885-14sbu1g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338689/original/file-20200530-78885-14sbu1g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338689/original/file-20200530-78885-14sbu1g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338689/original/file-20200530-78885-14sbu1g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338689/original/file-20200530-78885-14sbu1g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338689/original/file-20200530-78885-14sbu1g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pruitt Igoe collapses during planned demolitions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Policy Development and Research</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Shoreline: Vision meets reality</h2>
<p>When architect Paul Rudolph unveiled his vision for Shoreline Apartments, local newspapers likened the design to rolling Italian hills along Lake Erie’s flat waterfront.</p>
<p>Shoreline was supposed to be a different sort of housing project – one that fostered an economically, culturally and racially integrated community. </p>
<p>Despite the early accolades, the complex, once completed, had significant structural issues that arose as early as 1972: poor insulation, water leaks and infestations. The floor-to-ceiling windows – a design feature initially lauded by the press – ended up needing to be significantly altered to better insulate the apartments.</p>
<p>The interior design vision for the complex also failed to come to fruition. A feature in a 1973 issue of House and Garden showcased the vision of artist <a href="http://archives.nypl.org/mss/6209">William Machado</a>. The total cost of outfitting one apartment at Shoreline with Machado’s design, including furniture, accessories and appliances, was $4,500 – almost half of the annual salary threshold needed to be met by middle-income occupants to qualify for a unit. This alone highlighted the gap between the design vision for the apartments and the economic realities of the tenants.</p>
<p>Compounding the economic and structural issues, Rudolph’s serpentine plan created secluded niches and stepped elevations that are easily scaled, allowing access to the upper floors. The dense landscape of shade and shadows didn’t cause crime, but it did facilitate it.</p>
<p>Residents long spoke of feeling safe only behind locked doors, and of gangs and drug dealers and squatters lurking in common spaces. Finally, in 2013, current owner Norstar Development submitted plans to demolish the more dilapidated buildings and replace them with townhouse-style apartments.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338691/original/file-20200530-78845-fcw3b8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338691/original/file-20200530-78845-fcw3b8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338691/original/file-20200530-78845-fcw3b8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338691/original/file-20200530-78845-fcw3b8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338691/original/file-20200530-78845-fcw3b8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338691/original/file-20200530-78845-fcw3b8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338691/original/file-20200530-78845-fcw3b8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">By 2013, the Waterfront Apartments were in rough shape, with several blocks vacant for over a decade.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kerry Traynor</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Preservationists argued the merits of Paul Rudolph’s Brutalist masterpiece. Using local preservation ordinances, they nominated the complex to be designated as a “Local Landmark,” which would have potentially saved the property from demolition and allowed Buffalo Preservation Board to have oversight over any exterior changes at the complex.</p>
<p>The arguments presented before the Buffalo Preservation Board’s public meeting in July 2014 highlighted Rudolph’s iconic design and vision for creating a “unified village” and the significance of the apartment as one of the few regional examples of the Brutalist style. Meanwhile, a handful of residents also spoke at the public hearing, telling stories about the hardships of living in the units.</p>
<p>This illustrates a pressing issue between proponents of modernist architecture and <a href="https://buffalonews.com/2018/01/29/editorial-shoreline-apartments-too-deteriorated-to-keep/">the actual occupants and users of the spaces</a>. For decades, similar physical issues have plagued the <a href="https://www.citylab.com/design/2016/10/the-weird-and-wonderful-library-that-nearly-ruined-its-architect/497270/">Earl W. Brydges Library</a> in Niagara Falls, New York, and the <a href="https://www.citylab.com/design/2017/08/an-architectural-rescue-gone-wrong/537975/">Government Center</a> in Goshen, New York – both also designed by Rudolph. Like Shoreline, proponents and detractors have debated whether to preserve the structures.</p>
<p>In Buffalo, the Preservation Board ultimately sided with the residents and voted to not landmark Shoreline apartments. The new townhouse-style homes, called <a href="https://www.norstarus.com/nd-usa-projects/niagara-square-apartments/">Niagara Square Apartments</a>, were built after the Phase I demolition, and have been <a href="https://www.buffalorising.com/2017/11/better-look-niagara-square-apartments/">fully occupied</a> since construction finished in 2017. This serves as a sobering alert to the preservation and design community, housing activists and organizations who argued in favor of preserving the historic work of a master over the needs of the user. Cities around the country, such as <a href="https://www.curbed.com/2017/7/25/16020648/affordable-housing-apartment-urban-development">Denver, Cleveland and Minneapolis</a> face similar challenges, and are finding new and creative ways to balance the two sides.</p>
<p>At the heart of such a controversy it’s important to always ask: preservation for whom? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339015/original/file-20200601-95024-15uicoj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339015/original/file-20200601-95024-15uicoj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339015/original/file-20200601-95024-15uicoj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339015/original/file-20200601-95024-15uicoj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339015/original/file-20200601-95024-15uicoj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339015/original/file-20200601-95024-15uicoj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339015/original/file-20200601-95024-15uicoj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Phase I of the new Niagara Square Apartments was completed in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ashima Krishna</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131820/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kerry Traynor is principal investigator at kta preservation specialists and consulted with the owner of Shoreline documenting the existing conditions prior to demolition. Kta preservation specialists was compensated for this consultation work.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ashima Krishna does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mismanaged and in disrepair, many low-income housing complexes are nonetheless seen as important avatars of modern architecture. But are calls for their preservation forgetting those who matter most?Ashima Krishna, Assistant Professor, University at BuffaloKerry Traynor, Clinical Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, University at BuffaloLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1217262019-08-30T13:11:23Z2019-08-30T13:11:23ZA new solution for America’s empty churches: A change of faith<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290203/original/file-20190829-106524-g0vn4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A 2012 photograph of the Sunrise Church of Christ in Buffalo's East Side. The building has since been demolished.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/New-York-Daily-Life/79d704cfa6e04ba88f6d678f9af9d61b/2/0">AP Photo/David Duprey</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the past few decades, vacant and underutilized churches have become a familiar sight in American cities.</p>
<p>In some cases, a congregation or a religious governing body – say, a Catholic diocese – <a href="https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20170711/little-italy/san-lorenzo-ruiz-chapel-sold/">will sell the church to developers</a>, who then turn them into <a href="https://www.theregisgroup.com/property/the-chapel-lofts/">apartments</a>, <a href="https://www.chc.edu/sustainability/earth-center">offices</a>, <a href="https://babevillebuffalo.com/">art galleries</a>, <a href="https://www.buffaloreligiousarts.org/">museums</a>, <a href="https://churchbrew.com/">breweries</a> or <a href="https://savingplaces.org/stories/how-a-ballet-theater-helped-transform-an-old-baptist-church#.XWSDfehKgVA">performance spaces</a>. </p>
<p>But what about churches in neighborhoods that aren’t doing well, areas that are less attractive to developers looking to turn a profit?</p>
<p>In Buffalo, New York, two empty Roman Catholic churches <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17549175.2019.1647276">have been converted</a> – not into apartments or offices, but into other places of worship. One became an Islamic mosque, the other a Buddhist temple. </p>
<p>As an <a href="http://ap.buffalo.edu/People/faculty/department-of-urban-and-regional-planning-faculty.host.html/content/shared/ap/students-faculty-alumni/faculty/Krishna.detail.html">architect and historic preservation planner</a>, I was drawn to this phenomenon. With the help of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ux-kCKIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Enjoli Hall</a>, who was then a graduate student at University at Buffalo, I interviewed those involved in converting the former churches. </p>
<p>With immigrant and refugee populations <a href="https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/01/refugee-admissions-resettlement-trump-immigration/580318/">growing in post-industrial cities</a> across the U.S., the conversion of vacant Christian churches into new places of worship can preserve historic architecture and strengthen burgeoning communities.</p>
<h2>In Buffalo, a split between east and west</h2>
<p>Buffalo has long been <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/20040301_gateways.pdf">an immigrant gateway</a>. From 1850 to 1900, the city’s population increased by over 700%. In 1892, over one-third of Buffalo’s residents <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/20040301_gateways.pdf">were foreign born</a>. Poles, Germans and Italians settled in the city, leading to a wave of church construction. In the 1930s, African Americans started migrating from southern US to the east side of the city.</p>
<p>But by 2010, the city’s population had dwindled <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/buffalocitynewyork/PST045218">to just over 260,000 people</a> – less than half of what it was in 1950. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290163/original/file-20190829-106494-4qaedv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290163/original/file-20190829-106494-4qaedv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290163/original/file-20190829-106494-4qaedv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290163/original/file-20190829-106494-4qaedv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290163/original/file-20190829-106494-4qaedv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1019&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290163/original/file-20190829-106494-4qaedv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1019&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290163/original/file-20190829-106494-4qaedv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1019&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Buffalo’s East Side – once an anchor of the community – has struggled to stay in operation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:StAnnBuffalo.JPG">Andre Carrotflower</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nonetheless, Buffalo has recently been <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/once-dicey-buffalo-new-york-cusp-big-article-1.2728754">in the news</a> for its efforts to overcome decades of population decline and disinvestment. In 2016, Yahoo News anchor <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/buffalos-big-comeback-201146847.html">Katie Couric</a>, fascinated by Buffalo’s transformation, featured the city in her six-video series, “Cities Rising: Rebuilding America,” while <a href="https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/on-the-road-the-transformation-of-buffalos-lower-west-side/">The New York Times</a> detailed the changes taking place in some of the city’s neighborhoods. </p>
<p>This public attention, however, has mainly focused on the West Side neighborhoods, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/cico.12412">which have experienced the bulk of investment and population growth</a>. Neighborhoods in Buffalo’s East Side <a href="https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/local/east-side/unseen-buffalo-helping-the-east-side-catch-up-in-a-city-on-the-rise/12959004">continue to face tremendous challenges of poverty</a>, crumbling infrastructure and abandoned houses.</p>
<p>According to the 2015 <a href="https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs">American Community Survey</a>, these neighborhoods are now predominantly African American. But they’ve also become home to immigrants from South Asia, along with resettled refugees from Vietnam, Central Africa and Iraq.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290161/original/file-20190829-106530-1unbtmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290161/original/file-20190829-106530-1unbtmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290161/original/file-20190829-106530-1unbtmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290161/original/file-20190829-106530-1unbtmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290161/original/file-20190829-106530-1unbtmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290161/original/file-20190829-106530-1unbtmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290161/original/file-20190829-106530-1unbtmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former Iraqi refugee Majid Al Lessa works on a lighting fixture on the assembly floor of LiteLab, a factory that employs refugees in Buffalo, N.Y.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump-Fewer-Refugees/82f3346b282449d99e067ebe55913774/5/0">AP Photo/ Michael Hill</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During community clean-up events or flower plantings, it’s not uncommon to see members of Temple Beth Zion, Westminster Presbyterian Church and the mosque Masjid Nu’Man <a href="http://buffalonews.com/2005/06/06/mitzvah-day-brings-people-of-faith-together/">working side by side</a>. </p>
<h2>A closer look at two faith-to-faith conversions</h2>
<p>Istanbul’s <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/europe/turkey/articles/the-long-survival-of-istanbuls-hagia-sophia/">Hagia Sophia</a> famously switched from a Christian church to a mosque in 1453.</p>
<p>The same sort of conversions have been taking place in Buffalo’s East Side. Many former Catholic churches have, over the years, been converted into other denominations – Baptist, African Methodist Episcopal and Evangelical – to accommodate the area’s African American community. </p>
<p>But several former Christian churches in Buffalo’s East Side also now serve as sites of worship for other religions. Two mosques, Bait Ul Mamur Inc. Masjid and Masjid Zakariya, used to be <a href="https://buffaloah.com/how/18/18.12/18.12.html">Saint Joachim’s Roman Catholic Church</a> and <a href="https://buffaloah.com/how/18/18.8/holy.html">Holy Mother of Rosary Polish National Catholic Church</a>, respectively. </p>
<p>And two other formerly vacant churches that the Catholic diocese was struggling to sell were eventually sold. One, <a href="https://buffaloah.com/how/20/20.13/20.13.html">Queen of Peace Roman Catholic Church</a>, was converted into a mosque, Jami Masjid. Another, <a href="https://buffaloah.com/a/lud/hist.html">Saint Agnes Roman Catholic Church</a>, became a temple, the International Sangha Bhiksu Buddhist Association. </p>
<p>For my study, I interviewed those involved in the conversion of these two Catholic churches to learn more about how they were successfully adapted.</p>
<p>In Islam, for example, there’s a <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2015/01/19/why-islam-prohibits-images-of-muhammad">wariness about idolatry</a>. So those involved with Jami Masjid removed the stained glass windows, statuary and iconography, along with the pews, Stations of the Cross and the altar. Volunteers painted over the ecclesiastical murals by local artist Josef Mazur and carpeted the entire floor so worshipers could pray on the floor, per Islamic custom.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290169/original/file-20190829-106517-q6ty7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290169/original/file-20190829-106517-q6ty7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290169/original/file-20190829-106517-q6ty7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=217&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290169/original/file-20190829-106517-q6ty7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=217&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290169/original/file-20190829-106517-q6ty7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=217&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290169/original/file-20190829-106517-q6ty7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=273&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290169/original/file-20190829-106517-q6ty7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=273&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290169/original/file-20190829-106517-q6ty7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=273&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The image on the left is an undated interior view of Queen of Peace Roman Catholic Church. On the right is an interior view of the Jami Masjid today.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image A, courtesy of the collection at The Buffalo History Museum. General photograph collection, buildings – religious – Roman Catholic. Image B, courtesy of Ashima Krishna</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The structural elements of the church, however, all remained the same – including the wooden trusses, doors and the adjoining buildings.</p>
<p>Today, the mosque offers camps for children and runs a school on the premises. The neighborhood residents – not all of whom are Muslim – have been largely appreciative of the new facility, especially the new playground on the premises.</p>
<p>The Buddhist temple, on the other hand, made very little changes to the interior, aside from removing <a href="https://www.catholic.org/prayers/station.php">the Stations of the Cross</a> and the altar. The priest, Bhiksu Thich Minh Chanh, replaced the statuary with large Buddha statues. But the pews are still there, save for a few rows in front that were removed and carpeted for prayer services.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290174/original/file-20190829-106480-1x7f14p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290174/original/file-20190829-106480-1x7f14p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290174/original/file-20190829-106480-1x7f14p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290174/original/file-20190829-106480-1x7f14p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290174/original/file-20190829-106480-1x7f14p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290174/original/file-20190829-106480-1x7f14p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290174/original/file-20190829-106480-1x7f14p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290174/original/file-20190829-106480-1x7f14p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">From left to right: an interior view of the former St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church from 1934; a photograph from 1986, showing significant simplifications in interior ornamentation; and the Buddhist temple today.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images A and B, courtesy of the Chancery Archives of the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo. Image C, courtesy of Ashima Krishna</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The neighbors in the immediate vicinity – some of whom had attended services at St. Agnes – told us that they were sad that their church was gone. But most were happy that, at the very least, it continued to be used as a place of worship, as opposed to lying vacant, or worse, being demolished. Even with the neighborhood’s support, the temple has been vandalized several times; clearly, not everyone is happy with the conversion.</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.] </p>
<p>Other cities, like <a href="https://search.cincyland.com/i/churches-for-sale">Cincinnati</a> and <a href="https://detroit.curbed.com/maps/your-own-slice-of-heaven-thirteen-detroit-churches-for-sale">Detroit</a>, are also grappling with the issue of empty and underused churches. <a href="http://www.globaldetroit.com/detroits-population-numbers-suggest-immigrants-critical-to-citys-future/">Each</a>, like Buffalo, <a href="https://research.newamericaneconomy.org/report/immigrants-and-the-growth-of-americas-largest-cities/">has growing immigrant populations</a>.</p>
<p>Buffalo has shown how faith-to-faith church conversions can be a win-win situation for everyone involved: The diocese gets to sell a redundant property, immigrants can acquire a property that will strengthen their community, and the city builds its tax base by attracting new residents to the area.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121726/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ashima Krishna does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In up-and-coming neighborhoods, old churches are often converted to apartments or offices. But what about the vacant or underused churches in areas that aren’t attractive to developers?Ashima Krishna, Associate Director, Purdue UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1166152019-05-15T14:04:23Z2019-05-15T14:04:23ZInsights from Kenya: why anthrax outbreaks recur in the same areas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272796/original/file-20190506-103057-1hh4519.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Buffalo relaxes in Lake Nakuru surrounded by flamingoes</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GUDKOV ANDREY/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>There’s been an <a href="https://www.nation.co.ke/counties/nakuru/10-buffaloes-die-of-anthrax/1183314-5060348-rinnuoz/index.html">anthrax outbreak</a> in Kenya’s Nakuru county. But it’s not the first time. Nakuru seems to be a hotspot for these outbreaks. The Conversation Africa’s Moina Spooner asked Bernard Bett and John Gachohi to shed light on the reasons for this.</em></p>
<p><strong>What is anthrax and how dangerous is it to people and animals?</strong></p>
<p>Anthrax is a potentially fatal disease which mainly affects herbivores. Carnivores are <a href="https://www.oie.int/doc/ged/D7115.PDF">generally</a> more resistant to it. The disease can also affect humans.</p>
<p>It’s caused by a bacteria called <em>Bacillus anthracis</em> which produces different types of toxins that cause haemorrhaging, swelling and tissue death. The bacteria also prevents the host’s immune response. This allows it to quickly multiply in large numbers throughout the body. </p>
<p>When a host succumbs to the disease, millions of bacteria are released into the environment through bleeding or scavenging by other animals. </p>
<p>As soon as they’re exposed to the external environment – oxygen in particular – the bacteria transform into spores. Spores can live in the soil for many years <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/gma/why-anthrax-spores-hard-kill-231025308--abc-news-health.html">and are</a> resistant to chemical agents. That’s because they have a thick shell that is well developed for protection. </p>
<p>Mammals are infected when they eat the spores from the soil where they graze. This is why infections happen more frequently during the dry season. Because the pasture is sparse, animals chew down to a level where they can pick up the spores from the soil. </p>
<p>This is exacerbated because brittle grass and other shrubs that are available during this period create wounds in the animal’s mouth and gums and act as entry points for the spores. </p>
<p>People can contract the disease in various ways. It is mainly through contact with infected animal tissues, breathing in bacteria spores or eating meat from infected carcasses. </p>
<p>The bacteria poses a severe threat to human and animal health. It’s also been used in <a href="https://www.npr.org/2011/02/15/93170200/timeline-how-the-anthrax-terror-unfolded">at least</a> two bio-terrorism <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33000959">incidences</a> in the US. </p>
<p><strong>Why does Nakuru county have recurring outbreaks?</strong></p>
<p>Last month an anthrax outbreak killed <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001319981/ten-buffaloes-die-of-anthrax-at-lake-nakuru-park">more than</a> 10 buffaloes in Lake Nakuru National park, which is in Kenya’s Rift Valley. </p>
<p>This area is no stranger to outbreaks. In <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30105965">our research</a>, we identify three outbreaks that occurred in 2014, 2015 and 2017 in the park and surrounding areas. In 2015, 766 wild animals – 745 of them buffaloes – died from the disease. </p>
<p>Preliminary results from the same project show a high-risk belt that experiences repeated outbreaks, especially in the dry season. This stretches from Narok in southwestern Kenya, through Nakuru, to Muranga and Meru in central Kenya. </p>
<p>Outbreaks often affect the same areas because, once released, the bacteria continue to live as spores in the soil. <a href="https://www.oie.int/doc/ged/D7115.PDF">Environmental factors</a> that support these spores include high humidity, pH and calcium levels. Endemic areas are also often located in low-lying areas or in dry river beds. It’s <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1686874/">believed</a> that these areas concentrate spores, carried by water, during wet seasons. </p>
<p>Lake Nakuru national park and its surrounding areas fit the anthrax profile. </p>
<p><strong>How are these outbreaks dealt with?</strong></p>
<p>When there’s an outbreak, the Kenya Wildlife services usually works with the Department of Veterinary Services to vaccinate certain endangered animals – like rhinos – dispose of carcasses and disinfect the areas to limit the disease spread. </p>
<p>But the immunity that vaccinations provide to wildlife <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X04002105?via%3Dihub">doesn’t last</a> very long; maintaining it would require regular booster vaccines. Another issue with the vaccine for wildlife is that its <a href="https://www.oie.int/doc/ged/D7115.PDF">effectiveness</a> across different species isn’t known because it was developed mainly for use in livestock. </p>
<p>The Department of Veterinary Services has recommended that livestock in the area be routinely vaccinated and the community given information about how the disease is transmitted. </p>
<p><strong>What else can be done to prevent these outbreaks?</strong></p>
<p>Anthrax outbreaks could be minimised if susceptible areas were properly managed. </p>
<p>For instance, there are concerns that the population of herbivores in Lake Nakuru National Park – especially buffaloes – is so high that it’s causing overgrazing, especially during the dry season. Overgrazing increases the risk of exposure to anthrax spores in the soil. </p>
<p>Communities should also be made aware of how to dispose of livestock carcasses. For example, carcasses should always be disinfected using the right disinfectants and either burnt to ash or buried in pits that are at least 6 feet deep. </p>
<p>The increasing human and livestock population in the countryside has also exerted a lot of pressure on grasslands. This has led to certain ecosystems being overstretched and unable to contain disease outbreaks and other natural disasters. </p>
<p>In Lake Nakuru National park endangered wildlife species, like rhinos and Rothschild giraffes, should be targeted in vaccination campaigns. At the same time, much more needs to be done to determine the efficacy and levels of coverage of anthrax vaccines in wildlife.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116615/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bernard Bett is affiliated with the International Livestock Research Institute and is one of the scientists implementing the anthrax project funded by Defense Threat Reduction Agency led by Washington State University </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Gachohi receives funding from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) and Defense Threat Reduction Agency. He is affiliated with the School of Public Health, JKUAT, and Washington State University, Global Health Kenya. </span></em></p>Outbreaks often affect the same areas because, once released, the bacteria continues to live as spores in the soil.Bernard Bett, Senior Scientist, International Livestock Research Institute John Gachohi, Postdoctoral Fellow, Washington State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/901162018-01-16T08:14:57Z2018-01-16T08:14:57ZRamaphosa should end the presidential merry-go-round in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201935/original/file-20180115-101502-16ruhkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cyril Ramaphosa (left) has succeed South Africa's President Jacob Zuma to lead the African National Congress. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The large majority of South Africans, including members of the governing African National Congress (ANC), will be glad to <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/70-of-south-africans-want-zuma-to-resign-survey-20170405">see the back of Jacob Zuma</a> as president. Many, if not most, will hope that Cyril Ramaphosa, the party’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-anc-has-a-new-leader-but-south-africa-remains-on-a-political-precipice-89248">newly-elected president</a>, will assume the state presidency immediately rather than entertaining the nonsense of the party electing an <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-01-12-00-jz-sets-if-hes-to-go">“interim president”</a>.</p>
<p>Zuma’s supporters are strongly supportive of the idea of an interim president. It has its roots in the previous succession drama that unfolded after the ANC forced Thabo Mbeki to resign as the country’s president in September 2008. <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/kgalema-petrus-motlanthe">Kgalema Motlanthe</a>, the ANC’s then deputy president, stepped up to the plate to <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2008-09-25-motlanthe-sworn-in-as-interim-president">serve in his place</a> until the party president – Zuma – <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/jacob-zuma-presidency-2009-2017-march">assumed office</a> following the general election in May 2009. It has never been revealed why Zuma did not become state president directly, although it’s clear that they intended Motlanthe to become a cypher, subject to Zuma’s control.</p>
<p>This precedent is now being bandied about as established practice that has to be followed. But there’s no getting round the fact that it’s being pursued by Zuma and his supporters for dubious reasons. In short, they want to put the brakes on the transition to a Ramaphosa presidency so that they can protect and further their personal interests. </p>
<p>Zuma, in particular, wants to place continuing political obstacles in the way of his being subject to prosecution through the courts on <a href="https://theconversation.com/president-zuma-loses-bid-to-dodge-783-charges-but-will-he-have-the-last-laugh-85703">783 criminal charges</a>. The charges go back to before he assumed office. And there are lingering hopes among his closest acolytes that they can push through a deal with the Russians on <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-01-12-00-jz-sets-if-hes-to-go">nuclear power</a> before their rule ends. </p>
<p>Fortunately, reports indicate that Ramaphosa <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-01-12-00-jz-sets-if-hes-to-go">has rejected</a> the idea of standing aside in favour of an interim president (and certainly, of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who has been proposed by the Zuma faction). Indeed, this opens the door to a reconsideration of how the ANC should handle the relationship between the two presidencies. </p>
<p>Presently, the ANC elects its own president at a National Congress which is held some year and a half before the country’s general election. Having won that election, the ANC MPs in parliament, who have up until now constituted a majority, fulfil their constitutional responsibility of electing one of their member as state President.</p>
<p>It is this sequential gap between the two elections which leads to unnecessary political speculation and uncertainty, and now stands in the way of the country putting itself back together again after the disaster of the Zuma presidency.</p>
<h2>Why Zuma should fall</h2>
<p>The idea of an interim appointment is irresponsible. No good reasons have been put forward for postponing Ramaphosa taking over the presidency of the country.</p>
<p>Those against such a proposition might argue that Zuma has every right to remain in office until his term expires. <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng.pdf">Constitutionally</a>, he does. But politically he is ever more a lame duck, rapidly leaking support in the wake of Ramaphosa’s election to the party leadership. This is why there is an increasingly determined effort to oust him. </p>
<p>Zuma’s detractors inside and outside the party argue, correctly, that the more he hangs around the more damage he will be doing to the ANC and its <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/169785/what-zumas-power-play-could-mean-for-the-anc-in-2019/">prospects in any forthcoming election</a>. </p>
<p>In contrast, those still clinging to Zuma may argue that if Ramaphosa takes office immediately, with the possibility that he could serve as state president until the expiry of a second term in office in 2029 (ten years after an election in 2019), he would be doing nothing other than serving his self-interest.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa should ignore such arrant nonsense. There is everything to be gained from his assuming the presidential reins immediately. An extended presidential transition would lead to continuing political uncertainty, of tales of a Zuma push back, and of a divided government. </p>
<p>It would have far-reaching implications for the economy, all of them negative. Hopes that Ramaphosa is a magician and that, with a wave of his wand, he will turn the economy around and restore it to growth are wildly inflated. But the longer there is delay in his becoming president, the faster faith in his magic will recede. </p>
<p>So if Ramaphosa wants to convince onlookers of his abilities to bring about change, he needs to hang tough in his negotiations with Zuma. Quite simply, Zuma has to go on Ramaphosa’s terms if he wants to be taken seriously.</p>
<p>Yet there is more at stake than effecting an immediate transition. Concern has grown during the Zuma years about the way in which <a href="https://democracyworks.org.za/too-much-power-in-one-persons-hands/">power has become concentrated in the presidency</a> beyond what was intended by those who drew up the constitution (Ramaphosa among them). </p>
<p>So far the constitutional provision that no president should hold more than two terms has held. The constitution also lays down (para 88:2) that while a president may not hold office for more than two terms (of five years each)</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the period between that election and the next election of a President is not regarded as a term.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, there is no constitutional obstacle to Ramaphosa becoming president now. And there is certainly no suggestion in the constitution that South Africa must have an interim president between now and the next election. This is merely an ANC invention, plucked from the air after the party dismissed Mbeki for its own internal reasons.</p>
<h2>Avoiding future political uncertainty</h2>
<p>It’s not too dangerous to prophesy that, presuming the ANC wins the next two elections, Ramaphosa will – in his time – face pressure to stand down early in favour of his eventual successor. Perhaps, too, he might prove unwilling to go. South Africa would again be put through the quite unnecessary political uncertainty about the transition from one ANC president to another.</p>
<p>It follows that Ramaphosa should do more than simply ensure that he replaces Zuma immediately. As he does so, he should state unequivocally that the ANC will change the way things are currently done. That it will adopt as undisputed practice that the person elected as president of the party should immediately take on the post of president of the country. This would of course require him to resign following the election of his successor as party leader. </p>
<p>This is a normal democratic practice. It is common sense. It would be stabilising. And it would demonstrate that South Africa is no <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42685356">shithole democracy</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90116/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Southall receives funding from the National Research Foundation. </span></em></p>President Jacob Zuma’s camp is pushing to have him replaced by an interim leader as an excuse to prolong his disastrous rule for their own benefit.Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/823422017-09-01T01:05:49Z2017-09-01T01:05:49ZRemembering America’s lost buildings<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183860/original/file-20170829-32486-oyd6pz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A photograph of Penn Station's interior from the 1930s.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Penn_Station%2C_Interior%2C_Manhattan_%28NYPL_b13668355-482603%29.jpg">Bernice Abbott</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In June 2017, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo <a href="http://www.archdaily.com/873993/new-renderings-of-penn-stations-1-dollars-6-cents-billion-renovation-released-as-project-gets-greenlight">announced a US$1.6 billion project</a> to transform New York City’s much-maligned Penn Station in hopes of restoring it to its former glory.</em></p>
<p><em>The original structure – an iconic example of the <a href="https://www.crt.state.la.us/Assets/OCD/hp/nationalregister/historic_contexts/beauxartsREVISED.pdf">Beaux-Arts architectural style</a> – was destroyed in 1963 and replaced by a bleak, underground network of tunnels and walkways.</em></p>
<p><em>“One entered the city like a god; one scuttles in now like a rat,” architectural historian Vincent Scully Jr. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/arts/design/a-proposal-for-penn-station-and-madison-square-garden.html">lamented</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>If there’s a silver lining, the 1963 demolition <a href="https://savingplaces.org/stories/loss-law-that-gave-life-to-modern-preservation-movement#.WYDk7YWcHn8">did spur</a> the formation of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/15/arts/architecture-view-a-commission-that-has-itself-become-a-landmark.html">the New York City Landmarks Commission</a> in 1965 and the passage of the <a href="http://www.achp.gov/nhpa.pdf">National Historic Preservation Act</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Unfortunately, all cannot be salvaged. Preservation efforts must be galvanized; they require mobilization, time and resources. We reached out to five architecture professors and posed the following question: What’s one American structure you wish had been saved?</em></p>
<p><em>While their responses vary – from an unassuming home nestled in the suburbs of Boston to a monument of 19th-century wealth and glamour – none of the structures could resist the tides of decay, development and discrimination.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>A mecca for black Chicago</h2>
<p><strong>Daniel Bluestone, Boston University</strong></p>
<p>In 1943, when the storied, half-century-old Mecca apartment building in Chicago’s South Side was about to be demolished, something extraordinary happened: The Illinois legislature passed a bill to preserve it.</p>
<p>Designed in 1891 by Edbrooke and Burnham, <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/991458?origin=JSTOR-pdf&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">the 96-unit Mecca immediately captured the public’s imagination</a>. It was Chicago’s first residential building with a landscaped courtyard open to the street, a design that fused two seemingly incompatible ideals: to build densely while preserving and cultivating the natural landscape. </p>
<p>In the late 19th century, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447986/">Chicago’s tenement reformers</a> had demanded more light and fresh air for the city’s apartments; they wanted small parks and playgrounds to be able to dot the city’s swelling neighborhoods. The Mecca’s innovative design was a paean to these progressive concerns.</p>
<p>The complex had two atria with <a href="http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f906345d2ce61419.html">skylights</a> that flooded the interior with light. Residents accessed their apartments via open galleries that encircled the atria, with railings that featured foliated ironwork. This form – the courtyard within an apartment complex – inspired a hugely popular Chicago vernacular tradition.</p>
<p>In the early 20th century, the Mecca was enveloped by the South Side’s <a href="https://www.chipublib.org/housing/">expanding Black Belt</a>. Between 1912 and 1913, the complex’s occupancy changed from overwhelmingly white to completely African-American. The massing of black residents in the iconic building inspired residents and artists to view the building as an symbol of black Chicago. South Side blues bars improvised the “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mEkZPJ_XMs">Mecca Flat Blues</a>,” which were tales of love and heartbreak, while poet Gwendolyn Brooks memorialized the building with her poem “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/In_the_Mecca.html?id=3E1aAAAAMAAJ">In the Mecca</a>.” </p>
<p>By the 1930s, officials at the adjacent Armour Institute (later Illinois Institute of Technology) <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/991458?origin=JSTOR-pdf&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">grew concerned about their ability to attract students and faculty</a> to a campus located in the heart of the black community. In 1938 they bought the Mecca, planning to swiftly demolish it in order to create a buffer between town and gown. </p>
<p>Illinois Governor Dwight Green vetoed the legislation that would have preserved the Mecca, and in 1952 – <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=owgcDRTKLxUC&pg=PA236&lpg=PA236&dq=dwight+green+mecca&source=bl&ots=O4VAjlyAd7&sig=DoZRxZNyPx7irPmqajvyxenZmqU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwir6_vCuv_VAhXC4yYKHQe6BPsQ6AEIQTAI#v=onepage&q=dwight%20green%20mecca&f=false">after years of legal wrangling and community protest</a> – the courts allowed the demolition of an architectural and cultural icon to proceed. </p>
<p>The only consolation is that it was replaced by Mies van der Rohe’s famed <a href="http://arch.iit.edu/img/ce7d6a8d9a30a9b1/5804-l.jpg">Crown Hall</a>, now home to IIT’s architecture school. </p>
<hr>
<h2>A Fifth Avenue palace</h2>
<p><strong>Carol A. Willis, Columbia University; Founding Director, The Skyscraper Museum</strong></p>
<p>Many New Yorkers are familiar with the iconic Waldorf Astoria, which sits on Park Avenue. But they might be surprised to learn that this is the second iteration of the luxury hotel. The original was located along Manhattan’s fashionable Fifth Avenue, and the structure took up the entire block between 33rd and 34th streets. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184312/original/file-20170901-22416-v1mqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184312/original/file-20170901-22416-v1mqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184312/original/file-20170901-22416-v1mqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184312/original/file-20170901-22416-v1mqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184312/original/file-20170901-22416-v1mqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184312/original/file-20170901-22416-v1mqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=963&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184312/original/file-20170901-22416-v1mqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=963&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184312/original/file-20170901-22416-v1mqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=963&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The original Waldorf-Astoria.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/det.4a08045/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But in late November 1929 – after the stock market had crashed and the slow slide into the Great Depression began – workers began demolishing it. </p>
<p>Designed by the noted architect <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/07/realestate/streetscapes-henry-janeway-hardenbergh-architect-who-left-indelible-imprint.html">Henry Hardenbergh</a>, the imposing building had been built in two parts, campaigns that reflected the progress of <a href="http://skyscraper.org/tenandtaller/grid/">modern construction technology</a> and a “bigger and better” mantra of American architecture. </p>
<p>The first building, the Waldorf, was an 11-story structure that opened in 1893. It was built on the site of the mansion where Mrs. Caroline Astor had entertained New York’s “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_McAllister#.22The_Four_Hundred.22">Four Hundred</a>,” an exclusive group of New York’s social elite. In addition to 530 rooms, the Waldorf offered stately apartments on the second floor and a majestic ballroom that could be closed off for lavish private events. </p>
<p>In 1897, the deluxe Astoria section of the hotel was completed. Facing 34th Street, its 16 stories employed a steel skeleton structure – <a href="http://www.architectmagazine.com/technology/products/throwback-thursday-looking-back-at-the-rise-of-metal-in-construction_o">at the time, a cutting-edge technique</a> – that allowed for taller buildings.</p>
<p>With 1,300 rooms, it was the largest hotel in the city, and like many high-class “palace hotels” of the period, the Waldorf Astoria housed permanent and transient patrons; as The New York Times <a href="http://skyscraper.org/tenandtaller/nw.php">noted</a> in 1890, they were designed “to provide a series of magnificent homes for wealthy New Yorkers as an economical alternative to maintaining private mansions.”</p>
<p>By 1929, however, the owners of the Waldorf Astoria decided to decamp to Park Avenue, where they erected an equally lavish modern, Art Deco monument. </p>
<p>The demolition of the old hotel, completed by the winter of 1930, made way for the construction of the ultimate expression of the city’s architectural ambitions: the Empire State Building.</p>
<hr>
<h2>Traditional New England goes modern</h2>
<p><strong>Kevin D. Murphy, Vanderbilt University</strong></p>
<p>Preservationists are still waiting for something positive to come from the demolition of the house that architect <a href="http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=kt5b69q3pk&chunk.id=ch11&toc.id=ch11&brand=ucpress">Eleanor Raymond</a> designed for her sister Rachel. Today, <a href="https://www.historicnewengland.org/explore/collections-access/capobject/?gusn=196000">photographs</a> are all that remain of the pioneering, modernist Rachel Raymond House, which was built in Belmont, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston.</p>
<p>Raymond was a graduate of Wellesley College <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=OpY0KmICqKYC&lpg=PA25&dq=cambridge%20school%20of%20domestic%20architecture&pg=PA25#v=onepage&q&f=false">and received her professional training</a> at the Cambridge School of Architecture, an all-women’s design school founded in the early 20th century.</p>
<p>The Rachel Raymond House is important example of how American architects incorporated aspects of European modernism into their own work. Inspired by European luminaries Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, Raymond’s home featured abstract, geometric blocks. She employed flat roofs, metal railings and steel sash windows – modernist elements that were virtually unheard of in early 1930s American homes.</p>
<p>Yet the house is no more.</p>
<p>The Belmont Hill School, a private school for boys, purchased the home and – despite protests from preservationists – demolished it in November 2006. At the time, architecture critic Robert Campbell <a href="https://secure.pqarchiver.com/boston-sub/doc/405038375.html?FMT=FT&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Nov+4%2C+2006&author=Campbell%2C+Robert&pub=Boston+Globe&edition=&startpage=D.4&desc=Historic+house+loses+bulldozer+battle">wrote</a> that it was “considered by many to be the earliest modern dwelling in New England.” </p>
<p>The Rachel Raymond House actually predated another iconic modernist house: the home of émigré architect <a href="http://www.archdaily.com/375067/happy-birthday-to-bauhaus-founder-and-acclaimed-modernist-walter-gropius">Walter Gropius</a>, located in nearby Lincoln, Massachusetts. While the Rachel Raymond House was eventually razed, the Gropius House <a href="https://www.historicnewengland.org/property/gropius-house/">has been preserved as a house museum</a>. </p>
<p>So why did these two important houses received such vastly different treatment?</p>
<p>The obvious answer is that the work of women architects has been consistently undervalued. In her book “<a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10665.html">Where Are the Woman Architects?</a>,” architectural historian Despina Stratigakos points out that many female architects seem to possess fewer opportunities for advancement than their male counterparts. One source of the problem, according to Stratigakos, is a dearth of prominent female role models in the field. </p>
<p>The Rachel Raymond House could have been a living icon and source of inspiration. Instead, it fell to the wrecking ball.</p>
<hr>
<h2>Paving paradise</h2>
<p><strong>Kerry Traynor, University at Buffalo</strong> </p>
<p>It might seem odd to lament the loss of a roadway; but Humboldt Parkway wasn’t just a road, it was an urban oasis of green parkland – a crucial component of a much larger park and parkway system.</p>
<p>In 1868, landscape architect <a href="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2011/09/04/travel/04FOOTSTEPS2/04FOOTSTEPS2-popup.jpg">Frederick Law Olmsted</a> arrived in Buffalo, New York to design a park for the city. </p>
<p>Instead, he created a <a href="https://www.bfloparks.org/">Park and Parkway System</a> that consisted of six parks, seven parkways and eight landscaped circles. The brilliance of the plan, however, was in the parkways: over 200 feet wide, lined with elm trees and their canopies, they created a ribbon of green that wove its way through the city, connecting its parks and neighborhoods. <a href="http://www.buffaloah.com/h/ferry/jpegs/38.jpg">Humboldt Parkway</a> connected Delaware Park – Olmsted’s largest – with Humboldt Park.</p>
<p>The result: a city within a park, not just parks within a city.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184080/original/file-20170830-24257-1hfl1t2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184080/original/file-20170830-24257-1hfl1t2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184080/original/file-20170830-24257-1hfl1t2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184080/original/file-20170830-24257-1hfl1t2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184080/original/file-20170830-24257-1hfl1t2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184080/original/file-20170830-24257-1hfl1t2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184080/original/file-20170830-24257-1hfl1t2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184080/original/file-20170830-24257-1hfl1t2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1953 photograph of Humboldt Parkway.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.buffalorising.com/2014/12/restore-our-community-coalition-launches-i-remember-campaign/">Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But with <a href="http://blog.buffalostories.com/tag/kensington-expressway/">calls for urban renewal</a> in the 1950s and a growing dependence on the automobile, the city no longer saw <a href="https://www.wnyheritage.org/content/old_photo_album_humboldt_parkway/promo-full.jpg">the pastoral quality of Humboldt Parkway</a> as an asset. </p>
<p>To city and state planners, Humboldt Parkway was the ideal location for an expressway – a highway that could carry automobiles to and from the suburbs and the downtown core, while relieving congestion on neighborhood streets. </p>
<p>In order to clear the way for the new highway – dubbed the Kensington Expressway – the state <a href="http://www.buffaloah.com/h/ferry/jpegs/41.jpg">cut down trees</a>, tore up the parkway and demolished homes. The new highway displaced families, divided neighborhoods by race and income and caused property values to plummet. As <a href="http://bit.ly/2u9gidC">neighborhoods fell apart</a>, businesses shuttered their doors. </p>
<p>Olmsted’s parkway had, quite literally, <a href="https://urbansimplicty.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/humboldt_best1927-19952.jpg">been paved over</a>. As Joni Mitchell sings in her hit song “<a href="http://jonimitchell.com/music/song.cfm?id=13">Big Yellow Taxi</a>,” “They paved paradise / And put up a parking lot.”</p>
<hr>
<h2>From the rubble, a preservation movement is born</h2>
<p><strong>Sally Levine, Case Western Reserve University</strong></p>
<p>When I moved to Chicago in 1982, <a href="https://architecturefarm.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/old-chicago-skyscraper-of-the-week-stock-exchange/">the Chicago Stock Exchange Building</a> had long disappeared, but people still spoke of it with a hushed reverence. </p>
<p>Not only was it considered one of the finest accomplishments of architects <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Louis-Sullivan">Louis Sullivan</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dankmar-Adler">Dankmar Adler</a>, its demise also indirectly led to the tragic death of architectural photographer and preservation activist <a href="http://interactive.wttw.com/a/chicago-stories-richard-nickel-story">Richard Nickel</a>, who lost his life snapping photographs of the structure during its demolition.</p>
<p>Built in 1893, the 13-story structure housed the stock exchange for just 14 years. Subsequently the building had a variety of tenants, but leases became fewer and farther between, until the City Council <a href="http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1971/10/20/page/4/article/final-attempt-to-save-stock-exchange-fails">approved its demolition in 1972</a>. </p>
<p>But in its heyday, it was magnificent. </p>
<p>Reflecting Sullivan’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_follows_function">famous phrase</a> “form ever follows function,” the facade demarcated the building’s three parts – the base (the stock exchange), the middle levels (offices) and top (the building’s “crown”). The base contained an exquisite two-story-high trading room. The nine stories of offices were notable for their columns of bay windows and Chicago windows (composed of a large fixed window flanked by operable ones), and the building was adorned with a row of recessed windows and a distinctive cornice. </p>
<p>But perhaps the most distinctive aspect of the building was the large arched entry, which represented a major development in Sullivan’s skill. Sullivan also adorned the stock exchange room with breathtaking low-relief ornaments and brilliantly painted stenciled patterns.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184247/original/file-20170831-26448-fkwxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184247/original/file-20170831-26448-fkwxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184247/original/file-20170831-26448-fkwxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184247/original/file-20170831-26448-fkwxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184247/original/file-20170831-26448-fkwxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184247/original/file-20170831-26448-fkwxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184247/original/file-20170831-26448-fkwxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184247/original/file-20170831-26448-fkwxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The preserved trading floor of the Chicago Stock Exchange.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chicago_Stock_Exchange_(7405590890).jpg">Juan Carlos Martin</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many consider its demolition the impetus for <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/586.html">Chicago’s preservation movement</a>. Another important Chicago architectural icon, <a href="http://kubuildingtech.org/sarcweb/Assemblages00/CaseFinals/Mann_Reliance/Reliance%20View.jpg">the Reliance Building</a>, ended up being saved after vigorous efforts by activists. Through the efforts of Nickel and other preservationists, the arched entry and the interior of the trading room were saved – both are now owned by the Art Institute of Chicago. The arch sits at the corner of Monroe Street and Columbus Drive next to the museum, and the trading room has been reconstructed within the museum itself. </p>
<p>While not as satisfying as seeing the actual building, these remnants testify to the beauty of the Chicago Stock Exchange Building – and the importance of preservation efforts.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184246/original/file-20170831-2020-1e1j0a0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184246/original/file-20170831-2020-1e1j0a0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184246/original/file-20170831-2020-1e1j0a0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184246/original/file-20170831-2020-1e1j0a0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184246/original/file-20170831-2020-1e1j0a0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184246/original/file-20170831-2020-1e1j0a0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184246/original/file-20170831-2020-1e1j0a0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184246/original/file-20170831-2020-1e1j0a0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The preserved arch of the old Chicago Stock Exchange.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/old-chicago-stock-exchange-entrance-bit-89177836?src=9bPzUG_q4bQg9TqH1zYQlQ-1-0">Thomas Barrat</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82342/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We asked five architecture experts to name one building or structure they wish had been preserved, but couldn’t resist the tides of decay, development and discrimination.Kevin D. Murphy, Andrew W. Mellon Chair in the Humanities and Professor and Chair of History of Art, Vanderbilt UniversityCarol Willis, Founding Director of The Skyscraper Museum, Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture, Columbia UniversityDaniel Bluestone, Director, Preservation Studies Program; Professor, History of Art & Architecture; Professor, American and New England Studies, Boston UniversityKerry Traynor, Clinical Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, University at BuffaloSally Levine, Lecturer of Architecture, Case Western Reserve UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/562162016-03-18T04:29:01Z2016-03-18T04:29:01ZHow bringing back predators can change the way prey behaves<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115304/original/image-20160316-30211-zbe23r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The reintroduction of lions and hyena has led animals in South Africa's Addo Elephant National Park to behave differently.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Large predator numbers are <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/343/6167/1241484">declining</a> across the globe. These declines have considerable ecological knock-on <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/333/6040/301">effects</a>, many of which are currently unknown. Novel conservation techniques are required to reverse predator declines.</p>
<p>One such conservation action is the <a href="http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405176806.html">reintroduction of large predators</a> into areas from which they have been eradicated. These large predator reintroduction programmes have more than one benefit. They expand the range of many vulnerable and endangered species. They also restore ecological <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1890/07-0308.1/abstract">predator-prey interactions</a>, as well as boosting local tourism <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-1795.2012.00595.x/abstract">opportunities</a>.</p>
<p>The most publicised and well known of these programmes was the <a href="http://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/wolf-restoration.htm">reintroduction of wolves</a> into the Yellowstone National Park in the US. This resulted in an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q">ecological cascade</a>, or knock-on effects. There were several of these but a key one was fearful elk moving away from rivers. This in turn led to the recovery of riverine vegetation, which in turn increased the abundance of <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320711004046">songbirds</a>, <a href="http://www.yellowstonepark.com/wolf-reintroduction-changes-ecosystem/">beavers</a> and other species.</p>
<p>These observations have spurred scientists worldwide to focus their efforts on trying to unravel how ecosystems respond to predator reintroductions. This focus has increased the understanding of predator-prey interactions, but has also highlighted gaps in the understanding of the role of predators.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115303/original/image-20160316-30219-1pqtbyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115303/original/image-20160316-30219-1pqtbyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115303/original/image-20160316-30219-1pqtbyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115303/original/image-20160316-30219-1pqtbyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115303/original/image-20160316-30219-1pqtbyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115303/original/image-20160316-30219-1pqtbyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115303/original/image-20160316-30219-1pqtbyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115303/original/image-20160316-30219-1pqtbyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The reintroduction of wolves in the Yellowstone National Park has had ecological knock-on effects.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Will it work in Africa?</h2>
<p>Transferring the trophic cascade ideas developed in Yellowstone to African ecosystems is not a simple process. African ecosystems are extremely complex. They harbour a larger suite of predators preying on a larger <a href="https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/wild-things/world-mammal-diversity-has-been-lost-because-humans">suite of prey</a> compared with Yellowstone. Add to this the considerable <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecog.01640/abstract">influence of megaherbivores</a>, like elephants, and you have a complex jigsaw of ecological interactions.</p>
<p>Despite this complexity, the recent increase of large carnivore reintroductions in South Africa provides an ideal opportunity to investigate the relative influence of predators. South Africa is home to a number of <a href="http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405176806.html">large predator reintroductions</a>. The scientific community is now gaining new insights about the effects these predators have on prey populations and behaviour, and ultimately ecosystems.</p>
<p>In our <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00265-015-1929-6">research</a> we used the reintroduction of lion and spotted hyena into the <a href="https://www.sanparks.org/parks/addo/">Addo Elephant National Park</a>. The aim was to investigate how these two top predators influence prospective prey species. Specifically, we compared the activity patterns of warthog, kudu, buffalo and elephant in two neighbouring, but separately fenced, sections of Addo. </p>
<p>Based on our research we saw changes in the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/11-1770.1/full">behaviour</a> and activities of prospective prey when predators were present. As was seen in Yellowstone, changes in behaviour of one species in the ecosystem can have knock-on effects. The exact nature of these knock-on effects in Addo is still under investigation. </p>
<h2>The impact of lion and spotted hyena</h2>
<p>In the Main Camp section, lion and spotted hyena were reintroduced in <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=1022348&fileId=S0030605307001767">2003 and 2004</a>. At the time of the study, these two predators had been absent from the Nyathi section of the park for more than 100 years. </p>
<p>Lion and spotted hyena are active <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2028.2006.00686.x/abstract">predominantly at night</a>.</p>
<p>The results show that when lion and spotted hyena are present, all prospective prey species are most active during the day.</p>
<p>But in the Nyathi section, where predators were absent, kudu and buffalo were more active at night.</p>
<p>One possible consequence of this might be that kudu and buffalo save water and energy by being active at night when it’s cooler. What the long-term consequences of this behaviour might be is, however, not known.</p>
<p>In the presence of predators, kudu and buffalo are active at the hottest time of the day. These activity patterns mirror kudu and buffalo activity patterns elsewhere in the <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00265-009-0760-3">immediate presence of lions</a>. This behaviour in the presence of predators may have <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00484-012-0622-y">heat stress</a> implications. This heat stress may reduce <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1095643308010209">food intake</a> for African ungulates with long term population consequences.</p>
<p>Elephant and warthog were active during the day regardless of whether lion and spotted hyena were present. Even though warthog spent the night in burrows in both sections, in the presence of lions and spotted hyena, they emerged later and returned earlier thus reducing their activity when lion and spotted hyena are active. </p>
<p>Elephants, which are largely free from <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=345293&fileId=S0952836905007508">lion</a> and <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7998.2006.00183.x/abstract">spotted hyena</a> predation, had virtually identical activity patterns in the presence and absence of lion and spotted hyena.</p>
<p>Another important outcome is the increased visibility of the prey species for tourism. In the absence of lion only about <a href="http://reference.sabinet.co.za/sa_epublication_article/wild_v33_n1_a3">5% of tourists</a> were fortunate enough to see buffalo, one of the must see big five species, for African game viewing. After the reintroduction of lion, however, <a href="http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.3957/0379-4369-37.2.189?journalCode=sawr">95% of tourists</a> recorded seeing buffalo.</p>
<p>So reintroducing predators has important <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/343/6167/1241484">ecological and evolutionary effects</a> beyond simple predator conservation goals. In addition, the unintended consequence of enhanced game viewing of prey species for tourists may boost the tourism value of areas to which large predators are introduced.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56216/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Craig Tambling receives funding from National Research Foundation, Claude Leon Foundation and International Foundation for Science. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Graham Kerley has received funding from the National Research Foundation.</span></em></p>Kudu and buffalo altered their activity when lions and spotted hyena were reintroduced into the areas where these species lived.Craig Tambling, Post Doctoral Fellow Zoology and the Centre for African Conservation Ecology, Nelson Mandela UniversityGraham Kerley, Professor, Zoology & Director: Centre for African Conservation Ecology, Nelson Mandela UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/423362015-06-01T04:16:32Z2015-06-01T04:16:32ZWhy bovine TB is a threat to more than just cattle<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83456/original/image-20150531-15228-11sbu4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Buffalo are the main wildlife carriers of Bovine TB, a disease that poses a threat not only to animals but also to humans. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thomas Mukoya/REUTERS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Bovine tuberculosis is an infectious disease that threatens the welfare of people, livestock and wildlife <a href="http://www.nda.agric.za/docs/Infopaks/Cattle%28bovine%29TB.pdf">across the world.</a> Originally found in cattle, <a href="http://www.cfsph.iastate.edu/FastFacts/pdfs/bovine_tuberculosis_F.pdf">many species</a> of wildlife can also be infected, including buffalo and lion.</p>
<p>The disease is found in many of South Africa’s national parks and may have serious economic, ecological and public health implications. Managing the spread of bovine TB involves restricting the movement of infected animals and in some cases using test-and-cull programmes. This is easier to do with livestock but more difficult among wild animals.</p>
<p>Caused by <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/tb/publications/factsheets/general/mbovis.pdf"><em>Mycobacterium bovis</em></a>, which is closely related to the bacterium that causes human tuberculosis, the bacterium has evolved over time to prefer animal hosts. But it is capable of infecting people and can be difficult to treat with current drug programmes.</p>
<p>The proportion of human TB cases caused by <em>M. bovis</em> varies <a href="http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/19/6/12-0543_article">between countries and regions</a>, but is typically around 3% in Africa. These figures most likely under-estimate the true number of cases. Tests to distinguish between the two bacteria are seldom performed.</p>
<h2>Humans are also at risk</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.who.int/zoonoses/neglected_zoonotic_diseases/en/">World Health Organisation</a> lists Bovine TB as one of seven neglected zoonotic diseases. This poses a growing public health concern in areas where animals and people live in close proximity such as regions around the <a href="http://www.krugerpark.co.za/">Kruger National Park</a> in South Africa. </p>
<p>In the developed world, cases of people contracting TB from animals are rare. But health officials remain on the alert particularly following the diagnosis of the first cases of <a href="http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/03March/Pages/First-cat-to-humans-TB-infection-spread-reported.aspx">transmission from domestic cats</a> last year in the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>In developing countries there is a greater chance of the disease being contracted by humans. Interactions between people, livestock and wildlife and the regular consumption of unpasteurised milk and other dairy products puts people at a greater risk of exposure to the disease. Eating game meat from illegally poached wildlife is another potential source of infection, as this meat does not undergo veterinary inspection. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83370/original/image-20150529-15214-1y7c0c8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83370/original/image-20150529-15214-1y7c0c8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83370/original/image-20150529-15214-1y7c0c8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83370/original/image-20150529-15214-1y7c0c8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83370/original/image-20150529-15214-1y7c0c8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83370/original/image-20150529-15214-1y7c0c8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83370/original/image-20150529-15214-1y7c0c8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83370/original/image-20150529-15214-1y7c0c8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bovine TB across the world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">World Animal Health Information Database Interface</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Along the boundaries of many of South Africa’s national parks, local communities and their livestock are in direct contact with wildlife. This increases the possibility of transmission. The disease is most commonly spread by aerosol droplets – coughing, sneezing and spitting - as well as by eating or drinking <a href="http://www.bovinetb.co.uk/article.php?article_id=24">infected animal products</a>.</p>
<h2>The effects of the disease on buffalo</h2>
<p>African buffalo are considered <a href="http://www.sanparks.co.za/docs/conservation/scientific/mission/TPC_BTB.pdf">“maintenance” hosts of bovine TB</a>. They act as reservoirs of the disease and spread it to other species. The infection in buffalo is seldom fatal, though its effects may be more severe in other animals.</p>
<p>Part of the challenge of managing the disease is to limit its spread to rare or endangered species. As a result <a href="http://www.nda.agric.za/vetweb/Disease%20Control/Buffalo/20th%20draft%20protocol%20-%20buffalo%20policy.pdf">restrictions</a> are placed on the movement of infected buffalo.</p>
<p>Buffalo are <a href="http://www.safaribwana.com/ANIMALS/animpages/buffalo.htm">highly valued</a> animals in both the eco-tourism and trophy hunting industries. The establishment of breeding programmes to stock parks and conservancies has created a constant demand for the animals.</p>
<p>The market value of buffalo within South Africa varies according to their disease status. Buffalo that are disease-free fetch approximately 10 times more at auction, with price tags of up to <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/2013/09/20/buffalo-bull-gets-r40m-as-demand-rockets">$4 million</a>.</p>
<h2><strong>A problem for conservation</strong></h2>
<p>The disease threatens other wildlife species too. Lions, in particular, are vulnerable. They contract the disease by <a href="http://www.felineconservation.org/feline_species/lion.htm">eating infected buffalo</a>. It can also spread to other members of the pride during violent fights, a common feature among adult lions. As they are social animals, an increase in deaths due to the disease may have long term impacts on pride structure and survival. </p>
<p>Little is known about the effects of the infection on a range of other susceptible species such as baboons, kudu, warthogs, leopards making research and surveillance essential.</p>
<h2>A costly business</h2>
<p>The negative economic impact of bovine TB is felt by farmers as well as national parks. Cattle are often brought into game reserves during droughts to access waterholes, and buffalo sometimes break through fences and browse with cattle in surrounding areas. Running continuous cattle and wildlife testing programmes is enormously expensive, and the required slaughter of infected cattle can be devastating to local farmers.</p>
<p>Many game reserves and parks supplement their income with the sale of wildlife locally and abroad. If bovine TB is discovered within their borders, the sale and movement of animals is restricted. This can cause huge revenue losses, and severely limit the funds available to continue conservation efforts.</p>
<p>Bovine TB is particularly concerning in areas where there are communities with high rates of HIV. An immune system weakened by HIV can increase the risk of developing TB infection by <a href="http://www.who.int/hiv/topics/tb/about_tb/en/">up to 31 times</a>. TB infection in people who have contracted the disease from an animal source is increasingly difficult to treat with common drugs.</p>
<p>Bovine TB in South Africa has serious implications for people, wildlife and livestock. There is extensive research focusing on different aspects of the disease, such as immunology and genetics. This work is essential to understanding the disease and managing it effectively.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42336/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nikki le Roex receives funding from the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa, grant number 88168. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NRF.</span></em></p>People living in close proximity to animals infected with Bovine TB are at a risk of contracting the disease through drinking their milk and eating their meat.Nikki le Roex, Postdoctoral Fellow in Wildlife Genetics, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.