John Hadidian, PhD Archive

Jan 06, 2026 Living with Beavers in America: Part 3

Posted at 10:31h In Animals in Our World, Articles, Environment, Environment Well-being, WellBeing News - By John Hadidian, PhD

Introduction In the previous two parts of this WellBeing International Beaver series (Part 1 and Part 2), we examined the history of human exploitation of beaver and their partial recovery, and noted that, as they return, beaver are increasingly coming to be viewed in a positive...

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Oct 30, 2025 Beavers in America: Part 2

Posted at 14:23h In Animals in Our World, Articles, Tales of WellBeing, Wild Animals in Water - By John Hadidian, PhD

In the first part of this series, an ancient relationship between humans and beaver, largely exploitative, was noted., Almost gone from Western Europe by the early Middle Ages, beavers were found to be abundant and available in the New World. There, they were exploited for...

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Sep 22, 2025 Beavers in America: Part 1

Posted at 16:40h In Animals in Our World, Articles, Tales of WellBeing, Wild Animals on Land - By John Hadidian, PhD

Video credit: Stefan Krisa, iStock Introduction The North American beaver (Castor canadensis) was an easily commodifiable resource for the first European colonizers of the New World. Its Old-World cousin (Castor fiber) had been extirpated from western Europe by the early Middle Ages. Still, an estimated 60-400 million...

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Jun 25, 2025 Managing Outdoor Cats: Funding Strategies

Posted at 13:55h In Animals in Our World, Articles, Management, Tales of WellBeing - By John Hadidian, PhD

The ongoing controversy surrounding outdoor cats is a genuine concern for those who care about animal welfare. Although outcries over the impact of cat predation on wildlife, especially birds, were heard as early as the turn of the twentieth century, these worries have become significantly...

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Feb 20, 2024 Beaver: Nature’s Ecosystem Rewilders

Posted at 14:21h In Animals in Our World, Articles, Tales of WellBeing, Wild Animals in Water - By John Hadidian, PhD

In 1700, so many beaver pelts were stored in Montreal warehouses that they threatened to glut the market, something that traders had already experienced in previous years. So, fearing that prices in Europe would crash, orders were given to pile up and burn fully three-quarters...

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Apr 16, 2023 The Avid Birder

Posted at 16:29h In Articles, Feel Better, Human-Animal Interaction, Tales of WellBeing - By John Hadidian, PhD

In 1955, The United States Fish and Wildlife (FWS) inaugurated a periodic survey focused on Americans’ recreational, wildlife-related activities. One might immediately assume that hunting and fishing would dominate this field, but that would be wrong by a long shot (pun intended). While some 40...

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Dec 06, 2022 Living with Urban Foxes

Posted at 16:10h In Animals in Our World, Articles, WellBeing News - By John Hadidian, PhD

The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) is the most widely distributed wild carnivore on the planet, with a natural range that spans the entire Northern Hemisphere. Below the equator, foxes have been introduced to the Falkland Islands and Australia, where they cause widespread damage to domestic...

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Sep 13, 2022 “The Accidental Ecosystem: People and Wildlife in American Cities”

Posted at 14:56h In Animals in Our World, Book Review, Human-Animal Interaction, Tales of WellBeing - By John Hadidian, PhD

The lockdowns of the recent pandemic are said to have led to an "Anthropause" – a dramatic release of human pressure on the nonhuman world. From media coverage capturing feral hogs roaming city streets in Europe to daytime sightings of bears and bobcats in American...

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Jul 05, 2022 Cities, Nature and Human Well-being

Posted at 11:29h In Articles, Global Awareness, PAE Well-being, WellBeing News - By John Hadidian, PhD

Above: William Hollingsworth "Holly" Whyte (left), during a visit to downtown Chattanooga in 1984. Photo credit: Chattanooga Venture Records, Chattanooga Public Library William H. Whyte (1917-1999) may be best remembered as the author of The Organization Man. This 1956 bestseller described a corporate America in which,...

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Nov 01, 2021 Urban Wildlife in New York City

Posted at 11:01h In Animals in Our World, Articles, Human-Animal Interaction, WellBeing News - By John Hadidian, PhD

New Yorkers have never been shy about their city’s achievements. Witness a recent article by Lisa M. Collins (Eagles, Beavers, Sea Turtles: Why N.Y.C. Is Humming with Wildlife  - Oct. 28 NYTimes) that celebrates the city as “humming with wildlife” and enjoying a “surprising” renaissance...

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