The evolution of wilderness wildlife research in North America

Most wildlife research in North America has focused on a standard suite of questions, asked of a limited assemblage of economically important species and studied using a relatively limited set of techniques, study site characteristics and narrow time-frames. We describe why these factors are not necessarily conducive to conducting wildlife research in wilderness settings. As a consequence, the amount of wildlife research conducted in wilderness settings has historically been small and limited primarily to wilderness-dependent species. We further describe the reasons for this, recent trends and the types of wildlife research questions that can best be addressed in wilderness settings.