A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Science, School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Master of Science. 30 October 2014. / My study investigated the significance of spatiotemporal heterogeneity on the Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus), a long-lived, apex predator, occupying many African and some South African riverine ecosystems. The scales of study included a long-term investigation of the (indirect) impacts of anthropogenic, landscape scale (100 km2) disturbances on the population demographics of C. niloticus, over 35 years. At the intermediate scale (15 km2), indirect and direct impacts of flooding and seasonality on the health of the C. niloticus population were investigated over a three-year period. This was performed by investigating preferred habitat availability and river quality assessments, including physiochemical variables and rapid bioassessment measures, which served as the ‘smallest’ scale (with samples taken every 500 m). All scales were compared with long-term and short-term investigations into crocodile population demographics. Total crocodile population size within the study river increased over time (from 18 in 1981 to 35 in 2013), but the number of adults decreased (from 9 to 3). Human population size increased at a rate of 3300 individuals per year and anthropogenically altered habitat increased over time from 24% total coverage attributable to farmland on the banks of the Mutale River in 1977, to 66% land coverage in 2013. Increases in humaninduced habitat alterations also created shifts in preferred crocodilian habitat availability. Investigations into the effects of natural disturbances revealed that physiochemistry was seasonally variable, and changed drastically with changes in climate and runoff. The macroinvertebrate communities in the Mutale River differed in time and space for a multitude of reasons, including climate change and changes in habitat. The results of my study showed that Nile crocodiles were affected by alterations to the environment on multiple scales. The study concludes that the long-term population viability of C. niloticus is limited by a combination of these factors.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1911. / Includes the t.-p. of the original issue. Includes bibliographical references (p. 104) Also available on the Internet. Also issued online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1911. / Includes the t.p. of the original issue. Includes bibliographical references (p. 104).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Leiden University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [109]-128).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2008. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on July 7, 2009) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Leiden University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [109]-128).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1911. / Includes the t.p. of the original issue. Includes bibliographical references (p. 104).

This thesis is concerned with the relationships that develop between humans, birds of prey, prey animals and their environments in the practice of falconry. Falconry is a hunting practice in which humans and birds of prey develop a hunting companionship through which they learn to hunt in cooperation. Described by falconers as a way of life, falconry practice and the relationship to their birds take on a crucial role in their everyday lives. The research is based on fieldwork carried out over a period of three years largely in the UK, with shorter fieldtrips to Germany and Italy. Falconry practice raises many interesting questions about human-animal sociality and identity formation. Through the practice falconers learn how to 'lure' a bird into a relationship, as birds of prey cannot be forced to hunt and cooperate. When hunting the abilities of birds of prey are seen to be superior to those of the human being who becomes – if skilful enough – an assisting hunting companion. The careful attention necessary to establish a bonded relationship between falconer and falconry bird demands practices particular to falconry and involves a highly complex set of knowledge practices and methods. The establishment of this relationship depends on a fine balance between independence and dependence as well as wildness and tameness of the falconry bird that cannot be understood through conceptualising notions of 'the wild' and 'the tame' (or 'the domesticated') as opposites. Rather, the becoming of falcons and falconers through the practice allows moments of transformation of beings that resist familiar categories. This study of falconry challenges an anthropocentric mode of anthropological inquiry as it demands to open up the traditional focus of anthropology to also include nonhuman animals and to consider meaning making, sociality and knowledge production as co-constituted through the activities of humans and nonhuman animals. I focus on the practices involved in taming, training and hunting with birds of prey as well as in domestic breeding, arguing that it is important to see both humans and birds as well as predator and prey as active participants in mutually constitutive learning relationships. Focussing on processes of emergence in both becoming falconers and becoming falconry birds I develop the notion of beings-in-the-making, in order to emphasise that humans and birds grow in relation to each other through the co-responsive engagement in which they are involved. I further show how humans and nonhuman animals relate to the environment within which they engage, in which movements and forces of the weather play a central role. I use the term weathering to refer to the ways the weather influences the movements of human and nonhuman animals as well as being a medium of perception in which they are immersed. The landscape and the sky above are here not to be understood as two separate spheres divided by an interface but rather as caught up in a continuous process of transformation in which the lay of the land and the currents of the air are co-constituted. Finally, I suggest the perspective of creaturely ways to describe a mode of sociality that is constituted beyond the purely human sphere of interaction and to show that the sense of identity and belonging of both falconers and birds is not delineated by a fixed species identity but rather emerges out of the experiences and relationships that each living being develops throughout its life. Creaturely ways thus involves a focus on questions of ontogeny rather than ontology, which is crucial for understanding the mutually constitutive processes of meaning making, becoming and knowing in which falconers and falconry birds are involved. Through exploring the complex relationships involved in falconry practice and the consideration of humans and birds as active participants within them, this thesis makes an original contribution to anthropological studies of human-animal relationships. It further contributes to the development of a notion of more-thanhuman sociality that reaches beyond the idea of the social as confined to members of the same species. Moreover, the study contributes to the anthropology of learning and enskilment through analysing processes of knowledge making in their constitutive influence on the development of human and nonhuman ways of becoming. It further contributes to studies on the perception of the environment through considering the practitioner's perception and experience of the weather and currents of the air as they interplay with the ground below. Finally, this study makes a contribution to the as yet little studied field of 'modern' hunting practices and suggests a more nuanced approach of understanding the relationships of predator and prey they involve.

My dissertation is on foundational questions about the value of human beings. This is a Kantian topic but I develop a proposal in a non-Kantian framework. I argue that to be a Kantian in ethics is to be committed to rationalism, but that the foundations of ethics should take account of the nature of human beings and our circumstances in the world. I develop a non-Kantian theory in which the value of human beings is no different, metaphysically speaking, from the value of other valuable things. Human beings have value, just as anything of value has value: because we are capable of being good-for something or someone. Most fundamentally, I argue that we are capable of being good-for ourselves. I propose that human beings have value in virtue of a capacity for having final ends, and that the capacity for having final ends makes us valuable because it makes us capable of living a good life, a life that is valuable because it is good-for the person who leads it. I show how the value of human beings gives everyone reason to treat human beings in certain ways. In particular, I show how everyone has reason not to destroy the capacity of human beings to have final ends, and, more positively, to help others realise their ends.

The present investigation is concerned with the relation between environmental factors and the ability to transfer. Although many studies in the past have shown that differences in environment result in differences in I.Q., as measured by conventional intelligence tests, there has been less research measuring environmental effects on learning and transfer abilities. The typical approachof studies which deal with either differences in intelligence, or in learning and transfer abilities, has been to select subjects from different environments and, by testing, demonstrate significant differences in the ability in question. Using this method, the results invariably favor subjects from whichever is the "better" environment in the study. The present study treats environment as an independant variable, holding I.Q. constant, and attempts to show differences in transfer ability, the dependent variable, under these conditions. On the basis of the theoretical considerations and empirical results reviewed below, it was hypothesized that, with I.Q. held constant,children raised in a "restricted" environment would show greater facility for transfer than children from a "free" environment. [...]