Valerius Geist
Valerius Geist was a German-Canadian biologist and a professor emeritus in the Faculty of Environmental Design at the University of Calgary. He was a specialist on the biology, behavior, and social dynamics of North American large mammals, as well as on Neanderthal people and behaviour.
Biography
He was born on February 2, 1938, in Nikolajew at the coast of the Black Sea, then part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the USSR. Both parents, Olga Geist and Alexander Shutov, were naval engineers specializing in marine architecture. In 1943, probably considered as Black Sea Germans, he and his mother, aunt and grandmother, had to flee from Russia to Germany. After 10 years growing up in Austria and Germany, he immigrated to Canada in 1953, the same year his German-born wife arrived in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island. Renate née Brall. received her Bachelor of Science degree in Bacteriology and Biology from the University of British Columbia in 1959, later a Bachelor degree in Education, teaching German, among others at Mount Royal College. She translated volumes 3 and 10 of Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia into English.Valerius Geist graduated from high school in Regina, Saskatchewan in 1957 and started to study zoology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, where he met his wife in 1958. They married on May 20th 1961, had three children, and stayed usually in Port Alberni, where Renate's relatives lived. Valerius Geist earned a B.Sc. in zoology, and Ph.D. in zoology, both from the University of British Columbia. The family went in 1967 to Germany on a post-doctoral fellowship awarded to Valerius, and he completed his postdoctoral studies in Seewiesen at the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology under Konrad Lorenz. His doctoral thesis was titled On the behaviour and evolution of American mountain sheep.
The Geists returned to Canada in 1968 where Valerius accepted a position at the University of Calgary. Since 1977, he has taught at the University of Calgary, where he was a founding member and first Program Director of Environmental Science in the Faculty of Environmental Design. He resided on Vancouver Island, B.C.
Valerius Geist passed away on July 6, 2021 after suffering from diabetes and a heart-attack.
Scientific and public work
Valerius Geist is known for his scientific research on the behavior and population biology of many wild ungulate species and canids. He also acted as an expert witness in many areas, including animal behavior, environmental policy, native treaties, wildlife law enforcement and policy, and wildlife/vehicle collisions cases in the United States and Canada. He testified on wildlife conservation policy in court, before Senate of the State of Montana and before the Parliamentary Committee on Environment, and Sustainable Development in Ottawa.Ungulates
After a period of supporting the keeping of game in ranches as a way to use the animals while protecting them, he warned that Alberta's government's recommendation to keep deer in enclosures was a mistake both scientifically and economically. When calamities caused by disease and the collapse of the market forced many ranchers to slaughter their animals and close their farms, this was confirmed.Wolves
Geist became an outspoken commentator on wolves and recognized them as dangerous predators to humans. He was of the opinion that wolves are most likely to fulfill their ecological function in unpopulated and very thinly populated areas. His publications on wolves include as topics also the development of great shyness towards humans by hunting, hybridization with coyotes, where distribution areas of both species overlap, hybridization with domestic dogs in areas populated by humans, and diseases spread by wolves, for example the dog tapeworm, whose larval stages lead to Hydatid disease in herbivores and humans.In his lectures and writings he pointed out that wolves cause serious damage to wildlife and that they cause great suffering to wild ungulates such as white-tailed deer, elk, and bison by condemning them to a slow, agonising death when they are torn.
The paradigm of the self-regulation of nature is, according to his findings, a simple-minded intellectual error. The mechanisms of negative feedback assumed in this concept would not work like this in nature, but self-reinforcing effects would lead to a decline in biodiversity. With active wildlife management and care, humans can achieve a much greater biodiversity and productivity of ecosystems. Humans can save the game the brutality of getting torn by wolves. Hunters practicing ethical hunting would treat game far more humanely than "nature" does.
Geist's seven stages before wolves attack people
Regarding the behavior of wolves towards human beings he described seven steps from strong shyness and avoiding the nearness of the human, then searching anthropogenic food sources and habituation, then possible explorative attacks, in which they only approach, up to predatory attacks on people, that usually take place only under the precondition that the seven steps described by him are passed through. He became involved in the inquiry surrounding the Death of Kenton Joel Carnegie in November 2005 at Wollaston Lake in Saskatchewan, Canada. Geist expressed growing concern as wolves began to follow his wife outside their home on Vancouver Island and threaten her safety. When wolves appear friendly, they are simply examining the menu. He was openly critical of the myth that wolves do not attack people and observed that Joseph Stalin promulgated this Big Lie in his effort to disarm the rural population which had traditionally kept firearms for protection.The seven stages leading to an attack on people by wolves, according to Valerius Geist, paraphrased:
- The first signs are deer, stags and other prey animals that increasingly arrive in villages or cities, fleeing from the wolf into urban areas
- In the second phase, wolves follow their prey and approach human dwellings, especially at night. This can be recognized, among other things, by dogs barking restlessly, or howls of wolves even during daytime
- According to Valerius Geist, stage three begins when the wolves also show themselves during daylight, observing people, approaching buildings
- In phase four the presence of wolves can no longer be overlooked. They attack dogs and small farm animals even during the day, even if they are in close proximity to houses. They appear on terraces and in gardens, establishing their territory.
- In stage five, attacks on large farm animals increase: In this phase, for example, riders are surrounded and pursued or larger farm animals such as cattle are injured. They are found with ears torn off, tails cut in half or genitals mutilated. Wolves approach houses, mount verandas and look into windows and open doors.
- Stage six is reached when wolves examine people as potential new kind of prey, appearing to be tame in the immediate vicinity of people. They nudge walkers with their noses, tug on clothing or even pinch the arm. They can be driven away by screaming and waving, but they don't run far. Everything seems playful, but they are testing how humans behave when attacked, what kind of claws and teeth these skinny bears have. They still withdraw when confronted, but defend kills by moving towards people, growling and barking.
- In the opinion of Valerius Geist, the climax of the escalation has been reached at level seven when wolves have lost their fear of humans and attack. As they are still inexperienced and a bit clumsy, persons may still be able to defend themselves against a single wolf, but even armed men have few chances against an entire pack than can take down big bears.
Paleozoology
Geist's interest in Neanderthal people was captured in a National Geographic article suggesting that Neanderthal may not have learned to throw, supported by their hunting methods. He noted the likely possibility that they engaged in cannibalism, and that they may have actually ranched children from other tribes for food. He suggested that ancient cave art was more likely to be graffiti, left by young men who dared one another to go deep into the earth to make their marks. In this, he strongly supported R. Dale Guthrie's published views "The Nature of Paleolithic Art", 2006.