At a time when it has become increasingly common to read news stories about a fire-lost mountain lion wandering unwittingly into somebody’s living room to take a nap, or wildlife attempting safe passage through human-built corridors and spaces, and at a time when the idea of how to best manage or “protect” natural resources and coexist with vulnerable species seems more fraught than ever before, it is clear that we can no longer easily discern the boundaries between human-made and “natural” worlds, that is, if we ever could—and that the question of what counts as “home,” and for whom, has subsequently become blurred.

At Home in the Anthropocene, published in 2022 with The Ohio State University Press, tells a set of wildlife stories focused on the question of “what counts as home” in an age of climate change, or climate crisis—or at a time when the ecosystems that vulnerable species call home are constantly in flux for reasons related to predominantly anthropogenic forces.

The stories each highlight posthuman interventions into the lives of vulnerable species, with a focus on how such interventions can foster empathetic, compassionate conservation practice, and how they can create, constrain, shape, refashion, or call into question ideas about coexisting with our vulnerable kin, and what counts as home in Anthropocene times. The stories consider, for instance, the practice of wildlife rehabilitation; responses to recent increases in human encounters with our more-than-human kin, especially related to mountain lion and black bear encounters in areas of significant human use; and the creation of wildlife corridors, or “bands of forest habitat that are large and intact enough that they provide animals with an important bridge between larger blocks of habitat” (Stowe Land Trust), understanding these corridors as reflective of the value systems, lenses, and infrastructures that inform decision-making about our relationships with and perceived responsibilities to our more-than-human kin at a moment of destabilizing ecologies.

This project first aired during my April 2019 visit to Oregon State University, where I discussed some of my work on animal encounters and wildlife corridors at the Critical Questions Lecture Series, in a presentation titled “What Counts as Home in the Anthropocene?”