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Papers by Toni Frohoff

Dolphin Exploitation and Suffering at SeaWorld Parks: Report, 2019

Dolphins at SeaWorld are confined to artificial, highly unnatural environments that prevent them ... more Dolphins at SeaWorld are confined to artificial, highly unnatural environments that prevent them from performing even the most basic, biologically driven behavior and routinely expose them to damaging psychological trauma, social stress, and physical injury. Their well-being is compromised when they are exposed to excessive anthropogenic noise and harassment from crowds of park visitors and confined to severely crowded, barren enclosures that offer them no means of physical or visual escape and thwart their natural use of sonar. Housing them in such conditions not only is detrimental to their health and well-being but also sends the harmful message to the public that confining them, repeatedly harassing them, and depriving them of everything natural and important to them is acceptable—a message that can stifle compassion in park visitors and confound good conservation efforts.

Conference on Compassionate Conservation, 2015

In certain coastal areas of the world, humans and non-human coastal systems and species including... more In certain coastal areas of the world, humans and non-human coastal systems and species including marine mammals, live within a general trend of thriving and even at times, mutually collaborative cohabitation. In these areas, awareness increases among fishermen, ferry and tour boat operators, leisure boaters, farmers and other human residents as to impacts of their activities on coastal habitats, with some pro-actively taking measures to protect marine life. In some regions, orcas and bottlenose dolphins regularly approach, initiate sociable contact, and engage in complex forms of interspecies interaction. Exploring such examples reveals the roots of a continuum of positive cohabitation, ranging from neutral, passive co-existence, to active sometimes mutual collaboration. Cohabitation research combines ecological, biological, and behavioral data as evidence of coastal system thriving, and interviews with human residents to understand relevant perceptions, attitudes, influences, and experiences. In this initial phase of research, we present preliminary comparisons between a relatively thriving area in the Hebrides, Scotland with the Indian River Lagoon, Florida, an area of marine ecological collapse. Inspired by the late Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom, who developed eight design principles for common pool resources through numerous cross-comparisons, we plan to uncover practical commonalities of positive cohabitation, allowing for variability in how each area thrives. These results can be applied, taught, promoted, and reinforced, as Ostrom’s have, through education, conservation, and government efforts towards protecting coastal communities. Ostrom’s Law states that “a resource arrangement that works in practice can work in theory”; cohabitation research learns from real relationships, which can guide the rich theoretical work on social & ecological systems, re-thinking the human/nature divide. Conservation efforts, justifiably, tend to focus on negative cohabitation, and yet positive cohabitation as a model to study and replicate is a neglected research area. Models of positive cohabitation inform conservation and wellbeing studies for humans and other species, as the ties that bind involve a unique dependence on mutual thriving.

International Congress of Conservation Biology, 2012

Wildlife management falls into the rapidly advancing field of human-animal relations. Three const... more Wildlife management falls into the rapidly advancing field of human-animal relations. Three constructs in the social sciences have recently been applied to this arena, making them relevant to consider in wildlife management practices. Research on animal language, cognition and abilities has facilitated applications of these theories or constructs. Social exchange theory, the capabilities approach, and post-traumatic stress disorder all arose originally from human-centered studies, but now apply to animals and human-animal relationships. Each of these theories has important insights, which may inform gray wolf (Canis lupus) conservation, especially when marred by human-wolf conflict. The first from Anthropology explains the reciprocality in human-animal relationships, the second from Philosophy and Economics recommends understanding wellbeing as the ability to express one’s capacities (both for humans and wolves), and the third from Psychology speaks to the injuries that result from violence or from witnessing injury or death. We will examine a particular case study of wolf conservation in the Yellowstone National Park area and draw both critique and strategies from these theories.

The Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity, 2020

Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, 1995

Thesis (M.S.)--Texas A & M University, 1993. Includes bibliographical references (p. 113-129). Ph... more Thesis (M.S.)--Texas A & M University, 1993. Includes bibliographical references (p. 113-129). Photocopy.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

The relative importance of expression and symbolic content in acoustic communication of cetaceans... more The relative importance of expression and symbolic content in acoustic communication of cetaceans has been debated. These topics may be examined by observing how general rates of vocalizations change with excitatory state and how specific vocalizations vary independently of state and depend upon content. In this study, whistles (0.32 to 22 kHz) of two captive bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) were recorded underwater before, during, and after six swim sessions in which the behavior of the dolphins and four human swimmers was controlled by a trainer on the dock. Sonograms of 205 min of recorded whistles were analyzed. Variation of whistle‐type and rate was observed relative to the three contexts. The contours of distinguishable whistles (n=591) revealed 32 types. Ten types were observed during one context only; during the swim sessions. Almost half of the whistle types (15 to 32) were more likely to occur prior to swim sessions and the others were more likely during swim sessi...

Talks by Toni Frohoff

Dr. Tema Milstein is a Presidential Teaching Fellow at the University of New Mexico, author of ma... more Dr. Tema Milstein is a Presidential Teaching Fellow at the University of New Mexico, author of many groundbreaking works, and we are fortunate to have her as a Sonar collaborator. In this talk at the Santa Fe Institute, Tema speaks about the human/nature binary and how this is held in place with the words we use.

Drawing from her time studying the whale and dolphin-watching industry in locations around the word, she discusses how this industry forms a microcosm of human-nature relations – providing sites where people actively perform and at times entrench their perception and relations with the more-than-human world. She coined the term performer metaphor, identifying one of the ways that westernized people tend to speak and think about nature using an entertainment metaphor. This is applied to everything non-human, including the inanimate: from whales to flowers to storms.

As a way of identifying “the limits of our stories” – our culturally-ascribed understandings of the nonhuman world – Tema refers to those ineffable moments of connection with other animals that leave people literally without words. These moments illustrate “the boundaries of our ecocultural toolbox”, revealing ways that we can, and perhaps ought to, probe, challenge and dismantle these boundaries.

Tema’s fascinating work demonstrates how communication directly affects our perception of the more-than-human world and mediates our relations with other animals. Her explorations open up a new realm of possibilities as we entertain relational alternatives, and as we begin to listen to whales and dolphins as being storytellers themselves.

Books by Toni Frohoff

Upcoming Book: Composing Worlds with Elephants: Interdisciplinary Dialogues

by Tema Milstein, José Castro-Sotomayor, Laura Bridgeman, David Abram, Melissa M Parks, Mariko O Thomas, Elizabeth Oriel, Toni Frohoff, Jeffrey Hoffmann, Casper G Bendixsen, Jessica Love-Nichols, Emma Frances Bloomfield, Charles Carlin, Eric Karikari, Godfried Asante, Dakota Raynes, Shilpa Dahake, Joe Quick, Gabriela Méndez Cota, Carrie Packwood Freeman, and Rebecca Banham

Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity, 2020

The Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity (2020) is a timely book, as across the globe more ... more The Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity (2020) is a timely book, as across the globe more and more of us awake to our always interconnected selves. The Handbook brings the ecological turn to sociocultural understandings of self and group identities, introducing an interdisciplinary, insightful assembly of original theory and research on planetary positionalities in flux in the Anthropocene – or what in this Handbook cultural ecologist David Abram presciently renames the Humilocene, a new “epoch of humility.” Forty international authors craft a kaleidoscopic lens, focusing on ways all identities are ecocultural and on the multiple and unspooling ways identities evolve and transform and, in so doing, may support reciprocal surviving and thriving.

Paperback out June 2022: 20% cost of hardback +20% off w/ code FLE22 ordering through Routledge.

Introduction chapter, table of contents, and endorsements are posted here. More, including editor bios and authors, can be found at this Routledge link: https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Handbook-of-Ecocultural-Identity/Milstein-Castro-Sotomayor/p/book/9781138478411. Please help share the Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity among your networks. And please ask your libraries to purchase the book (or put it on their to-buy lists if budgets have been temporarily frozen due to Covid). The Handbook is an important resource for our times for scholars, teachers, students, protectors, policy-makers, and practitioners. The editors, Tema Milstein and José Castro-Sotomayor, are available for Q&A, interviews, guest commentary, talks, etc. Thanks for your interest and for helping to spread word!

What has been said about the Handbook:
“Intricately transdisciplinary and cross-geographical, it is the first volume of its kind to caringly craft a gathering concept, that of ecocultural identities, bringing together the social, political, and ecological dimensions of identity. What results is a treasure of insights on the politics of life, broadly speaking, and a novel toolbox for tackling effectively the damages caused by modern capitalist modes of extraction and the urgent task of Earth’s ontological repair and renewal.”
Arturo Escobar, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

“Too often mislabelled an ‘issue,’ the environment is in fact integral not just to everything we do but to who we are. This link between our identity and our ecology has long been recognised in many societies, but others seem to have forgotten its signal importance. This superb collection shows why all identities are ecocultural ones, and why full recognition of this is essential to all our political futures.”
Noel Castree, University of Manchester

“A smart, provocative, and original collection, the Handbook of Ecocultural Identity provides a definitive introduction to the constraints upon, and the contexts, formations, and impacts of, our diverse – but often unexamined – ecological selves.”
Robert Cox, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and three-time national president of the Sierra Club

“I am in complete solidarity with this book.”
Donna Haraway, University of California, Santa Cruz

Conference Presentations by Toni Frohoff

Paper Presented at the International Congress for Conservation Biology, Baltimore, MD, 2013

Wildlife management falls into the rapidly advancing field of human-animal relations. Three const... more Wildlife management falls into the rapidly advancing field of human-animal relations. Three constructs in the social sciences have recently been applied to this arena, making them relevant to consider in wildlife management practices. Research on animal language, cognition, and abilities has facilitated applications of these theories or constructs. Social exchange theory, the capabilities approach, and post-traumatic stress disorder all arose originally from human-centered studies but now apply to animals and human-animal relationships. Each of these theories has important insights, which may inform gray wolf (Canis lupus) conservation, especially when marred by human-wolf conflict. The first from Anthropology explains the reciprocality in human-animal relationships, the second from Philosophy and Economics recommends understanding wellbeing as the ability to express one’s capacities (both for humans and wolves), and the third from Psychology speaks to the injuries that result from violence or from witnessing injury or death. We will examine a particular case study of wolf conservation in the Yellowstone National Park area and draw both critique and strategies from these theories.

Poster presented at the International Congress for Conservation Biology, Edmonton, Alberta , 2010

Historically, conservation focuses on the scale of populations and species. However, there has be... more Historically, conservation focuses on the scale of populations and species. However, there has been a growing awareness of the social and ecological key roles that individuals play. Further, concerns for animal welfare bring ethical attention. It is therefore no longer ethically nor practically cogent to ignore factors such as individual well-being in conservation design and monitoring. Drawing from a literature review and interviews with seal researchers, rehabilitation care-givers, and a veterinarian, we introduce and discuss well-being as a core concept for the conservation of harbor seals. We use a working definition of well-being as "integrity of form, function, the ability to strive and utilize one's abilities" as a backdrop to this synthesis of the natural behavioral repertoire and characteristics of harbor seals. This definition can aid in decisions that concern coastal and oceanic environmental policy, laws that govern how humans treat marine mammals in captivity, rehabilitation, and in the wild, and in any actions that impact harbor seal individuals and colonies.

Dolphin Exploitation and Suffering at SeaWorld Parks: Report, 2019

Dolphins at SeaWorld are confined to artificial, highly unnatural environments that prevent them ... more Dolphins at SeaWorld are confined to artificial, highly unnatural environments that prevent them from performing even the most basic, biologically driven behavior and routinely expose them to damaging psychological trauma, social stress, and physical injury. Their well-being is compromised when they are exposed to excessive anthropogenic noise and harassment from crowds of park visitors and confined to severely crowded, barren enclosures that offer them no means of physical or visual escape and thwart their natural use of sonar. Housing them in such conditions not only is detrimental to their health and well-being but also sends the harmful message to the public that confining them, repeatedly harassing them, and depriving them of everything natural and important to them is acceptable—a message that can stifle compassion in park visitors and confound good conservation efforts.

Conference on Compassionate Conservation, 2015

In certain coastal areas of the world, humans and non-human coastal systems and species including... more In certain coastal areas of the world, humans and non-human coastal systems and species including marine mammals, live within a general trend of thriving and even at times, mutually collaborative cohabitation. In these areas, awareness increases among fishermen, ferry and tour boat operators, leisure boaters, farmers and other human residents as to impacts of their activities on coastal habitats, with some pro-actively taking measures to protect marine life. In some regions, orcas and bottlenose dolphins regularly approach, initiate sociable contact, and engage in complex forms of interspecies interaction. Exploring such examples reveals the roots of a continuum of positive cohabitation, ranging from neutral, passive co-existence, to active sometimes mutual collaboration. Cohabitation research combines ecological, biological, and behavioral data as evidence of coastal system thriving, and interviews with human residents to understand relevant perceptions, attitudes, influences, and experiences. In this initial phase of research, we present preliminary comparisons between a relatively thriving area in the Hebrides, Scotland with the Indian River Lagoon, Florida, an area of marine ecological collapse. Inspired by the late Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom, who developed eight design principles for common pool resources through numerous cross-comparisons, we plan to uncover practical commonalities of positive cohabitation, allowing for variability in how each area thrives. These results can be applied, taught, promoted, and reinforced, as Ostrom’s have, through education, conservation, and government efforts towards protecting coastal communities. Ostrom’s Law states that “a resource arrangement that works in practice can work in theory”; cohabitation research learns from real relationships, which can guide the rich theoretical work on social & ecological systems, re-thinking the human/nature divide. Conservation efforts, justifiably, tend to focus on negative cohabitation, and yet positive cohabitation as a model to study and replicate is a neglected research area. Models of positive cohabitation inform conservation and wellbeing studies for humans and other species, as the ties that bind involve a unique dependence on mutual thriving.

International Congress of Conservation Biology, 2012

Wildlife management falls into the rapidly advancing field of human-animal relations. Three const... more Wildlife management falls into the rapidly advancing field of human-animal relations. Three constructs in the social sciences have recently been applied to this arena, making them relevant to consider in wildlife management practices. Research on animal language, cognition and abilities has facilitated applications of these theories or constructs. Social exchange theory, the capabilities approach, and post-traumatic stress disorder all arose originally from human-centered studies, but now apply to animals and human-animal relationships. Each of these theories has important insights, which may inform gray wolf (Canis lupus) conservation, especially when marred by human-wolf conflict. The first from Anthropology explains the reciprocality in human-animal relationships, the second from Philosophy and Economics recommends understanding wellbeing as the ability to express one’s capacities (both for humans and wolves), and the third from Psychology speaks to the injuries that result from violence or from witnessing injury or death. We will examine a particular case study of wolf conservation in the Yellowstone National Park area and draw both critique and strategies from these theories.

The Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity, 2020

Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, 1995

Thesis (M.S.)--Texas A & M University, 1993. Includes bibliographical references (p. 113-129). Ph... more Thesis (M.S.)--Texas A & M University, 1993. Includes bibliographical references (p. 113-129). Photocopy.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

The relative importance of expression and symbolic content in acoustic communication of cetaceans... more The relative importance of expression and symbolic content in acoustic communication of cetaceans has been debated. These topics may be examined by observing how general rates of vocalizations change with excitatory state and how specific vocalizations vary independently of state and depend upon content. In this study, whistles (0.32 to 22 kHz) of two captive bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) were recorded underwater before, during, and after six swim sessions in which the behavior of the dolphins and four human swimmers was controlled by a trainer on the dock. Sonograms of 205 min of recorded whistles were analyzed. Variation of whistle‐type and rate was observed relative to the three contexts. The contours of distinguishable whistles (n=591) revealed 32 types. Ten types were observed during one context only; during the swim sessions. Almost half of the whistle types (15 to 32) were more likely to occur prior to swim sessions and the others were more likely during swim sessi...

Dr. Tema Milstein is a Presidential Teaching Fellow at the University of New Mexico, author of ma... more Dr. Tema Milstein is a Presidential Teaching Fellow at the University of New Mexico, author of many groundbreaking works, and we are fortunate to have her as a Sonar collaborator. In this talk at the Santa Fe Institute, Tema speaks about the human/nature binary and how this is held in place with the words we use.

Drawing from her time studying the whale and dolphin-watching industry in locations around the word, she discusses how this industry forms a microcosm of human-nature relations – providing sites where people actively perform and at times entrench their perception and relations with the more-than-human world. She coined the term performer metaphor, identifying one of the ways that westernized people tend to speak and think about nature using an entertainment metaphor. This is applied to everything non-human, including the inanimate: from whales to flowers to storms.

As a way of identifying “the limits of our stories” – our culturally-ascribed understandings of the nonhuman world – Tema refers to those ineffable moments of connection with other animals that leave people literally without words. These moments illustrate “the boundaries of our ecocultural toolbox”, revealing ways that we can, and perhaps ought to, probe, challenge and dismantle these boundaries.

Tema’s fascinating work demonstrates how communication directly affects our perception of the more-than-human world and mediates our relations with other animals. Her explorations open up a new realm of possibilities as we entertain relational alternatives, and as we begin to listen to whales and dolphins as being storytellers themselves.

Upcoming Book: Composing Worlds with Elephants: Interdisciplinary Dialogues

by Tema Milstein, José Castro-Sotomayor, Laura Bridgeman, David Abram, Melissa M Parks, Mariko O Thomas, Elizabeth Oriel, Toni Frohoff, Jeffrey Hoffmann, Casper G Bendixsen, Jessica Love-Nichols, Emma Frances Bloomfield, Charles Carlin, Eric Karikari, Godfried Asante, Dakota Raynes, Shilpa Dahake, Joe Quick, Gabriela Méndez Cota, Carrie Packwood Freeman, and Rebecca Banham

Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity, 2020

The Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity (2020) is a timely book, as across the globe more ... more The Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity (2020) is a timely book, as across the globe more and more of us awake to our always interconnected selves. The Handbook brings the ecological turn to sociocultural understandings of self and group identities, introducing an interdisciplinary, insightful assembly of original theory and research on planetary positionalities in flux in the Anthropocene – or what in this Handbook cultural ecologist David Abram presciently renames the Humilocene, a new “epoch of humility.” Forty international authors craft a kaleidoscopic lens, focusing on ways all identities are ecocultural and on the multiple and unspooling ways identities evolve and transform and, in so doing, may support reciprocal surviving and thriving.

Paperback out June 2022: 20% cost of hardback +20% off w/ code FLE22 ordering through Routledge.

Introduction chapter, table of contents, and endorsements are posted here. More, including editor bios and authors, can be found at this Routledge link: https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Handbook-of-Ecocultural-Identity/Milstein-Castro-Sotomayor/p/book/9781138478411. Please help share the Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity among your networks. And please ask your libraries to purchase the book (or put it on their to-buy lists if budgets have been temporarily frozen due to Covid). The Handbook is an important resource for our times for scholars, teachers, students, protectors, policy-makers, and practitioners. The editors, Tema Milstein and José Castro-Sotomayor, are available for Q&A, interviews, guest commentary, talks, etc. Thanks for your interest and for helping to spread word!

What has been said about the Handbook:
“Intricately transdisciplinary and cross-geographical, it is the first volume of its kind to caringly craft a gathering concept, that of ecocultural identities, bringing together the social, political, and ecological dimensions of identity. What results is a treasure of insights on the politics of life, broadly speaking, and a novel toolbox for tackling effectively the damages caused by modern capitalist modes of extraction and the urgent task of Earth’s ontological repair and renewal.”
Arturo Escobar, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

“Too often mislabelled an ‘issue,’ the environment is in fact integral not just to everything we do but to who we are. This link between our identity and our ecology has long been recognised in many societies, but others seem to have forgotten its signal importance. This superb collection shows why all identities are ecocultural ones, and why full recognition of this is essential to all our political futures.”
Noel Castree, University of Manchester

“A smart, provocative, and original collection, the Handbook of Ecocultural Identity provides a definitive introduction to the constraints upon, and the contexts, formations, and impacts of, our diverse – but often unexamined – ecological selves.”
Robert Cox, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and three-time national president of the Sierra Club

“I am in complete solidarity with this book.”
Donna Haraway, University of California, Santa Cruz

Paper Presented at the International Congress for Conservation Biology, Baltimore, MD, 2013

Wildlife management falls into the rapidly advancing field of human-animal relations. Three const... more Wildlife management falls into the rapidly advancing field of human-animal relations. Three constructs in the social sciences have recently been applied to this arena, making them relevant to consider in wildlife management practices. Research on animal language, cognition, and abilities has facilitated applications of these theories or constructs. Social exchange theory, the capabilities approach, and post-traumatic stress disorder all arose originally from human-centered studies but now apply to animals and human-animal relationships. Each of these theories has important insights, which may inform gray wolf (Canis lupus) conservation, especially when marred by human-wolf conflict. The first from Anthropology explains the reciprocality in human-animal relationships, the second from Philosophy and Economics recommends understanding wellbeing as the ability to express one’s capacities (both for humans and wolves), and the third from Psychology speaks to the injuries that result from violence or from witnessing injury or death. We will examine a particular case study of wolf conservation in the Yellowstone National Park area and draw both critique and strategies from these theories.

Poster presented at the International Congress for Conservation Biology, Edmonton, Alberta , 2010

Historically, conservation focuses on the scale of populations and species. However, there has be... more Historically, conservation focuses on the scale of populations and species. However, there has been a growing awareness of the social and ecological key roles that individuals play. Further, concerns for animal welfare bring ethical attention. It is therefore no longer ethically nor practically cogent to ignore factors such as individual well-being in conservation design and monitoring. Drawing from a literature review and interviews with seal researchers, rehabilitation care-givers, and a veterinarian, we introduce and discuss well-being as a core concept for the conservation of harbor seals. We use a working definition of well-being as "integrity of form, function, the ability to strive and utilize one's abilities" as a backdrop to this synthesis of the natural behavioral repertoire and characteristics of harbor seals. This definition can aid in decisions that concern coastal and oceanic environmental policy, laws that govern how humans treat marine mammals in captivity, rehabilitation, and in the wild, and in any actions that impact harbor seal individuals and colonies.