Deborah A. Kleese, SUNY/Empire State College, Hudson Valley Center at Middletown, 90 North Street, Middletown, NY 10990, USA

The period of high, or late, modernity has been characterized by a radical reconstruction of both the "natural" and the "social". Many aspects of nature have been modified by human action, so that everything from wetlands to wolves becomes subject to human intervention. The use of increasingly sophisticated technologies, such as molecular genetic techniques to determine genetic variability in wolf populations, and satellite telemetry to monitor movements of wolves , has altered the way we define and understand the species. Recent recovery and reintroduction efforts in the United States further highlight the profound effect that human agency has on the very existence of wolves. This interpenetration of the natural and the social has important impacts for conservation biology; the wolf stands as a particularly vivid case study in the postmodern understanding of components of the natural world.

If, as many postmodern writers assert, there is no single nature, only natures, then the wolf itself becomes a contested social category. Using the notion of contested natures, this paper will discuss the diverse discourses through which the wolf is understood. These discourses are not only salient to the broader public, where the nature of wolves is highly contested, but they also apply to the scientific community, where disputes over such issues as taxonomy and management strategies determine both the present and future understanding of wolf species. It is the contention of this article that if, indeed, wolves, as objects of nature, are subject to human mediation and social construction, then human responsibility for wolf recovery and restoration must be seen as a social phenomenon as well as a natural one. We must, therefore become "mindful" of our social constructions.

As we move beyond the year 2000, characteristics of late modernity become especially relevant for understanding conservation in the next millennium. First, conservation efforts must operate in the territory in-between: nature can no longer be understood as operating solely outside of the social purview, and society, likewise, cannot be regarded as separate from nature. Second, as more and more areas of life move under the control of human agency, we need to rethink the importance of human action for the care and protection of the biophysical world. The existence of other species has been taken out of the realm of the natural and inevitable and has been made the object of human choice and responsibility . Finally, the impact of a globalized present has changed the very nature of conservation; the incredible speed of information, time, and awareness of environmental problems and impacts erodes the boundaries between people, species and their physical environments.