Animal geographies

Animal geography is a subfield of the nature-society/human-environment branch of geography as well as a part of the larger, interdisciplinary umbrella of Human-Animal Studies (HAS). Animal geography is defined as the study of “the complex entangling's of human-animal relations with space, place, location, environment and landscape” or “the study of where, when, why and how nonhuman animals intersect with human societies.” Recent work advances these perspectives to argue about an ecology of relations in which humans and animals are enmeshed, taking seriously the lived spaces of animals themselves and their sentient interactions with not just human but other nonhuman bodies as well. The Animal Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers was founded in 2009 by Monica Ogra and Julie Urbanik. The Animal Geography Research Network was founded in 2011 by Daniel Allen.

The first wave of animal geography, known as zoogeography, came to prominence as a geographic subfield from the late 1800s through the early part of the 20th century. During this time the study of animals was seen as a key part of the discipline and the goal was “the scientific study of animal life with reference to the distribution of animals on the earth and the mutual influence of environment and animals upon each other.” The animals that were the focus of studies were almost exclusively wild animals and zoogeographers were building on the new theories of evolution and natural selection. They mapped the evolution and movement of species across time and space and also sought to understand how animals adapted to different ecosystems."The ambition was to establish general laws of how animals arranged themselves across the earth's surface or, at smaller scales, to establish patterns of spacial co-variation between animals and other environmental factors" Key works include Newbigin’s Animal Geography,Bartholomew, Clarke, and Grimshaw’s Atlas of Zoogeography, and Allee and Schmidt’s Ecological Animal Geography.

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