Kieran Suckling

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Kieran Suckling (b. 1964) is one of the founders of the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit conservation group known for its innovative approach to the protection of endangered species and wilderness. The Center, which has secured protection for over 350 endangered species and 70,000,000 acres (280,000 km²) of habitat in the U.S., has an excellent reputation for its scientific, litigation and media work among those in favor of environmental protection. It regularly comes under fire from logging, mining, livestock and other industries. Suckling founded the Center for Biological Diversity in 1989 along with Peter Galvin, Robin Silver, and Todd Schulke. Suckling served as executive director from 1989 to 2004, policy director from 2005 to 2007, and became the executive director again in February 2008.

Suckling studied computer science at Worcester Polytechnical Institute and obtained a BA in philosophy from the College of the Holy Cross and an MA in philosophy from SUNY Stony Brook. He studied natural language processing as a fellow at the Stanford University's Center for the Study of Language and Information and math at Columbia University. His philosophical work was primarily in phenomenology, hermeneutics, deconstruction, modern philosophy and philosophy of language.

Suckling has published articles assessing trends in conservation of imperiled species, the effectiveness of the Endangered Species Act, the relationship between the loss of linguistic and biological diversity, and the role of plants and animals in human life, language and culture. His most recent philosophical work is an examination of "frog prince" stories in Brothers and Beasts: An Anthology of Men on Fairy Tales.

Suckling married novelist Lydia Millet in 2003. The couple have two young children and live in Tucson, Arizona and Silver City, New Mexico.

Publications

Suckling, K.F. 2000. A House on Fire: Connecting the Biological and Linguistic Diversity Crises. Animal Law 6:193-202.

Suckling, K.F. 2000. Biodiversity, Linguistic Diversity And Identity — toward an ecology of language in an age of extinction. Langscape 17:14-20. www.terralingua.org/Langscape/LS17.pdf

Allen, C.D., M. Savage, D.A. Falk, K.F. Suckling, T.W. Swetnam, T. Schulke, P.B. Stacey, P. Morgan, M. Hoffman, and J. Klingel. 2002. Ecological restoration of southwestern ponderosa pine ecosystems: A broad perspective. Ecological Applications 12(5):1418-1433. wwwpaztcn.wr.usgs.gov/fire/ponderosa_rest.pdf

Suckling, K.F., R. Slack, and B. Nowicki. 2004. Extinction and the Endangered Species Act. Center for Biological Diversity, Tucson, AZ. www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/programs/policy/esa/eesa.html

Taylor, M.F.J., K.F. Suckling and J.J. Rachlinski. 2005. The Effectiveness of the Endangered Species Act: A Quantitative Analysis BioScience 55(4):360-367. www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/programs/policy/ch/sub1.html

Greenwald, D.N., D.C. Crocker-Bedford, L. Broberg, K.F. Suckling, and T. Tibbetts. 2005. A review of northern goshawk habitat selection in the home range and implications for forest management in the western United States. Wildlife Society Bulletin, 33, 120-129.

Greenwald D.N., K.F. Suckling and M.F.J. Taylor. 2006. Factors affecting the rate and taxonomy of species listings under the US Endangered Species Act. In Gobel, D, M.J. Scott and F.W. Davis (eds.) The Endangered Species Act at Thirty: Renewing the Conservation Commitment. Washington (DC): Island Press.

Suckling, K.F. and M.F.J. Taylor. 2006. Critical habitat and recovery. In: Gobel, d., Scott, MJ, Davis, FW. (eds.) The Endangered Species Act at Thirty: Renewing the Conservation Commitment. Island Press, Washington DC. P.76.

Greenwald, D.N., K.F. Suckling and M.F.J. Taylor, 2006. The listing record. In: Gobel, d., Scott, MJ, Davis, FW. (eds.) The Endangered Species Act at Thirty: Renewing the Conservation Commitment. Island Press, Washington DC. P.55.

Suckling, K.F. 2006. Measuring the Success of the Endangered Species Act, Recovery Trends in the Northeastern United States. Center for Biological Diversity, Tucson, AZ.

Suckling, K.F. 2007. Frogs. In: Bernheimer, K. (ed.) Brothers and Beasts: An Anthology of Men on Fairy Tales (Wayne State University Press)

Suckling, K.F. and W. Hodges. 2007. Status of the bald eagle in the Lower 48 states and the District of Columbia. Center for Biological Diversity, Tucson, AZ. http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/birds/bald_eagle/report/index.html