Animal geography

[citation needed] 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.

They mapped the evolution and movement of species across time and space and also sought to understand how animals adapted to different ecosystems.

[4] By the middle of the 20th century, emerging disciplines such as biology and zoology began taking on the traditional zoogeographic cataloging of species, their distributions, and ecologies.

Two key geographers shaping this wave of animal geography were Carl Sauer and Charles Bennett.

In Sauer's research he focused on the history of domestication, and how human uses of livestock shaped the landscape (via fencing, grazing, and shelters).

Social scientists were reassessing what it means to be a subject and breaking into the black box of nature to explore new understandings of the relations between humans and the rest of the planet.

At the forefront of this third wave of animal geography was Tuan's work on pets in Dominance and Affection[15] and a special topics issue of the journal Environment and Planning D: Society and Space edited by Wolch and Emel.

Elephants have featured most prominently in animal geography, beginning with the work of Whatmore & Thorne on the spatial configurations of wildlife.