Assignment 11

Please read Chapter 12, A Fur Management System.

Please read Chapter 11, Alternatives to Integrated Pest Management.

These are controversial areas, denied by some as part of the wildlife field. Once an increaser discipline, these seem to be reducer areas.

Test whether "vertebrate animal damage management" is the proper phrase for what a reasonable manager with your background of the course would call the activity.

Write a sentence or 2 showing that you know the difference between injury and damage.

Notice that we have backed into the course, leaving faunal space and population analysis until the last. Most such courses treat these topics exclusively, leaving the main portions of our course to discussions and generalizations. You will find, I predict, little use for population estimation and for habitat analyses at your level of management and professional attainment. You need to be able to evaluate proposals and ask hard questions but the details need to be left to specialists. If you want to become a specialist, then do so. The concepts presented in the nest chapters will acquaint you with the major ideas. As in statistics, so much depends on the problem and the specifics of accuracy and confidence required. Unless you are working with a disease vector or an endangered species, the super sophistication of most estimators and the accuracy said to be required for vegetation surveys is almost absurd. (Few of you will work with such species. Betting on it is like preparing to play for the Celtics, one of my gripes with the conservation biology sect.) Study and think through the philosophy of the next assigned chapters. By all means take habitat and population courses following this course. I plan to continue to add to the web site and there you may find additional insights and answers to problems in the future. I cannot emphasize continued learning enough.

Read the first section of Chapter 8, an introduction to populations. Note that the structure, dynamics, and relations it like the words of the definition. Learn the key words, the dimensions of structure. If you have time, start work on the third section of this chapter.

This Web site is maintained by R. H. Giles, Jr.
Last revision January 17, 2000.