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Wildlife-related activities are engaged in by many individuals and public agencies. There are wildlife professionals in EPA, the Department of Defense, the Department of Agriculture, the Smithsonian, and many organizations and companies. Although the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (U.S. Department of Interior) receives and disperses taxes from hunting arms and ammunition and archery equipment, angling equipment, and boat fuels, a significant part of the agency budget is from the general tax base, i.e., from the general public. The flow has been toward hunters and anglers, not the general public. In about half of the states, wildlife agencies receive public funds that augment those received from hunting and fishing license sales. Increasingly, there is a broadening of interest in fauna and the economic support for its public management.
Note:Pest damage management, a mere shift in emphasis to a declining population and reduced losses or negative benefits, now is in another agency, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, in another Department ... Agriculture End of footnote; tap "Back" in upper left screen
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What is this management of wildlife, all of the creatures in addition to those which are hunted or trapped? It is easy to answer using words such as preserving threatened and endangered faunal species. (There remains indecision about the appropriate agencies and mechanisms for plant preservation.) Relatively, the threatened species are very few and while they need specialized attention, there are equal or greater needs for more benefits to more people over a long period through other species.
Certain creatures become pests (Chapter 11). Some may be game or fur bearing animals but others fall into other categories. These include birds forming roosts that are disturbing or pose disease threats, poisonous snakes, rodents damaging tree seedlings or lawns, bears stripping bark from trees, and deer collisions with autos. Bears may be a game animal as well as a pest. Deer or elk eating seedlings are pests, but also game. A game animal one second before or after the legal hunting season is no longer a game animal (e.g., due to a 2-week-long deer season, there are only about 100 hours a year when these animals are "game"). Animals exist; their classification varies with their actions, influence on people, and local custom. A deer may remain a game animal throughout the year in the minds of all deer hunters.
All fauna can be managed. Objectives, once well defined, can allow decisions about which species or groups, in what sequence and cost, need to be managed to meet estimated demand.
It may be unreasonable to think any agency can (or should) be held responsible for the effective management of all natural ecosystems or communities within a state. Some people argue for very narrow limits to action because of unspecified legal ramifications. Others would argue that sooner or later some agency must address the ecosystem issues, because a total, integrated approach is essential for the well-being of all citizens - and their faunal resource. This is the essence of current ecological wisdom - all creatures are bound to each other. Some bonds are more easily seen than others, but there are bonds nevertheless. Should an agency be responsible for the management of woodcock (Philohela minor) without being able to manage or manipulate its primary food supply - earthworms? Should a state wildlife agency, owning land on which a threatened salamander lives, not give it very special managerial attention? Can wildflowers be preserved without managing for the insect species that are uniquely adapted to pollinate them, insects that require other plants and unique egg-laying sites for their existence? Can certain wildflower glades be protected if wild boars (claimed to be a desirable game animal by some) root through them? Should an agency that licenses hunting by falcons not manage these wild raptors, and how is this done without regard for game birds and mammals, without managing for rabbits and field mice? The interactions are very, very complex. The needs are for natural ecosystem management of a most sophisticated nature. The needs are clear; the potentials are very great; many of the capabilities now exist.
The management of game and other fauna together, eventually the whole system together, can produce more benefits at lower costs than expected from separate management efforts.
The Emerging Problems and Issues
What might a faunal management program do for citizens of the U.S.? What would be the recognizable results? Why even discuss such a topic? There exist widely recognized reasons for managing wildlife. Some people call these benefits, others call them Type-2 or fundamental objectives. See Chapter 4. Whatever they are called, any one or two is reason enough for managing wildlife. Several are important to groups of people; certainly each has a different level of importance to almost each person.
Many benefits have a very wide variety of clients. The same resource that benefits a preservationist also benefits another person interested in supplemental meat for his family. Conflicts among users of the wildlife resource are as much or more than with any other natural resource; they are inherent. Unfortunately there are new issues and conflicts arising. The number as well as the rate increases. There are needs for programs and projects to help solve and reduce these problems.
The problems, with little elaboration on them here, include:
Waste disposal from a dynamic urban environment - solid, sewage, hazardous, and radiation - already influence wildlife, and will become increasingly of concern. Every solution to the waste problem will be impeded by one or more wildlife-related concerns.
These 8 problems can be solved. However, there are needs for forecasting and preplanning, of active citizen involvement in setting objectives and indicating their importance, of action programs, and of education that adjusts expectations to the potentials of the land and that allows people to decide on tolerable trade-offs in the above areas. Where education fails, there are needs for incentives and penalties through an effective law enforcement and courts system. New attention needs to be paid to cost effectiveness of faunal management programs to assure that citizens are getting what they decide they want for the lowest possible costs. New interagency coordination, cooperation, and legislation to assure joint efforts and high net benefits. The tasks are enormous.
Current activities with the "other" wildlife include: (1) reflecting on its care and protection, (2) birdwatching, (3) bird feeding, (4) nature observation and walks, (5) camping to experience wildlife, (6) photographing wildlife, (7) art work - sketching, painting, and carving, and many others.
Faunal agencies, organizations, and individuals do the following:
Other projects include:
The variety of activities possible and the ability to tailor programs to local citizen desires and local habitats makes the comprehensive wildlife programs one of the most potentially creative and exciting areas of modern natural resource management. Because potential activities are so numerous and diverse, it is especially important that systems be designed to assure maximum effectiveness.
All analogies are limited but one may be of use. The resource can be imagined to be a car. The management agency is the driver. The ridge line on which the car is driven is maximum net benefits. Off to either side, the benefits decrease because of conflicts and inefficiencies. The view from the crest is beautiful; the going is tough on the slopes. A slip in some places may mean resource catastrophe (e.g., a species loss or the disrupted economy of a county dependent on hunting). The road was very wide in the past; there was no other traffic; the center line was not painted. Now, all of that has been changed. The resource must be carefully steered down the road. There will be strong winds and rain, even potholes, an occasional washed-out bridge, but the alert manager-driver must be at the wheel; the people deciding the destination. In the future, even this analogy will seem very primitive. In the near future the concept will be of a natural resource spaceship (not just a one-resource, wildlife "car") with a guidance system operated by a team of ecosystem agencies. It is not too early to begin to think in terms of a guidance system (Giles and Weihung 1987).
The Objectives
The objectives of the wildlife management program, both for game and other fauna, must be specified. Without clear objectives, no one can tell whether the agency or organization is doing well and, if so, how well it is doing. Without an objective, there can be no rational adjustments made for the future.
In the above example of the car, without an objective there is no center line for the road, not even a destination. Driving around, anywhere, is success. Economics, attitudes, knowledge of the wildlife resource, and methods for achieving objectives have all changed, interactively. There is now, as never before, a need for a clear, precise statement of objectives and for estimates of successful attainment of these objectives.
The Type-1 objective may be to achieve, over the long-run, the greatest possible benefits from the wild faunal and plant resources for the citizens of the state and nation.
Type-3 objectives allow this general objective to be made specific. The Type-3 objective may be to maximize an index (Q), an expression of the expected value of all the weighted benefits from the wildlife resource to state citizens for at least 50 years for the lowest discounted costs.
This is a complicated statement and it is not expected that the average citizen will be very interested in it. It is essential for it to be made even more explicit for it to be operational as the basis for guiding and evaluating agency performance. Details have been presented in Chapter 4 and elsewhere, but the essence of the above is:
Processes
A system for managing fauna, other than game which is already under intensive management, can include the following. All projects will not be suitable in every area. They need to be carefully selected and adapted. The following list of programs and projects is provided to stimulate ideas as well as, once again, to demonstrate a system.
Continual Planning - Sessions may be held to begin long-range planning for continual program development, for expansion or cutbacks, and for new adjustments to changing value systems.
Comparative Analysis - A comprehensive, comparative analysis may be made of the total programs of similar state agencies throughout the U.S.
Long-Range Planning - A long-range plan may be developed using the Pittman-Robertson modified Management Activity Selection Technique (MAST) System (Lobdell 1972). This will give new guidance to the program, reduce annual P-R budget reports, and provide a working basis to secure maximum P-R cooperation and support. A similar national Dingell-Johnson planning system may be encouraged and then used to create and publish a state plan. A dynamic computer-based planning system, R* Guidance, may be created (Giles, Ms).
Regional Programs - Efforts may be made to contact adjacent states to explore regional or multistate cooperation and efficient joint programs.
Interagency Programs - New or stepped-up efforts may be made to develop cooperative work with state museums, libraries, educational groups, and others. A directory may be published.
Phases - A five-phase approach (1) to adjacent states, (2) to counties, (3) to large watersheds, (4) to planning districts, and (5) to agency-owned lands may be used.
Policy - The agency can create and exercise through many channels, including legislative and budgetary, a dynamic multi-faceted program to reduce urban sprawl and loss of prime agricultural land and associated wildlife and fisheries habitats.
Staff - Education, redirection, and re-allocation of staff is usually need to gain full, cost-effective achievement of agency objectives.
The following activities, the practical action of a management system, have not been given priorities. They are conducted in some areas, some are new. They are suggestions:
Woodland Wildlife - A computer system may be developed and made available to woodland owners, to show how to maximize wildlife on their lands. Trade-offs with other resources need to be displayed to aid in decision making. Regional recommendations for forest cutting practices that will protect tree nesting and feeding wildlife may be published and promoted.
Furbearers - An active, comprehensive, commercial furbearer project may be undertaken. Other than emphasis on major fur species, a full scale system needs to be developed. This is to assure maximum long-term contribution of the resource to the gross state product (Chapter 12). A special project for designing and implementing nightfeeder (e.g., bears, raccoons, skunks) observation stations may be initiated.
Threatened and Endangered - The T and E program may be integrated with other programs, and species-specific action programs initiated.
Impacts Assessment - An automated assessment procedure may be initiated to show the consequences to wildlife of any proposed development (e.g., powerlines, shopping centers).
Group Education Program - Programs to create a variety of educational units and opportunities to teach urban dwellers ecological principles and wildlife use and management in urban environments and how to use the forests when recreating are needed. Specific groups need to be targets for education.
Human Population Program - A scheme for analyzing human population dynamics in the state and region need to be developed. Group sizes must be known if the potential wildlife benefits are to be matched with changing population segments of age, sex, race, residence and economic status.
Demonstration Areas - Demonstration areas may be set up in populous areas to show people a variety of useful techniques for benefiting wildlife, improving yards, and assuring appropriate controls. High-intensity wildlife habitat demonstrations may be established in, or very near, every major urban center of the state or province.
Tours - Tied with the above, tours and special trips may be conducted for educational purposes. These may include transportation by bus, wagon, canoe, boats, horseback, raft, and snow sleds.
Publications - Publications on wildlife need to be produced, but major emphasis needs to be on making the rich literature now available known to and used by the public. Authors and publishers may be encouraged by various techniques.
Contests - As part of a wildlife-involvement (rather than appreciation) policy, the agency may sponsor contests in such areas as essays, art, carving, photography, life lists, bird houses, trails, landscaping, area development, personal activity, and group activity. As with other programs, these will be closely monitored for cost effectiveness. Not just listing participants, program staff need to analyze scores and estimate changes in behavior as a result of expenditures.
Expeditions - Observation and scientific expeditions or forays within the state may be conducted by staff and qualified assistants.
Species Programs - Total systems need to be developed for species which, if used by landowners, can maximize a particular species. Other systems will be developed for categories like "bird-diversity," "bird species richness," "stream fish," and "salamander population richness."
One potential strategy is to build a species-specific clientele, one strongly attached in as many ways as possible to one resource and to maximize benefits to this group. For example, a raccoon system might include a traveling "show" with raccoon experts, pet 'coons', education tapes, posters, hospitality areas, and promotion of political and social gatherings to tie people to a species and to the agency and to sugarcoat the principles and need for wildlife protection and management. In these sessions, education about the law can be provided, as well as about active research, about sound (non-wasteful) hunting, and about trapping and hunting ethics. Support for programs, for research (through funding), and for appropriate habitat management may be given. Cooking instructions, fur and carcass care, tanning, dog care and nutrition - all may be provided on a low cost or profitable basis, working to achieve agency objectives for sound seasons, ethical use of the resource, and full benefits to all citizens.
Ornithology Program - A state ornithologist may be named and a full-scale program developed to include:
A computer program needs to be developed to provide a score for any community based on how well bird populations satisfy local citizens during all seasons in all neighborhoods. Based on richness, abundance, and diversity, the scoring would be done by local groups. The system would be operated by the agency and advisory service provided for operating the system, for improving the local scores, and for assessing impacts of local developments on the score.
Botany Program - A state botanist needs to be recognized and the following achieved:
Similarly, a state mammalogist, herpetologist, icthyologist, and wetland ecologist need be named or recognized.
Raptor Program - An integrated study of the birds of prey need to be conducted and tied actively to recreational management of viewing of hawk flights, placing nesting structures, encouraging quality falconry, and new appreciation of avian predators and their role in wildlife management.
Zoos- Standards and design advice for zoos and related areas may be created. Zoos may be an effective part of an integrated program to enhance understandings of and benefits from wildlife.
High-Grass Ordinance Program - Throughout the U.S., local ordinances seek to prevent high grass areas. These are usually to prevent abandoned lots from becoming overgrown or to prevent lawn care decline. The "native flower lawn" and other options provide excellent wildlife foods and habitat. There are conflicts, but they can be resolved so that screening can be done, options to short-grass lawns advanced, allergen problems minimized and wildlife environments created that are legal and enhance the local, urban environment. The task is difficult. It will require a rationale for, and where appropriate, the repeal of, the high-grass ordinances and a substitution of valid faunal habitat options. A full scale program is needed.
Because there are many objectionable and controversial aspects of a high-grass yard, the way to get around this is to state in the local laws on such matters, that if a person shows an agency certificate that the yard in question is a "Certified Wildlife Yard - Level II" (characteristics to be worked out and computerized as suggested under the yard program described next), then high grass may be permissible.
Wildlife Yard - Residential yards at the edges of and within forests are important places for wildlife. A computer system need to be available to the public for assistance in yard design and layout to assure desirable songbird populations. This approach is believed necessary because of the very large number of yards, the potential demand, the great complexity of each, and the high demands for expertise. Examples of related inclusions in such plans are statements warning about the placement of reflective plate glass or discouraging its use because it is hazardous to birds. A parallel program may be to get glass dealers to put a sticker or warning on their wares.
A project may be created to assure proper selection of urban trees, both on public and private lands, to improve the simultaneous benefits from trees for people and wildlife. Care, maintenance, reduced risks, improved wildlife, and proper positioning of trees can be included. Architects and construction engineers may be employed to provide published designs and advice to reduce wildlife problems associated with built spaces.
Living Pylons - A design is presented herein (Figure 10.1A, B, and C) for pylons that can serve as nesting and resting habitats for chimney swifts (Chaetura pelagica) as well as a featured object in the large forested or park landscape. The pylons achieve the role of passive art form and active habitat for a beneficial, above-canopy bird species, the habitat of which has decreased. These birds now, as other wildlife, are beset by untold, new hazards in their breeding range from Newfoundland to Florida and their wintering in the Amazonian region. The chimneys are gone or decreased; the giant hollow trees in which they once rested and nested (as many as 9,000 in one tree) are long-since gone; and insecticides of many types synergistically attack their food supplies - the flying insects. As the large trees disappeared, the factories increased - almost a direct substitution at least in quality, but new conditions suggest new needs and substitutions - thus the pylons, a new form of chimney.
Three needs stimulated the design of the forms. One need was for an alternative to burials for people. This was an expressed need coincidental with a concern for the loss of quality spaces (agricultural and other lands) devoted to such long-term but relatively ephemeral use. A memorial structure after cremation or burial elsewhere was an alternative.
A second need was for unique or special forms, objects of art, objects of appropriate attraction, appeal, and noteworthiness to be added to parks and land developments devoted to long-term research and practical ecosystem management.
Figure 10.1A. Living pylons may be created of concrete or wood for birds and bats using vertical shafts as resting and nesting sites. Design by Robert H. Giles, Jr.; drawing by Rogers and Reynolds Architects, Inc., Blacksburg, Virginia 24060; B - Top View of pylons; C - Details of pylons.
A third need was for demonstrating how specialized needs of a single species can be met. The special need identified was for the swift, a delightful, small, twittering, cigar-shaped bird of the skies that once flocked by the thousands into chimneys.
The material may be concrete or wood. Stone-faced pylons may be appropriate in some areas, others may be polished concrete or of a rough hammered surface to increase natural coloration and variety from attached algae and lichen. A rough interior, perhaps with small nest-holding protuberances, is needed. If of wood, two options may be considered. One is of large, laminated pieces well treated for longest possible duration. The other, more practical in a managed, more primitive condition (even the large back yard in contrast to the corporate or estate lawn) is to use rough lumber and replace it regularly at 5-year intervals to assure perpetual use by birds returning traditionally to "their" pylons.
The annual arrival may become a community or corporate event, a time for spring celebration. The pylons must be maintained if this is to occur.
The height shown is only one suggestion and probably minimum. Depending on materials selected and other scale factors, a height approaching that of the maximum for local trees seems a reasonable criteria.
Three are shown. I suspect up to 10 may be utilized but there is a limit imposed by the amount of food (energy) to support the birds in the airspace near these sites.
Swifts, in what to some people are spectacular displays, drink water in flight, skimming the surface of pools or lakes. An adjacent fountain or pool is likely to enhance the total environment for the birds as well as humans.
The pylons seem especially appropriate in community developments, part of the commons. They may honor individuals, be memorials on which many plaques are placed, or simply be placed for the good of the birds and the visual and other enjoyment of people. They are a special kind of dead-but-alive object with various concepts and analogies easily derived. First, planned for a woodland grove setting and as the place where memorial plaques (in lieu of gravestones) would be placed, the area was planned for contemplation and silence. The need for little disturbance remains, but the level that the birds will tolerate is not known. A low level is suggested and protection from direct disturbance (thumping or climbing) is needed.
Pet Program - A cooperative program of pet control, primarily of unleashed dogs and cats, to reduce predation on fauna needs to be organized, and a long-term, slow process of human behavioral modification begun. Domestic cats are a major, untended problem throughout faunal system management. Anyone doubting the appropriateness of including people in the definition of faunal systems work need only reflect on the difficulty of changing this major mortality factor.
Ponds - A computer-aided pond analysis and prescription service may be made available. Conventional pond analyses and management need to be supplemented or replaced by a computer-produced pond prescription. Such a prescriptive system may be used along with publications, demonstrations, and group presentations including casting tournaments and socials to bring the pond fishery to a high level (scored) of production of fish, fishing, and faunal-observation recreation.
Mined-Land Wildlife Program - Where surface-mined lands occur, they can be reclaimed with great advantage to wildlife. An active program in the broad range of ecological, economic, technology impact assessment, and policy aspects of mining may be conducted.
Abandoned Mine and Quarry Program - A program may be initiated to acquire and rehabilitate abandoned pits, mines, and quarries. These areas may become focal points of wildlife management and production. Many other programs (e.g., trails, species systems) may be interlocked. These are often unique areas, readily accessible to large populations, and often have managerial potential for esthetics, demonstrations, observation sites, and multiple uses of a wide variety.
Wetlands Wildlife Systems - Wetlands, bays, lakes, and upland wetlands and marshes are among the richest wildlife habitats in the U.S. An active program of inventory, analysis, and management may unify the best current knowledge of fur bearer management, marsh management, waterfowl management, and riparian forest and wetland protection. Active work with waterfowl interests with problems of baiting, pollution, feeding areas, migratory route analyses, and shorebird and rail management may be expanded.
Full use of large expenditures already made in the federal Coastal Zone Management program may be made. Special attention may be given to modeling coastal counties and their wetlands. Attention to riparian and upland marsh wildlife, perhaps in specialty programs with alternative funding bases may be needed. A statewide project to monitor water-quality-for-fauna and to make monthly, highly visible reports should be considered.
Urban Waterfowl Program - Waterfowl are attractive and provide much pleasure to citizens wherever there are ponds and lakes. This resource potential may be enhanced by programs to (a) identify waterfowl; (b) gain at least twice-a-year visitation by migrants; (c) develop observation areas; (d) promote appropriate feeding, care, and respect of the animals; (e) relate lawn care and land management to waterfowl; and (f) promote breeding flocks where they can be regulated and are desired.
Conservation Farms - A computer-aided farm analysis system may be created. A faunal system manager may complete analytic forms and a computer-produced score given the landowner. A sign might be provided for the farm entrance to show the farmer's latest score. This score would relate to wildlife habitat and a total system of wise integrated land use management. Incentives, publicity, field trips, free membership or licenses, and various techniques may be used to get landowners to obtain a score and seek to improve it.
Relatively conventional, but intensified and redirected programs may be created to integrate wildlife habitat programs in connection with erosion control practices such as (a) contour strips, (b) surface stabilization, and (e) settlement basins and flood water catchments.
Soils for Wildlife Program - A program is needed to promote soil erosion prevention ordinances in towns and counties to reduce significant impacts of sediments, nutrients, and pollutants on fauna associated with streams, ponds, wetlands, and riparian vegetation.
A lawn and crop chemical control program may be implemented with an integrated pest damage management program (see below). The objective of such a program may be to reduce wildlife impacts from such chemicals and to encourage enlightened use within faunal system management.
Natural Streams Program - Several research and educational streams may be established to communicate the life history and life needs of native trout and other native fish, to allow people to observe them in their natural habitat, and to seek new understandings of human change on streams of all types.
A program to assess stream quality relative to natural, primitive streams may enable assessment of all aspects of stream change including urban road wastes, sediments, salts, and channelization. A stream education program may include charts, publications, and temporary aquaria to teach people the stream fauna and their relationships with land use and other wildlife. A project may promote and operate an urban-system stream clear-up, fix-up, beautification effort, especially with fisheries and wildlife dimensions.
A groundwater project may be initiated as it relates to streams, to riparian vegetation, to the coastal saltwater aquifer (now invading some coastal areas and likely to change vegetation of the coastal plain), and to mining operations.
Wilderness and Natural Area Program - Related to the natural streams program, wilderness and natural areas may be cataloged, mapped, and studied. Significant efforts may be made to characterize them as the "base datum of normalcy" as recommended by Leopold (1949) almost 50 years ago. Cooperative efforts with other groups can be encouraged. Strategic acquisition, protection, and management plans may be created.
Professional Services - A program to promote wildlife consultants within the state may be initiated. The present workload for most agency personnel far exceeds that which it can handle. Private lands need, and many owners can afford, continuous professional attention. Incentives, subsidies, promotion or advertising, and initial support for a limited number of highly qualified private consultants are needed.
Nursery - A project may promote private grass, shrub, and tree nursery practices that will encourage supplies of wildlife-beneficial plantings. Landscape architect schools may be held to encourage promoting and using wildlife plants and related yard furnishings.
Land Leasing Program - Agency lands may be carefully leased for gardens, grazing, gas, firewood, crops, hay, hunting, and even fishing spots. These may be based, in part, on random selection but in many cases on scores on knowledge and operations, on level of knowledge achieved, Conservation Farm scores, and other indications of quality performance. Permission to use the wildlife on these areas may serve for incentives in other programs.
Rights of Way Program - An office of rights of way management may participate actively in locating corridors (powerline, gasline, coal slurry, highways), and actively managing them to minimize wildlife losses and provide long-term habitat enhancement. Such an office may develop automated impact assessment methods (e.g., Giles et al. 1976), participate in location activities, and do research to improve wildlife habitat and wildlife use on such areas.
Land Acquisition - Strategic plans need to be developed to estimate needs and consequences of future acquisitions on personnel, equipment, capital, maintenance, and consequences to long-term public relations if the agency under- or over-acquire lands. State tax policy and contributions of state agencies to county taxes may need to be evaluated.
Green spaces for wildlife throughout the state may be mapped, potentials identified, risks of loss or alternative uses assessed, and a plan of long-term acquisition and protection made.
Insurance - New aids to hunters, anglers, and landowners in gaining economic insurance are needed. Legislative changes may be proposed. Rates may be proposed based on age, education, and safety classes, and county, or regional rates used based on hunters in higher levels of wildlife and hunting knowledge. Specific actuarial tables might be created to aid such a program.
Land Taxation Program - A program to investigate the role of agricultural and forestal land protection may be initiated. The study may include the impact of land classification on forest taxes and the consequences of improved land tax rates on wildlife protection and resource availability.
County Taxes - An analysis may be made of the relation of wildlife agency lands to county tax bases, and county-specific reports need to be prepared to show overall county benefits resulting from the presence of agency lands.
Integrated Pest Damage Management - Pesticides are a leading wildlife resource problem. A positive approach may be taken to them through integrated pest damage management (Chapter 11). Not pest management but damage management (significant measurable financial loss) needs to be stressed. Pesticides can usually be used in combination with other techniques to achieve cost effectiveness in reducing significant damage. There are now only rare examples of such a program or its concept. Special attention needs to be given to problems of management of wildlife-related damage on highways and at airports. An agency may seek to assume the leadership role in integrated pest damage management as a major strategy of gaining control over wildlife loss as well as control in reducing crop damage from wildlife, particularly birds and deer.
Laws - A taskforce may be convened to evaluate the needed legal basis for effective long-term species management. (See Pearce 1986.)
Staff Education - Staff education programs may be sponsored and new levels of professional excellence sought.
The Seep People - A unique program may be developed for naturalists in general. Called the "seep people" (or the Nature Folks within the Lasting Forests), because of the wildlife importance of spring "seeps" and the rich biological nature of these areas, this group may sponsor programs in education, in research, and in inventories of state resources. These are the people interested in bats, salamanders, bees, shrews, snails, crayfish, minnows, butterflies, and a hundred other wildlife items often not considered in conventional "game agency" programs. An effort may be made to unify these people and their interests and talents and apply them to the resource. County inventory lists, dates of biological events, hiking, use of public wildlife lands, ecological studies, foundation support - all are parts of the proposed group activity. In part, the group is to unify all citizens having interest in nature with the faunal resource agency and to improve the flow of ideas, knowledge, and resources in both directions.
Back Country Roads and Trails Systems - Roads and trails are one of the main conduits of wildlife benefits to people. They are the veins and arteries; the animals are the blood. Soil erosion from them is also potentially harmful to the land, especially fish. They allow hunting and other wildlife use, also poaching. A statewide policy may be created, and agency staff (or approved consultants) may offer road layout and construction advice. Contractors and road builders may be rated by an objective device and a bulldozer operator may be given "stars" or awards for quality performance. A top contractor - one who understands watershed, soil, wildlife and erosion control needs, waterbars, culverts, etc. - may be given a 5-star rating and favored contract-bidder status. Demonstrations, field work, show-me tours, and publications may be sponsored for forest industries and land owners, both public and private.
Mapped roads and trails can give an agency insight into accessibility, hunting pressures per unit area, needs, and fire control and management. Roads themselves can be managed for wildlife. Computer aids to what to plant and how to manage a system may be developed.
Back Country Hiker Program - There might be a "Wildlife Trails Association." A Back Country Hikers program might be encouraged. There may be memberships for citizens actively involved in trails and hiking - and, of course, seeing wildlife and using the trails for hunting and fishing. A trails research center may be created (See Chapter 13); summer youth and federal employment aid crews may be employed; computer-aided trail layout may be used; roads and trails may be coordinated; membership levels may be established including miles hiked, miles maintained and built in club activities, and agency trails walked. Emblems may be awarded in the above categories. Wildlife education can be provided as part of the membership. Contests (knowledge, art, photography, miles walked, safety, law violations reported, etc.) may also be held. Field days may be sponsored with sessions on trail craft, camping, equipment, safety, etc. Exhibitors of equipment and clothing during field days may be charged to secure funds for wildlife projects. The program of this subsystem is centered on wildlife-compatible managed trails and managed users to expand the clientele and income base and secure contact directly through mail and other media to thousands of people unaffiliated with the agency. The various groups or individuals can obviously help in law enforcement, research, inventory, and in expanding the "count" so essential in governmental reports of agency accomplishment and progress.
A major cross-country skiing program may be included where conditions allow it.
Back Country Horses Program - Similar to the above, a program may be created for trail rides, cross country racing, and related land use. Separate trails can be created to reduce the conflicts with the above hiking groups, but timing or restricting use can achieve similar ends. Formation of groups, active trail work, competition, memberships, and wildlife education are part of the strategic development of this group. It may provide cooperative purchasing economies, tie well with the grazing program, provide excellent access to hunters, give new power in fire control on agency lands, and enable in some areas fish stocking from horseback. Horse health, care, nutrition, and training programs can all be coordinated with this faunal-related program.
Canoeing Program - A program can be developed, as for the above groups, with people active in or interested in non-motorized canoeing and kayaking. Annual meetings, tours, education, fishing, camp craft, information on lakes, streams, and fishing, and feedback to the agency on observations, needs, poaching, and research support can be part of the program.
As such programs develop, a centralized outdoor organization service group (membership dues, addresses, publications, etc.) may be viewed as an appropriate activity within or in support of an agency. Many of the programs described herein can be privatized.
ORV Program - A program to develop cooperative relations with off-road vehicle (4-wheel, snowmobile, etc.) enthusiasts may be initiated. These include search and rescue missions, fish stocking, winter feeding, recreational observation, monitoring, and assistance in law violation and pollution detection. Special areas can be developed where appropriate for competitions and these areas integrated into successional management plans for state-owned areas.
Youth - A varied summer work program may be implemented. A wildlife program to work directly through or with existing youth groups (e.g., 4-H, scouts) may be created. These programs are to be specifically wildlife-oriented (as compared to other-resource or multiple- resource oriented), and have objectives of significantly influencing the behavior of the youth when he or she becomes an adult decision maker.
Volunteerism - Many volunteers now exist, but it may be possible to increase their role in all aspects of faunal management agency work.
Taskforces - Because of the diversity in faunal work, there is a need for a standard mode of operation as the taskforce. These are temporary, intensive working groups, formed to achieve a specific objective in a limited period. Consultants may be employed to work intensively with a taskforce for brief periods and to assure needed outputs and answers in a timely way.
INPUTS RELATED TO COSTS
Analysis - A long-term analysis of the buying power of present income and of potential economies may be made. Analyses may be made of the role of license fees, federal funds, other state support, general taxes, and long-term potentials for income to achieve agency objectives.
Economies - Major economies within the current operation are likely, both through in-house efforts and with work through state support groups (e.g., transportation). Economies are likely through staff restructuring, education, and incentives.
Increased Use of Resources of Other Agencies - There are often "free" resources not fully exploited, such as:
Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson Formulae - A model will soon be needed to evaluate the long-term trends and buying power of these formula-funds.
Multi-State Programs - By sharing '"experts," every state need not have a full complement of highly paid experts. One bear expert might serve a state and adjacent states as well. Each state may achieve significant economies as well as expertise by this regional sharing. Efforts need to be directed to secure such extra service and minimize costs. Additional savings may be possible by increasing the scale of purchases (e.g., seed and fertilizer) through regional purchasing.
Foundation Support - Alternative support may be sought from several groups and agencies (a) to evaluate the current operation, and (b) to enable a national demonstration "state commission" to show the full range of the potentials of modern scientific wildlife management.
A foundation, e.g., the U.S. Park Service's "Friends of the X Park," is needed to assure that funds are channeled to legitimate, practical uses within the state. Many national private foundations are receiving funds from citizens. Efforts may be made to direct these to a within-state foundation. Alternative funding sources are often needed for facilities, research, and special publications which are not appropriate under conventional state practices.
Wills and Bequests Program - Active recruitment of lands and resources from wills and bequests for wildlife development and research by special staff with legal and tax expertise may add land and resources for management and research. See Memorials under Ranging.
Replacement Costs - New concepts, developed with the Courts, are needed to assure that funds or equivalent work or payment in some form from convicted wildlife law violators go into resource development. Not court fees, but total replacement-in-kind is needed.
Area Users Fees - As done with National Parks, a use fee for state wildlife areas can result in revenues, contacts, and a new land and resource oriented clientele. A "tag" for a vehicle or membership can permit a user to have special access to area facilities and services.
Damage - Alternative programs might be sought for wildlife damage control and management, and a revision of the damage stamp (funds paid by hunters to a fund from which damage claims are paid) concept can improve agency program credibility and effective use of funds for wildlife.
Information Inputs
Faunal Information System - Information systems such as the Fish and Wildlife Information Exchange can be used. This system can supply information to help develop management programs, identify gaps in knowledge for future research, and establish the primary source of faunal information. This information can be used for planning, making assessments, regulating resource development, reducing environmental impacts, and improving management and extension. Information assists the state to supply information needed to develop programs such as those for matching federal funds, the PR/DJ strategic plan, threatened and endangered species state plan, and others. A comprehensive statewide faunal information system, can establish a process that ensures users that they have current, comprehensive, high quality information readily available. Organizations like the of Surface Mining, U.S. Forest Service, Natural Resource Conservation Service, and Environmental Protection Agency, all of whom have regulations, require faunal information in mine, forest, or farm plans or permits and can benefit from such information system.
Phenology Program - Phenology is the study of the time of occurrence and the timing processes in biological events. Flowering dates and time of egg laying and leaf fall are examples. Much of the faunal resource system is related so strongly to phenology that a program for a state-wide group of observers may b established. A new "sport" of nature watching, recording, and reporting the occurrence of events may then be promoted. Whether the spring is early or late this year will no longer be a topic of idle conversation but a topic of pleasurable study that can be of benefit to wildlife managers as well as to farmers, reclamation specialists, orchardists, and those offering lawn and nursery services and stock. One example of the result of such a program may be ability to issue an annual set of regional timber cutting recommendations to reduce losses to cavity-nesting wildlife.
Research Program - A new and vital program of integrated wildlife research may be sponsored, one that provides the inputs (the "facts" needed for cost effective management decisions for all wildlife. See Chapter 6). This might include planning sessions, conferences, and an action program among bona fide researchers throughout the state or nation. One example of such research is the relations of wildlife and solid wastes (e.g., gulls, rats, muskrats, feral dogs, and birds frequenting pollution lagoons; also urban composting to avoid wildlife problems). Another representative project is the archaeological and historic role of wildlife in the state (Diamond 1989). Creative research on tree cavities, including bird houses and nest boxes for wildlife, may be conducted. Research is needed to measure relations (if any) of mental and social health (e.g., anomie) to wildlife experiences or to knowledge of opportunities for such experiences.
A system of dynamic classification of wildlife habitats may be used (Williamson 1981). A comprehensive long-term wildlife research plan may be developed and published and an available computer program used to select from among proposals to achieve each part of that plan. (See CAP685.)
Climatic Program - A cooperative program may be conducted to analyze climatic data and conduct studies of climate as it relates to wildlife. Urban climates differ significantly from others. Relations need to be known and used in management (e.g., where to plant certain species, disease relations, and relative energy drains made on wildlife).
Library - A coordinated effort to develop a major wildlife library for ephemeral materials (booklets, papers, and flyers not preserved by conventional libraries) can be made. Special efforts may be made to develop dynamic computer-based bibliographies on state wildlife and major connections to computer-search library services and aids.
Maps - Range and location maps for animals may be developed both for migratory and nonmigratory forms, and continually updated and reported. A dynamic regionalization system (clustering, grouping, displays) may be established to enable management to be adjusted to human populations, needs, and habitat capabilities.
Threatened and Endangered Species - A county-level data base may be maintained. Life histories may be prepared and research done to fill in the gaps discovered. Statewide projects may be established in key areas such as: (a) lepidopteran, (b) molluscan (terrestrial and aquatic), and (c) crustacean (crayfish) ecology.
Fire Ecology Center - A fire ecology center may be established to inventory forest fires, to develop models for predicting effects on wildlife, to compute wind patterns over the land and their effects on animal energy budgets, to understand fire as a management tool, to conduct fire control education, to study disaster-related fires, to study effects of fires on aquatic and other fauna, and to devise systems for forest smoke management relative to fauna.
Consultants - To assure that the management program stays on the leading edge of the field, consultants need to be used periodically
Seed - Special seed stocks may be developed and used in developing urban wildlife plots and promoting highly visible songbird life.
Special Inputs: A Research Planning Context
A comprehensive plan of faunal research is needed. Questions on all wildlife are found to overlap throughout. A guiding principle of the proposed future research is that it is an input system, i.e., outputs from it are to be designed to provide inputs to managerial decisions and actions. The second guiding principle is that there will be the least possible time between reaching a conclusion and using it in the field.
Various research approaches may be used (some required by agency policy) but because of the richness of most state flora and fauna, there is no conceivable way the needed knowledge can be achieved in real time, or for the resources likely to be available (Chapter 6). The research subsystem may appear as follows:
Context - Studies of economic situations of the state, correlations between users and regional characteristics, state economic and population indices, changes in developments and laws and their potential impacts, simulations of changes in energy availability.
Inputs - Cost effective inventories, data systems, key species studies, community descriptions, forage analyses, best plant materials, climatic data, characterization of land, improved food habits studies, cost analyses, urban phenomena (e.g., temperature differences throughout the countryside).
Processes - Mortality and survival phenomena, migration and movement (e.g., related to stocking), changes due to development, reproductive rates and processes, succession in urban area, bird house quality change over time, optimization of feeding mixes, plant relations between yards, and cost effective damage control techniques.
Objectives - Research is needed on perceptions, objectives, values, risks, timeliness of observations, abundance, variety, and appropriate units of cost (e.g., dollar, kilocalorie of energy) and discounting procedures. (See Chapter 4.) Research is needed on whether the above can be changed, and the cost-effectiveness of various techniques for doing so.
Feedback - Monitoring of population changes, satellite monitoring of land use change and effects of management on such change, law enforcement with research on its cost effectiveness, pesticide and heavy metal monitoring, overall systems analyses to ascertain degree to which program objectives are being achieved, financial audits, staff evaluations, citizen knowledge surveys, analyses of the reliability and effectiveness of the feedback systems with action to achieve improvements.
Feedforward - Comparisons between projections and subsequent events ors action need to be taken. Not merely noting the discrepancies, the feedforward action includes improving the forecast.
Outputs: Benefits to the People
Benefit-Costs - Extensive programs are needed to inform citizens of the benefits, gains, and reduced losses attributable to faunal agency actions. Costs also need to be reported. Guides to monetary valuation of wildlife are now available (Giles 1978, Decker and Goff 1987) and need to be used to enhance understanding of resource benefits.
Annual Report - Comprehensive annual reports can make citizens aware of changes in their counties and state, help them become aware of the effectiveness of the agency, of the wildlife resource needs, and the impacts of urbanization and other forces on the wildlife resource. A score for the wildlife resource needs to be produced annually and heralded as a media event.
Capacities - Carrying capacities need to be computed for regions and based on this as a criterion, scores developed for many wildlife species.
Feedback
Enforcement - An objectives-oriented law enforcement system needs to be developed, providing corrective and adaptive influences on the wildlife law and its influence on resource benefits for citizens.
Monitoring - Monitoring activities, by both citizens and staff, need to be conducted on species as well as on citizen use of the resource and benefits received. Analyses of change over time can be an important part of this effort.
Wildlife disease is often associated with overcrowded populations and it is suggestive of a program out of balance. Cooperative wildlife disease management programs with regional centers are possible.
A wildlife-on-highways project can seek to influence highway management practices and otherwise create a system for reducing wildlife collisions and their associated damage, human injury, and death.
Heavy metals and pesticides in wildlife need to be monitored for many purposes. An earthworm management project, for example, serves especially as a monitor of environmental pollution.
Reviewers - Outside reviewers or consultants need to make a comprehensive critical review and inspection of the agency as other-wildlife system at least every 3 years.
Feedforward
Taskforce - A taskforce is one example of a means to address periodically the long-term needs of wildlife other than game species.
A Futures Conference - Fiscal agents, commissioners, and economic resource personnel need to assess the short and long-term fiscal status and managerial capability of the agency and the total picture of wildlife management in the region. Such conferences need to seek the best current thought on the future of the wildlife resource.
A Computer-Based Fiscal Management System - A system needs to be devised to produce standard accounting plus projections, rates of expenditures, historical analyses, salary forecasts and staff dynamics, and federal assistance potentials, including matching fund potentials, and agency production per unit cost.
A 10-Year Finance Plan - Oriented mostly to personnel and lands, plans need to present scenarios of future needs and potentials.
Essay - A university essay competition, statewide, needs to be sponsored on the future of the regional wildlife resource.
Summary
In summary, the key elements of a feasible state- or province-level system of management of all of the faunal resource, but particularly of the resource not viewed as game are:
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Last revision May 8, 2001.