A unit of Lasting Forests Sustained forests; sustained profits evolving since March 30, 1999

For over 8 years I taught a principles course in two universities. I attended such courses taught by 5 professors and corresponded with others, sharing some notes. During this same period, the literature of wildlife management and of a systems approach to education has grown very extensive. The arguments for such an approach are successfully and abundantly made, but the evidence for applications are sparce and halting. The following list of the educational objectives are presented as a pattern for initiating a systems approach to teaching wildlife management but equally as important, it is presented to raise the question: what are the principles of wildlife management?

I am of the opinion that a principle is very hard to define. I suspect the concept of what one is is the same in most but not all fields. I do not know whether a nominal principle in one field can be one in another field. I prefer to think they cannot be, i.e., we may list a principle discovered by fisheries people, say it operates within wildlife as well, but it is not our principle. I desperately desire to know the principles that are unique to, solely used within, or discovered within wildlife management. I think there are very few. Perhaps more than most other fields, this field is dependent and synthetic. If so, what are the synthetic principles? Feedback will be needed.

Several concepts underly the course design:

1. An introductory course cannot achieve all objecitves. One course does not make an expert.

2. Principles are difficult to define. A serious effort must be exerted to exclude concepts not specifically requisite to wildlife management. The thoughtful course planner will wonder at times if there are any uniquely wildlife management principles.

3. Instructional methods should vary with class structure, size, budget, available technology, teacher's talents and interest, teaching assistants, curriculum, and physical setting. Thus, only

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7. Wildlife management is making decisions and taking actions for changing the sructure, dynamics, and interactions of faunal space, wild animal populations, and people to achieve specific human objectives by means of the wildlife resource.

8. All managers of public lands, whether foresters, range managers, fisheries scientists, urban planners, or outdoor recreation specialists, increasingly deal with the problems of the influence of their decisions or actions on the wildlife resource. Preventing economic loss to forests or farms, preventing species extinction, increasing game, and maintaining ecological balances are goals sought by land managers, public and private. A bradth of natural-resource awareness and expertise is considered to be desireable by employers and educators. An ability for other resource managers to communicate effectively with wildlife management experts is considered essential. A wildlife management principles can provide the overview of the field for wildlife majors and others, as well as an introduction to the language, tenets, assumptions, and methods for studying, manipulating, and administering the wildlife resource.

9. The objectives of the course are:

Instructor's Objective: To create an educational system such that att least 80 percent of the students in the course demonstrate achievement of at least 90 percent of the specific behavioral objectives for the course.

General Behavioral: The instructor and the educational experience of the total course shall so change the behavior of students in this course that they will improve national and world wildlife resource management, accelerate their acquisition of information and skills to do so, and perform uniquely in wildland management agencies or situations so as to make, or cause to be made, imrpoved wildlife-resource-related decisions.

reflecting level of professional interest in faunal space, populations, and human subsystems.

9. To list at least 10 different appropriate uses of computers in wildlife management.

10. TO state the proper role of the state-employed wildlife manager in public decision-making processes associated with wildlife laws and regulations.

11. To state the roles of a wildlife manager in a private natural reosurce corporation.

Management Subsystems: People Management

The student will be able:

1. To define learning as the concept is employed in this course.

2. To define behavioral modification of groups.

3. To draw a flow-diagram of a system for educating the public about some wildlife management principles.

4. To identify various peole management strateies in written examples.

5. To identify the major differences between "Prepare for Panic" and "Preventative Education" as people-managment strategies.

6. To calculate, given appropriate data, the probability of satisfying all of the people that can be satisfied in a complex environmental deicison.

7. To graph how public wildlife benenfits may change over a wide range of abundance of a species.

8. To list 10 primary concepts of wildlife reosurce utility.

9. To calculate a value for forest game (e.g., the gray squirrel) using the concept of opportunity cost.

10. To describe at least two ways by which demand for wildlife can be increased, two by which it can be decreased.

11. To list at least four major incentive approaches to gaining private and public willingness to increase game populations.

12. To graph probable relations between: license sales and license price; hunters in an area and distances they travel; game kill....

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Last revision January 17, 2000.