Modern Wild Faunal Resource System Management
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The author, a Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University professor emeritus, retired in 1999. He holds a BS in forestry, MS in wildlife biology, PhD in Zoology. He has taught big game management, systems ecology, techniques of and principles of wildlife management at the University of Idaho and Virginia Tech and has authored over 150 articles and two textbooks on that topic. He has been a state wildlife biologist, won an award in environmental planning, and has been a consultant for the Tennessee Valley Authority and the US Wildlife Refuge System. He has studied wildlife in other countries with his graduate students. He has also taught a course in environmental issues in a unit of the University's College of Architecture. He attempts a draft to unify his experience and thought in this special draft note.
The Needs for a Logic
As fields of interest diverge then coalesce with changes in public funds that are allocated, losses or gains made in leadership, and advances achieved through technology, there arise needs for clarifying and often re-defining fields of interests and work. As important, there are needs to develop a logic or text with the character of theory in realms that have emerged almost unguided, certainly unregulated, and peripatetic. There have been weak social rules but no servo-mechanisms to concentrate energies, avoid the risks and the entropy of diverse agencies and their regulations, and provide coherency in the underlying concepts of people working in the field called "wildlife management."
The time seems right for an effort to provide a first-order logic to a field that is now evidently challenged by competitive organizations, found unacceptable by some groups of the public, ill-used by people seeking means to halt or slow project developments, destabilized by shifting public funds and diverse fund-seekers, unsure of the implications of globalization (Friedman 1999), and having agency staffs poorly matched with citizens' orientations as US society shifts from rural to urban.
The following set of observations creates a situation, in which wildlife management of the past has little meaning to significant public or private faunal resource decisions, especially those related to people in cities:
The above observations seem more than suggestive of a need to clarify major wildlife management work, especially that of the urban environment. This paper may prepare the grounds for describing and implementing a way of significantly improving natural resource decisions and their influence in creating new, more desirable conditions for people. It may also clarify for some people working within urban environments what to expect from those who call themselves wildlife managers. The phrases "wildlife management" or "wildlife manager" are inconsistent with current word usage and provide little guidance to the curious or to newcomers to the field to be described herein, that of wild terrestrial faunal resource system management. Perhaps "wildlife management" can be consistently defined and emphasized as meaning "wild terrestrial faunal resource system management." I doubt it. A brief alternative name is not available. Perhaps some acronym will suffice.
The Premises
By "logic" I mean the central major plausible and largely unchanging premises that form the grounds for decision and action within the field, now called "wildlife management" and herein reformulated and defined. It may be that by clarifying thought about the field, the rules of logic and appeals to consistency may suggest someday an alternative phrase, one that will embrace all elements of this field, elements of which are dynamic.
I do not know whether a element of a logic or set of fundamental understandings and grounds for action in one field can be the same in another field. I prefer to think that it cannot be. For example, we may list a theory held by fisheries people, say it operates within wild terrestrial animal work as well, but it is not our theory. I seek to list the items that are unique to, primarily used within, or discovered within the realm which will be described as wild terrestrial faunal resource system management. I think there are very few, if any.
A set of premises, their relations, and use together is offered as the logic. This is a large, disparate field of interest and work and must deal with thousands of species of animals, areas for animals ranging from the equator to the poles, and human preferences and interests that are rooted in history and cast far into the future. It often must encounter and synthesize concepts and theories of the other "e" fields, those of economics, esthetics, ecology, energetics, and enforcement. There is no parsimonious theory. There is one set of premises; many elements of the set are related. They are a pastiche. The premises, while believed to be inclusive and related well to other ecosystems, have been developed for the urban ecosystem now, consistent with the past, and believed likely to be sound for the future.
The first premises are definitions leading to the very definition of wild terrestrial faunal resource system management. These are appropriate for a contrived, diverse field. These are presented as assumptions or constraints in other theoretical developments. Even these definitions have alternates. A singular concept, the set, seems needed, perhaps essential, to allow thought and action to coalesce to achieve efficiency in what is an often-dangerous, very dispersed, costly activity that may benefit people for many years.
Premise 1
Wild, as related to animals, is the state of living in an unconfined state, being undomesticated or semi-domesticated (as for some populations that are fed regularly and display unusual behavior), and exhibiting normal and non-pathological behavior. Feral domestic animals (e.g., goats, pigs, horses, pigeons, monkeys, parrots, cats, dogs) are considered wild and may be populations of interest to the manager.
Being wild does not mean that an animal or a population of them is excited, aggressive, defensive, or pathological (as when rabid). Animals raised for fur are considered domesticated as are birds used in falconry.
Typically, a resource user will not find it satisfactory to call animals as being wild under special conditions. For example, users will rarely add to their list of birds seen in their life time, a bird species seen in a museum or a zoo. Hunters will rarely claim taking trophy animals from within a pen or not under the recognized conditions of "fair chase."
Premise 2
The domain of work and interest is centered on large terrestrial fauna.
"Wildlife" is an inappropriate word and should rarely be used. "Life" includes plants as well as animals. While much classical wildlife management work is with plants and "habitat," these are the domain of several other major fields and in no way are unique to the one calling itself wildlife management. There are fields dealing with the western or arid shrub and grasslands; foresters have long-dealt with the very large plants; horticulturist and agronomists have dominant interest in mid-sized plants; fisheries has special interest in aquatic plant. Among the animals, a major realm of work, fisheries, (the name of a federal agency not withstanding) deals with all aspects of fish life and its related systems. Marine specialists deal with the categories of large ocean mammals, turtles, and fish; entomologists of many types deal with the thousands of species of the small-animal world. There is a needed, reasonable limit: the large wild terrestrial fauna. (Semi-aquatic and amphibians may be included.) An additional reasonable limit should be for those taxa for which several cost-effective techniques are known. Such techniques would be known to cause the population to change significantly in the desired, predictable amounts. This reduces the populations that may now be involved significantly! While some people argue for inclusiveness, there are more species of birds, mammals, snakes, lizards, turtles, frogs, toads, and salamanders than any singular field can master, prepare novitiates successfully, work satisfactorily and creatively with other closely related fields, or consistently fund adequately.
"Large" is relative and typically refers to an adult life group. Generally such adults are of the size of a salamander or larger. What group of specialists and managers should be responsible for the terrestrial pulmonates (life groups of the land snails) and select crustaceans may be debated later.
Premise 3
The animal population is the central, discussed-unit of the resource.
While there is great interest in the individual animal, for many diverse reasons, the work of management is with populations. Informed by work on the individual and morally linked to care for the individual animal, nevertheless, the manager's task is to cause a population to change in desired ways. A key metric for such work is the abundance of the population of a species or named taxon. It may typically be increased, stabilized or decreased. Game management tends to emphasize increasing populations; vertebrate animal damage staffs tend to decrease problem animal populations, and large-park managers tend to stabilize populations. As will be discussed, the major unit of the resource is the animal-related event, either individual animal or group related.
Premise 4
Preventing the loss (extermination, eradication, extinction) of any animal population is an objective. To decrease a population may be an objective for a population, but it is limited (except for the feral animals): "never zero."
Often called "protecting biodiversity," that phrase is excessively encompassing. The manager seeks to stabilize the number of well-recognized native taxonomic units (the list of large wild faunal species), i.e., to stabilize "richness." Re-introducing animal species lost from an area may be one aspect of such work. It increases richness. Introducing non-native species is a practice with debates about projected benefits, risks, and costs over a stated planning horizon. The question of whether to introduce such population into new areas can typically be resolved by managers using decision-support systems that include these terms.
It seems likely that managing a genetically-engineered (thus, non-native) population of feral animals, perhaps including bringing it to zero, will some day be required.
Premise 5
Both a single population or several populations of large wild faunal are collectively and separately a resource that may be managed.
Resources are classically understood as ideas, goods, and services that provide benefits or opportunities for benefits for people. Except for metaphysical or non-discussible bases for management, all other reasons for managing wild animal populations are readily organized under the economic concepts related to resource management. The human dimension, that of actual or potential benefits, provides the only universal means for groups of people to estimate success of a managerial action.
Premise 6 A resource can be created. A person that is taught to distinguish the bird called the osprey (Pandion halioetus carolinensis) from among birds called gulls using the city waterway and one who is taught about the bird, its feeding, nesting, and population condition, has had a resource created for them. It is as real as finding a seam of coal. The bird already existed; there may have been unrecognized benefits. Management includes changing perceptions of resources including gaining recognition itself, creating awareness of acceptable units of measure of categories of expression, causing improved selection of units of demand for each such unit, changing expressed value or relative importance of such units, and expressing the substitutability of such units.
Premise 7 Large extended faunal life groups seen as resources have the major characteristics of other renewable natural resources and these can (and need to be) be manipulated by the manager. The components are energy (or matter), time, space, and variety (Watt 1975).
An example of resolving a conflict between nominal public groups having different objectives or desired means of experiencing a wild animal resource is to separate them in time, space, or both.
Premise 8
There are two types of resource benefits (probably already well categorized by economists). One is of the nature of on-going services or functions, rarely (or poorly) explicitly included within the market place. The include the roles of wild fauna in watershed improvement, seed dispersion, soil improvement, regulation of pests and diseases, warnings of pollution excesses, and, at some level, the options for genetic engineering and disease control. It is not difficult to see how financial attributes can be developed for animals as part of wilderness, scenic beauty, or forest or range ecosystem function.
The other use of the wild faunal resource from which benefit may be derived (or loss/cost reduced) is classed as an animal-related event. The event is the major desired resource benefit category. It has dimensions of quality and costs. Examples include: the user sees a new bird species, the hunter takes a trophy, the farmer kills a crop-eater, the trapper takes a hide, hiker encounters a big-game herd, the teacher reveals a notable and important natural process. Notable is that while animals are involved, and products may be involved (trophies, furs, meat) the resource manager is analyzing and counting the events, their number and quality. Quality is often expressed with abundance of animals experienced, the perceived rarity of the life group or sighting, the sequence of events, but it has other dimensions such as the monetary value of the product resulting from or with the event (e.g., trophies, furs, meat, or sightings.)
Premise 9
The manager attempts to manage life groups. A life group is a distinctively different unit of a population of a species. All animals in some species may be in one life group but many species have several life groups for which management objectives (and thus benefits from activities) are different.
In the past, "species" has been the primary resource management unit. A wild turkey poult (an insectivore) differs greatly from an adult wild turkey (an omnivore, primarily a granivore). There is greater anatomical, physiological, and behavioral difference between these two life groups (age classes) than between some genera of birds. There are other differences between groups that are behavioral, nutritional, etc. The instars of insects suggest well-known biological life groups that have very different ecological requirements and are appreciated differently by groups of people. Some species of salamanders, for example, have several life stages and the manager, aware of the conditions required for each, may thereby invest in actions and conditions to increase or otherwise change such life groups.
The relationship of this Premise to Premise 7 should be noted. The life group (e.g., the turkey adult) (whatever its form, often transposable) may be a resource in an area for a predator but if it is not available just before the starving condition, it is not a resource. If too far separated from the predator, it is not a resource. If it does not meet the nutritional or size-related requirements (e.g., too large for the small, ill predator), it is not a resource. Similarly, animals unavailable to people (except as providing, option demand, existence value, and metaphysical units, all largely unaffected by managerial action) are not components of the wild faunal resource.
Premise 10
In addition to species and life groups, the wildlife resource may be described and worked with as categories of species richness, abundance, or variety. The tally of the species present or seen over many years within an urban neighborhood or observed on a hike is the metric discussed. It is called species or life-group richness. "Vast flocks" or "impressive herds" are expressions of abundance that are often expressed with genuine pleasure or great distress, and expressed with real regret if they are not seen later. It may or may not include number of individuals per unit area or density. Appeals for diversity have resulted in thousands of papers on the topic. So many papers on the topic suggest great interest as well as efforts to clarify a felt need. Typical mathematical expressions, "diversity indices" such as the Shannon-Weiner (XXX) provide no intrinsic information about a population or group of populations, and provide no guidance for the manager. The indices readily display equifinality (many very different conditions result in the same numerical index). The diverse interpretations of diversity suggest using the term "variety." Common statistical measures (mean, variance) can serve well. Such statistics, however, serve poorly when there are many species with some being very abundant and many rare or "missing" (seen very infrequently). They do not provide a measure of a desired pattern of animal abundance that is typically expressed, namely (1) the appeal of many animals as well as (2) the appeal of seeing or experiencing rare species. By placing the species (or life groups) in a list in order of abundance, it is possible to obtain a regression of the logarithms for that distribution. The gross rate of that increasing function (determined by simple linear regression analysis) can be used by the manager to address the desires of people for their resource set, e.g., questions of needs or desires for many more of a few species, a desire for almost equal number of all species, or more work on adding species (no matter how rare) to the list.
First-premises have been presented in an attempt to build to the earliest possible definition of wild faunal resource system management as Premise 11, given the extensive prior usage of "wildlife management." Afterwards, I continue to attempt to clarify the words of the definition, then develop operational premises.
Premise 11
Extended wild faunal resource system management means making decisions and taking actions to change the structure, dynamics, and relations of large wild terrestrial faunal life groups, faunal spaces, and nominal human populations to meet the written objectives of sets of responsible people cost effectively.
Wild animals can be studied and knowledge about them (from any source) is needed for decisions, but it is not an "...ology," It can include science but most inputs to decisions made are easily identified as produced by the recognized sciences of botany, zoology, ecology, etc. It actively uses other areas of study and action such as agronomy, economics, and biometry. Perhaps calling it a science allows it to be legitimate within universities; perhaps other respect is gained. I suspect greater respect will be gained over the longrun by careful attention to the definition and effective action.
Rejecting previous assertions and perceived needs for such definitions to contain "science and art"(even Giles, 19xxxx) this realm of work is primarily decision making. Nevertheless it includes practical work, usually of teams of experts, not only to test and improve the decisions but also to build and otherwise cause desired change. There are inadequate numbers of workers and funds to develop a multi-layered system with separate decision-makers and those implementing such decisions.
Conventional word usage holds for the definition. "Relations" include, e.g., breeding, communicating, predation, competing, defending areas, and migrating. True "interactions" (nearly instantly sequential, but also reverse and usually-equal action among pairs of topics) are rarely found. A stringent definition cuts mightily into the number of premises.
Premise 12
Faunal space replaces the much-discussed "habitat." It is "food and cover" but makes the components of these ideas explicit, particularly as it unifies key elements of energy, protein, and water. It includes time as one component of the n-dimensional space in which populations as resources exist. Animals surrounding animals (as a herd surrounding an animal) are as fully "habitat" as shrubs and conifer windbreaks are to other animals. Trails as energy-conserving and risk-reducing entities are major components of the space of many large animals. It includes all of the animal-related dimensions of map-space, from large protected areas (e.g., sanctuaries and parks) to explicit seasonal breeding, feeding, nesting, and resting areas. It includes human accessibility (or the lack thereof) for resource users as well as law violators.
Premise 13
Nominal human populations are "publics" or significantly different groups of people that have different cultures, patterns of behavior, expectations, and concepts of the wild faunal resource. They are often separated in space. Their characteristics often change over time. Their characteristics (considered structure) are typically sex, age, and relative economic classes. They may be dynamic (e.g., numbers entering or dropping out of the trapper community; Clark (1985); or numbers informed about benefits to be derived from newly identified resources). Relations may be as disparate as hunter and anti-hunter conflicts or as cohesive as voting coalitions formed to gain lands or funds for public wild animal resource agencies.
An example of a nominal human population is "male hunters, age 21 to 50." Given 3 sex classes, 10 age classes, and 10 economic classes, there are potentially 300 classes for which statistics may be gathered … before any other names such as hunters, gardeners, hikers, etc. are included. Averages have been poorly used in the past.
The objectives of the groups are sought. They are often in conflict (or perceived to be). Often groups can be satisfied by separating their uses of space and populations in time and regions. Changes of demands, risks, and values can be achieved by behavioral modification. Conflicts can be resolved. Coalitions can be formed to achieve objectives of nominal groups.
The manager is continually attempting by selecting among many, often-changing strategies (see Premise 29), to reduce the difference between the expected benefits to be gained or experienced and those actually gained by a nominal group. He or she works to achieve satisfaction, to reduce the square of the measured difference or the dissonance.
Premise 14
Objectives are difficult for individual people, especially groups, to formulate. Partially because of the difficulty, objectives often are changed or shift with time and with the influence of new members of nominal human populations. Many actions relating to faunal space, populations, or people take many years to mature or to seem successful. It is essential for objectives to be written so that progress can be assessed, adjustments made, managers protected, and claims adjudicated.
Premise 15
Much wild faunal system work in the past has been by or within public agencies such as the state wildlife departments or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Often, managers have been unclear about the responsible decision-maker and have been unable to gain clarification about "the public" for whom they felt they worked (or who claimed their attention). For example, whether the federal wildlife refuge manager (usually on an area with large populations of migratory birds) is most responsible to local citizens, state citizens, visitors, all US citizens, or citizens of the relevant countries to which the birds migrate … or citizens of the world, is often unclear. In all decision making there is some final authority, someone in charge, someone investing, and from whom answers must be given if contractual obligations are not fulfilled. Modern wild faunal resource management has implicit with it pseudo-contractual obligations … the best possible advice for the responsible decision-maker. Rarely is the manager (unless the designated responsible manager of a large state or federal wildlife area) the decision-maker. He or she typically provides the analyses and two to four best alternatives from which the decision-maker makes selection. The private landowner is typically the responsible decision-maker. The wild faunal resource manager advises but cannot know the full range of factors of the owner, cannot assume the risks of failure of the decision, and cannot foresee the needs (and associated risks of failing to gain these) of the owner or his or her family. The manager does makes decisions in selecting the best alternatives. This may involve extensive computer analyses and optimization. Often, there is a clear "best" solution, but even then, the manager does not "decide," because in the next instant, risks will be assumed and investments will be made and implementation begun. The manager works for or serves the responsible decision-maker.
There are masses of people with massive lack of knowledge about the "wilds"; even those with outdoor-recreation, farm, and forestry experience; even after improvements in biology, ecology, and environmental education.
Individuals within "the public" as part of public participation policies have been asked to express opinions about topics (having given them less time than the average legislator gives or gets to spend on a vote).
There is inconsistent public participation (the discussion of the agencies and their agents is with a parade, maybe a crowd; the discussants are seldom the same)
Premise 16
Rational resource management requires continual analyses of benefits (as described above) as well as costs. Both can be analyzed satisfactorily by using the concept of expected benefits or costs. Expected costs are merely the product of (1) the probability of a cost not exceeding a value and (2) that value. While monetary values can be estimated for costs, similar values can only rarely be estimated for the benefits. A net value cannot be computed but a relative index can be. The well-known Benefit-to-Cost ratio index can be used. This is a reasonable expression of cost effectiveness. The manager guards against the cost of the assessment itself becoming excessive. The manager seeks to achieve and maintain a high benefit to cost ratio.
In some cases, animal populations have been assumed (or dictated by law) to have inestimably great value. In others, the populations have been so great or their undesirable characteristics or behavior so great that they were viewed as worthless. Either valuation makes most efforts at evaluating benefits and costs difficult or impossible (e.g., division by zero).
Much faunal work has been done by agencies and costs have only been dealt with as proper, full expenditure of an allocated budget annually. Benefits (as well as animal abundance) have been difficult to estimate. Properly accounting investments made for future populations (e.g., planting shrubs or building drinking-water impoundments) has been especially difficult. Nevertheless, with established written, fully quantified desired benefits, and modern computing, it is possible to approximate (and continually improve procedures for doing so) the depreciated, expected gains in benefits (not just animal numbers but all related benefits e.g., hours of successful bird watching) per unit of time, energy, or funds invested.
Premise 17
Because resource decisions in the public arena can be viewed as investments in the future (e.g., retaining old-growth forests, building dams, conserving soil for future farming), issues of rational investment are appropriate. The profound effect of the interest rate used in investment decisions for the longterm is well known and needs to be used actively within wild faunal resource system analyses. The proper procedure (or rate) for investment remains contested (Portney and Weyant 1999 Discounting and Intergenerational Equity). Interest rates and procedures, however, can be agreed upon as policy for public investments. Private investors need to recognize the special conditions of investing over the long periods typical of renewable natural resource management. National policies may distort the discount rates and they are conspicuously dynamic over the period of wild faunal resource system investments. Parametric computer simulations (of high, low, and likely ranges of rates) can provide needed insights for specific major investments.
Premise 18
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Premise 19
Because some fauna are migratory, significantly different faunal management systems are needed for each group, that is, residential and migratory life groups. While these two groups may occur on a area at the same time, local (as in the case of migrating amphibians), interstate, and international systems must be in operation for the migrants. While objectives for abundance or density may be appropriate for residents, they may be only grossly (or fool-heartily) expressed for the migrants influenced by many natural and human factors, some uncontrollable, over great distances. Management of migrants includes developing laws and regulations, enforcing laws, and implementing specific projects to assure suitable energetic conditions at the origins, protecting populations enroute, preventing movements from being blocked or delayed, and assuring suitable conditions at the destination.
Stable richness of migrants, the same species returning to an area each year, is often an objective. Failures, although often ascribed to managers, may be out of their control and may be the results of catastrophic or massive, rapid loss of desirable land use. Attempts to influence the latter is a typical action of managers as well as that of preparing resource users so that their expectations are aligned with actual populations and their related resource events.
Premise 20
The benefits derived from faunal resource events are intuitively curvilinear (Figure 2) and can be affected by the manager, but benefits are only poorly correlated with abundance or density. When populations or users become excessively abundant, the potential benefits from the resource may decline. More is not always better. Strongly influenced by past work with "game management" (e.g., Leopold, 1933) in which objectives were for increasing populations, modern wild faunal resource system management typically seeks to maximize specified human benefits at lowest costs. Typically related to hunting, trapping, and animal watching, past management for such activities is narrow and matches poorly with the potentials of the resource for supplying food, diverse recreation, tourism, education, pharmaceuticals, furs, functional enhancement of the ecosystem, enhanced esthetic quality of the human environment, and other benefits. Similarly, wildlife may cause human losses (e.g., disease) and costs. Reducing these is fully as important as increasing animals or their potential yields of benefits.
Premise 21
Wild animals may be or may become pests, disease vectors, or predators of livestock or plants and animals of special interest or value. The may damage facilities, foodstuffs, and living quarters. The faunal system manager concentrates on how such animals change the achievement of objectives and then in making cost-effective adjustments. While in some cases, an animal or a population may need to be removed, there are many techniques and procedures for changing the perceived objectives, the perception of the loss or damage, the techniques or strategies available, the feedback, and the perceptions of the near-future of the economy, the animals themselves, and their influence. A vertebrate damage management system is needed. Cost-effective education (desired changed in behavior per dollar) may be included.
Premise 22 Animals can be harvested with care. Once a minimum number has been assured (based on genetic knowledge, ecological function, and economic criteria), then the population may be manipulated to achieve desired levels and associated benefits.
Premise 23
Harvests are one major way to assure desired characteristics of populations as to structure, function, and relations, namely sex ratios, age structure, animal size, density, overall abundance, and rates of change. There are many combinations of harvest time, season length, proper areas, weapons and equipment, animals that can be taken per hunter, closing time, and permits and licenses, and rules of the hunt and disposal of the animals taken that can be changed by the manager to achieve a desired harvest (hunting or trapping), a desired residual population, fair distribution of the resource among potential users, and protection of landowners.
Premise 24
Hunting is one means to achieve a desired harvest but the human benefits from hunts are poorly correlated with harvest numbers (see Figure 2). Benefits are strongly correlated with pre-hunt planning and experiences, and social interactions, i.e., dimensions of the event. Benefits of the hunt are likewise positively correlated with the magnitude of difference between the hunt and daily life, exercise gained, pleasant weather conditions, pre-hunt preparations and purchases, special observations, and post-hunt remembrances and tales.
Premise 25
Where there is ample cover and normal or controlled gun hunting, populations can rarely be over-harvested because harvest per unit of hunting effort declines and hunting stops before a population reaches a non-replacement level.
Premise 26
Animals and plants may be moved from one area or population to another. Transplanting is usually more effective than stocking, but population size, behavior, environmental conditions, and use rates or disturbance influence the success of such movements by manager. Introducing animals or plants new to an area must be done, if at all (because there have been few successes), with extreme care and knowledge of the risks involved.
Premise 27
Much as with other resources, many wild faunal resource events and their benefits are substitutable (see Premise 6) for specific populations of people. A deer hunter may not shoot a deer during a day of hunting but will be satisfied equally if he or she shoots 3 pheasants. Two deer may substitute for taking a bear. Seeing one new bird species say substitute for seeing only 50 of the usual 70 species seen on the morning bird walk. A person having seen a rare bird may find the next bird species seen not very satisfy, even if it is uncommon. Variety seems required for high quality of faunal resource events. People make lists and compete with themselves and others to have additions to their lists. "Success" for the user (often a decision about whether an event is substitutable, and thus gains made by the manager for clients) is largely a function of remembered or recorded past experience rather than current or likely experience of the nominal user group.
A user may seek a specific bird to add a species to their life list but in the process, fail to do so, and discover another new bird for the list. The bird observation is substituted and the user will tend to view the faunally-related event as a success at the same cost (time, distance traveled, etc.) and within a range -- slightly less or even greater quality. Nominal human groups may differ in their willingness to (probability of) substitute. A satiated or recently satisfied individual or public will be more willing to substitute than others for some demands.
Failure to address substitutability has resulted in chaotic understanding wild faunal resource management "success" and the multi-dimensional "hunting experience."
Populations
Premise 28
Managers work with and change the energy budgets of animal populations to achieve desired population abundance. Animals are a function of many factors, chief among which is their ability to achieve a positive energy balance for survival, energy conservation, and reproduction. Managers can simultaneously provide energy, reduce costs of foraging or energy intake, and reduce drains or losses.
While the manager may concentrate on the animals and their abundance, much of the emphasis of the field is on the action or processes of the animals. An overly-generalized field of "animal behavior" tends to be descriptive of the actions of the animals of the population such as those directly related (breeding), those related to faunal space (migrating, defending areas, selecting sites for activities). While populations, faunal space, and people are the structural elements of the field, each can be translated into many actions, each of which can be readily seen and which provides opportunities for managers to affect population size of the potential benefits it might provide.
Premise 29
Wildlife laws exist and are needed to protect the resource, disperse use, allow users equal opportunity to the resource, protect land owners end land holders, and assure income to the agency where licenses or use fees are charged.
A wildlife law enforcement system is needed with careful development of essential law, work with the related courts and law enforcement agencies, public education, crime prevention, crime deterrence, apprehension of violators, efficient and effective court processes, and significant penalties or effective behavioral modification to reduce future violations, and rewards for desirable behaviors. Diverse strategies need to be used within a total enforcement system are essential because of the dispersed and non-random nature of the violations.
Faunal space can be changed to reduce poachers' effectiveness and to change access for disturbance of law violations.
In urban systems, growth in urban area is common, and it typically reduces rural lands and thus space of many large fauna. Inequalities result and thus needs grow for justice and specialized court and enforcement services. Intensive use of inner-city natural areas, including abnormal human/wild animal interactions, require the action of the public but eventually enforcement staff. Animals cause disturbances to people and may become pests. Some may become dangerous by several criteria. Preventing and reducing conflicts and addressing the benefits, risks, and costs needs to be a part of the enforcement effort.
Effectively using technology, apprehending violators, deterring violators, evaluating results, and expediting court procedures are all needed. Adding the work of education and prevention to this list of work of an individual or small staff is rarely effective. It needs to be done by specialists. The "threat" of the effective officer needs to be separated from the functions of the teacher.
Faunal Space
Premise 30
Managed faunal spaces are volumes. Animals may be considered to live within three-dimensional spaces or layers of the mapped terrain and many are especially well adapted for doing so. The layers extend from below the soil surface to hundreds of meters above the surface. These dimensions, latitude, longitude, elevation and layer thickness, are major factors of the n dimensions stated above. Layers that are present in an area are usually well-correlated with richness and variety.
Premise 31
Protected space is one aspect of faunal space, that which is to be managed. It may be tightly controlled parks, wilderness areas, refuges, sanctuaries, natural monuments, even off-limit military areas by herein is developed the concept of all of the resources of a large area being managed, protected as needed, allowing people to work in an area and around it for a very long time so as to achieve their objectives.
While "harmony with nature" is a theme, it is consistent with the more important theme, that of achieving a large set of important human objectives over the long run. Not in opposition to European "protected areas" or "protected landscapes" (which have been known for 40 years) managed resource space is a concept that may include such concepts, but not necessarily. The concept is one of land protected from simple-minded maximizing, from sub-optimization, from disproportionate human group representation, and from short-term allocations. The concept of protected landscapes may be one whose time has come and perhaps it will soon be replaced by managed resource space.
The success of a long-term, lasting, protected space project depends on cooperation of people and groups and on the natural commitment of the people and authorities to the objectives and to the major techniques employed. A social need is to allow people to exist and experience the area in ways that may enhance the local economy but also in ways that do not substantially alter or adversely effect the local natural, cultural, and social ceremonies or behaviors.
Certain species need very large areas which provide little or no disturbance by people (which would result in energy drains from their disturbance) and diverse long-term life requirements. The public manager may meet these needs by gaining legislation requiring land use such as for refuges, parks, and wilderness areas.
Premise 32
Managed resource spaces are nominal systems. They may be pointed out, boundaries sketched, and mapped but only the people living in and near them can comprehend them. They are a singular environment... unusual, interesting, one thing, distinctive. It is possible that such unique spaces may be maintained and enhanced, thereby assuring that the people's stated social and financial needs are met and owner's rights are protected and respected.
These spaces are more than landscapes, said grossly by some to be "the environment that people experience." They are the areas and volumes, past and present; all the phenomena called ecological. They encompass esthetics (as in most landscape work), economics (broadly, with long-term profit as a measure of economic success), and energetics implying the fundamental budgeting of energy (especially the net energy budgeting of survivors) throughout the entire system. The concept also encompasses the staff and personnel working on and with them, facilities, and computer system.
Managed resource space may be protected spaces. They typically have some of the characteristics of parks and resources but tend to have outstanding semi-natural landscapes to be in productive use, to be inhabited, to have major responsibility to local governments, to be mainly in private ownership, and to be under the care of a decision maker with clear objectives and a systems coordinator.
Premise 33
Knowledge of the productive nature of lands for certain species, while needed for decisions about quantities and sequences of treatments and cultural practices, is also needed to make decisions about lands to avoid, and where investments cannot be made effectively.
Premise 34
Animal population presence or abundance is a function of land type or the use of the land. For example, as land area ownership changes from small to large, cultural practices on the land change, and thus the animals benefitted by former practices are lost or diminished. Thus, management may be directed far beyond protected and managed spaces (described above). It includes affecting the direction of private as well as public land ownership, cultural practices, restoration, enhancement, and management.
For example, encouraging efficient production of crops can reduce alternative needs for spreading use of land (thus reducing the desired spaces for some species) to produce the same crops. Intensive crop production (e.g., food crops, forest plantations) can shift production to fewer acres, reduce impacts to faunal species on other areas that would have been used, and provide for more intensive management and controls on the faunal populations of the high-production areas.
Premise 35 Wild animal populations are more related to the age of a community (years from some initial condition such as timber harvest or intensive fire) than community type (often described as eco-regions or forest type). Groups of ages can be called a stage or life form. Stage of succession or predictable transition in communities can be manipulated to achieve the animals or plants associated with the stage. Succession is a concept of ecology. The relations of plants and animals to each stage (or age) are known from botany and ecology. The manager works to gain the desired stage and hold it (delay the change trend) by directly involving fertilizers, irrigation, thinning, planting, grazing, tree harvests, controlled fires, and other techniques.
Premise 36
Each area (for example within a managed area) is differentially dynamic so the manager must achieve the specific total areas in each desired stage, each year, to achieve the conditions needed by the set of life groups being managed. Failure to do so results in fluctuating population richness and abundance and thus largely unpredictable abilities of areas to produce desired population event potentials.
Premise 37
Density of animals in an area can be influenced by changing the size of a homogeneous area perceptibly different from adjacent areas (e.g., a forest stand, a rangeland shrub community). The relationship is one of simple proportionality. Richness tends to be a function of the size of an area of interest. The more communities included, the more species. Richness, while a function of area, is also related to edge, range of elevation, and layers. For islands, number of species is related to distance from the mainland.
When an area of one community life form or stage is made smaller (as by mowing, tree harvests, etc), it may be called "fragmentation of the habitat" but this implies that additions have been made to the surrounding habitat, thus one habitat is less "fragmented."
Premise 38
Each species is differently related to the presence of edges. A score from zero to 10 can be assigned, estimating approximate proclivity of a faunal life group to an edge of a specific type (paired communities, ages, height, and widths into each community.) When communities (e.g., forest stands) become very small, they no longer provide the microclimate forage base, or other requirements for certain species. By changing the shape of areas, the edge-to-area ratio can be changed. For some species, a maximum edge-to-area ratio is desired. A circular area provides the minimum edge per unit area. Maximum edge for an area is provided by a long, thin rectangle (of specified small, minimum width).
Premise 39 Large land units such as forest stands and crop fields can be arranged to provide corners, places where three or more units join. Like edges, these corners are valuable for some species, irrelevant to others.
Premise 40
Managers must select from many alternatives. If a system has 7 components (and all natural systems have more than this) and the decision makers are 0.90 sure of each part, then the chances of a correct outcome are 0.5. The demands for "good" decisions are exorbitant.
There are many potential alternatives there are for every natural resource decision. The number is governed not only by combination, but especially by permutation, principles. The best place to put device or practice X probably has optional areas with 10 elevation classes, 8 aspect classes, 4 slope classes, 4 landform classes, 2 nearness-to-stream classes, 4 nearness-to-road classes, and 4 soil/geology classes. The place must be decided from among 41,000 spots.
Premise 41
Computer-based systems can describe past and current conditions and processes and project changes likely to occur in faunal resource systems (from national to small land ownerships). Rejecting "planning" (for which there are more than 30 published definitions), managers tend to develop dynamic guidance systems that show placement and scheduling of managerial actions that are developed through optimization. Long planning periods are typically selected for maximum discounted gains from investments in managerial activity. Computer maps show likely conditions in the projected periods if recommendations are followed. Consequences of sub-optimization, over investments, and delays are part of such guidance systems. Because available via the Internet, large area-specific guidance documents are continually changing and responsive to local natural catastrophies and changes in owner's or public objectives (or improved optimization), and to the effects of globalization.
Premise 42 Faunal system studies have been conducted for many years. There has been discussion of the nature of studies, research, and inventory, the proper topics and sequences of such studies, and the need for effectively bringing results into applications. The results of these activities, sometime called the conclusions of the scientific method, are seen as potential inputs to the management decision-making system.
Notable scientific accomplishments and introductions to science have created in the general public an environment of excessive expectations for technology, resource manipulation, and data gathering.
Scientists, the community, have adopted an arch-conservative, risk-averse paradigm in the standards for confidence in their micro-environment, tightly-controlled experimental decision making. That paradigm has been taught and thus the general educated public has excessively high, excessively costly, excessively delayed contributions of "science" to decisions. Science has been touted as the primary methodology for improved decision making but science itself is currently being openly criticized. Wild faunal resource system work cannot be done in controlled conditions on a grand scale.In all attempted studies, variance is inevitably very great, or sample sizes inadequate, or justifications for alpha levels missing, or power rarely evaluated, acceptable accuracy unreasonable. Budgets are unknown or inadequate for proposed studies and if known, sure to be cut before adequate studies can be completed to meet estimated statistical requirements for sound conclusions.
"More research is needed" is now, for many, a laughable phrase. A more general alternative paradigm called merely "studies" is now badly needed that addresses the conditions (listed above) of the wild faunal resource manager. One is needed that addresses decisions, provides required inputs, expresses a few (3 to 7) parametric sets of probabilities for estimates, uses several epistemological bases, addresses the limits of observations (ranges), includes multiple assessments of risks, evaluates coalition value sets and risk sets, is usually spatially oriented (mappable), and available in automated formats for rapid adjustments and corrections. Balances are needed among studies of faunal populations, faunal space, and nominal human populations. Special studies are needed of natural or on-going trends, and how changes (plus or minus) can be made if needed to achieve objectives, cost effectively. There is little room, if any, for so-called "basic research" within the realm of work called wild faunal resource system management. Such management may stimulate and use the results of such research.
Premise 43
Many of the techniques and procedures related to management of faunal populations within cities and towns are relate to those of public health. The work includes quarantine, removal of vectors, removal of the faunal spaces of vectors and hosts, prophylaxis, monitoring, and responsive correcting or adjustment to the findings from monitors.
Wrapping up under development.,,,,,,
After years of increasing delays, suits, frustrations, counter-claims, and conflict among practitioners and analysts, the difficulties of decision making within natural resource management, especially that for the wild animal resource, have reached a level at which further regress seems intolerable. The rise of environmental interest, while favorable, has had negative unavoidable consequences within the realm of management within which forests, rangelands, the wildlife resource, fisheries, streamside zones, and soil are the major topics. These were called the wildland topics. Less traditional topics of urban sprawl into forested lands, mountain-home developments, and residential area development have emerged. Inner-city pests and disease vectors have now gained prominence in the literature of wildlife management. It seems essential for alternative syntheses to be attempted and clarity gained for improving the practice, educating the new workers, informing citizens, and gaining public financial and other support for superior management, whether it be within the public or private sectors.
I do not suggest moral or ethical standards as among the Premises, only knowledge bases for action. There are believed to be about 40 premises, major tenets of a theory of modern wild faunal resource system management. There may be other principles but they are few.
Purposeful future discussions are encouraged to improve the logic, provide regional precision, assure plausibility, gain efficiency in communicating, gain predictive power, and continue to recognize human investment in a field of work. Many people can tend animals, mow grass, build houses, create forage areas. Many are expert observers and scholars. The professional university-educated wildlife manager can do these things too, but the important work, the real evidence for management is in decisions made about how to manipulate things so that people benefit. If they do not benefit significantly more as a result of the manager's work than before such work, then management has not taken place. The person's activities are misdirected, the same as mere random variation, noise in the system. The above 43 suggest a pattern that may be useful for advancing a more clear view of the realm of work needed now and for the future to improve the management of that resource.
Literature Cited
Clark, A. G. 1985. Characteristics of trappers in Maine, 1976 to 1980. M.S. Thesis, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ., Blacksburg, Va. 156 pp.
Friedman, T.L. 1999. The Lexus and the olive tree:understanding globilization, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York, NY 394pp.
Lomborg. B. 1999. The skeptical environmentalist. Cambridge Univ. Press, ???? &
Soule´, M. E. 1991. Land use planning and wildlife maintenance: guidelines for conserving wildlife in an urban landscape. Journal of the American Planning Association 57:313-323.
United Nations Publications. 1998. World population projections to 2150. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. New York http://www.undp.org/popin/wdtrends/execsum.htm
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