Rural System's

Modern Wild Faunal Resource System Management

[ Web site Home | The Course's Home | Table of Contents | The Finder | Glossary ]

Your Future in Wildlife Resource Management

There are unlimited potentials and opportunities for people in wildlife management. I've spent 50 years reading and thinking about, working on, and doing research in the area. It is a field of great challenge, great importance, and, at least, high curiosity. It is worthy of a person's career and interest. There are so many uncertainties these days and so many people with a genuine interest in wildlife management seeking information on employment and opportunities that a full discussion seems like a good idea.

See the Internet sources for job announcements and for higher education opportunities.

I have never been satisfied with my answers to questions about "what do you do?" or "what is wildlife management?" The field is far too diverse for a good quick answer. Few if any wildlife managers do the same things. There are unlimited tasks implied in the definition: Making decisions and taking actions to manipulate the structure, dynamics, and relations of populations, habitats, and people to achieve specific objectives by means of the wild animal resource.

I have had advanced wildlife students undergo identity crises. I have experienced some of the same uncertainty myself, as the forces and topics of society ebb and flow. There are important questions of career choice, and a vocation to be answered by the thinking student. "The unexamined life is not worth living." The career questions typically hinge on how important is wildlife management. Can a person afford to spend his/her life in such an activity when there may be equal or more important activities for a generally competent human? These types of questions will not and should not go away.

This unit is prepared to assist the reader in avoiding the wrong career choice, understanding better the decisions made by others, and assisting others to find the right place in the broad field of wildlife management (which I now call faunal resource management).

My bias is clear: the field of wildlife management needs only people who are highly committed to a life-time of continuing education, working hard, broadening of view, and total system embracement, working with others, giving unusual attention to appropriate scale and to where other experts and ideas fit, and possessing an uncharacteristic tendency to focus on "the goals and objectives." The field is full of people, yet there are massive needs for enthusiastic, committed wildlife managers. My best analogy is that of a beautiful hospital, extremely well fitted, fully staffed, and there being the sudden realization that there are no doctors! (Leopold's concept of land health in Sand County Almanac can provide further insights.)

I desire to do two things, both to attract and to secure as peers highly motivated and competent people and also to assist others to decide against joining. Both will be equally desirable outcomes, for the final goal is to assist people in achieving their highest humanity.

A goal, whatever the above consequences, is to assure each reader a place in wildlife management. There are many niches or compartments available. There are only artificial criteria for judging the goodness of each niche; there are no levels. All humans, when performing rationally and to their ability, may be equal. There may be several niches that can be filled by each person. Perhaps for some jobs there is only one person, but there is room for everyone. The fundamental goal of this article is that the reader become an active part of the field of wildlife management.

It has become very clear since 1969-70 that citizens can have as much or more influence on the wild faunal resource as can professionals. There is no class barrier. All can work with the resource. All can do wonders. There is no particular order of importance to the work that can be done. There is little relevance in deciding what is the most important role within wildlife management. Each person is important, interactively, if he or she is competent and seeking to improve his or her competence.

There is a future for many people in wildlife management. These include:

Supporters

1. Spouses of professionals, freeing them to perform to their full potential.
2. Fund raisers and donators to foundations and groups involved in wildlife management.
3. Rewarders, giving positive reinforcement and political support to those doing good work.
4. Writers of legislative letters.
5. Rewarders of progressive educational and enforcement programs.
6. Informants on illegal wildlife activities.
7. Idea generators and authors of innovative or encouraging letters, white papers, articles, and recommended legislation.

1. Legislators
2. Marketing and advertising councils, boards, and agencies
3. Planners, planning commissions, and port authorities
4. Air, noise, water, and related boards and commissions
5. Soil conservation district boards
6. Private wildlife agency leadership
7. Research advisory councils and boards

1. Species managers
2. Research and inventory (Systems, Communities, Habitats, Populations, People, Techniques)
3. Area managers (State Parks and Forests, Refuges, Corps of Engineers areas, Reclamation, DOD areas, NASA areas, National Parks, Indian areas, FAO, AID, other-country areas, etc.)
4. Fiscal officers
5. People management specialists
   • Photographers, art, graphics
   • Writers
   • Media specialists
   • Magazine editors
   • Group work
   • Conference and program planning and leadership
   • Landowner contacts (e.g. county-level extension)
   • Information officers
   • 4-H and other youth work
6. Law enforcement
   • research
   • area workers
   • county workers
   • education officers
   • equipment repair and maintenance
7. Systems development and operation
8. Planning
9. Administration
10. Lands survey, records, inventory, acquisition, sales

1. Biology and ecology teachers in high schools and elsewhere
2. Foresters
3. Fisheries biologists and managers
4. Range managers
5. Water pollution control boards
6. Air pollution control boards
7. County extension personnel
8. County natural resource and soil conservation Services
9. Range managers (BLM, USFS, Fish and Wildlife Service, County, DOD, Corps of Engineers, etc.)
10. State and federal agriculturists (pest control, disease, land and water bank and related programs, pesticide relations, irrigation districts, etc.)
11. Agronomists and horticulturists
12. Researchers in a wide variety of fields, e.g., electronics, physiology, genetics.
13. Lobbyists

1. Membership
2. Officers
3. Special projects

1. Shooting preserve management
2. Area managers (private areas, Audubon camps, etc.)
3. Consultants
   • EIA and EIS preparation
   • Pest and damage control
   • Area plans
   • Prescriptions
   • Testimony
   • Education
   • Publications and media
   • Enforcement
   • Damage assessment
   • Surveys
   • Forestry-wildlife-range analyses
   • Research
   • Monitoring
   • Systems service
   • Physiological analyses
   • Combinations of the above
   • ... and only recently the emerging concept of the comprehensive wildland conglomerate such as Lasting Forests or the wildlife component to such a system of enterprises.

There is a future for everyone in wildlife management. It may not be, and probably is not, the same image of that future you now have.(See the textbooks available for gaining familiarity with the topics of the field.) That is good. There is an important role which you may play, there may be great pleasure and excitement found in that pursuit. There may be new and undreamed roles. It is not possible to specify what your particular role should be, for that is a function of your genetics, environment, physique, peer and family concepts of "good", and many other forces. The message, however, is that there is a role and the needs are very great for highly competent, dynamic, learning, ethical, people investing themselves sufficiently to become effective in guiding the wildlife resource to highly productive ends.

Assignment

1. Talk to someone (almost anyone) after reading and studying this unit and tell them briefly what a wildlife manager does. Verbalize the concept. If you are married to a wildlifer, answer a friend's question " does your spouse do?"
2. How might it be that a person not working full time as a professional wildlife manager might have more influence on the resource than the professional? Write at least a paragraph.
3. If you are a wildlife person (or plan to become one) how will you evaluate your life success when that time comes? Impact on acres? On animals? on people? On the resource? Not on impact but on ...? Others?

Go to the top.

This Web site is maintained by R. H. Giles, Jr.
Send an email message - Questions, revisions?
Last revision January 19, 2004.