| A unit of Lasting Forests
evolving since March 30, 1999 |
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A Total Forest Management Plan
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See also Pest Force.
Injury is physical change caused by an animal to crops, trees, or structures. Tooth marks or claw marks on a door frame are "injury" but whether that is "damage" needs to be decided. Damage is injury plus significant value loss and "significant" implies that which exceeds the estimated cost of control or that which notably reduces the quality of life of people. Scratch marks on a barn door may merely be injury. The identical marks at the main entrance may be damage.
A pest is an animal that causes actual or perceived damage. Almost any animal in some situation may cause injury.
Principle 6 of the Forest Stewardship Council is that Forest management shall conserve biological diversity and its associated values, water resources, soils, and unique and fragile ecosystems and landscapes, and by so doing, maintain the ecological functions and the integrity of of the forest.
To this end a form of integrated pest management is used. As prescribed in the Southeastern Standards of the Forest Stewardship Council, IPM is used to maintain or improve forest health or function. We minimize chemical use in doing so. The Certified Resource Manager has been hired to study well-tested biological controls for pest problems and to include descriptions of these methods and procedures with this hypertext. Genetically altered organisms will not be used but selective breeding of superior trees and game animals will continue to be pursued.
Herein, only vertebrate problems are addressed. A unit on invertebrates is under development.
Integrated vertebrate faunal damage management implies that systems are created to actively manage the damage caused by animals. It may include actively controlling or reducing the animal population but the implication of an integrated system is that decisions are made from cost-analyzed options. The damage may be reduced to a tolerable level by fencing or repellents. The animal population is not changed; the damage is.
"Integrated" implies computer aided decisions, selecting from thousands of combinations and permutations the set of actions that together (with synergistic effects), will reduce damage over the long run for the least net present-discounted cost.
Management options include:
The emphasis herein is on avoiding naming an animal a "pest"; analyzing each situation as if it were unique; and assuring estimated costs of damage management are less than estimated likely costs or losses related to the animal.
Managing the wild or semi-domestic faunal resource includes a legitimate and important (increasingly so) component related to pests. Managing the damage produced by vertebrate pests is a part of faunal resource management. Reducing management concerns to computed financial and related losses related to wild animals is, however, a narrow view. Instead, the emphasis should be on managing whole systems, not just on production, but on net returns. Natural resource management needs to be viewed not as conservation but holistic management; not biology but ecology; and not ecology, but a total system, not just reducing losses, but increasing total system benefits.
The need is for increasingly rational and sophisticated management of comprehensive natural resource-related systems that include the wild faunal resource.
See also predators and resources of the Berryman Institute.
See Hygnstrom, Scott E., Robert M. Timm and Gary E. Larson. 1994.
Prevention and Control of Wildlife Damage. University of Nebraska
Cooperative Extension Service, United States Department of Agriculture -
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service-Animal Damage Control, Great
Plains Agriculture Council - Wildlife Committee.
This publication is available in book form and on CD-ROM.
Send orders to:
Wildlife Damage Handbook
202 Natural Resources Hall
University of Nebraska
P.O. Box 830819
Lincoln, NE 68583-0819
Book Format cost (US Dollars) $40.00 plus $5.00 shipping (Foreign Orders,
add 10% of total).
CD-ROM Format $60.00 plus $5.00 shipping.
They do have a web site for this publication.
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Last revision January 17, 2000.