Wildlife management means making decisions and taking actions to change the structure, dynamics, and relations of wild animal populations, faunal space, and people to achieve specific human objectives by means of the wild faunal resource. (A definition previously discussed.)

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 breadth of natural-resource awareness and expertise is considered to be desirable by employers and educators. An ability for other resource managers to communicate effectively with wildlife management experts is considered essential. A wildlife management principles course 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.

The following materials are presented, partially to encourage a continual analysis of the needs in the introductory or early courses within the university within the field of wildlife management. An analysis and communication between instructors, students, and practitioners is now made feasible by the internet. At a basic level, which of the following topics should not be taught or mastery required? How might insertions be justified in a vast, diverse, and changing field? What are the fewest items to be taught, the fundamentals...of the essentials? Perhaps these are the principles? but I doubt it. RHG

Objectives

The objectives of the course are:

Instructor's Objective : To create a small educational system such that at 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 public or private wildland management agencies or enterprises so as to make, or cause to be made, improved wildlife-resource-related decisions.

Specific Behavioral: The following is the specific list of behavioral objectives for students in this course. Evaluation will be based exclusively on each student's achievement of all of these behavioral objectives. Where "describe" or "discuss" are used, students are expected to be able to speak competently on, write an answer to, and also recognize an appropriate response to the question.

A. Wildlife Management as a System

The student will be able:

1. To write precisely the specific definition of wildlife management employed in this course
2. To choose well between examples of wildlife management activities and those that are not.
3. To choose well between examples of wildlife management and game management.
4. To diagram a complete "general system", the pattern used as a basis for a systems approach to wildlife resource management.
5. To select and categorize in writing from a wildlife management text keywords indicating major components of a general system.
6. To discuss system homeostasis and list examples for an animal, a population, a wildlife manager, and a wildlife agency.
7. To select examples of system analysis and design from a set of possible examples.
8. To define and select examples of equifinality.
9. To compute the permutations of a small number of management practices.
10. To flow diagram a solution system for a wildlife management problem employing categories of the general system.
11. To select an effective management technique, tactic, or strategy using supplied data and the objective-weighting matrix.
12. To write the approximate date of origin of scientific wildlife management.
13. To select from a list the author of the first textbook on modern wildlife management.
14. To name the titles of three major texts on wildlife management.
15. To match author with title of at least five major recent monographs on wildlife.
16. To name the Congressional Acts that provide significant funds for state agency wildlife and fisheries management and research in the U. S.
17. To choose from a list the major employers of wildlife managers.
18. To select from alternatives a suitable definition of ecology.

B. The Modern Wildlife Manager

The student will be able:

1. To describe the duties of wildlife managers in the past.
2. To order the historical sequence of use of various methods typically employed in wildlife management.
3. To list likely changes in duties of managers within the next 20 years.
4. To choose from a list those changes which have contributed most to the future role of the manager.
5. To describe the educational requirements, attitudes, and skills likely to result in wildlife management success.
6. To name periodicals likely to be of greatest usefulness in continuing education and professional growth.
7. To list at least 10 different appropriate uses of computers in wildlife management.
8. To name the six steps of the scientific process.
9. To identify the major differences between the scientific method and the systems approach.
10. To identify research as an input subsystem to wildlife resource decisions.
11. To describe how computer simulation can be employed to identify needed research and to improve research fund allocation.
12. To identify major differences between basic and applied research.
13. To identify major differences between wildlife research and inventory.
14. To identify major differences between ecological description and eco- system design.
15. To state the objectives of a modern wildlife law enforcement agency.
16. To state the potential roles of a wildlife manager in a diverse private natural resource corporation.
17. To state appropriate roles of state-employed wildlife managers in public decision-making processes associated with wildlife laws and regulations.
18. To state the general characteristics of successful natural resource consultants working with public as well as private clients.

C. Management Subsystems: People Management

The student will be able:

1. To define the concept of learning as 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 people-management strategies in written examples.
5. To identify the major differences between " Prepare for Panic" and " Preventative Education" as people-management strategies.
6. To calculate, given appropriate data, the probability of satisfying all of the people in a complex environmental decisions.
7. To list 10 primary concepts of wildlife resource utility.
8. To calculate a value for forest game (e.g. the gray squirrel) using the concept of opportunity cost.
9. To describe at least two ways by which demand for wildlife can be in- creased, two by which it can be decreased.
10. To list at least four major incentive approaches to gaining private and public willingness to increase game populations.
11. To graph the probable expected relations between: license sales and license price; hunters in an area and distances traveled; game kill and time since opening day.
12. To choose the most effective means for distributing game harvests among hunters from between (a) reducing daily bag limits, and (b) reducing season length.
13. To graph game kill as a function of marginal return for hunter effort.
14. To identify the factors influencing declining kill throughout the average hunting season.
15. To list major approaches to reducing wildlife injury and damage.
16. To list major ways to increase hunter safety and reduce hunting related accidents.
17. To list and match the major characteristics of three major types of state wildlife organizations.
18. To name at least three periodicals likely to be useful in the continuing education of managers dealing with the human dimensions of wild faunal resource management.
19. To name at least five types of people-management feedback.
20. To give at least two examples of feedforward related to people-management tasks within the field.

D. Management Subsystems: Population Management

The student will be able:

1. To define animal density.
2. To define a population.
3. To define species richness.
4. To order representative populations by their diversity.
5. To calculate (a) energy needs and (b) reproductive potential given a population age structure and relevant data.
6. To name general techniques for aging white-tailed deer, ring-necked pheasants, bob-white quail, and black bear.
7. To list at least five major ways of determining the sex of wildlife.
8. To identify the difference between antlers and horns.
9. To calculate a conventional sex ratio, given data on percentages of males and females or counts; or percent females, given a sex ratio.
10. To name the normal life expectancy of (a) most small game animals and (b) representative big game mammals.
11. To order a set of alternative populations based on information about their likely stability.
12. To calculate, given representative data, the rate of change in a population.
13. To identify from among alternatives the most rational statement of the law of the minimum and limiting factors.
14. To identify age pyramids reflecting population increase, decrease, or stability.
15. To calculate the mean weighted natality of a population, given an age distribution and age-specific natality.
16. To write a generalized equation relating population size to sex ratio, life expectancy, and natality.
17. To define monogamy, polygamy, promiscuity, and polyandry.
18. To order the above social breeding characteristics on the basis of requisite managerial knowledge and skills required.
19. To graph the general relationship between population density and disease.
20. To list the major population mortality categories.
21. To graph and explain annual mortality rates in game populations, by year and over 5 years.
22. To identify the population-loss compensation principle.
23. To name at least four major theories about the causes of long-term wildlife population oscillations.
24. To name major species that are representative of the two major periodicities which have been called game cycles (3-4 years and 9-10 years).
25. To select the best explanation of the causative relationships that generally exist between large animal predator and prey increases.
26. To identify on a graph the population characteristic " threshold of security."
27. To graph the general relationship between upland game populations over time and waterfowl populations over time (since about 1900).
28. To state the major objectives of federal waterfowl regulations.
29. To calculate the number of hunting permits to be issued, given a desired harvest, probable permit pick-up rate, and probably hunter success rate.
30. To graph the general relationship between percent of a game population re-moved and hunting pressure.
31. To graph the relationship between production of young and hunting pressure and density.
32. To calculate, given representative data, the permissible population removal by hunting from among select stable upland game species populations.
33. To name at least five major reasons why exotic game animals should not be introduced.
34. To name at least five major reasons why bounties on predators are unsuccessful.
35. To state the " bounty hunter" syndrome and write at least two examples.
36. To state when predator control may be effective.
37. To list 3 or more reasons for discouraging population estimation work.
38. To calculate, given representative data, a population size estimate using the Lincoln-Petersen index.
39. List the major assumptions required for conventional capture-recapture population estimation.
40. To calculate, given representative data, an estimate of a population of game poachers using the Lincoln-Petersen or Bailey index.
41. To state or identify an appropriate rationale for " shooting" (Vs hunting) as the major population control strategy for excessively large big game herds.
42. To list at least five diseases of wildlife contracted by people.
43. To identify from a list, at least five extinct, rare, or endangered U. S. wildlife species.
44. To list the major disadvantages of introducing exotic animals into areas.
45. To graph expected, typical population change over time, following species introduction.
46. To select from among alternatives examples or explanations of the adreno-pituitary axis concept of population stress.
47. To graph a survival curve for each of the following: bighorn sheep, hydra, bobwhite quail, and Eurasian-American people.
48. To define buffer species.
49. To order, based on general magnitude, a list of wildlife mortality factors.
50. To identify the major rationale for refuges (in general), refuges (U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service), sanctuaries, preserves, and public " wildlife management areas."
51. To identify major arguments for the ineffectiveness of refuges as a management practice for small game.
52. To list at least 10 physiological or anatomical characteristics of animals that reflect the quality of their habitat.

E. Management Subsystems: Faunal Space Management

The student Will be able:

1. To distinguish between habitat and faunal space.
2. To match major wildlife species to their primary biome and seral stage.
3. To define seral stage.
4. To match a list of typical habitat with the following species: white-tailed and mule deer, moose, antelope, eastern wild turkey, ruffled grouse, cottontail rabbit, woodcock, mallard, scaup, canvasback, whooping crane.
5. To identify major relationships between wildlife population characteristics and soil fertility.
6. To select from described areas, those most likely to produce high populations of specified game animals.
7. To define vacuum effect as applied to habitat. To identify the reason why the phenomenon of animals being "driven out " of an area is unlikely.
8. To describe with examples: habitat structure and dynamics.
9. To list 13 major methods for manipulating ecosystem succession or related conditions.
10. To list at least eight major factors characterizing wildlife food.
11. To list at least eight major types of wildlife food.
12. To identify wildlife species seeming to need free-standing water in major parts of the year.
13. To list at least five major types of faunal cover.
14. To describe the energetic relationships between food and cover.
15. To define "carrying capacity " as employed in this course.
16. To order among described situations those which are ecologically most stable.
17. To define a key wildlife area.
18. To identify on a map sites that are representative of the concepts of interspersion, juxtaposition, edge, and corners.
19. To define edge effect and list the relevant assumptions about edge effect.
20. To graph the relationship of edge and edge volume effect to acreage in a variety of field shapes and forest cutting patterns.
21. To describe how habitat quality can influence permissible game harvest.
22. To state the relationship that exists between cover and harvest potentials for small game.
23. To choose the highest cost of a harvested bird between a pheasant raised in a game farm and one raised on the land, given a set of conditions.
24. To define passive management of wildlife habitat.
25. To select a hunter campsite on a map using the zone-of-influence concept.
26. To define territory, center of activity, cruising radius, home range, habitat, and niche (as n-dimensional hypervolume).
27. To list at least six reasons why winter feeding of wildlife is usually undesirable.
28. To choose from a list an equation properly expressing the relationship between deer weight and daily forage need.
29. To calculate, given graphs, total area-wide forage production, over time.
30. To calculate, using production functions and the concept of aggregates, likely populations or resource benefits from an area, over time.
31. To describe computer mapping and major applications in the field.
32. To list the following four criteria for analyzing environmental impact: (a) direct and secondary effects, (b) immediate and future effects, (c) relative effects (to other alternative decisions), and (d) proportionate effects on residual resources.
33. To choose from examples those best displaying the concept of wildlife injury or damage.

As may be evident, the above can be handed to the student(s) at the beginning of a course as a teaching/learning device. (This was done during several semesters; it was used by few students.) Evaluations would logically be based on whether students can demonstrate mastery of the above. Exam questions, test items, seem self-evident from the format of the statements.

Not yet developed is the question: Can the student who has mastered all of the above do anything judged to be meaningful with it and do it well? The struggle for the proper question and abundant positive responses continues.