Essentials of Wildlife Management

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Working the Triangle: Perspectives

Most teaching, like words in most books, is one darn thing right after another. Teaching is sequential. Organization is praised. Conventional organization follows the following pattern:

A.
B.
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
C.
D.
E.

Throughout wildlife resource management, managers daily find that decisions and actions are not sequential but simultaneous. Managers cannot work in a linear fashion (A,B,C, 1,2,3 as above) but must adopt the concept of working across a plane or a surface. The three key components of wildlife management work are not done in sequence but simultaneously. Pop-Hab-People Triangle

The point in the triangle suggests the place where at some time the three factors are being considered and dealt with simultaneously. Pressure from any component, any changed importance, can move the point within the space. Consider (or actually do) a little experiment. Get a peice of cardboard, perhaps off the back of a tablet of paper. Cut a large trinagle. Put a pencil mark where you think the center of gravity is. Next try to balance the triangle on the pencil point placed somewhere near the center. It may not be possible but mark the place where the balance seems best. The odds are that the 2 marks will not be exactly the same. If each corner of the triangle is marked with the three above topics and a nearly perfect balance of knowledge and work among the three is desired, then finding that center of gravity is very difficult. Finding mathematically the center of gravity of a complex polygon has been a confounding problem for years. If the triangle you selected is not equilateral, finding the center of gravity may be physically difficult. If the center of gravity is our objective, then estimates of it may be off the mark. They may be sub-optimal. The difference is what we are trying to minimize. If the searching (typically to find an optimum condition) is what the manager does, then resisting sub-optimization is the task. Managers are trying to minimize the distance between the actual conditions (by example, the estimated point on the cardboard triangle) and the objective (the actual center of gravity).

Now put a paper clip on one corner of the triangle. Mark the spot where the new balance is best achieved. The clip only suggests a change in importance or emphasis given one of the three major components of the work of wildlife resource management. The new mark may be far from the original center of gravity but it remains on the surface and very much a function, simultaneously, of all three components and all possible combinations of them across the surface.

Take the triangular piece of cardboard and stare at it from along one edge ...so only the edge is seen. This might represent a situation in which only two components are involved or represent such great importance that the other can be dismissed. As you turn the board (or walk around it) more of the triangle comes into view. The perspective has been changed. There are not just two components involved in and composing the "thing", but three. The modern wildlife manager moves quickly from one, to two, and at least three components or dimensions of most wild faunal problems and decisions. Usually there are more, perhaps best called "n" dimensions. gross 3-d perspective In this sketch, a point is shown within a "box" having three dimensions. If zero values are located at the corner of the box, then to the extent that a system exists within the dimensions of (1) populations, (2) faunal space, and (3) people, that point (that particular system) may be symbolized as the black spot or blob in the sketch. It is simple to deal with three dimensions. If we include time as a fourth dimension, then the point might be moving within the box, here at time 1, there at time 2, over there at time 3. The four dimensions can be graphed and an actual picture obtained of a four-dimensional system. Most ecological and economic systems have more than four dimensions. The following is an equation representing a three-dimensional system:

Pop_t+1 = Pop_t + (Pop_t x Births) - Deaths

The dimensions themselves are not terribly important, only interesting and leading to new insights about the world. The importance for the faunal system manager is that what is desired as the population (on the left-hand side of the equation and it too can be plotted as in the above sketch) is a function of the previous population, that population and its birth rate, and also the deaths or losses. The equation is overly simplistic but the point to be made here is that the manager can work with four things ... simultaneously.

Simultaneous

These things can be put into an equation or modeled. He or she can try to influence the objectives, the desired population (left side), also the residual population (and its sex ratio), also the birth rate, and of course the losses. The population in the next period (Pop_t+1) may not be what the people or manager desired. It may be suboptimum. By working with three things (as well as the objective) it may be possible to reduce the difference between the actual and the desired numbers.

Suppose a group wanted 1000 animals. Last year the population was 600 animals. The gross birth rate was 0.9 animals so the total births was 540. (Births can often be increased by improving the food quality and quantity so the manager can influence this factor.) There were 250 deaths. Thus

890 = 600 + 540 - 250

The manager did not achieve the objective of 1000 animals. Perhaps the objective was excessive so:

Tactic 1 - educational work could be used to change the decision making behavior for the objective;
Tactic 2 - The estimates could be improved;
Tactic 3 - the food improved; or
Tactic 4 - the losses reduced.

Note that or was used. The modern manager, however, uses and for several things are usually done together. He or she rejects the either/or and selects the both/and. Depending on the costs of engaging in each of the tactics, several can be selected to achieve a desire condition of the resource system at the next period, a modest increase of 110 animals, given the present objectives. Minimum costs will probably be required for this change if a little of all four tactics are used together. Insisting on only using one tactic is likely to lead to failure or high costs.

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Last revision January 17, 2000.