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Modern Wild Faunal Resource System Management

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Resolving the Cross-Currents in Modern Wild Animal Resource Management

by Robert H. Giles, Jr., PhD, Professor Emeritus, College of Natural Resources, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061 USA, email: RHGiles@RuralSystem.com

You are encouraged to read and study the full text of this paper.

Abstract: Fourteen "cross-currents " of conflicting theory and principle within the arena of large wild animal resource management are discussed and the author's argument given for a preferred option. The contesting concepts discussed are:

1. Animal Abundance vs Benefits - Animals are a resource and that implies that they may have benefits (of many types) to people, and that greater abundance is not the only way to greater benefits. See the figure. We must re-connect with economic fundamentals, define "resource " in acceptable ways, and concentrate on the many actions that can be taken to increase benefits from the resource (only loosely related to animal abundance and equal at a in the figure).

2. Efficiency vs Effectiveness - We can become very efficient at tasks, but if these are the wrong tasks, if they do not achieve stated objectives, then they can be very ineffective. Effectiveness if being efficient at achieving stated objectives.

3. Open or Closed Systems - The manager is directly concerned about the area or volume within some well-drawn lines but he or she must also be aware of and work with the outside conditions and processes. Multi-county and multi-state regions are suggested. Migratory animals pose a special problem for the manager having new accountability.

4. Watersheds or Alpha Units - The alpha unit is a 30 x 30-meter pixel in a satellite image. We now have abundant information about every such unit in the state. We no longer need to aggregate data about land into watersheds.

5. Fauna vs Ecosystems - Answers to a set of questions are needed before the phrase ecosystem management is discarded or evolves to the next phrase. Be assured some new phrase is coming! Perhaps we may strive for sophisticated faunal resource system management.

6. Edge Lines vs Volumes - Edges are volumes, tunnel-like spaces with length, width at right angles in both directions from the line, and two heights of the vegetation to both sides. The edge volume changes over time. If vertical edge is "good " for some species, then lateral edge should also be good for some animal species. New analyses of faunal areas will include the sum of these lateral edge volumes for they will express the life spaces of many arthropods and thus the bats, birds, and other animals that feed within them.

7. Species vs Life Groups - A life group is all animals of a species with a particular managerial need such as feeding or breeding. "Managing turkeys " is a silly over-generalization because the turkey poult is an insectivore, the subadult a granivore, and the adult is an omnivore. At least there are two distinctively different animals with very different needs for distinctive periods. The poult is more different that the adult, a difference greater than that in taxonomic genera! The faunal life group needs to become the new target of management, replacing the species, withdrawing from new species aggregations (typically formed of dissimilar species).

8. Habitat vs Faunal Space - Faunal space is the multi-dimensional space to be managed. Major differences are that it needs to include other animals as habitat (as a deer in the center of a herd; a bird in a flock) and the time dimension.

9. Injury vs Damage - Managers need to make discriminating analyses: Are there real costs or losses? Action may then center on reducing or eliminating vertebrate faunal damage cost effectively. The animals may still be present; the change is in the effects.

10. Managers vs Clients - There is a need for strong leadership to clarify objectives, to isolate differences in units of demand, values, risks, and substitutions and costs. There are parallel needs to clarify uses of and opportunities on private and public lands. The public is ignorant of the differences and their uses and responsibilities to the owners. It is time for the Magna Charta to be re-examined and adjustments made in land ownership rights and responsibilities for animals produced on certain lands. It is past time to deal with special-purpose federal tax support of animal management on private and state lands and to deal with its implications (a national hunting license? or cessation of such spending?).

There are clients and managers. The client may be the general public or the landowner, etc. The manager works for clients under contract. Depending on the legal agreements, the manager serves the client to his or her best ability. The client states objectives; the manager achieves them cost effectively. If the manager does not agree with the objective, then there may be periods for education and change or disaffiliation. It seem ethically unacceptable to take pay to work at odds with the client's objectives (for longer than a reasonable educational period). It is similarly unacceptable to violate state or federal laws related to animals. The manager views these laws and regulations as the fixed or "given " conditions of employment not necessarily stipulated by the client.

11. Solution vs Continuance -The work of the manager was once said to be like that of the medical doctor. It may be more like nursing in a place for the mentally ill. The primary work is not curative but trying to prevent the patients from hurting each other. There are no cures. There is only adaptive work to be done

12. Sequential vs Simultaneous Action - Sequence is more influential than most of the individual well-measured factors themselves (usually described in classical regression analyses). Sequence of rain and seed fall; fire and emergence; freezing and runoff are all examples of influential sequences. I think we have to use the simultaneous strategy more often; there is not enough time to do otherwise.

13. Curve Fitting vs Theory-building - I now know that that curve-fitting was insufficient for a viable profession, a knowledge base to do sophisticated wild faunal resource management. To build that base, we must build theory. Alternatives are suggested.

14. Agency vs Enterprise- Enterprise-based wildlife resource management must be studied as a viable option. It is a major cross-current and when implemented will use the power intrinsic to the other currents for its enhancement, growth, and competition. The wild faunal resource will be the better for it.

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Last revision September 7, 2002.