Rural System's

Modern Wild Faunal Resource System Management

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Course Contents and Suggested Organization of Ideas and Concepts

Modern Wild Faunal Resource System Management (hereinafter the Faunal System Unit) is the basis of a university course by that name. It is under development for you. The unit is being developed by me, R.H. Giles, and all of the work here is my own (content and HTML, except as noted.) Some notes are from previous classes that I have taken and revised. I have cited some instructors who have provided me these notes. I hope the others will forgive my forgetfulness or oversight, as I shall future students who want to use the notes. (Don't waste time, energy, or paper citing me. Be careful about current, local rules relating to plagerism.) There are believed to be many kinds, varieties, or versions of wildlife management now taught and practiced. I'm presenting a preferred alternative, not doing a detailed comparative study. (Some forms do not deserve any time being spent on them.)

We deal in this course with a review for many students, a rapid (probably superficial) coverage of some topics for many. It is designed for the advanced student. The union of experience, past studies, and the materials herein can begin to have profound influence on wild faunal resource management.

Disclaimer - Everyone needs a disclaimer and at least a passing effort to be politically correct. Reluctance of professors "to profess" is a major problem, one for the universities, the professoriate, and society. Perhaps students can ask questions that allow and encourage them to do so.

Tests and Exams - "Will it be on the exam?", the death-question of professors, may be the life of students. Brief comments are made. Email the instructor if there are questions. Do not waste psychological energy on test/exam anxiety. Direct your energy to mastering the course content.

Students Who Have Made High Scores - Superior performance needs to be recognized. These students have authorized their names and scores to be posted.

Detailed Objectives for an Introductory Course - The course on which you are currently working is not an introductory or classical course, but an advanced one. The list of topics to which you may link now presented in the course may be used by students who may teach someday. The list shows the complexity of wildlife resource management and may suggest alternative educational strategies, since all objectives are unlikely to be achieved in a classical 3-semester-hour course (about 30 lectures with at least 4 hours expected associated with each session). Most courses are so brief that they trivialize the important work ahead.

In November, 2007, Bob Giles placed on the Internet his free book titled

Rural System? Just Dreaming … A For-Profit Conglomerate for Meaningful Jobs, Healthful Communities, and Improved Natural Resource Management ©

It will be useful for understanding the potential systems within which the following concepts and techniques will be useful. Now for the real topics ...themselves with links to about 500 additional files

A Source of Numerical Equivalents for Use in Some of the Following Units

Course Description - Introduction and Consequences

• Index - Brief introduction to the course and basic connections within the website
• Course Syllabus
• Course Introduction
• Preface - helps understand the reasons for and orientation of the course
• Student Orientation
• A Letter to Students
• Tentative Course Outline
• An Alternative Course Outline for Study and Possible Integration
• Assignments
• The Final List - "Giving away the story ending" here is the list of most of the differences between the suggested alternative and currently perceived wildlife management under development
• Frequently-Asked Questions - FAQs
• Sending the Instructor Suggestions About the Course
• Sample Exams and the Final Exam
• Top Final Exam Scores
• Competency and Questions for Its Evaluation
• Potential Educational Funding Sources
• Finding a Job
• The Resume´
• Interview Advice
• The Professional Library
• The Professional Literature
• Professional Notes
• Fundamentals of Wild Animal Resource System Management for review (and duplicated below)
• Fairly Recent Wildlife Textbook Titles
• Review - Species Names and Anatomy
• Review - Faunal Space Topics
• Review - System Concepts
• Review - Elementary Sample Size, Sampling to Gain Knowledge;The limits of statistics; basic sampling strategies; estimates; non-linear systems; is some knowledge better than ... ? The problem of inadequate sample sizes; handling outliers; the use of ranges.
• Autodidactics
• A Review of Geologic Time (CAP625)
• The Eras of Faunal Exploitation and Management in the USA    
• Eras Alternative Quiz - Differences in Time from Your Age
• Your Future in Wildife Management - Career opportunities and relations; what the wildlifer does

Toward a Theory of Wild Faunal Resource Management

• On Knowing
• The Epistemology of "Place"
• The Valuation of the Wild Faunal Resource and present-discounting example
• A Matter of Logic
• What is Wildlife Management? This Faunal System Unit Alternative?
• Rasking - One Alternative
• Help for Managing the World Wide Wildlife (WWW) Resource - Lake Tahoe Conference Speech, October, 1999
• Characteristics of an Important Alternative
• Principles of Wildlife Management: Are There Any?- Struggles with the meaning of "Principles" and an arguement for a very brief list
• Fundamentals or Principles? - A very long list for comparison with the above principles and for later reduction or expansion
• Knowing the Words
• The Resource - The concept and its relevance to "wildlife"
• Managing the Animals
• A Concept of the Maximum
• Equifinality
• Working the Triangle:Perspectives - Using the interplay of wild animal populations, faunal space, and people
• The 5 E's
• An Analytical Procedure - 01

The Place for Processes in a Structured System

• Outline of Major Population Ecology Topics
• The Role of Subversion in Wildlife Management
• Ecosystem Management: An Analysis
• Alternatives to Conventional Research
• Research Note: Developing Hypotheses
• The Action List
• Variety - Interpreting Issues of Diversity
• Similarity

  Cross Currents

  • Cross Currents Introduction
  • Cross Current Abstracts
  • Open or Closed: The Obscure Boundary
  • Curve Fitting vs Theory Building
  • Fauna vs Ecosystem
  • Watersheds vs Alpha Units
  • Area vs Volume
  • Efficiency vs Effectiveness
  • Injury vs Damage
  • Meandering vs Achieving Objectives
  • Manager vs Client
  • Agency vs Enterprise
  • State vs Region
  • National vs International
  • Solution vs Continuance
  • Species vs Life Group

General Systems Work and Decision Making

• Buffington's Decision Elements for the Wildlife Refuge System
• The Basics of Objectives
• Notes on Faunal System Objectives - Types of objectives, criteria for judging their quality, and samples
• Performance Measures and Magic Numbers
• Vector Diagrams
• Rationally Robust Risk: Reasonable Certainty Space, Zeta,
• Ecological Services or Benefit Production Functions
• Feedback
• Feedforward
• Predicting Futures: A Role of Science
• Beta Estimation Procedures
• Toward a Satisfactory Condition
  • The Situation - A description of conditions perceived to exist within the public resource agency in 2000; the need to move toward a satisfactory condition
  • The Epistemology of Omega
  • Omega: Toward a Satisfactory Condition
  • Omega: The Details
  • Trapping Beavers: The Myth of Decision-Support Systems - Further movement toward an alternative concept of a satisfactory condition
• Permutations, Combinations, and the Sequence - Sequence of ecological events as well as managerial actions may be more important than counts or amounts
• A Matter of Logic
• Hazard and Decision Trees
• The Use of Tables for Decision Making
• Tractor Buying - A System Example

Strategic and Tactical Rural Knowledge Bases

• System Inputs: Studies and Research - The limited role of science for providing inputs to decisions
• The Inputs - Forest Faunal System Chapter
• The Cost of Studies
• The Professional Library - Suggestions for building and maintaining a library and flow of information
• The Reconnaissance- The field trip and first overview of an area with wildlife resource management potentials
• The Rural Knowledge Base Enterprise
• Spatial Knowledge - The GIS
• Use of Geographic Information Systems Tomorrow - A conference speech, 1999, Lake Tahoe

Social Dimensions of Wild Faunal Resource Management

• People Management- The Committee; Influencing demand, value, perceived risk, and substitutability.
• Alternative People Management Note - USFS Hypertext Encyclopedia
• Life Along a Continuum - The Citizen as Hunter or Not?
• Wildlife Law Enforcement a chapter within Forest Faunal Systems
• Law Enforcement
• A Matter of Logic
• Funding the Modern Wildlife Agency: A letter to a Virginia State Representative
• Teaching Systems
• Writing the Paper
• Letter Writing
• Debriefings
• Animal Energy - Sample Izaac Walton League Speech, 1980

Wild Faunal Population Concepts

• The Individual Animal in the Population
• Using Knowledge of the Elements of Animal Behavior
• Animals Budgeting Energy - 1
• Population Structure - Forest Fauna chapter; relevance of sex ratio; age ratio; density; genetic unit.
• Population Dynamics -- The change phenomena and rates. Introduction
• Species-Area Relations
• Converge - Heuristic Convergence for Population Estimation - an E-Book
• Converge - Contents
• The Basics of Estimating Population Size
• Population Estimation- Philosophy, need, and limitations of populations estimation. Home range based estimates; bounded count; dynamics; doubling time; rate of change estimates; the sigmoid growth alternative; a lesson from island biography.
• Population Estimation - The Home Range Procedure (included within the previous notes)
• Pathology and Parasites
• Other population and related units are available and underway, e.g.,
  • References to Animal Hair Identification
  • Cleaning Skulls and Bones

Population Manipulation Concepts

• Faunal Life Group Management
• Hunting Notes for the Manager
• Harvest Effects: Thinking Through Two Situations
• The Role of Bounties
• Stocking Game

Faunal Space and Its Management

• Managing Faunal Space
• Unique Nearness Sequences and the Zone of Influence: Faunal Spaces for the Modern Manager
• Access
• Forest Illusion
• Uses of Cover Maps
• Managing Faunal Cover
• Geomorphic Components of Faunal Space
• On Edge: Practical Analyses of Wildland Edges
• Alternative Definitions of Carrying Capacity
• Thirteen Ways to Manipulate Succession
• The Production Function Concept
• Changing Faunal Space (a long chapter in Forest Faunal Systems)
  • Chapter 7. Managing Faunal Space - Part 1
    
  • Chapter 7. Managing Faunal Space - Part 2
    
  • Chapter 7. Managing Faunal Space - Part 3
• Landscape ecology notes
• Wilderness Fauna
• HEP and HSI -The Habitat Suitability Model as an Approach
• Exclosures for Studying Faunal Space

Unification I - Species-Specific and Grouped-Species Systems

• Management and Indicator Species
• Species-Specific Management - A set of about 80 brief statements about actions to take to improve conditions for species . You should link first to birds or mammals, then the species. (You are encouraged to assist in expanding this resource for future students.)
• The Deer Group - Example of newsletter articles for a total, species-specific, profit-oriented resource system.
• A Raccoon System - Recommendations for a single-species emphasis are provided from The Trevey, a dynamic planning or guidance system
• Raccoon Management
• A Turkey "Guild"
• Bobwhite Quail - Two in the Bush
• Intensive Bobwhite Quail Resource Management
• The Fur System
• Integrated Vertebrate Damage Management - The concept, need, and opportunities.
• Managing the Other Fauna - The Salamanders example.
• An Owl Resource Enterprise - An owl-based enterprise is proposed as part of Nature Folks
• A list of the Topics of Faunal System Management

Unification II - Natural Resource Enterprises: The Rural- or "Entrepreneurial Conservation"-Conglomerate

• Dynamic Planning Systems and The Trevey as an Enterprise and replacement for the "planning concept."
• Agroforestry and Wildlife Management
• The Profitable Enterprise Paradigm - Entrepreneurial ConservationThe concept of a diverse, modern, sophisticated profit-oriented wildland enterprise.
• Rural System, Inc. - The Rural Conglomerate (The following are almost identical local and county/region specific business plans for your inspection)
  • Crow's Nest Trust Proposal
  • Grayson Greatness - a western Virginia forested rural county proposal
  • Craig County, Virginia Proposal
  • Woodland Community Trust Proposal
  • The Slice Initiative - a rural, multi-county proposal
  • Malawi (East Africa) notes

Evaluations and Exams

• Exams
• Competency - A concept for a post-graduation evaluation

Appendices

• References and Literature Cited
• The Suggestion Box - A place for students and other participants in the website to offer suggestions (editorial to major changes and additions and linkages)
• R.H. Giles, Jr., author of this course material
• A.B. Massey - Botanist
• Glossary
• Numerical Equivalents

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This Web site is maintained by R. H. Giles, Jr.
Revision October 3, 2003; Jaunuary 2007