Wildlife Fundamentals

Approaches to Wildlife Management:

1) Preservation (“hands off”)

2) Conservation (“use wisely”)

3) Management (“manipulate”)

Wildlife Fundamentals

Goals of management:

1) population increase

2) population decrease

3) maintain population

4) harvest population on sustained yield basis

“Land” to Manage

2.3 billion acres in U.S.

741 million acres in public ownership

- 336 MA = BLM

- 189 MA = USFS

- 86 MA = USFWS

- 68 MA = NPS

- 13 MA = U.S. Army

Review of Wildlife Fundamentals

Wildlife Fundamentals• Single-species vs. Ecosystem Mgt

• Coarse-filter vs. Fine-filter

adaptive resource management: given current scientific understanding,

1) implement mgt. strategy, but2) monitor effects and adjust

Determine Goals&Desires of Public

UnderstandFunction &Operation of Nat. Syst.

Set Mgt Goals

Form Mgt Plan

ConsiderPolitics

ManipulateSpecies orPopulation

Manipulate Habitat

Evaluate Mgt Practices

Increase, Decrease, Stabilize Pop

Habitat

Habitat Quality

Habitat

• Habitat from an evolutionary perspective• Species distribution relative to habitat dist’n• Climatic events

• Pleistocene Epoch & dist’n of modern species

• Evolutionary underpinnings

• Adaptation & Evolution for habitat

Concept of Habitat Selection

• Wildlife perceiving correct configuration of habitat needed for survival – differences based on age/experience/chance? – hierarchy to decision process

• Niche concept (time/place/functional role) & habitat selection

Hutchison’s n-dimensional hypervolume

Testing the Hutchinsonian Niche Concept of Habitat Selection• James – work with birds in Arkansas…

quantified habitat relationships

• How do birds select habitat?• niche gestalt :

Scale Dependence of Habitat Selection

Orders of Selection

Macrohabitatvs.

Microhabitat

Habitat SelectionProximate Factors vs. Ultimate Factors

habitat interspersion –

Leopold’s Law of Interspersion

Managing for Biodiversity

Paradigm of Wildlife Biology & Conservation Biology

Human-induced“heterogeneity”