How do we show 'science' to the public?

Science, in general...but including wildlife science, is struggling to find a way to communicate important information to the public. Whether the topic is climate change or a state-wide issue, coming off as a 'white lab coat stiff' is not a good way to communicate.

I've spent the better part of my career trying to explain research results of much smarter people (than me) to the public. Or, trying to train my colleagues to communicate better.

Here's a great example of a way to use modern technology (i.e., YouTube) to bring field research onto the public's IPAD. The host is funny, and the general point about monitoring black bears comes through.

State residents' rights: on the ballot

When Montanans voted Tuesday to abolish the outfitter set-aside big game licenses, they declared for all to see how seriously they take their hunting privileges.

--Great Falls Tribune, Nov. 4, 2010

Wildlife management is working through an interesting issue at the moment: how to 'value' wildlife. The history of wildlife management in North America includes a reaction to unregulated market hunting (i.e., bison, passenger pigeons, waterfowl, herons). This reaction led to a general doctrine of removing value from wildlife to protect them, which worked. Many species recovered.

The US gives 'ownership' of wildlife to the State, so that all residents of a state (quite literally) own all wildlife. And, the state government (usually through a wildlife management agency) is charged with managing wildlife in the state as a public trust...in the interest of the residents of the state.

Now, over 100 years later, a new paradigm has emerged---using direct value to manage wildlife. The idea is that private landowners often control much of the state's habitat, so the state can encourage management for wildlife if the landowner benefits from the wildlife. Texas, for example, has bitten on this idea and is chewing hard. Game farms, with fences that prohibit movements to neighboring lands, litter the landscape. Hunters with cash can find highly managed areas to have the hunt of a lifetime. The public resource is being used by private individuals---so, you can see why some don't like this trend.

Outfitters and guides fill a grey niche in the new paradigm. These entrepreneurs bring tourism to a state, and engage many out-of-state hunters. These hunters pay higher rates for hunting licenses, which benefits habitat conservation and research. Some outfitters/guides are landowners. Others operate with leases on private and public land. But, you can probably imagine the quandary of being an outfitter--your business only works if your hunters have licenses. For some species, especially big game like elk, bear, deer, or pronghorn antelope, licenses are limited...if the outfitter's clients miss the opportunity to grab a license, the outfitter can't sell a hunt.

So, to ensure that outfitters will be able to be viable businesses, some states have begun to provide outfitters with a guaranteed set of permits. This, of course, makes resident hunters scramble even harder for fewer permits that are left for them.

In the past election, a ballot initiative in Montana changed the way that permits are given out in that state. Now, outfitters and their clients are in the pool with everyone---no special treatment. As the above newspaper article notes: "This was another chapter in the continuing struggle over commercialization of a public resource."

What will change? Well, Montana residents have made their point pretty clear. They will be able to access their state's wildlife. But, this also means that many outfitters will probably go out of business. It also means lower incoming revenues for the state wildlife agency, which would make more money from out-of-state hunters than in-state hunters.

Stay tuned to this issue. It may be clear that Montanans do not want to be like Texans, but there is more of this story to play out, throughout the US. And, in Montana.

A parting note: the motto of the state of Montana is "Oro y plata". Translation: gold and silver. My bet is that gold and silver will have something to do with how this issue is resolved!

High intensity wildlife management: to the rescue of sea turtles

The first few lectures in my Wildlife Ecology and Management course always contain examples of 'indirect' and 'direct' wildlife management. Indirect management is defined as when a manager makes decisions that affect populations indirectly...such as changing water levels for fish or ducks, doing a prescribed burn for grassland birds, or providing winter food for elk. Direct management is when you literally change population sizes directly, and hunting and fishing are oft-used examples. Culling a population of deer is another. Translocating wolves to Yellowstone is an example of increasing population size directly.

It looks like I have another example for my 'direct' management lectures. In one of the largest wildlife management efforts, of which I am aware, the US Fish and Wildlife Service is translocating nests of sea turtles from the Gulf size of Florida to the Atlantic side. 100,000 eggs--from approximately 1,000 nests--will hatch in cooled containers, rather than in sand.

This effort is a good example of the process of assessing risks for a population. Although the translocation has risks (some eggs may not hatch, digging probably will destroy some eggs, etc.), the alternative is judged to be higher risk. That is, leaving the eggs presumably will result in extremely high mortality of hatchlings. However, that is not certain...there is no guarantee that all hatchlings will die if nothing is done. But, the most critical piece of information is that 90% of the sea turtles in the US nest on Florida beaches...so if something bad does happen, it's going to happen to all of the turtles.

So, this is a gamble to save a year-class of hatchlings, who will have to survive until their 30's to come back to these beaches to contribute to the population. I'll be retired by the time we see if this gamble pays off!

The most important things

I hate to give tests. But, it is that time of year. So, for a portion of my Wildlife Ecology and Management course's final exam (take-home), I asked students to name something they learned this semester that they felt was critically important to wildlife management. And, they had to provide a citation to prove that it was important (a book, magazine article, journal article, or newspaper that had discussed the issue).

So, after 15 weeks of lectures, projects, a field trip (Chris Rank's photo above of our trip to the Platte River), and lots of discussions, it came down to the list below. Here is what my students felt were the most important topics we covered (numbers indicate how many students listed that topic):

Structured management decision-making and use of monitoring

to make decisions (7)

Farm Bill’s relevance to habitat management (6)
Invasive species management (4)
Importance of stakeholders to the decision-making process (3)
Harvest management is an important part of managing wildlife (3)
Economics affects wildlife management (2)
Damage management: over-populated species (2)
Assessing genetic diversity for threatened species (2)
When managing wildlife, you must also manage people (2)
Platte River/Sandhill crane habitat restoration and management (2)
Ecotourism may be a way to promotion conservation (2)
Wildlife need corridors for movement (1)
Politicians are critical to managing wildlife (1)
The complicated ethics of hunting (1)
Snow affects wildlife (1)
History is important to understanding our current management (1)
Species management usually means community management (1)

My course has gone through some fairly radical re-design in the past 5-6 years. So, I found the list to be interesting. I added a section on structured decision-making (including a discussion about stakeholders) to the course this year. That was the #1 response: glad that was successful.

I added a Farm Bill section to the course 4-5 years ago. That was #2...I think most students have not thought about the political process and how our federal programs influence state-wide habitat in states with lots of private land.

Some made me chuckle. Snow? I thought everyone was asleep when I covered that. And, I know that none of my lectures mentioned 'habitat corridors'. But, we had many student projects during the semester, and it is good to see that students picked up information on their own! A reminder that the professor is not the only source of information.

It is always good to be reminded that every student takes away something different from a course. Most of the students' comments and justifications reminded me why I enjoy teaching. It's always a rush for me when little nuggets of information take root and sprout as ideas in students.

Black swans, whooping cranes, and oil slicks

Today's newspaper and radio programs are filled with a big natural disaster in the making--the oil slick washing ashore in the Gulf of Mexico. There seems to be little doubt that the coastal wetlands are going to take a big hit.

It's hard to argue that certain areas of the earth are more important (ecologically) than others, but it is safe to say that the wetlands along the Louisiana and Texas coast would rank in the top portion of such a ranking. The wetlands are home to breeding birds, which have just arrived from southern latitudes. They are critical for the life history of shrimp, crabs, and fish that sustain regional economies and form the base for ecological food webs. And, the wetlands support a host of birds in the winter. I have not seen it mentioned in reports I've read, but those blue crabs in the coastal wetlands are the main food source for whooping cranes, an endangered bird (250+ individuals) that winters along the Texas coast.

Nebraskans (those fortunate enough to see the rare birds) have just enjoyed watching whooping cranes in April as they made their way north. Did we have any idea that an oil rig in the Gulf Coast might be connected to the bird that gives us pause each spring? It's a great example of how decisions made in one area of our world have more than just local effects.

A recent book, The Black Swan, touches on such events. No, the book is not about oil-drenched swans. It's about random events. The general idea of the metaphor in the book's title is that the hatch of a black-feathered swan in nature is such a rare, random event that no one can predict it. But, these rare events can really change history. The author suggests that we can actually make robust policies that account for the risk of Black Swan events.

This is another one of those books that I need to actually read (!), and this oil spill provides more impetus for me to grab a copy. But, there is no doubt that wildlife managers (as well as those with influence on the world's economic markets) need to find ways to make plans resilient to such random events, which can even affect systems that we understand almost perfectly.

I would imagine that my colleagues who have had years of input into the recovery plans for whooping cranes are starting to sweat as this oil slick continues to grow. The oil slick is their Black Swan. Will these wetlands be ready for whooping cranes when they return this fall, or will they find a drastically changed habitat? We'll see. Years of habitat work to restore coastal wetlands, as well as research on reproduction, movement, and survival are about to be challenged.

Thanks to Refugenet.org for the whooping crane photo