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

Reducing management to bullet points

Here's an interesting article from the NY Times about Powerpoint (Microsoft's wonderful/evil software program) and briefings in the US military.

Teachers have somehow joined the Powerpoint joy-ride, even though we know Powerpoint lectures, for the most part, are simply horrid. It's kind of like an artist who knows that paint-by-number is bad, but decides it's the easiest way to work. And, besides, all their friends are doing it. Funny thing is that we (teachers) complain about students' lack of creativity and critical thinking...but if you look back at our students' academic careers, they are mostly a 4-year set of powerpoints. Acckkk!

There is no doubt that Powerpoint stiffles discussion in class. If the "three effects of X on Z" are already typed out as bullet points on the screen, there's no need to ask students to generate those three effects during class. And, discussion takes too long, anyway...gotta get through lots of material, right?! I've tried reverting back to my days of teaching with 'overheads' by just using Powerpoint to display images (it is really good for that), while writing all lists/notes on the whiteboard while talking with students. My year in Namibia reminded me that I still knew how to teach without a Powerpoint presentation (photo below). A fun test for any teacher...pretend the projector bulb died! What would you do?!

In related news, instructors are increasingly becoming worried about students playing around on laptops in their classroom (after, of course, encouraging students to purchase laptops to bring to our classrooms!). Perhaps if we created lectures/discussions which 'made' them take notes, and didn't place all of our thoughts on bulleted lists, they would be writing (or even typing our notes) instead of emailing/Facebooking friends?!

Finally, it is interesting to think about wildlife management and Powerpoint. Perhaps the article about the Pentagon briefings has it dead-on...if we think an issue can be simplified to a linear set of bullet points, it's no wonder we can't get stakeholders to understand the complexities of ecological systems and management decisions. I think it's time to abandon the bullet points.

This isn't simply a matter of 'electronic' versus 'paper' or 'blackboards'. It is very possible to use computer software (including Powerpoint) to record discussions during a meeting or in class. But, you've got to get out of the "canned show" mode and interact.

Cross-property management: Nobel prize winner advice

I spent 2009 interviewing farmers and leaders of NGO's in Namibia about their efforts to set up 'conservancies'. These entities are groups of landowners who come together to manage their properties jointly. For some groups, it may simply be allowing hunters from one farm to hunt on another farm. For other groups, it may be conducting a joint marketing effort to bring hunters to their group.

But, many group members join a group to 'do management' for wildlife on a landscape scale beyond their individual property. Could be purchasing animals to stock for the benefit of the group. Could be an effort to bring various types of habitat together under one management scheme. Could be an effort to get rid of invasive plant species (doesn't do you any good to get rid of your thistles if your neighbor doesn't, right?!).

Namibia is ahead of the US in the country-wide implementation of conservancies...check out the Conservancy Association of Namibia to see a map.

But, many landowners in the US are starting to work on similar projects. The question is...how to you set these things up? How do individuals successfully make decisions about resources that are held in common?

In Namibia, wildlife can be owned by individuals, but in the US, wildlife is 'common' property of all people in each state. And, even in Namibia, when you join together with your neighbor, you have just created a 'commons'. Commons are quite hard to manage (think: "Tragedy of the Commons" by Garrett Hardin; think: why most of our marine fisheries resources are a case study in failure of such attempts to manage common property). One conservancy president in Namibia told me, "This conservancy thing is hard work, because you are managing people."

Well, there is some guidance to how to think about proper management of commons (how to manage the people managing the commons). Thanks to my colleague Drew Tyre for finding this information. And, the advice comes from a Nobel Prize winner, Elinor Ostrom (2009 prize for Economics).

These suggestions certainly should be at the forefront of any conversation between a group of landowners considering the creating of a conservancy-type arrangement. During my stint in Namibia, I heard each idea mentioned at least once, but they are struggling with the 'dispute resolution' portions of this list. But, successful Namibian conservancies adhere to the majority of these suggestions:

Define clear group boundaries.

Match rules governing use of common goods to local needs and conditions.

Ensure that those affected by the rules can participate in modifying the rules.

Make sure the rulemaking rights of community members are respected by outside
authorities.

Develop a system, carried out by community members, for monitoring members’ behavior.

Use graduated sanctions for rule violators.

Provide accessible, low-cost means for dispute resolution.

Build responsibility for governing the common resource in nested tiers from the lowest level up to the entire interconnected system.

Citation: This list was adapted for America: The Remix, the Spring 2010 issue of YES! Magazine, from Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, edited by Elinor Ostrom, 1990.