Wildlife Management I
ES118 Spring 2008
Overview
REMINDER
Exam Thursday does not
cover Today and Wednesday
(on next exam)
Today
 Managing people and animals
– Case study: tigers
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Changing attitudes
– Managing our wildlands
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Restoring wildlife
– Case study: wolves
Wednesday
 Ecosystem management
 Adaptive management
 Complexity and wildlife management
– Tools for predicting risk
– Scenario planning
Humans and wildlife in perspective
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Humans and wildlife interacted throughout history
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–
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exploited wild animals for food
exploited animals for sport and culture
we have modified landscapes
we have moved species around the world
Types of interactions
– Positive: Agriculture and food production, aesthetics
– Negative: Wild animals eat our livestock, damage our
crops, compete for prey, maybe even kill or injure us
Wildlife conflicts with people
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Estimated $22 billion damage from wildlife in US
each year
Record 237,766 cases of wildlife-human conflict in
U.S. in 2002
– Approximately 40% occurred in urban and suburban
settings
Source: US Department of Agriculture / SCOTT
WALLACE -CSM
Herbivores and conflict
 Crop-raiding
– Agricultural losses often
significant
 More people killed each
year by herbivores than
large predators!
– Estimated 100-200 people
killed each year by Asian
elephants in India
– In Kenya, between 199097 elephants killed 221
people compared to 250
by predators over same
period!
Image removed
for upload
Challenge of managing wildlife
Great and terrible flesh-eating beasts have always
shared the landscape with humans…The teeth of big
predators, their claws, their ferocity and their hunger,
were grim realities that could be eluded but not
forgotten…Among the earliest forms of human self
awareness was the awareness of being meat.
-- David Quammen, Monster of God
Image: www.nationalgeographic.com
Photograph by Michael T. Sedam/CORBIS
Carnivores and conflict
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Large carnivores among the most
persecuted
– Many have experienced massive declines in US
and globally
– Ultimately, retaliation is major cause of species
endangerment/extinction
– Many factors that resulted in this decline still
operating today
Panthera tigris
Image removed
for upload
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Largest cat in the world
Lives only in Asia
<4,000 tigers in the wild
Image removed
for upload
Today tigers occupied
only 7% of their
historical range. This
represents a 93% range
collapse over the last
150 years
“Setting Priorities for Tiger Conservation: 2005 – 2015”
Sanderson, E.W., J. Forrest, C. Loucks, J. Ginsberg, E. Dinerstein, J.
Seidensticker, P. Leimgruber, M. Songer, A. Heydlauff, T. O’Brien, G.
Bryja, S. Klenzendorf, and E. Wikramanayake
In Tigers of the World
R. Tilson and P. Nyhus, eds.
Extinct Tiger Subspecies
Caspian
(virgata)
Bali
(balica)
Javan
(sondaica)
Images
removed for
upload
1950s
1940s
Estimated date of extinction
1970s
Tiger Subspecies (Panthera tigris)
Bengal
(tigris)
Indochinese
(corbetti)
Sumatran
(sumatrae)
Siberian
(Amur)
(altaica)
Image removed
for upload
Remaining tiger subspecies
South China
(amoyensis)
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Habitat loss, poaching,
and inbreeding
primary threats to
tigers
But retaliation for
attacks a significant
reason for tiger
decline
– Killing people
– Killing livestock
Image removed
for upload
Managing human-wildlife conflict
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Carnivore management is as much a political
challenge as a scientific one!
Preservation
– Results in recovery of species
– But high costs, including political/social costs
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Modifying animal behavior
– E.g., sterilize, relocate, non-lethal deterrence (aversive
stimuli), diversion (e.g., elk feeding areas)

Modifying human behavior
– e.g., improve livestock husbandry

Avoiding intersection of human and carnivore
activities
– Barriers and exclusion (fences, trenches, walls)
– Zoning schemes
Managing human-wildlife conflict (cont.)
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Lethal control
– Eradication
– Bounties
– Regulated harvest (typically with
monitoring and permits)
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In US from 1996-2001 est. 13.7
million animals killed by federal
agents to control agricultural
damages
South African government has said
it will allow elephants to be culled for
first time in 13 years
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European colonists viewed New
England as hostile wilderness full of evil
and hardship to be conquered and
tamed
– “…a hideous and desolate wilderness, full
of wild beasts and wild men.”
– William Bradford, leader of Plymouth Bay colony
1832-1870s
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Rapid destruction of forests and wildlife in
eastern N. America sparked early concern
Some argued part of the wilderness should
be owned by the people, managed by the
government, and protected as a legacy for
future generations
George Caitlin
Growth of a conservation ethic
“I wish to speak a word for
Nature, for absolute freedom
and wildness, as contrasted
with a freedom and culture
merely civil,--to regard man as
an inhabitant, or a part and
parcel of Nature, rather than a
member of society…in
Wilderness is the preservation
of the world.”
- “Walking”, H. D. Thoreau
Henry David
Thoreau
Progressive Era & Conservation
Theodore Roosevelt &
Gifford Pinchot
John Muir
Preservation vs wise use
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John Muir (Founded Sierra Club)
– Preservationist philosophy of protecting
wilderness areas like Yosemite Valley from
economic development

Gifford Pinchot (Chief of Division of
Forestry, USFS, 1898):
– Wise Management of natural resources for
economic development
– Led to development of “wise use” and
“sustained yield” doctrines
Growth of a land ethic and modern
wildlife management
The Land Ethic
"The land ethic simply enlarges the
boundaries of the community to
include soils, waters, plants, and
animals, or collectively: the land.”
"The Land Ethic" from A Sand
County Almanac
Aldo Leopold
“We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire
dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever
since, that there was something new to me in those eyes—
something known only to her and to the mountain. I was
young then, full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer
wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean
hunter’s paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I
sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with
such a view.”
--Aldo Leopold, Sand County Almanac
Wolves as “evil”
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Wolves once represented depravity of wildness
One of first laws passed by Puritans of New Haven colony
established bounty on wolves and foxes
– goal to eradicate predator populations
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Hunting with wild dogs and trapping in 1600s
Habitat destruction (e.g,. draining wetlands)
Wolves eliminated from most of New England and mid-Atlantic
by end of the colonial period
Wolf eradication
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Customary policy permitted
indiscriminate killing of wildlife in many
areas
– Between 1895 and 1917 30,000 wolf
bounties claimed in Wyoming alone!
– 1914 congress appropriated funds for
destruction of predators, including wolves,
on public lands—so killing wolves official
policy of federal government
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By 1970s, however, in lower 48 states
wolves only in MN (1,000?)
Return of the wolves
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As a result of ESA and work of various
groups, wolves making comeback
Just a decade ago in 1995 wolves
reintroduced to central Idaho and
Yellowstone ecosystem of Wyoming, and
Montana and Idaho
Populations in MN have increased
substantially, and recolonized (on their own)
parts of WI, MI, and Montana
USFWS also returning Mexican gray wolf to
Arizona and red wolves to North Carolina
jump
Wildlife compensation
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Reimburse people for damage by wildlife for
crops, livestock, property, or injury/death to
people
Payment in cash or in-kind assistance
Assistance with damage abatement
measures
Defenders of Wildlife developed first
permanent compensation fund in US
– Since inception fund has paid over $270,000
– 225 ranchers compensated for 327 cows, 678
sheep, 34 other animals
– In part led to successful recovery of wolves
Wolves as symbol
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Challenge of problem definition: What is the
real issue? Biology? Politics? Values?
Wolves (and other species) are often
surrogate for broader cultural conflicts
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Endangered Species Act
Public lands
Preservation vs resource use
Recreation vs extraction
Urban vs rural
State’s rights vs. federal control
Wolf
Recovery
Success?
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USFWS announced the removal 2/21/08 of endangered
species protections for gray wolves in the Northern Rocky
Mountains, declaring the species "no longer faces the threat of
extinction.“
Minimum recovery goal (at least 30 breeding pairs and 300
individual wolves for three consecutive years) exceeded in 2002
Decision would allow states to impose their own management
plans for gray wolves beyond federal land
– Wyoming's rule would allow hunting of wolves in the state's
northwestern corner and let landowners also apply for a "lethal
take permit" if they experience chronic wolf predation of their
livestock or domesticated animals
– 11 environmental and animal rights groups plan to sue to stop the
removal of gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains from ESA