Training in Wildlife Management

A DEFINITION of wildlife management is not to be found in a dictionary. Before an attempt is made to define the term some pertinent background information may be of interest. Wildlife management, from its inception in antiquity to the involved procedures of present-day English game keepers, has been considered an art. When our American wildlife resources became dangerously depleted, attempts were made to correct the situation by parroting European game methods. The result was failure. The wildlife literature of the 1930's is strewn with the wreckage of management programs. The single common denominator of most of our failures was that we did not understand our land or our animals, or the relationship between them. It is impossible to say where or when the rude awakening took place. This fact stands outAmerican wildlife management, to become a functioning entity, had to metamorphose from an art into a science. In this metamorphosis, the first cracking of the inflexible integument of nonscientific management came in 1933 with Aldo Leopold's book, "Game Management." Wildlife research for the most part gravitated to academic surroundings where taxonomy, physiology, parasitology, chemistry, endocrinology, and a dozen other plant and animal sciences, plus geology, soils and meteorology, dealing with inorganic aspects of the environment, formed the foundation on which the research was built. Thus wildlife research was born of many sciences but claimed by none. It soon became apparent that, although wildlife research could be observational, analytical, or experimental, the facts obtained could only benefit animals or environment when they clarified the relationship between the two. The die so cast led inevitably into the field of ecology. And here the old art of wildlife management emerged as the science of wildlife ecology. This abbreviated version of the development of a science, leads to a definition of wildlife management as "the scientific manipulation of land, plants and/or animals in the best interests of the entire biota." This definition implies: (1) that land also includes all water resources; (2) "animals" includes man, and (3) that on occasion the best management may mean complete abstinence from manipulation. The training of a wildlife ecologist must include two types of emphasis; one, the knowledge and resultant skills acquired from academic training; and, second, the understanding and acquisition of an ethical code and sense of esthetic values towards conservation as a whole. Of the two, the latter is more difficult to instill, because these attitudes are largely self-taught. I wish I could give a formula or set of rules by which this end is accomplished, but this is impossible because there is none. The greatest wildlife teacher I ever knew (or hope to know) taught these attitudes by example. No one fortunate enough to fall under the influence of Aldo Leopold could fail to understand and appreciate the need for a high code of morality toward wild things. There are three fundamental attitudes that I feel are essential to training in wildlife management. The first is the realization that animals as well as plants have their roots in the soil, and again that man is not exempt from this rootage. It must be realized that soil is not just dirt but the vital, lifegiving substance that is the bone and body of our country. Second, that in wild places and wild things there can be seen a pattern of harmony and balance that must be preserved. Tampering or removing even one of the smallest parts of a series of biological systems may jam the larger gears. The starling that fouls our city streets and the carp that muddies our lakes are the results of such tampering. Third, that conservation includes the wise use of our resources. The failure to reduce deer herds in many states results in a loss of both deer and forests. Such flagrant misuse of resources is caused by an emotional blindness to an obvious remedial action.