1. Wildlife What are wildlife?
What is wildlife ecology? Management? Conservation?
How have definitions & perceptions changed through time?
How does knowing this help me as a wildlife biologist/manager?

2. Wildlife
Game animals
An organic resource that can be managed on a sustained-yield basis
Birds and mammals
All undomesticated animals (in a natural environment)
Fish
All living thing’s (in a natural environment)

3. Wildlife
Any member of the animal kingdom, including without limitation any mammal, fish, bird (including any migratory, non-migratory, or endangered bird for which protection is also afforded by treaty or other international agreement), amphibian, reptile, mollusk, crustacean, arthropod or other invertebrate, and includes any part, products, egg, or off-spring thereof, or the dead body parts or parts thereof
U.S. Congress

4. Wildlife Changes through time
Free-living animals of major significance to man
All animals
The Wildlife Society
Terrestrial vertebrates
Changes through time

5. Wildlife Ecology
The study of the relationship between wildlife and their environment

6. Wildlife Management
The art of making land produce sustained annual crops of wild game for recreational use
Aldo Leopold (1933)
The art of making land produce valuable populations of wildlife
J. Bailey (1984)

7. Wildlife Management
The practical ecology of all vertebrates and their plant and animal associates along sound biological lines
The Wildlife Society/Journal of Wildlife Management (1937)
Stewardship of wildlife

8. Wildlife Conservation
“How shall we conserve wild life without evicting ourselves”
Aldo Leopold
“Man living in harmony with the land”

9. Wildlife Conservation
A social process encompassing both lay and professional activities that define and seek to attain wise use of wildlife resources and maintain the productivities of wildlife habitats
J. Bailey (1984)
Management, administration, education, law enforcement, & research

10. Wildlife Conservation
The application of ecological knowledge to populations of vertebrate animals and their plant and animal associates in a manor that strikes a balance between the needs of those populations and the needs of people
Bolen & Robinson (2003)

11. Wildlife Management
The guidance of decision-making processes and implementation of practices to purposefully influence interactions among and between people, wildlife and habitats to achieve impacts valued by stakeholders
Riley et al. (2002)

12. Wildlife Management/Conservation
The application of ecological knowledge to wildlife and habitats that balances the needs of people with that of wildlife
W. Giuliano

13. Wildlife Management Goal Increase, decrease, maintain, or stabilize
Featured (single) species management
Multiple species management
Biodiversity management
Ecosystem management
Animal
People
Habitat

14. Wildlife Management Increase, decrease, maintain, or stabilize Direct
Indirect
Manipulative (active) v. custodial (preservation) N
Time
Management

15. Wildlife Management Wildlife Management www.wildlife.org Human
Dimension
Animal
Habitat
Wildlife
Management
Landscape Ecology
Zoology
Herpetology
Mammalogy
Ornithology
Life History
Animal Ecology
Genetics
Population Dynamics
Psychology
Sociology
Economics
Technical Writing
Law
Public Speaking
Communications
Policy
Government
Geology
Range Management
Forestry
Soil Science
Agronomy
Plant Morphology
Plant Ecology

16. Wildlife Management
(W.W. Mautz/Wildlife Management Institute 1978)

17. Wildlife Management
If left alone, wildlife can often manage themselves--it’s people that need managing
Wildlife conservation is primarily people management

18. Wildlife Management The Wildlife Society Mission (www.wildlife.org)
“The Wildlife Society (TWS), founded in 1937, is an international non-profit scientific and educational association dedicated to excellence in wildlife stewardship through science and education. Our mission is to enhance the ability of wildlife professionals to conserve diversity, sustain productivity, and ensure responsible use of wildlife resources for the benefit of society. The Wildlife Society encourages professional growth through certification, peer-review Publications, Conferences, and working groups.
Society members are dedicated to sustainable management of wildlife resources and their habitats. Ecology is the primary scientific discipline of the wildlife profession, therefore, the interests of the Society embrace the interactions of all organisms with their natural environments. The Society recognizes that humans, as other organisms, have a total dependency upon the environment. It is the Society's belief also that wildlife, in its myriad forms, is basic to the maintenance of a human culture that provides quality living.”

19. Wildlife Management The Wildlife Society Journals
Journal of Wildlife Management, Wildlife Society Bulletin, Wildlife Monographs, & The Wildlife Professional

20. I have read many definitions of what is a conservationist, and written not a few myself, but I suspect that the best one is written, not with a pen, but with an axe. It is a matter of what a man thinks about while chopping, or while deciding what to chop. A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke he is writing his signature on the face of his land. Signatures of course differ, whether written with axe or pen, and this is as it should be.
A. Leopold

21. So what!