Sections of Chapter 3: Conservation Science and the Refuge System
- Science-based Wildlife and Habitat Management
- Robust Inventory and Monitoring
- Deliberate Research
- Communication, Collaboration, and Contribution in Science
The Refuge System has always relied upon science to inform its actions. As an example, bird-banding studies in the early 20th century contributed to an understanding of migratory patterns. In response to a dramatic continental decline of waterfowl populations, the Refuge System used scientific information to inform a shift to a new conservation strategy based on the creation and management of a series of connected migratory habitats.
Science is dynamic, with certainties and uncertainties continually changing in light of new data, field methods and analytical techniques. The evolution of conservation biology has introduced concepts such as landscape ecology, biodiversity, ecosystem health, ecological function and sustainability. The Refuge System has integrated these ideas into its policies and practices, testing their validity and adaptively applying the resulting information to refine habitat and wildlife population management decisions. Since the Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997 and publication of Fulfilling the Promise in 1999, the Service has outlined and implemented strategies to accomplish the wildlife and habitat goals set before the Refuge System. In the intervening time the Refuge System has learned to better appreciate adaptive management, become more aware of global climate change, and recognized the need to address conservation at multiple spatial scales.
While the Refuge System has long been a leader in fish and wildlife conservation, particularly in habitat restoration and management, its ability to consistently implement science has been uneven, typically hampered by various combinations of lack of staff, funding and clear objectives. Complex management questions are common and have magnified these challenges.
The threats to fish and wildlife posed by climate change, invasive species, habitat loss and fragmentation, energy development and extraction, contaminants and alterations in ecological processes are making the future as challenging as any faced in Refuge System history. However, the Refuge System’s traditions of innovation and adaptation underscore its potential to meet today’s challenges, and science is regaining its place within the Service. Adaptive management has come to the forefront to help deal with complex management conditions, and decision-making tools continue to evolve. Innovative methods of utilizing science to build conservation models, set habitat and population objectives, plan strategic growth of the Refuge System, design conservation delivery actions, and evaluate indicators of success are being continually developed and improved. The application of science within the Refuge System is expanding to include not only natural resource sciences, but also the related fields of physical, social, historical and cultural resource sciences.
The Refuge System envisions a future where the Service maintains and enhances its culture of commitment to scientific excellence. The Refuge System commits to embracing four foundational elements in its vision for conservation science:
- Application of sound science to refuge management,
- Implementation of robust inventory and monitoring,
- Development of deliberate research agendas, and
- Fostering of communication and collaboration within the Service and among partners.
The four foundational elements must be equally emphasized and inform and complement one another across wildlife refuges, ecosystems and issues. To achieve the vision, broad actions must be taken to support, enhance and re-vitalize these four foundational elements.
Comment below and/or move on to next section of Chapter 3- Science-based Wildlife and Habitat Management
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Hmmm. One point of view would hold that item two, I&M, is really a subset of application of sound science to refuge management; well, make that ‘to wildlife management.’ I wonder if refuge management and our wildlife first job are synonymous? Doesn’t refuge management , for example, include maintenance of roads, buildings and other structures? Is science the right description for repairing soffits, selecting gravel for roads?
While applauding better decision making, and structured decision making is one example, I am also worried about the time involved. Many managers would like to at least start moving in the right direction rather than waiting for a 2-3 year planning process. Perhaps a quick start element could be incorporated into our goal of expandable, hierarchical decision matrixes.
Ward brings up a good point, i.e., where does management of facilities fit in the Table of Contents. Is the BLHP and subsequent repacking of billions of dollars of deferred maintenance going away? (For the new folks in the Service: BLHP = Bicentennial Land Heritage Program.) Managing NWR’s is more than managing critters, visitors and violators.
There are three components to sustainable resource management – ecology, economics and politics. Working where these three overlap is sustainable. Working where they do not overlap is unsustainable. For example, a project that is ecologically sound but not economically viable or politically acceptable is not a sustainable project. Science encompasses politics and economics as well as ecology. They are soft sciences, no doubt, but to the political scientist or the economist they are still science (remember, to a physicist, ecology is a soft science). If the Refuge System wants a vision that includes sustainability, politics and economics must at least be addressed. This is the place to do so.
■Development of deliberate research agendas
Grasping at straws here, but there must be bats in some of the refuge areas. White nose syndrome is decimating the bat population. Would research into this be in scope per the NWS mission?
p 24, L 11: “expanded”, not “introduced”
L 18: “utilize”, not “appreciate”
L 22-25: good!
L 31: I don’t think science lost its place within the Service as much as politics forced the Service to ignore it or keep it quiet. It may be more appropriate and less offensive to staff (who fought long hard battles to be heard when science was being forced out the back door by legislative agenda) to phrase this differently.
L 46: “Development of agendas” needs to be in conjunction with sufficient LONG-TERM (Not annual) funding to do the actual research.
p25, L37: “possibility”, not “priority”. Without the ability to put it into action, a top priority is meaningless to the resource.
p 26, L 29: There are already professional standards, such as those of The Wildlife Society and the American Fisheries Society, that serve as credible review and acceptance of work. I’m not sure we need to re-invent the wheel just for the Service.
p27, L 1: insert “actions” after “management”
L 5: delete “inform conservation” What is that supposed to mean exactly?
L 10-11: Admirable goal, but I don’t think it is practical to have a one size fits all. Staff couldn’t even agree to one just for Alaska refuges, let all one for all the Refuges in the system. Why is it so hard to let each refuge develop their own plan, have regional or national review, and meld with other similar or geographically related refuges when appropriate?
L 17-19: yes, but if we are trying to incorporate scalability and model adaptibility into our research agendas, then shouldn’t we accept the cost of acquiring good data?
L 28-29: usually to detect subtle changes requires a statistical rigor that is costly, re above comment
L 32-37: While NPS has been leading the agencies in their I&M program, our landscape more closely aligns with USFS and BLM. The NPS has a much different focus on detecting change due to it’s priority on maintaining and protecting landscapes as opposed to an improving / creating emphasis that many refuges have.
p 28, L 24: Why have we not heard more about Mand Mgmt Res Demo Areas? Never knew they existed. Who manages these? Are they Refuges designated as such?
L 31: What is the review going to accomplish?
L 35-38: Wouldn’t it be better to use those funds to support a high priority project at each refuge on a 5 year rotation? While a few refuges may benefit from having the Land Mgt Demo area data, others would never fit into that limited applicability.
What is overlooked in maintaining biological integrity on Refuges is allowing some States to manage sport hunting. Sport hunters are typically required to take male animals and sport hunters want the largest trophies. States are rewarded to sell as many licenses as possible by the USFWS allocation of Pitman- Roberts funds. States receive 3 dollars for every 1-dollar in licenses that are sold. States like Alaska rely almost entirely on license, and P&R funds for budget. States that are unfunded by general funds will press the harvest envelope on big game species, to achieve budget.
High harvest by sport hunting will target the largest phenotypic animals first, and continue to cull the strongest individuals. High harvest then erodes the sex ratios many times below minimum biological thresholds. Alaska has had several caribou and moose populations experience serious declines. Wildlife Refuge lands are subject to high use also by sport hunting under State regulations. In many instances the genetic integrity wildlife populations has had significant degradation.
I suggest two things that the USFWS should do in this document:
1) Review all current and future wildlife populations on the National Wildlife Refuge Lands for population health. Using scientific principles of wildlife management, populations should have healthy male: female sex ratios, and the populations should continue to express the natural phenotypic makeup. If State regulations are not in compliance with the Congressional statutory mandates in the units enabling legislation, or in violation of the USFWS policy to that effect, then the Refuge manager shall initiate a process to reduce or eliminate State over harvest regulations. This is not optional, this is mandated in Statute, to maintain healthy populations using recognized scientific principles.
2) The USFWS should take an objective look at the current P&R fund allocation system. The State of Alaska is only one of several States that do not, or insignificantly does not fund wildlife management. The Service should devise a system that allocates the P&R funds equitably to the States, but does not promote maximum license sales. A baseline average of P&R funds, for the last 3 years to each State could be used as a starting point. Land mass and other factors used also, but diverging away from the current system that is detrimental to wildlife populations over use, and biological integrity.
I applaud the authors’ vision of a stronger connection between conservation science and refuge-management decisions. The draft chapter expands on many of the basic principles of Strategic Habitat Conservation, thereby reflecting the Service’s most recent thinking on how to incorporate Conservation Biology into the work we do on refuges. However, the draft is full of jargon, is often repetitive, and would not be accessible to many potential supporters of refuge science in its current state. It should be shortened and clarified substantially. I offer the following constructive criticisms:
Pg. 24:
Line 1: The word “inform” is used here and at least 6 other times in the chapter in an awkward manner. Science informs action, scientific information informs shifts to new strategies, etc. This usage is not consistent with the dictionary definition of the word. Please consider changing throughout, e.g., “The Refuge System has always relied upon science as a basis for actions.”
Line 14: I disagree that the refuge system has “tested the validity” of the basic concepts of conservation biology. We accept that those are valid. Perhaps the authors intended to imply that the concepts may have varying applicability in different management situations.
Line 20: There is frequent mention of spatial (and temporal) scales throughout the document, but concrete discussion of the concept and how it would apply to refuge system management is lacking. The frequent references to scale seem abstract.
Line 24: Although funding, staffing and lack of clear objectives have contributed to inconsistency in science implementation, the root of the problem, which should be named, is periodic lack of political will and leadership at senior levels associated with dominant political ideologies. Thankfully, we are in a good phase now.
Line 28: Suggest replacing “energy development and extraction” with the more general “industrial development”.
Line 28: “Alterations in ecological processes” are an outcome of the stressors named in this sentence, and therefore shouldn’t be included in the list of stressors. Suggest new sentence construction: “The threats to fish and wildlife posed by…., industrial development and contaminants may alter ecological processes and are making…”.
Line 35: “Conservation delivery actions” is SHC-speak. Could it be simplified to really say what it means?
Line 44: Application of sound science to management is a catch-all that encompasses all of the elements subsequently identified, rather than a distinct “foundational element”.
Line 45: “Robust” implies something (e.g., a statistical test or indicator) that is minimally affected by violations of underlying assumptions. I think it is an inappropriate adjective as it is generally used in the document.
Pg. 25:
Line 2: Another foundational element, shared with Chapter 6 of the vision, should be to support professional development of refuge biologists and ecologists.
Line 9: What is “learning” in this context? My guess is that it’s an element of science and/or management, e.g., hypothesis testing, adaptive management. Suggest dropping learning from this sentence.
Line 11: This sentence seems to be describing adaptive management, without naming it. Please be more explicit.
Line 14: I don’t agree that it’s a given that doing collaborative work with best available data in an adaptive fashion will necessarily yield benefits “well beyond the boundaries of wildlife refuges”. Much of the work we do will be specific to refuges and will not have landscape-level implications…and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Please clarify what you hope to convey in this paragraph and re-write accordingly.
Line 18: Science-based decisions do not necessarily reduce uncertainty of outcomes, but they may quantify the uncertainty (which is useful).
Line 22: Here and elsewhere in the document you refer to “proactive adaptive management”. This strikes me as odd. Adaptive management is fundamentally reactive: an action is taken, the outcome is monitored, and the action is adjusted if necessary.
Line 22: Please use a different word than “intensive” when describing management. In Alaska, intensive management is often used to describe predator control programs, and I’m certain that’s not what is being promoted here.
Line 36: Suggested re-write of the recommendation: Ensure that resources are sufficient to support science-based wildlife and habitat management, and promote science-based approaches consistently throughout the Refuge System.
Line 44: see comment for line 22, above.
Pg. 26:
Line 10: What is “on the ground delivery of facilitated adaptation for climate change”? Please use plain English, especially for key points such as this.
Line 11: Here and elsewhere in the document you refer to models, but the references are abstract. What type of models are you referring to: predictive, explanatory, conceptual, etc. Perhaps it’s all of these and more, but really models in the refuge context are just another form of data manipulation to help us understand and predict ecological conditions. The vision should be outcome focused; vague references to means of data manipulation such as modeling are not useful.
Line 36: For fish, wildlife, and plants, living on a refuge does not necessarily imply that the species depends on the refuge (line 37). Understanding the latter requires much more information than presence/absence.
Line 41: This paragraph lays out an overly ambitious agenda that is laudable but overstated. Knowing everything about the ecological relationships of every vertebrate (+ invertebrate?) and plant species on a refuge would be great, but it is not a requirement for effective management. If it was, we would be in a lot worse shape than we are, and not just on refuges.
Pg. 27:
Line 1: effects, not affects
Line 15: In this context, “powerful” would be a more appropriate descriptor than “robust”.
Line 18: The last sentence confuses me. What are you saying?
Line 22: What does “it” refer to?
Line 27: “…including invertebrates and plants, as well as other flora and fauna associated with respective ecosystems.” This doesn’t make too much sense. Please re-write.
Line 36: The last sentence of the paragraph doesn’t make sense. Changes in the population and distribution of what? Replace “climate changed conditions” with “climate change”.
Line 42: Is there another term we could use instead of “deliberate research”? This sounds strange, and is not defined. How about “management-focused research” or “management-oriented research”?
Pg. 28:
Line 4: What is “framing research targets with assumption-driven priorities”? Please re-word in plain English.
Line 6: “Transparent” is a strange adjective to describe research designs and data analysis. I think peer reviewed covers it, and recommend deleting “transparent”.
Line 10: Word choice: replace “captured” with “identified”.
Line 17: I would like to see NGOs added to this list. Not every NGO is a “research institute”. A lot of good work gets done on refuges because of collaboration between the Service and NGOs.
Line 21: Recommended re-write: “Work with others to identify and satisfy research needs on wildlife refuges.”
Line 36: From my perspective, the LMRD program has largely languished. I think it’s a great idea, but the agency or bureau has shown a lack of will and/or resources to achieve their promise. I agree with the recommendation to support currently designated LMRDs, but suggest not recommending additional LMRD designations at this time, particularly given the demands that other new programs (LCC, I&M) are placing on our agency.
Line 44: Replace “assure” with “ensure”.
Pg. 29:
Line 9: While prioritizing our scientific needs in coordination with state wildlife programs may seem a laudable goal, the reality is that federal and state wildlife management are often at odds because of differing mandates, visions and goals. We should respect this, but stand strong for wildlife and wildlands management on NWRS lands that is consistent with the Service’s and the Refuge System’s mandates, visions and goals.
Line 12: re-write: “…goals, objectives, and mission of refuges.”
Line 17: “…sharing of information…”.