The Wildlife Professional Education Package by The Wildlife Society

Vol. 3 No. 4

S p e c ial E d u cati o n pac k ag e

Winter 2009

The Wildlife Professional | Winter 2009 | Vol. 3 No. 4

Safe Wildlife Crossings Curbing Black Bear Conflict The Wildlife Society

Introducing “Field Notes”

Wildlife Education

On a New Path

Winter 2009 Vol. 3 No. 4

Special Section on Education Feature story

einventing Wildlife Education R By Divya Abhat and Katherine Unger

Education Articles 33

A Solid Foundation: The Ideal Curriculum? By Roger D. Applegate

The Benefits of “Boot Camp” By William G. Minser

Lessons from the Field: Landscape Conservation By Shawn Cleveland et al.

Food for Young Minds: Lunchbox Lessons By Tom Ryder

Credit: © University of Wisconsin-Madison University Communications

45 The Value of Early Experience By Larkin Powell et al. 48 An Idea Worth Stealing: High-School Scholarships By Brian P. Mangan

departments 6 8 10 12 16 22

Guest Editorial Letters to the Editor Leadership Letter Science in Short State of Wildlife Today’s Wildlife Professionals: Kelly Millenbah and Bill Taylor

72 New Department

Field Notes Practical tips for field biologists

74 The Society Pages

TWS news and events

80 Gotcha!

Photos submitted by readers

rotating features

50 Human-Wildlife Connection

Bears Will Be Bears By Jon P. Beckmann

Credit: Patricia Cramer/Utah DOT

53 Tools and Technology

Making Better Maps By Mark Denil

56 Plans and Practices Giving Animals Safe Passage By Patricia Cramer and Shauna Leavitt 61 Health & Disease

The Struggle to Save the Laysan Duck By Thierry M. Work

66 Wildlife Imaging

What Heat Can Reveal By Chris Lavers

69 Reviews

Teaching by Example By Paul R. Krausman

Web Extra: To read an article by Neil Payne and Richard Taber commemorating the 60th anniversary of Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac, go to www.wildlife.org.

Credit: Chris Lavers

More Online! This publication is available online to TWS members at www.wildlife.org. Throughout the magazine, mouse icons and text printed in blue indicate links to more information available online.

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Preparing Future Professionals In wildlife education, do the ends justify the means? By Rick Baydack, Ph.D., W. Daniel Edge, Ph.D., and Steven L. McMullin, Ph.D.

Credit: Leslie Greer Goodman, University of Manitoba

Rick Baydack, Ph.D., is a Professor at the University of Manitoba, Canadian Section Representative to The Wildlife Society Council, and Chair of TWS’s ad hoc Committee on Collegiate Wildlife Programs.

he recent release of a comprehensive report on wildlife education in North America marks the culmination of a two-year effort by The Wildlife Society’s ad hoc Committee on Collegiate Wildlife Programs. TWS Council formed the group essentially to answer one complex question: Is wildlife education doing all it can to prepare wildlife professionals to do their jobs? To find the answer, our committee of nearly two dozen TWS members in Canada and the United States polled college administrators, students, teachers, and employers to assess the quality of education in wildlife management and conservation. We scrutinized curricula, assessed the merits of theoretical and experiential coursework, analyzed the role of certification programs in steering wildlife education, and talked with employers to learn whether new hires are prepared to serve as effective wildlife professionals. This Leadership Letter broadly summarizes our findings (available in full online). What we discovered is surprising, at times discouraging, and ultimately inspiring. Clearly there are problems with wildlife education today, but as this issue of The Wildlife Professional shows, there are also practical solutions that we all can and should promote.

Coauthor Affiliations W. Daniel Edge, Ph.D., is a Professor at Oregon State University and President of the National Association of University Fisheries and Wildlife Programs. Steven L. McMullin, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and Past-President of the Southern Division of the American Fisheries Society.

A Broad Reach

In North America, university and college wildlife programs exist in virtually every state and province. Several thousand educational institutions offer coursework in the loosely defined “wildlife area,” with specialized degree or certificate programs in wildlife biology and management available at no fewer than 500 schools. That represents at least four times more wildlife education programs than TWS had previously recognized—a gratifying discovery. Cultural, demographic, and economic shifts in recent decades, however, have changed the face of traditional wildlife education. Among the most significant trends: Urbanization of Students. Many students enrolling in today’s wildlife programs have little or no experience with fieldwork, natural history, wildlife-habitat relationships, and consumptive and

The Wildlife Professional, Winter 2009

non-consumptive uses. Students today tend to be from urban backgrounds, and have obtained much of their knowledge of wildlife from the Internet or television. Such virtual realities transfer into the classroom, where students appear to be more dependent on web-based learning. This in turn requires instructors to keep abreast of the rapidly advancing information technology field so as to remain connected to their students, a time-consuming task. Non-traditional Curricula. In the past, wildlife coursework focused on biology, game and fisheries management, and other traditional fields of study required for certification from groups such as TWS and the American Fisheries Society (AFS), as well as for listing in the National Association of University Fisheries and Wildlife Programs (NAUFWP). In recent years, however, wildlife education has been shifting into non-traditional areas such as environmental science, often offered at schools that are not members of NAUFWP. As public interest in all aspects of the environment has increased, many university and college programs have attempted to capture new students by becoming more all-encompassing in their teaching and changing their names from game or wildlife management to wildlife conservation, ecology, or natural resource conservation. As long as the biological component of such programs remains strong, certification in professional societies is achievable. Yet only about one-quarter of the wildlife programs in North America provide coursework that would enable graduates to seek TWS certification, and few schools promote this credential. As a result, the link between today’s college wildlife programs and the mission of TWS has weakened. Multiple Pressures. Changes in educational programming for college wildlife programs are tied to several inter-related factors. These include institutional demands, program-specific core requirements, the overriding importance of research dollars in determining faculty expertise and interests, and training needs as expressed by employers. Each of these can be affected by credit-hour allocations, national and international standards, declining budgets, increasing costs for schools and students, and non-traditional

student backgrounds and experience. Furthermore, shifting societal views on wildlife can affect funding, enrollment, and other factors critical to developing quality wildlife education programs. Employers’ Needs. Most graduates in North America find employment with state, federal, or provincial wildlife agencies, universities, and nongovernment organizations or consulting firms. The needs of these employers have become more varied, with more emphasis on collaboration, transparency in decision making, and systems-based approaches to wildlife and habitat management. As graduates from today’s wildlife programs seek employment, many of them experience gaps between what their academic programs provide and what employers actually need. In particular, many employers feel that graduates lack proficiency in oral and written communication, the ability to interact with stakeholders, and working as part of a team, all of which are essential to mastering the job requirements of the wildlife profession.

The Path toward Progress

Academic programming in the wildlife field must continue to evolve so that graduates enter the work force with appropriate knowledge and skills. Though there is no “perfect” wildlife program, TWS certification requirements for coursework represent the core areas of competency that should be present in any highquality wildlife program. Beyond that core, schools must develop a different educational model, one that transfers knowledge (principles, methods, and facts) in ways that simultaneously develop awareness, experience, and basic skills for meeting the demands of chosen career paths. This model should also recognize that more than one level of competence is necessary for successful entry to the profession. To bolster the efforts of academic institutions, the entire wildlife profession must help prepare future wildlife professionals for complex, interdisciplinary, ecosystem-based jobs in conservation. What follows are some of the strategies that schools, professional societies, and employers can follow to enhance the skills of tomorrow’s wildlife professionals. Colleges and Universities. Academic institutions need to provide comprehensive wildlife programs that prepare students for the varied demands of today’s employers and enable students to meet professional certification requirements. To achieve this, schools should: • Work collaboratively with hiring agencies to assess their needs and tailor curricula to meet those needs.

• Offer experiential learning though hands-on field courses, cooperative education programs, and internships. We encourage schools to hire cooperative education coordinators and revamp curricula to make co-op placements a requirement in degree programs. There is no better teaching tool than realworld field experience. • Emphasize teamwork, communications, stakeholder interactions, and understanding the cultural and political sensitivities of managing wildlife and habitats. Such skills can help young professionals understand stakeholders and develop science-based solutions to management problems, gaining a greater chance of public acceptance. • Develop areas of specialization such as adaptive wildlife management or habitat modeling, which are increasingly important to conservation. • Continue to provide strong foundations in all key academic areas defined by TWS certification, which are critical for effective wildlife education. • Ensure that a strong foundation in basic science and ecology is complemented by an understanding of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. An appreciation of how the Model evolved can help students develop a personal and ethical connection to natural resource management. Professional Societies. Professional societies can also take a leadership role in improving wildlife education. For example, they should re-evaluate and regularly update their certification programs to ensure that they define the competencies needed to be an effective wildlife professional. TWS is in the process of reviewing its certification program and may consider offering specialized certifications to recognize areas of expertise. Employers. Public and private employers must stay engaged in curriculum discussions and support programs that will adequately train future wildlife professionals. Because entry-level employees are not finished products, employers should encourage continuing education and professional development by supporting employees’ participation in workshops and attendance at professional conferences. Of course the ultimate responsibility for professional development lies with each individual. Those entering this challenging field must foster their own personal growth by seeking to improve their knowledge and skills throughout their careers. Such commitment and dedication—nourished by a solid educational foundation and ongoing support from employers and professional societies—will make it clear that the ends do justify the means.

o g it

Share your views about wildlife education by visiting http:// wildlifeprofessional .org/blog/.

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By Divya Abhat and Katherine Unger Divya Abhat is Production Editor/Science Writer for The Wildlife Professional. Katherine Unger is Development Editor/Science Writer for The Wildlife Professional.

Credit: William G. Minser

Professional guidance. Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency manager David Whitehead shows students how to set a beaver trap on a constructed wetland.

The Wildlife Professional, Winter 2009

Credit: Ruxandra Giura

Classical science. Specimens from nature help teach wildlife biology students how to identify birds, a core skill for would-be ornithologists.

ÂŠ The Wildlife Society

Call it a sign of the times.

For the first time in history, a student interested in wildlife management can study for and receive a bachelor’s degree—all online. The new program, launched this fall at Oregon State University, has 65 enrollees who, in a few years, may graduate from a school they’ve never actually seen.

This is just one of many changes in wildlife education at the undergraduate level, changes that The Wildlife Society’s ad hoc Committee on Collegiate Wildlife Programs recently analyzed in depth (see Leadership Letter, page 10). Universities—under stress from a down economy and under pressure to produce fully prepared workers—now must cram an ever-expanding amount of information into four years. As a result, schools are being forced to cut credit hours for wildlife programs to accommodate more required courses in other disciplines (Matter and Steidl 2000). Despite this squeeze, TWS’s ad hoc committee members discovered far more programs offering degrees or certificates in wildlife-related fields than they had expected. “Clearly there’s a very strong interest in this particular field,” says committee chair Rick Baydack, professor in the University of Manitoba’s Department of Environment and Geography. The profession will only thrive, however, if schools adapt their programs to serve today’s wildlife students, who are far different than they were a few decades ago. What follows is a rundown of some of today’s challenges in wildlife education, and a look at innovative solutions.

Credit: Gabe Hamer/MSU

Study abroad. Gaining a global perspective, Michigan State University students learn mist-netting techniques in Uganda’s Bikile National Park.

Credit: iStockphoto.com/ Noskowski

Data sharing. Advances in computer technologies, mapping, GIS tools, and global databases enable the collection and rapid exchange of wildlife research.

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Reinventing Wildlife Education

The Urban Shift

Thirty years ago, a typical wildlife undergraduate was a white male from a rural background who spent a lot of time outdoors hunting or fishing. Today, more minorities are enrolling in wildlife programs (though fewer than educators would like to see), and far more women are getting wildliferelated degrees. That’s the good news. The challenge, however, is that the vast majority of wildlife students now come from cities and suburbs. “These are urban kids who can’t tell a possum from a raccoon,” says Dan Edge, chair of the department of wildlife and fisheries at Oregon State University. Edge’s program draws nearly three-quarters of its students from urban areas, a complete about-face from when he himself was in school. “The things that I learned as a kid running around the woods, you just can’t get in a class with a three-hour lab.”

Credit: © University of Wisconsin-Madison University Communications

Teamwork. Teaching Assistant Megan Pease, left, instructs a team of biology students at the University of WisconsinMadison. A teamwork approach in the classroom can help students gain the social skills necessary for cooperation in the workplace.

In Last Child in the Woods, author Richard Louv notes that conservation-minded people learn to love the outdoors by spending leisure time in nature. Today, even rural kids spend far more time inside than they once did, enticed by video games or prevented from exploring by wary parents. Traditional outdoor mentors are fading away as well, with fewer people hunting or living on farms. “Out of 22 faculty members, only four of us hunt—and one of those is retiring in a month,” says Dean Stauffer, a professor at Virginia Tech’s Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences.

The Wildlife Professional, Winter 2009

Disappearing ’Ologies

Just as students are losing their connection to the land, wildlife programs are losing faculty with expertise in wildlife species. Since Stauffer joined Virginia Tech’s fisheries and wildlife sciences department in 1983, for example, he has seen a classically trained ornithologist and mammalogist retire, with no one in the pipeline qualified to replace them. Concurrently, many universities are cutting core courses on the ’ologies—herpetology, entomology, and other fundamental courses about the natural history of species comprising the phylogenetic tree. This trend is not new. “In the late 1970s and early ‘80s a lot of universities started regarding natural history as esoteric and not worthy of academic treatment,” says Roger Applegate, a wildlife biologist at the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (see page 33). Some universities, such as the University of Illinois, began to merge semesterlong natural history classes into a single course on the ’ologies. “This was kind of a shortcut way of providing all of this for a student but jamming it into one semester,” Applegate says. As a result, more students are graduating without in-depth understanding of species, their evolution, and how they function within ecosystems. In the long run, this could have negative consequences for wildlife management and conservation. The blame can’t fall solely on the shoulders of the universities. According to Scott Craven, chair of the wildlife ecology department at the University of Wisconsin, “there’s no preparation in natural history in secondary and elementary schools.” Coming in, the “average student is woefully in need of basic natural history information.” It’s not unusual to have a beginning wildlife student able to identify only half a dozen mammals. “You can’t do a very effective management of these species if you can’t identify them, don’t know their basic life history, or don’t have a feel of what they need in habitat relationships,” says Craven.

The Financial Vise

Schools are hard-pressed to add new wildlife courses or faculty with state budgets in a hole. According to Oregon’s Dan Edge, 30 states are dealing with “cuts of 10 percent or more.” Slashes to state university budgets have led to mandatory furloughs, pay cuts for professors, and hiring freezes. So if a professor of deer ecology or fisher-

ies retires, other faculty will have to incorporate that material into their own classes or drop it from the curriculum altogether. Cash-pinched schools are also curtailing trips to the field for hands-on experience, or asking students to pay their own way. When Mark Ryan, head of the School of Natural Resources at the University of Missouri, asked to spend departmental funds to purchase a van for field trips, campus officials questioned the need. As he sees it, a van that takes wildlife students out into nature “is like a microscope or a set of test tubes in a chemistry class”—essential to the learning process. The down economy also affects students looking for jobs—both summer positions and full-time slots after graduation. Students in financially strapped families may not have the luxury of taking unpaid or barely paid summer internships to get invaluable field experience. In addition, students who hope to postpone the job hunt by going to graduate school may also be out of luck, because agencies that have long supported research for graduate students, such as the U.S. Forest Service, are scaling back in order to fund essential programs. As a result, “a lot of students planning to go to grad school are finding their funding was pulled,” says Gary San Julian, a professor of wildlife resources at Penn State University.

Technology’s Mixed Blessing

Competing for space in overstuffed curricula are courses that teach students the latest technologies involved in wildlife research. New computer applications and technical equipment—such as radio telemetry, GIS, genetic sequencing, and statistical analysis software—have become key tools for wildlifers. Because technologies are constantly changing, however, many professors agree that they’d rather give students an introduction to these tools than make a student an expert in any one device. When it comes to analyzing habitat or capturing a GIS layer, says John Loegering, an associate professor in wildlife ecology at the

Credit: Graham Hickling

Skill building. Intent on her work in the woods, Michigan State University Ph.D. student Sarah Hamer plucks ticks off a raccoon as part of her research on the spread of Lyme’s disease. Back at the MSU lab, fisheries and wildlife major Andrew Wildbill studies sea lamprey pheromones, an interest sparked by his work with the fisheries program of his tribe, the Cayuse.

University of MinnesotaCrookston, “it’s far more important for me to teach them to teach themselves.” Technology has changed teaching as well. Virginia Tech’s Stauffer enthusiastically embraces Google Earth as a classroom teaching tool, as it enables him to give students detailed views of landscape patterns without leaving the classroom. Yet Stauffer notes a downside of the emphasis Credit: ©2009 MSU Board of Trustees on technology. “Students seem to be coming out thinking the answer is in the computer,” he says. “They’re losing the ability to be good naturalists and field ecologists. Instead of going out into the woods and prairies and making good observations, they think the answer is just collecting lots of data”—and letting the computer find the answer.

The Communication Gap

Have you heard this one? “Question: How can you tell an extroverted biologist from an introverted one? Answer: An extroverted biologist will look at your shoes instead of his own.” The joke may ring true, but it points to a problem that Baydack’s ad

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Reinventing Wildlife Education

and give future professionals the skills they’ll need to address the challenges ahead in wildlife management and conservation. Among the steps to reinvent wildlife education: Distance Learning. By offering a complete B.S. degree in fisheries and wildlife online, Oregon State University is helping define the face of the future— and an affordable one at that. The school’s online courses are priced at $151 per credit, the same as in-state tuition, even if a student is based in Hawaii or Maine. A growing number of other schools also offer suites of online courses that are both academically challenging and flexible. With distance learning, students can move at their own pace. This allows working students or stay-at-home parents to “attend” classes when time allows, which may ultimately draw more people into the profession.

Field work. University of Wisconsin-Madison students Alicia Rachow, left, and Amy Hong work with ecologist Brad Herrick to study ways of controlling invasive reed canary grass within the school’s arboretum. Credit: © University of Wisconsin-Madison University Communications

hoc group heard time and again: Employers are concerned that schools aren’t adequately preparing students to communicate effectively in the workplace. “New employees,” says Baydack, “don’t know how to respond to comments, criticism, and questions.” Weaned on the abbreviated lingo of cyberspace, they’re also often unable to effectively put words on paper. “Students are texting, and there’s Twitter and Facebook,” says San Julian. “They’ve lost the ability to write.” Without strong oral and written skills, students may find it difficult to resolve conflicts with stakeholders, work in teams, and share information about wildlife with the public. Yet these skills are increasingly important to wildlife management. In a survey of recent Oregon State University graduates, for example, more than half the respondents said that they used “non-specialized knowledge”— such as writing, interpersonal communications, and conflict resolution—more often in their jobs than specialized knowledge such as species identification or wildlife ecology. Clearly wildlife professionals need to be adept at both.

Finding Solutions

Tough times generally lead to innovative solutions, and that’s certainly true of wildlife education today. Universities, faculty, students, and employers are finding ways to bridge the gaps 28

The Wildlife Professional, Winter 2009

Because of advances in technology, “online capabilities are pretty phenomenal,” says Oregon’s Dan Edge. Professors can test their students’ ability to identify birdsong, for example, by using auditory files online. Yet no amount of virtual reality can teach a student what it’s really like to set a trap or band a duck. Distance programs like Oregon’s therefore require students to find a local mentor who can take them outdoors to teach them hands-on field skills, which counts as “laboratory” time. But will these students get the same level of experience as their on-campus counterparts? “To be honest the jury is still out on whether we are successful at that,” says Edge. Hands-On Learning. To be successful, wildlife students clearly need more exposure to wildlife. Fortunately, there are several ways to get it—both inside and outside the classroom. • Several schools, including the University of Tennessee, Oregon State University, Colorado State University, and SUNY-Syracuse, have developed semester- or summer-long programs to provide intensive outdoor training in field techniques, from prescribed burns and trapping to crop rotation and wetlands management (see page 36). • Most schools provide occasional, shorter-term field experience as part of the basic curriculum. At the University of Montana, for example, students can travel to the nearby Blackfoot Valley to talk with ranchers and see landscape conservation in action (see page 40).

Universities unable to offer sufficient field programs can benefit students by supporting student © The Wildlife Society

participation in private or adjunct programs such as Conservation Leaders for Tomorrow (CLFT). Founded in 2005 by the Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation in Illinois and the Wildlife Management Institute in Washington, D.C., CLFT offers three-day workshops designed to teach wildlife students about hunting and its role in wildlife management and conservation. Based on programs at the University of Wisconsin, Penn State, and Colorado State, CLFT is expanding significantly, with courses in seven states offered to students at 40 universities. Work Experience. Internships and volunteer work provide crucial experience and give résumés an edge. “Those that have [experience] are one up,” says San Julian. Students can learn about seasonal job and internship opportunities through their schools or on websites such as TWS’s Career Center or Texas A&M’s job board. Local TWS chapters and student chapters can also help students gain access to wildlife professionals to discuss career paths. “They gain tremendous knowledge through networking and the field events sponsored by the local chapters,” says Manitoba’s Rick Baydack.

Some universities offer specialized internship programs. In 2007, for example, Michigan State University’s (MSU) Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, along with the Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives, introduced the Natural Resources Scholars Program, which provides funds so that under-represented or minority students can spend two summers interning with multiple divisions in the Department of Natural Resources. As part of the program, students spend their summers working with the agency, and the rest of the academic year in a paid undergraduate research position with a faculty member. “The idea is to thread a common natural resources issue through all of the experiences,” says Kelly Millenbah, director of academic programs at MSU. Creative Marketing. Today’s students seem more aware of broad environmental issues such as climate change and biodiversity than traditional “game management”—and unaware of how inextricably the two are linked. To lure more students to their campuses, some universities are therefore changing the names of wildlife management programs to wildlife conservation or ecology. “If they can attract more students, they end up with higher revenues,” Baydack says—and more revenue is essential for the future of wildlife education. The © The Wildlife Society

new strategy is not just a numbers game, however. “These name changes are trying to reflect a way to bring in a more diverse group of students that are interested in this multi-dimensional thing we call conservation,” says Craig Czarnecki, field supervisor at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s East Lansing Ecological Services Field Office. Livelier Teaching. New names and new technologies will fail if teaching styles remain stuck in the past. Aware that teachers must engage students as well as educate them, college administrators are encouraging a shift away from lectures in an amphitheater and moving toward an interactive approach. “The more that people are directly involved in their own education, the more likely they are to retain that information,” says Missouri’s Mark Ryan. Professors who use interactive techniques—such as peer teaching, classroom discussion, and real-world problem solving—will keep students engaged and learning more effectively (Millenbah and Wolter 2009). Nevertheless, some time-tested techniques will never lose their power. “Humor and passion are the two biggest characteristics in my presentation style,” says John Loegering, recent winner of the Horace T. Morse-University of Minnesota Alumni Association Award for outstanding contributions to undergraduate education. “That’s not a trend in education. That’s just good teaching.” Language Skill-Building. Commenting on the old joke

about wildlifers being introverts, Craig Czarnecki says, “The conservation biologists of tomorrow can’t look at their own shoes or the shoes of the person in front of them. They’ve got to look people in the eye.”

A Future Pro. Banding black oystercatchers at Kenai Fjords National Park helped Julie Morse earn a master’s in wildlife biology from the University of Alaska. Well-schooled and committed to conservation, Morse now works as a project ecologist with The Nature Conservancy.

Credit: Ron Niebrugge/ USFWS

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Reinventing Wildlife Education

Not just look, but speak, and speak effectively. If wildlife biologists hope to use their scientific expertise to advise communities and inform policymakers, they’ll need to be able to write and deliver a compelling case. Universities know this, and are trying to stress the value of incorporating reading and writing education into wildlife programs. MSU, for example, requires wildlife students to take six credits in communication in addition to the writing and speaking already required in many fish and wildlife courses. “It’s not to minimize the importance of the core requirements within a fish and wildlife curriculum, but to infuse those skills into what we’re teaching our students,” says Millenbah. As Czarnecki sees it, the conservation biologists of tomorrow will think beyond jurisdictional lines and program objectives, and instead view conservation at the landscape level. “They will be more apt to network across disciplines and seek solutions to challenges that are bigger than any single agency or organization,” he says. There are signs that the emphasis on communication is paying off: Czarnecki says he’s spotting more recent graduates with the potential to take on field work one day and stand behind a podium the next. “It’s not as rare as I once thought,” he says. Promoting Professionalism. Students who hope to be prepared for professional work when they leave school must have opportunities to work with wildlife professionals, societies, and agencies when they’re in school. To help build a bridge between education and employment, a growing number of universities are forming student advisory committees that work closely with agency employers to assess professional standards, define expectations, and develop curricula to meet employers’ needs. The advisory committee at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, for example, consults with representatives from the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, private-sector environmental consultants, state agency officials, and NGOs on all aspects of undergraduate and graduate education. “The particular interest is in understanding the needs of employers and getting feedback on how to best prepare graduates for entering the profession,” says Winifred Kessler, Forest Service Alaska Region Director of Wildlife, Fisheries, Ecology, Watershed, and Subsistence Management. That way “agencies can assist universities by providing ‘realworld’ cases as topics for team projects and can even help with hands-on training and field trips,” she says.

Hiring agencies are also continuing a decades-old practice, working with universities to tap students

The Wildlife Professional, Winter 2009

for much-needed agency research. The South Dakota Game, Fish, and Parks Department, for example, working with South Dakota State University, funds graduate-student research projects that serve the needs of the agency. Over the last several years, for instance, three graduate students have studied mountain lion populations and habitat use in the state, reporting the results of their research directly back to the agency. “The information they’ve garnered has been invaluable,” says Tony Leif, director of the wildlife division at SDGFP. Occasionally state agencies and universities clash over the question of whether university wildlife programs should be training grounds for agencies or purely educational institutions. Scott Craven of the University of Wisconsin, for example, feels that the state’s Department of Natural Resources “wants to see students know how to drive a tractor or an outboard motor,” skills that he feels can be learned on the job. UW “is not a technical school,” says Craven, who focuses on teaching science. To help students get both, the Wisconsin Chapter of The Wildlife Society stepped in. Instead of holding its annual summer meeting in 2008, the chapter held a technical training workshop for all members in September. “Last year it was a day-long program on wildlife damage issues,” says Craven, and “this year it’s on survey and monitoring techniques.” The events have been well-received and well-attended— giving students a chance to learn with the pros. Wisconsin’s experience points to the valuable role that professional societies can play in helping wildlife students develop an early, life-long commitment to management and conservation. Societies that invite student participation, provide workshops and mentoring, and offer professional certification can help foster professionalism in young people just beginning careers. Such handson experiences and professional networks can serve as a bridge between the learning that occurs in university classrooms and the learning that professionals commit themselves to every day of their careers. This article has been reviewed by subject-matter experts.

For an abstract and bibliography, as well as a list of additional grant programs, workshops, and internship opportunities, go to www.wildlife.org.

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A Solid Foundation Imagining the Ideal Wildlife Curriculum By Roger D. Applegate

or many years, wildlife professionals have pondered the educational requirements and personal qualities needed for success in wildlife management. Aldo Leopold was likely the first to address the issue when, in 1933, he devoted a full chapter of his text Game Management to the topic. There he cited the need for “a willingness and ability to know and use the intellectual tools available in varied fields of pure and applied biology.” Seven decades later, the discussion continues. In the Wildlife Society Bulletin article titled “The Future of Wildlife Education,” for example, author Paul Krausman wrote, “The future of our wildlife resources is tied to solid education, both in and out of the classroom, involving wildlife, their habitats, and all of the anthropogenic forces that threaten their future” (Krausman 2000). Conservation Biology later ran a review of graduate programs in wildlife management and conservation biology in which the authors concluded, “A grounding in technical skills and biological knowledge is generally acknowledged to be essential, although certain process skills and attitudes are also required…” (van Heezik and Seddon 2005). Today the debate about wildlife education has gained new urgency, given the challenges we face. From my experience as a teacher and employer, however, wildlife education is falling short. Too many entry-level biologists are weak in areas such as ecology, population dynamics, critical thinking, and other essential skills. Because most have urban or suburban upbringings, their computer and technology skills tend to be admirable, but they falter if required to make field observations. Many lack practical knowledge of plant community dynamics, and too many lack the ability to perform technical tasks such as collection of biological specimens. To learn such skills they often need extensive training, which supervisors may not have time to provide. None of this is the fault of young professionals; it’s a result of our culture and educational systems. If it’s time to rethink wildlife education, Leopold’s basics are a wise place to start. As preparation for a wildlife profession he recommended 14 sciences and six “arts” (or applied sciences) including ecology,

mammalogy, botany, zoology, forestry, and animal husbandry. As the field has grown in complexity, undergraduate course recommendations have also grown to include such subjects as mathematics, toxicology, and biochemistry (Day 1997). Yet these are not enough. In the current economy, aspiring wildlife professionals need to be employable anywhere in the country. To that end, every prospective graduate needs some background in fisheries, forestry, range management, soil and water conservation, recreation management, and marine biology—skills especially suited for positions in land management, environmental impact review and administration. Skill in policymaking has also become increasingly important (Jacobsen and Duff 2008, Clark 2008), though it should not be traded for a solid foundation in science.

Credit: Deborah R. Applegate

Roger D. Applegate, CWB, is a wildlife biologist with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Wildlife Management at the University of Tennessee.

To be adequately prepared, practicing wildlife biologists require more than a bachelor’s degree (Krausman 2008). The first Wildlife Society Committee on Professional Standards, formed in 1939 and chaired by Aldo Leopold, felt that practicing wildlife managers should obtain a master’s degree in science. By the mid-1960s, some scholars felt that a master’s was sufficient for management positions, while research positions required a doctorate (Woodworth 1966). Over the last decade, wildlife professionals have admonished agency employers, professional societies, and universities to analyze curricula and determine whether undergraduate courses should be structured to provide the necessary background for a master’s, considered the entry-level degree for employment (Woolf and Adelman 1995).

Crafting the “Ideal” Curriculum

After years of advising students on course selection and graduate research, and as a 40-year veteran in wildlife management, I offer what I regard as the minimum coursework necessary for a practicing wildlife biologist today. What follows is an overview of this ‘ideal’ curriculum (with a full course list in the table on page 34).

www.wildlife.org

An A-List of Required Courses

The author suggests that the following courses are the minimum necessary for successful practice as a wildlife biologist. Core Physical Sciences Geology Physics Physical Chemistry Organic Chemistry Core Social Sciences Sociology Psychology Applied Physical Sciences Soil Science Watershed Management Meteorology/Climatology Applied Social Sciences Public Administration Political Science Outdoor Education Public Relations Natural Resources Policy

Core Biological Sciences Vertebrate Anatomy Physiology Invertebrate Biology Plant Taxonomy Plant Physiology Plant Anatomy Ornithology Mammalogy Herpetology Ichthyology Entomology Parasitology Microbiology Reproductive Biology Community Ecology Population Ecology Ecological Methods Biochemistry Conservation Biology

Landscape Ecology Marine Biology Genetics Endocrinology Developmental Biology Animal Behavior Dendrology Biological Writing Applied Biological Sciences Wildlife Management Wildlife Techniques Fisheries Management Fisheries Techniques Forestry Silviculture Range Management Crop Science Park Management Wildlife Nutrition

• Core Biological Sciences. This category includes 27 classes such as ornithology, herpetology, entomology, and several additional “ologies,” many of which are no longer taught on college campuses. Beyond these fundamentals are subjects as diverse as biochemistry, genetics, and dendrology. A firm grounding in the biological sciences enables students to understand the interrelationships of organisms and communities. Lacking such basics would be analogous to managing the harvest of wildlife without understanding population demography. • Applied Biological Sciences. This hands-on category of classes includes wildlife and fisheries management and techniques, as well as courses in forestry, range management, crop science, and wildlife nutrition and disease. Such applied sciences incorporate theory into management practice and provide insight into how the competing needs of these various fields can impact biodiversity. • Core and Applied Physical Sciences. Knowledge of physical sciences such as chemistry, geology, and physics are, like the biological sciences, foundational to understanding the processes that make up our world. Applied physical sciences such as soil science and climatology are especially important to understanding climate change and vegetation growth.

The Wildlife Professional, Winter 2009

Wildlife Diseases C onsumptive Wildlife Recreation Forest Mensuration Forest Management Outdoor Recreation Nature Interpretation Core Quantitative Sciences Logic Calculus Statistics Biometrics Multivariate Statistics Regression Methods Nonparametric Statistics Bayesian Statistics Modeling Spatial Statistics Accounting

• Core and Applied Social Sciences. Courses in sociology, psychology, political science, and public relations will enable young professionals to grapple with the human dimensions of wildlife management and conservation, as well as to advocate for sound science-based public policy. I’ve also come to believe that a course in philosophy, including logic and critical thinking, should be added to the list to complement the quantitative sciences. • Core Quantitative Sciences. Wildlifers who plan to conduct or interpret research in the field or lab must grasp the fundamentals of statistics, logic, calculus, biometrics, modeling, and other quantitative sciences. This is particularly important today, given the proliferation of online data sources.

Some Essential Extras

I strongly feel that today’s wildlife professionals should take what I call “Consumptive Wildlife Recreation,” an applied biological science that will give students knowledge and hands-on experience with the techniques, ethics, and safety of hunting, fishing, and trapping. Likewise, I recommend “Wildlife Techniques” to teach tractor driving, drill and sprayer calibration, animal tracking, field observation, and other skills that students once brought to the profession from rural backgrounds. The intent of these areas of study would not and could not be to develop high levels of competence, but rather to merely introduce the skills, which could then be practiced on the job.

Sp e I believe that wildlife curricula should be affirmed in some form by a scientific society such as The Wildlife Society. As the professional society for wildlife

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The coursework I’ve covered here does not include introductory biology and general education courses, which vary by institution and state. Including those required courses, this suggested curriculum would entail 124 to167 semester hours for a bachelor’s degree. It would take an additional 40 semester hours for a master’s degree, with part of the credit toward thesis work and topical seminars. A Ph.D. would require another 40 hours. Thus the total credit hours to earn a Ph.D. in this program, including thesis and seminar credits, would total approximately 247 hours.

Based on my experience, students and young professionals also have a serious need for better training in general and biological writing, and public speaking. Written and oral communication skills should be integrated throughout the wildlife curriculum in order to help students interpret scientific literature, practice critical thinking, and effectively present their ideas. It’s critical that we foster proficiency in design, analysis, documentation, and presentation of even routine management tasks.

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practitioners, TWS sanctions minimum educational standards as outlined in its certification program. It also promotes continuing education through conferences, workshops, and other training, and requires certification renewal every five years. Universities offering wildlife coursework should assess whether curricula provide what’s necessary for certification. As the wildlife profession evolves, educational programs must re-emphasize the biological and ecological underpinnings of the profession, and reaffirm the need for graduate degrees as minimal preparation for positions in wildlife science. Only through extensive graduate training can we achieve scientific preparation for conservation. It may take a decade or more to overhaul wildlife education, but we must act. The longer we delay, the greater the likelihood that our profession will fail to adapt to future needs.

For a complete bibliography, go to www.wildlife.org.

www.wildlife.org

education

The Benefits of “Boot Camp” A full semester in the field gives wildlife students an edge By William G. Minser

Credit: Courtesy of Ruxandra Giura

William G. Minser is an Instructor in the Forestry, Wildlife, and Fisheries Department at the University of Tennessee and served on The Wildlife Society’s ad hoc Committee on Collegiate Wildlife Programs.

once knew of a Ph.D. wildlife student who saw a deer track and couldn’t tell which way the deer was walking. Now that’s a clear sign of the times: Too many students in wildlife programs have little experience with wildlife and wild land habitats.

cut back because of high costs in time and money, difficulty securing field sites, inadequate numbers of faculty, shifting curriculum requirements, and concerns over liability (Kessler 2009, Stauffer and McMullin 2009, Wallace and Baydak 2009).

This message came across time and again as The Wildlife Society’s ad hoc Committee on Collegiate Wildlife Programs conducted its recent survey of wildlife education in North America (see Leadership Letter, page 10). As the survey results show, employers expect wildlife graduates to have basic outdoor knowledge and the skills to conduct wildlife management. Yet with more students coming from urban settings, field readiness is in decline. Handson field courses are also declining, with 25 percent of the wildlife programs surveyed reporting a drop in such offerings (Stauffer and McMullin 2009).

I’m well aware of such problems. Through the 1980s and ‘90s I taught an undergraduate course on field techniques in wildlife management at UT. We had the students for only three hours per week during the semester—hardly enough time to give them meaningful field experiences. We couldn’t take them out for days at a time because they’d miss important lectures, labs, and tests in other classes. Summer camps would offer more intensive handson learning, but we decided against that because, during summer, students need to earn money and gain experience through internships and teachers need to direct graduate research programs.

Students in the University of Tennessee’s Wildlife and Fisheries Science (WFS) program reflect these demographic trends. Only 18 percent of WFS students surveyed from 2000 to 2007 came from farms, and only 52 percent were hunters (Minser, unpublished data). Most students want more outdoor learning opportunities, but schools have

Trying to identify traps and molds of animal tracks, students from the University of Tennessee’s wildlife field camp, along with other members of UT’s Wildlife and Fisheries Society, participate in a field competition during the 2009 Southeastern Wildlife Conclave in Little Rock, Arkansas. Conclaves are held for fun, competition, and professional development.

The Wildlife Professional, Winter 2009

To provide a meaningful full-immersion field experience, we realized that we needed total control over student schedules for an entire semester during the school year. After gaining support from university administrators and faculty, we launched UT’s first semester-long field course in the spring of 2001. To date 187 students have participated in the field camp semester, and based on their exit surveys and comments from alumni and employers, it is an unqualified success. “UT’s Spring Camp was the most worthwhile experience I had while pursuing a bachelor’s degree,” says E. McCammon Patrick, who took the course in 2001 and now works in wildlife damage management for USDA Wildlife Services. “It provided a realistic real-world picture of many different aspects of the wildlife profession…[and] helped me tremendously when applying for graduate school and my first wildlife jobs.” Credit: William G. Minser

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Making it Real

As the camp begins its tenth year in 2010, we’re going to move it from the spring of junior year to the fall of senior year, a change that will allow students to complete more taxonomy-based prerequisites such as ornithology before taking the camp’s applied courses. The structure of the camp, however, will remain the same. What follows is a run-down of course basics.

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I’d argue that the seven courses we offer in this one camp semester give wildlife students more field experience than they’d get in six years of standard college courses. The camp covers issues in forestry, wildlife, and fisheries as the following curriculum shows: Wildlife Management Techniques. This is the area most in need of hands-on learning, especially for today’s more urbanized students. After hearing foundational lectures in the morning, students

Instead of bringing wildlife managers or biologists to the classroom, we bring the classroom to them—in wildlife refuges, national forests, wildlife management areas, national parks, and private farms. Most are delighted to have a class come and learn about everyday management challenges. In any given camp semester more than 50 wildlife managers, biologists, and landowners representing various state and federal natural resources agencies and NGOs participate as field instructors and hosts. These volunteer lecturers in the field are the critical key to providing a real-world experience that links academia, the profession, and the students. To keep class sizes manageable, we offer the course to a maximum of 30 students; the average size class is 20. Seven classes comprise 16 semester hours, and seven faculty members teach in blocks, so each professor has the class for two to three weeks. This schedule provides flexibility to allow professors time for planning, attending to other duties, and scheduling activities around unexpected weather and opportunities in the field. Most field exercises involve students learning onsite from managers about management techniques, strategies, problems, and opportunities. Some include helping managers with actual projects—such as prescribed burning or assessing and resolving wildlife damage. The class generally runs from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., with morning lectures often followed by trips to the field. Most field trips occur in one day within 100 miles from campus, but some last a few days to a week and cover as much as 400 miles. Students pay a $500 camp fee, mostly for transportation by university vans. They also sign liability release forms at the beginning of camp. On extended trips they stay at 4-H camps, refuge bunk houses, or in tents for little or no cost. Students bring their own food, though sometimes faculty and site hosts provide cookouts.

Credit: Josey Harris

Credit: William G. Minser

Hands-on experience is all in a day’s work for student Matt Spain (top), who frees a young American alligator from a swim-in funnel trap set for wood ducks in South Carolina’s Donnelly Wildlife Management Area. Elsewhere in the state, a feral pig faces a different fate as student Will Guigou pulls it from a drop-door trap used to reduce wild hog numbers in the ACE Basin National Wildlife Refuge.

www.wildlife.org

ers, and members of the community. To address this, UT’s human-dimensions class teaches oral and written communication, and requires students to practice those skills by teaching conservation to elementary school classes. Students also learn trust and collaboration by going through a ropes course and working together to overcome obstacles.

Credit: William G. Minser

Wetlands Ecology and Management. Because wetlands and their wildlife are among the nation’s most threatened resources, we teach students about wetlands ecology and values, and the techniques of wetlands management. While visiting with wetlands managers, students will wade out chest deep into water to examine habitats, invertebrates, fish, herpetofauna, and waterbirds. They’ll learn about flooding and draining techniques, and explore the relationship among wetlands habitat, the environment, and local communities. Law Enforcement & Public Relations. This class gives students the basics of wildlife law, law enforcement, and court procedures. They may visit courtrooms and state commission meetings, hear about issues the agencies face, and learn about setting policy. This helps convey the importance of public relations: Wildlife resources are owned by the public and managed by government agencies, so students need to know how to talk, listen, and present information in ways that will convince stakeholders to protect the resource.

Credit: William G. Minser

Mud and flames serve as training tools for students in the University of Tennessee’s semester-long Wildlife and Fisheries Science camp. Close to campus, students learn to identify otter tracks along the shores of the Tennessee River (top). Farther afield in South Carolina, camp students tend a back-fire set to manage a native grassland at Nemours Plantation.

head for the hills. On private farmland they may run a tractor, learn to rotate crops, learn about livestock, and discuss how to integrate wildlife habitat management with typical farm management activities. Along riverbanks or forest trails students will learn to identify signs such as animal tracks, scat, deer scrapes, groundhog holes, and beaver chews. They’ll learn to deploy mist or rocket nets to capture songbirds, waterfowl, or wild turkeys; set traps to manage furbearers; band waterfowl; and ultimately learn the fundamentals of how to integrate forestry, agriculture, and recreational uses on public or private land. Human Dimensions. Employers at state and federal agencies report that today’s wildlife graduates lack adequate human-dimensions skills—the ability to lead, collaborate, problem solve, and effectively communicate with colleagues, stakehold-

The Wildlife Professional, Winter 2009

Fisheries Management Techniques. Because our students earn a bachelor’s degree in Wildlife and Fisheries Science, part of their training involves getting wet and learning fisheries management. We take them to local rivers, lakes, and mountain streams where they learn various fish-sampling techniques such as electro-shocking, dip netting, and seining. They may visit aquaculture facilities, and they study how to manage aquatic plants to accommodate desired fish populations. Wildlife Damage Management. Wildlife managers increasingly field frantic calls from the public about bears raiding bird feeders, deer in the corn crop, and groundhogs in the garden, so students need to learn how to deal with nuisance wildlife and with irate callers. They go out with local fur trappers or agency staff to learn how to assess and resolve wildife damage, which now costs citizens billions of dollars a year. They identify what’s chewing on docks, mowing down crops, or weaving tunnels

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Making a Difference

By the time the field camp semester is finished, I tell students that if they didn’t like the camp, they’d better start looking for another profession. Almost none have done so. In fact, most realize that they’ve found their calling, and that they can make a difference.

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Prescribed Fire Management. In rare native grasslands and oak and pine savannahs, we teach how managed fire can groom and restore native habitats to benefit native wildlife. On the Cumberland Plateau, for example, we explain how seeds from native grasslands are still in the soil. By thinning timber stands and conducting periodic prescribed burns, native grasses and associated forbs can be brought back, thus restoring habitat for game species like wild turkeys, bobwhites, and rare or threatened grassland birds. Students receive federal “Red Card” certification through the fire course, and often help local land managers and sportsmen’s groups conduct managed burns on hundreds of acres of habitat—a valuable lesson in both fire techniques and collaboration.

through lawns, and then determine options for resolution. These skills will become more critical as wildlife populations expand and as human developments spread into wildlife habitats.

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to be more effective communicators and, by extension, more effective resource managers. For all their advantages, field courses alone are not enough to create a competent wildlife professional. Some have observed that the various academic, field, and technical skills required of our profession are analogous to musical instruments in a symphony: Just knowing how to play all the individual instruments doesn’t mean you can orchestrate a symphony (Muth and Kessler 1991). To be effective in the wildlife profession, one needs not only to be well trained, but also engaged in conservation and with society as a whole. That commitment is hard to teach, but an effective way to nurture it is to get students out of the classroom, into nature, and engaged with the profession.

For a complete bibliography and a photo gallery of additional images from UT’s WFS field camp, go to www.wildlife.org.

Josey Harris is one of those. A graduate of Spring Camp 2008, Harris had the opportunity to help free an alligator from a wood-duck trap, manage flames in a prescribed burn, operate a rice trunk to manage a coastal wetland, and resolve a beaver dam problem that had flooded a bottomland forest. “It’s amazing how much I know how to do because of the camp,” she says. “It was fun. You’d never get to light a fire in a classroom.” Almost to a person, students see the camp as a highlight of their college careers. They appreciate the applied learning in a variety of state, federal, and private settings; they benefit from networking with wildlife professionals on the job; and they enjoy the camaraderie that results from all-day, every-day association with classmates and faculty. Likewise, employers appreciate hiring people who already have experience with field techniques. They get graduates who have had exposure to the social, economic, political, and conservation challenges routinely faced by agencies, industry, and private landowners. In addition, young people who have practiced collaborative problem solving tend

www.wildlife.org

education

Lessons From the Field A hands-on crash course in landscape conservation By Shawn Cleveland, Jerod Merkle, Ryan Stutzman, Greg Neudecker, Jim Stone, and David Naugle

Credit: Rachel Cleveland

Shawn Cleveland is a master’s student in the wildlife biology program at the University of Montana.

Coauthor Affiliations Jerod Merkle is a master’s student in the wildlife biology program at the University of Montana. Ryan Stutzman is an undergraduate student in the wildlife biology program at the University of Montana. Greg Neudecker is a private lands biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program. Jim Stone is chairman of the Blackfoot Challenge and a landowner in Ovando, Montana. David Naugle is an associate professor of large-scale wildlife ecology at the University of Montana.

he next generation of resource managers must prepare to implement lasting conservation in the face of climate change, population growth, and increasing urbanization. Those who focus on landscape conservation—with strategies built around focal species that represent an entire ecosystem—will face particularly tough challenges. They’ll need to maintain functional landscapes, prioritize landscapes for conservation, and build trust and credibility with landowners. Is education today preparing landscape conservationists to tackle these problems effectively? In a word, no. A review of curricula from 11 top wildlife biology programs in the United States shows that university programs are weighted towards basic biology, techniques, policy, and management, but are weak in the applied aspects of landscape conservation, such as communicating with stakeholders, forming partnerships, and choosing focal species (unpublished data, see online materials). This scarcity of applied coursework is symptomatic of the emerging disconnect between land management and university teaching. At the University of Montana (UM), we’re bridging this gap with a field-based landscape ecology course that allows students to immerse themselves in the situations they will address as professionals.

Learning on the Land

This idea was born in 2007, when Greg Neudecker, a private lands biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), met with rancher Jim Stone, chairman of the Blackfoot Challenge, a grassroots land management organization that’s a national model for landscape conservation. Each had spoken to UM students about landscape conservation during brief field trips in the past, but felt that a more thorough field experience was necessary for students to truly understand the issues biologists face, from working with landowners to implementing long-term conservation plans. Together they envisioned a landscape-conservation field course and brought the idea to UM’s wildlife biology program. Neudecker, Stone, and UM professor David Naugle co-taught that first field course in spring 2008.

The Wildlife Professional, Winter 2009

The semester-long course met weekly and included five day-long outings to the Blackfoot Valley in northwest Montana, home base of the Blackfoot Challenge. The goal of the course was to take interested wildlife graduate students and a few undergraduates—a group already well-educated in the science of conservation—and give them the skills to be successful conservation practitioners. Most students in the class, including ourselves—Shawn Cleveland, Jerod Merkle, and Ryan Stutzman— already had ample experience working in the field, but much less expertise interacting with public stakeholders such as landowners or ranchers. Lessons in wildlife biology, ecology, social skills, and business made for a jam-packed semester. The first several weeks of the course were in the classroom, and the last several weeks included trips to the Blackfoot watershed and other landscapes. Classroom lessons involved: • Wildlife science: Required readings included scientific literature on focal species such as freshwater fish, grizzly bears, and waterfowl. • Management strategies: Students learned how agencies such as FWS prioritize which landscapes to conserve. • Conservation partnerships: Guest speakers gave students a real landscape challenge, involving specific wildlife species and stakeholders, and asked the students to choose the focal species, select stakeholder partners, and develop a conservation plan. • Priority areas: Students discussed characteristics that make certain areas—such as the Blackfoot Valley and the prairie pothole region—important to conserve. • Science as a business: Naugle taught students that conservation projects should be viewed as business ventures, considering available resources, partners, fundraising mechanisms, marketing strategies, and ways to avoid failure and maximize long-term results. In the field, students acquired invaluable skills, learning how to: • Evaluate success: After developing conservation

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Measuring Success

Demand for the course increased in its second year, but enrollment was limited to 20 to ensure that students got the most from the experience. Instructors assessed student views before and after the course, and found that most participants dramatically shifted their approach on how to conserve landscapes. Students moved away from a short-term, reactive approach that favored preservation of remnant parcels (such as acquiring a small piece of parkland to preserve a single orchid species), and came to favor a long-term collaborative approach to conserve large, intact landscapes (such as working with landowners to develop off-site water sources to improve both stream health and grazing potential). Students also changed their views on the preferred approach to lasting conservation by overwhelmingly selecting partnerships (83 percent) over regulation and litigation (7 percent). The course is already making a difference. Aubree Benson, now a U.S. Forest Service fisheries biolo-

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The field course is enriched by guest speakers including biologists and landowners affiliated with the Blackfoot Challenge. Students learn from people who have united communities, built support for landscape conservation, and enabled successful implementation. Renowned local rancher David Mannix, for example—a board member of the Blackfoot Challenge—helped students understand how a visionary rancher can do far more than a lone degree-toting biologist to develop the relationships needed to foster landscape conservation. Mannix sees the field course as valuable for both students and landowners. Helping the next generation of wildlife professionals understand and respect the values of ranchers and other landowners, he says, “will leave everyone better off in the long run.”

plans, students observed “real world” models in action then discussed why one strategy worked while another fell flat. • Develop trust with partners: Landowners and biologists discussed working collaboratively to develop trust and credibility. They suggest starting with small, win-win projects such as spraying weeds before initiating complex projects requiring compromise. • Hold a public meeting: Students learned about who should call a meeting and how to set up debates that will be productive and amicable. • Hire employees: Professional wildlife biologists and managers shared their tips on hiring and managing teams of employees.

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gist, took the course and uses its lessons daily. “It covered things most people don’t think about, like how you give someone a handshake, what you wear when you go meet a rancher in the field, how to place yourself in their shoes,” she says. “Every time I’m dealing with a landowner or asking for permission to access their property to shock some fish, I think about what I learned in the class.” UM’s field course continues to evolve. In 2009, for example, we added a “capstone” three-day-long field trip to eastern Montana to see a different con-

Credit: Todd Goodrich

servation partnership at work. Eventually we plan to offer a similar course to educate current professionals in landscape conservation. We can’t afford to wait a generation before these concepts become commonplace. In fact, it’s imperative that universities educate students with applied courses in landscape conservation. We know from experience that students in college can develop the necessary social skills to become effective managers, and we believe that state, federal, and private employers will demand it. We challenge colleagues to help students shrug off the days when biologists told landowners what to do, and instead inspire students to form partnerships that will safeguard wildlife and maintain rural ways of life.

University of Montana associate professor David Naugle (right) instructs students Jerod Merkle, Shawn Cleveland, Abby Leary, and Aubree Benson in on-the-ground landscape conservation on the Mannix Ranch in Montana’s Blackfoot Valley.

To see the syllabus from the University of Montana’s landscape conservation course, view results from a survey of wildlife programs, and read more about partnerships in the Blackfoot Valley, see this article online at www.wildlife.org.

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education

Food for Young Minds Gradeschoolers devour “Lunchbox Lessons” about wildlife By Tom Ryder

rom where I sit on top of Crooks Mountain in central Wyoming, I can see just about every form of energy extraction human beings have yet devised. To the southwest I watch smoke rising from a coal-fired power plant. Immediately below me, “grasshoppers” busily pump out black crude. As I swing my scope to the south I can glimpse the tops of 300-foot-tall wind turbines, and just to the east, monstrous spoil pits mark an old uranium strip mine.

So what does all this have to do with education? Plenty. As wildlife biologists we know that human impacts on the land—whether from energy development or anything else related to increasing populations—represent a rapidly growing threat to our wildlife and habitats. Yet most people seem so fixated on consumption and growth that the needs of a pronghorn or sage grouse just don’t seem to matter much. We’ve got to find ways to make wildlife matter. If we can’t find unique approaches to engage young people in wildlife conservation, the future could look pretty grim. But how do we capture the imaginations of grade-school kids and help them care before time runs out? Not far from me, in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Julie Elledge has been wondering the same thing—and doing something about it. With a Ph.D. in education and expertise in media and marketing, Elledge decided to create multi-media tools to engage the K-through-12 set in science education. In 2006 she founded Lunchbox Lessons, a company to provide what Elledge calls “a progressive and entertaining experiential learning environment for children.” She has hit the mark. Collaborating with state and federal agencies, scientists, industries, nonprofits, and teachers, Lunchbox Lessons generates classroom materials that incorporate videos, workbooks, lesson plans, award-winning films, and the latest technology to teach science. Wildlife biologists help design the natural resource curricula, showing children wildlife through the eyes and experiences of practicing professionals. Like real scientists, kids using this program learn through inquiry-based techniques—asking essential questions, research-

ing and testing the answers, then publishing their results in local media and online social networks. One of the program’s most entertaining teaching tools is a series of videos called “BrainSnacks,” which bring to life what scientists do, whether it’s exploring Mars or studying manatees. Only three to five minutes long, BrainSnacks pack in a lot of science, often explained through animated illustrations, like a child’s picture book. “We know that if you tell people a story, that helps them remember and form a deeper understanding,” says Elledge. “Our goal is to educate children using stories that inspire and engage them with current events.” About 50 BrainSnacks are available online, with more in the works. Because of support from Apple Inc., industry partners, and other donors, BrainSnacks and many other Lunchbox Lessons materials are available to schools free of charge.

Credit: Shawonda Lewis

Tom Ryder is President Elect of The Wildlife Society and Wildlife Management Coordinator for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

TWS Lends a Hand

Because early natural resource education is so important to our mission, The Wildlife Society (TWS) wrote an official letter of support to Lunchbox Lessons earlier this year, offering to work with the company to help develop materials about important wildlife management and conservation issues. This partnership strikes me as a perfect fit, given that the company’s focus is to educate kids about science. “There’s a great need to bring our science, technology, engineering, and math skills up so we’re competitive on a global level,” says Elledge. “This ‘STEM’ curriculum will give kids the skills they’ll need for jobs that don’t even exist yet.”

Cover Art by Mark Zornes

An artfully drawn black-footed ferret stands ready to tell children a tale of near-extinction and recovery I suspect that a lot of those jobs in a new book that Lunchbox Lessons will release will be in wildlife management next year.

www.wildlife.org

and conservation, which Lunchbox Lessons addresses in several of its programs. Its “First Breath” series offers BrainSnacks about the natural history of sea mammals such as otters, whales, and seals, and the “Backyard Adventures” program encourages kids to be neighborhood naturalists. As a Wyomingite, I find the company’s two newest programs particularly worthwhile. Here’s a preview.

The Broken Circle Project

A couple of colleagues in the Game and Fish Department—Ron Lockwood and Bill Rudd—have written a children’s book about one of the great wildlife success stories: restoration of black-footed ferrets to the Great Plains. Working with Julie Elledge and illustrator Mark Zornes among others, they’ve helped create lesson plans around this multi-faceted story, told through the eyes of the ferrets and a kid-friendly cast including a falcon, grizzly bear, prairie dogs, burrowing owls, and human beings. Launching in 2010, this program—including the book for grades three to five and BrainSnacks for students through high school—touches on multiple aspects of wildlife management. Kids will learn about endangered species, captive breeding and reintroduction, habitat degradation, wildlife disease, the interdependence of species, the value of partnerships, and the ability of people to make a difference when they unite in a common cause. “If we can pique a child’s interest with this story, then we may get them interested in wildlife issues and wild places,” says Rudd. “And if we can do that, then we will have their support later for protecting wildlife and habitat.” The Broken Circle project may also put a few more wildlife professionals into the pipeline, which is something we desperately need. “We all pay lip service to the need for recruitment,” says Lockwood, “but with this program, we can go into a classroom and show kids what a wildlife professional does. We can inspire them.”

Powering the Web of Life

As the view in Wyoming makes clear, we’ve also got to inspire kids to understand the human appetite for energy. Elledge is tackling this issue, too. In the summer of 2009 she attended an energy summit for educators at the Idaho National Energy Lab, where participants discussed how to use podcasts and other new technologies to educate kids about energy production and consumption. There Elledge presented the new Lunchbox Lessons program called “Powering the Web of Life,” designed to inspire students

The Wildlife Professional, Winter 2009

and provide context for the role that energy plays in our lives. Set to launch in 2010, the program has already garnered the support of sponsors including The Nature Conservancy, BP America, the National Wildlife Federation, the University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources, and TWS. As with all Lunchbox Lessons, the Web of Life program will engage students through storytelling, history, science, and multi-media. Among the ageappropriate lesson plans: • Kindergarteners and first graders will learn about their bodies as mini-power plants, fueled by food and drained by activity. They’ll also learn how animals and plants use energy. • Second and third graders will study basic relationships between animals and their habitats, and make comparisons between these “natural” relationships and the habitats in their own cities or towns. • Fourth and fifth graders will see how their communities connect to a larger world. They’ll study food webs, relationships among species, and how changes in one species can affect others. • Middle school kids will learn about the energy required to make, package, deliver, and dispose of food and other items. They’ll study renewable and nonrenewable resources, and share what they learn through photography, writing, music, and other arts. • High school students will study energy-related media, analyzing bias, accuracy, point of view, and assumptions. They’ll then form a hypothesis and test it, becoming young scientists in the making. Ultimately this program will teach young people that humans, wildlife, and habitats are deeply interconnected, and that human energy consumption has a direct effect on the planet’s remaining wild places and creatures. Taking one last look at the vast panorama from atop Crooks Mountain, I fire up the pickup and drive back to civilization, fully aware of the energy it took to get me up and down the mountain. Maybe if I had the opportunity to participate in Powering the Web of Life as a youngster, I would have made a different decision on how to make that journey.

To see video clips of BrainSnacks, go to www.wildlife.org.

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Professional Development

The Value of Early Experience Students know they need it, but how do they get it? By Larkin Powell, Ph.D., Steve Riley, Andrew Tyre, Ph.D., and Scott Hygnstrom, Ph.D.

nk dries swiftly on college diplomas. Over the past century, graduates have raced that drying ink to secure their first jobs in the wildlife profession. Just a few decades ago those entry-level slots provided on-the-job training, much like an apprenticeship. Newcomers could ride in a truck with seasoned biologists and learn the ropes, gaining the management and policy skills needed for upperlevel positions. Not anymore. Today, diplomas or even certification degrees fail to serve as tickets to a first job, and we believe that on-the-job training for new graduates has virtually disappeared as budgets have shrunk. Yet graduates are expected to have the skills to hit the ground running and take on challenging responsibilities without close supervision. Clearly a general education in biological sciences is no longer enough of a foundation for the job market, where newly minted natural resource managers must balance economic, cultural, and ecological issues every day (Ryan and Campa 2000). Such inflationary entry-level requirements have challenged natural resources curricula at colleges and universities (Brown and Lassoie 1998). As more graduates seek advanced degrees, one might wonder whether a master’s can serve as the new apprenticeship. We suspect not, for two reasons. Students who have received advanced degrees typically look for positions beyond the entry level, which require the higher level analytical and research skills they acquire in graduate school. In addition, graduate students are often paid for working on research projects funded by state and federal agencies, yet the analytical skills fostered by that research typically do not match entry-level duties, such as helping landowners develop management plans. This applies to doctoral degrees as well: A recent national survey of doctoral student career paths found a growing disconnect between the education that students received and their future job responsibilities (Campbell et al. 2005). Clearly graduates must be skilled in real-world situations before they graduate, and the best way

to gain those skills is through experiential learning while in school. Indeed, research shows that experiential learning in wildlife courses not only benefits student development, but also prepares students for entry-level positions in state agencies (Millenbah and Millspaugh 2003). Fortunately, universities are beginning to respond to this new reality. Natural resource programs are offering fewer lectures and more experiential learning and ‘real world’ problem solving (Ryan and Campa 2000, Millenbah and Millspaugh 2003). This change may reflect trends in pedagogy, but it also has a practical edge. To some extent, recruiting drives curricula: Success at producing marketable students for the workplace may boost student recruiting and enrollment at universities.

Credit: Brett Hampton/ University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Larkin Powell, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the School of Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL).

A Wake-Up Call

The hands-on approach to learning may be a jolt to some students. We’ve observed that many students, perhaps advised by their parents, approach education in a manner that fits the old paradigm: “Book learning now, experience later.” Yet students who avoid internships or fail to grasp the value of active learning exercises may find themselves at the bottom of the résumé pile after graduation. Recognizing this, numerous organizations including The Wildlife Society and the American Fisheries Society sponsored a workshop entitled, “Beginning Your Professional Journey,” at the Midwest Fish and Wildlife Conference in Omaha, Nebraska in 2006, where students were advised to immediately take on opportunities to build their résumés and gain experience. Universities and hiring agencies need to work collaboratively to promote such opportunities. In Nebraska, for example, the state’s wildlife agency has a disproportionately high number of jobs that deal with habitat restoration and management affecting private landowners. Working with biologists in the state’s wildlife agency and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) altered its course in Wildlife Ecology and Management

Coauthor Affiliations Steve Riley is Leader of the Habitat Partners Section of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. Andrew Tyre, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in UNL’s School of Natural Resources. Scott Hygnstrom, Ph.D., is a Professor in UNL’s School of Natural Resources.

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to add a relevant experiential component, requiring students to interview landowners and work in groups to develop management plans that would include funding through Farm Bill programs. All of us in the wildlife profession, whether teaching young professionals or hiring them, need to stress the value of such experiential learning. University advisors should convey its importance to incoming students, and hiring agencies should help universities gauge the effectiveness of their wildlife curricula. Based on our years of experience working with wildlife students and employers, we offer the following suggestions on how to make these collaborations work for the benefit of students, employers, universities, and ultimately for the wildlife and habitats we all care about so deeply. Working with the States. It’s relatively easy for universities and state wildlife agencies to collaborate on research projects, but communication gaps often occur with regard to student training. State agencies must clearly explain what they need and expect of new employees. Although university professors and student advisors are fairly good at describing what skills are important for wildlife professionals, most academics have limited experience working in agencies. To bridge this gap, universities should include agency personnel on panels to provide feedback about university curricula and faculty hires. Schools should also study agency advertisements for job openings and, as we’ve done at UNL,

Credit: Larkin Powell

Neil Powers, manager of the Crescent Lake National Wildlife Refuge, discusses grassland management and professional development at the refuge headquarters with students of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Wildlife Management Techniques course.

The Wildlife Professional, Winter 2009

create a direct link between the university Career Services office and the personnel department at the state wildlife agency. State agencies can reciprocate by including university faculty on planning committees and by supporting state employees who spend time working with universities. Working with Uncle Sam. Universities would be wise to strengthen their ties to the federal government, which offers valuable programs that can help students gain professional experience at the federal level. The Student Educational Employment Program (SEEP), for example, provides job opportunities to students from accredited high schools, university programs, and technical or vocational schools. It has two basic offerings: • The Student Temporary Employment Program (STEP) is highly flexible for students and managers because the work does not need to be related to a student’s course of study. The program could enable students who are undecided about their career path to sample natural resource work. • The Student Career Experience Program (SCEP) provides paid full-time or part-time work experience in a student’s field of study. Nebraska students seeking SCEP jobs with the state arm of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), for example, may find positions in soil conservation, agricultural engineering, and range conservation. Unfortunately, the SCEP program has not kept pace with the hiring needs of federal agencies (USFWS 2008). Beyond expanding such programs, federal agencies should also promote these programs among faculty, students, and employees, and should aggressively recruit student applicants in the natural resource fields. Likewise, university administrators should provide funding and support for recruitment activities. The overall success of the SCEP program suggests that state agencies could solve recruiting dilemmas by developing programs that mirror SCEP objectives. Collaborate with the Coops. The federal Cooperative Research Unit system can also play a critical role in linking the federal system with university faculty. Coop Units provide graduate training and they do it well. Many Coop Units house special programs that provide graduate students with real-world, relevant experiences. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln, for example, is working with the Nebraska Coop Unit to develop a graduate program in adaptive resource management that will

Sp e Although the source of professional development has shifted from entry-level positions in state agencies to “real world” experience in university and government programs, we believe that many state agencies and university partners have not adequately addressed this shift. We should move quickly to do so: State and federal natural resource agencies project a vast number of openings during the next few years as retirements increase and the need to address climate change and biodiversity intensifies. Some agencies doubt that there will be enough qualified applicants to fill these positions (Renewable Natural Resources Foundation 2004, Mason 2005). Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) such as Pheasants Forever and The Nature Conservancy, which have an increasingly important role in conservation of game and nongame species, face the same dilemma. If this dearth of qualified applicants is left unresolved, we believe state and federal agencies and NGOs will

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assist professionals who are required to use adaptive management but have not been trained in this decision-making process.

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suffer significant consequences. Workers with inadequate training could result in management failures, threaten continued tax-supported funding, and endanger the resources we are charged to manage. Consider just one example: The Grassland Conservation Plan for Prairie Grouse calls for 65 million acres of land to be conserved (Vodehnal and Haufler 2007). At best, one biologist could manage roughly 20,000 acres per year. At that rate it would take 325 biologists 10 years to meet the objectives of this one plan. If our educational system cannot produce more and better prepared graduates, we will have no chance of succeeding in our conservation endeavors. Marshall McLuhan once said, “There are no passengers on spaceship Earth. We are all crew.” At universities, our task is nothing less than training the officers of the ship.

For a complete bibliography go to www.wildlife.org.

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commentary

An Idea Worth Stealing Giving high-school kids scholarships to study wildlife By Brian P. Mangan, Ph.D.

resh from grading semester papers, and wary of the students’ ever-present temptation to plagiarize, I find what I am about to recommend to The Wildlife Society (TWS) to be truly ironic, but here goes: Please steal an idea from the American Fisheries Society (AFS)!

Credit: Joy Mangan

Brian P. Mangan, Ph.D., is Director of the Environmental Program at King’s College in WilkesBarre, Pennsylvania.

Like TWS, AFS is well aware of the need to reach the next generation of professionals, particularly with an eye on diversity. Toward that end, in 2001 AFS launched the Hutton Junior Fisheries Biology Program, designed to fund summer scholarships for high school students interested in fisheries science. Named after Robert F. Hutton, the first Executive Director of AFS, and endowed by a fund that also bears his name, this program provides $3,000 scholarships to enable high school students to work through the summer with fisheries biologist-mentors. The program also provides liability insurance to all Hutton scholars. According to the AFS website, “The principal goal of the Hutton Program is to stimulate interest in careers in fisheries science and management among groups underrepresented in the fisheries professions, including minorities and women.” High school juniors or seniors across North America may apply, though AFS especially encourages applications from qualified women and minority candidates. Once accepted, students will be matched with a fisheries professional who lives within commuting distance of the student. Working throughout the summer in either a freshwater or marine setting, students will assist mentors with their professional work, whether in the field, a laboratory, or afloat on a boat. The work may involve any aspect of fisheries science, such as stream sampling, seining, electro-fishing, fish tagging and tracking, ecosystem restoration, angler surveys, and lab analysis. Some assignments may involve overnight or week-long trips. Hutton program mentors come from universities, NGOs, or state, federal, provincial, or tribal agencies in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. They must provide students with a total of 320 hours of experience, equivalent to eight fiveday, 40-hour weeks. However, schedules can be juggled to fulfill the needs of students and mentors, an important caveat when dealing with the study of organisms in their environments. It is even possible for vacations or

The Wildlife Professional, Winter 2009

conferences to be scheduled during the summer as long as they don’t interfere with overall student participation. To date 321 students and more than 270 mentors have participated in the Hutton Program, and the results are impressive. Of the 35 students receiving grants in 2009, for example, 77 percent said they would study fisheries in college—not a bad return on investment. The longrange results are equally promising. According to a 2008 survey, 64 percent of Hutton alumni are studying or considering studying fisheries, biology, or environmental science; 9 percent are working in fisheries or biology; 12 percent have undergraduate degrees in fisheries or biology, and of those, 47 percent are pursuing advanced degrees in those fields.

Funding Our Own Future

By now many of you will have done the math for the cost of the Hutton Program. Scholarships for the 35 students who participated in 2009 cost AFS $105,000. Add insurance, administrative costs, recruitment materials, and supplies, and the total comes to about $180,000—big money and a big commitment for any society. Yet I can envision ways in which TWS could fund a similar program. Consider: • Estate Bequest. This would be one of the least invasive and most meaningful ways to raise funds for a TWS scholarship program—a format already used by TWS for the endowment fund. What better way to “pass on” than by passing on the wildlife profession to the next generation? • Solicit Outfitters. It wouldn’t hurt to seek funding from all those outfitters who are making a living off the wildlife that professionals manage for them. This would, after all, be an investment in that industry’s future. • Individual Contribution. If a wildlife professional within the ranks of TWS would like to cache significant cash towards a scholarship program, I’m sure the Society would give serious consideration to naming the program after the donor—so mark your territory now! I hope I haven’t offended my fisheries colleagues by promoting the stealing of the Hutton idea. If so, remember that imitation is the highest form of flattery. However, if any of my students read this, beware that imitation lives next door to plagiarism, and you do not want to be found at that address. © The Wildlife Society