Wildlife Management Chapter 3 Some Successes

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Wildlife ManagementChapter 3 Some Successes

• 3 men instrumental in early successes

Theodore Roosevelt Aldo Leopold Gifford
Pinchot
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Gifford Pinchot

• 1865-1946
• Professional forester
• Educated, science based forest management
• Director of Forestry (USDA)
• Governor of PA
• Breaking New Ground
• The Fight for Conservation
• State forest named after him

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Pinchot quotes

• The vast possibilities of our great future will
  become realities only if we make ourselves
  responsible for that future.
• Unless we practice conservation, those who come
  after us will have to pay the price of misery,
  degradation, and failure for the progress and
  prosperity of our day.

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Successes in Wildlife Management - Bison

• Bison bison
• 1905 few hundred left in zoos
• Refuges established
• Montana (Yellowstone)
• Oklahoma (Wichita)
• South Dakota
• Concurrent programs
• Canada (B.b. athabascae)
• Wood buffalo
• Europe (B. bonasus)

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Concerns with Bison Restoration

• Competition w/ cattle
• Disease
• Hunting
• Competing uses for national wildlife refuges
• Snowmobiles
• Skiers
• Photographers
• Hunters
• Food/ out populate refuge

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Lead Poisoning

• Lead shot
• Fishing wts (sinkers)
• Bioaccumulation
• Remains in sediment bottom of lakes, rivers
• Non target species
• Insect food base poisoned
• Swans, turtles, fish
• Replace w/ steel shot
• More expensive
• Less accurate

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Return of Wood Ducks

• Migratory Bird Act of 1918
• Hunting
• Lack of nest sites limited recovery
• 1940s nest box program
• 1940s hunting established again

Aix sponsa
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Wild Turkey Re-establishment

• 1930 - Mostly gone
• Trapped wild stock, bred in captivity, then
  released
• 1970 -Hunting again
• 1970 71 birds shot
• 2001 31,993 shot
• Similar results in Illinois
• Est. 135,000 turkeys

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Restoring Mammals - Deer

• Gone from Illinois 1920s
• Restocked from kentucky
• The rest is history
• Managed kills census data
• Some state no limits south
• Climate crops year round
• Major deer populations
• Illinois Trophy bucks
• 500,000 left 100 years ago
• Almost 20 million now

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Restoring Mammals - Beaver

• Drastically lower numbers
• Trapped
• Fashion hats, trim
• Practical - coats
• Now few trappers
• Nuisance

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Restoring Mammals River Otter

• Restocked in several states, Illinois, PA, NY,
  Missouri
• NY hunted in some parts of state but spent
  buying from Louisiana to restock other parts of
  NY
• Missouri most succesful

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Restoring Mammals - Elk

• 40,000 in Yellowstone
• Protected winter habitat, controlled hunting,
  improved range conditions
• 10 western states,
• Michigan, VA PA have herds,
• Escapees in ILL from game farms
• 1 million now

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Marine Mammal Protection Act - 1972

• Species
• Sea Otters
• Seals
• Whales
• Walrus
• US only
• eventually internation marine protection
• Needed due to
• Hunting all marine mammals
• Native american rights
• Oil spills (Exxon Valdez)
• Overfishing (seal food)
• El nino (loss of squid seals)

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Gray Whale Case

• 10,000 12,000 miles migration
• Major league exploitation by many countries
• Harvest banned in 1946 by International Whaling
  commission
• 1st protected area in Mexico 1971
• Reached 26,000 individuals 1999
• Now may be starving due to loss of food in the
  Bering Sea ( Chukchi Sea Russia)
• Global climate change altering nutrient base
• Whales washing up dead showing signs of starving

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Viscaino Biosphere Reserve

• 1988 salt pumping station in this Mexican bay
  proposed
• Primary calving ground
• Gave up because risk to whales too great
• Link
• http//www.acsonline.org/factpack/graywhl.htm

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Bird success -Song birds

• DDT
• Rachel Carson
• Silent Spring
• Housecats
• Disease -feeders

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Bird success hawks eagles

• DDT
• Rachel Carson
• Breeding programs
• California Condor
• Bald Eagle

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Small mammal successes

• Trapping declining
• Habitat restoration
• Grain farms
• Fewer predators

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Dealing with Reality

• 400 million ducks in US in 1800s
• About 40 million in 1950s
• Current targets aim at 40 million
• Less habitat
• Less food, cover
• Pollution
• people

Impossible to imagine restoring waterfowl to 1800
earlier levels True for most species