**Historical Development of Wildlife Management:**
– Game laws regulated hunting rights for fish and wild animals.
– Early laws focused on hunting restrictions without considering population sizes or habitat preservation.
– Emergence of wildlife conservation laws globally, like the Sea Birds Preservation Act of 1869.
– Establishment of organizations like the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the National Trust.
– Introduction of wildlife management in the US by Aldo Leopold and Herbert Stoddard in the 1920s.
**Key Components of Wildlife Management:**
– Wildlife management triad involving interactions among wildlife, habitats, and people.
– Techniques include reforestation, pest control, and habitat improvement.
– In the UK, governmental and private organizations, legislation, and subsidies contribute to wildlife management.
– Various types of wildlife management approaches like manipulative and custodial management.
– Opposition from animal rights activists and environmentalists towards hunting practices.
**Regulation of Hunting Seasons:**
– Wildlife management studies and lobbying help determine legal hunting seasons.
– State game Commissions set hunting seasons and bag limits for game species.
– Legislation like the Deer Act 1991 in the UK regulates hunting seasons for deer.
– US Fish and Wildlife Service guidelines determine migratory game hunting seasons.
– Open, limited entry, and closed seasons are enforced to manage wildlife populations effectively.
**Ethical and Legal Aspects of Wildlife Management:**
– Conservation principles dictate using the least harmful and effective weapon for hunting.
– State and local laws regulate weapon types based on game species and hunting areas.
– Wildlife management emphasizes using weapons that minimize animal suffering.
– Definitions and scope of wildlife management focus on achieving specific outcomes while balancing human and population needs.
– Conservation biology principles guide wildlife management practices.
**Critiques and Controversies in Wildlife Management:**
– Controversies surrounding hunting practices and environmental impact.
– Ethical considerations and varied opinions on wildlife conservation.
– Perspectives from organizations like PETA, Animal Ethics, and the National Gamekeepers Organisation Charitable Trust.
– Historical perspectives on wildlife management, including contributions of key figures like Aldo Leopold.
– Significance of nature reserves and ethical dilemmas in wildlife conservation.
The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and the United Kingdom and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (January 2023) |
Wildlife management is the management process influencing interactions among and between wildlife, its habitats and people to achieve predefined impacts. It attempts to balance the needs of wildlife with the needs of people using the best available science. Wildlife management can include wildlife conservation, gamekeeping and pest control. Wildlife management draws on disciplines such as mathematics, chemistry, biology, ecology, climatology and geography to gain the best results.
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Wildlife management aims to halt the loss in the Earth's biodiversity, by taking into consideration ecological principles such as carrying capacity, disturbance and succession, and environmental conditions such as physical geography, pedology and hydrology. Most wildlife biologists are concerned with the conservation and improvement of habitats; although rewilding is increasingly being undertaken. Techniques can include reforestation, pest control, nitrification and denitrification, irrigation, coppicing and hedge laying.
Gamekeeping is the management or control of wildlife for the well-being of game and may include the killing of other animals which share the same niche or predators to maintain a high population of more profitable species, such as pheasants introduced into woodland. In his 1933 book Game Management, Aldo Leopold, one of the Western pioneers of wildlife management as a science, defined it as "the art of making land produce sustained annual crops of wild game for recreational use".
Pest control is the control of real or perceived pests and can be used for the benefit of wildlife, farmers, gamekeepers or human safety. In the United States, wildlife management practices are often implemented by a governmental agency to uphold a law, such as the Endangered Species Act.
In the United Kingdom, wildlife management is undertaken by several organizations including government bodies such as the Forestry Commission, Charities such as the RSPB and The Wildlife Trusts and privately hired gamekeepers and contractors. Legislation has also been passed to protect wildlife such as the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. The UK government also give farmers subsidies through the Countryside Stewardship Scheme to improve the conservation value of their farms.