COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course is intended to expose graduate students to the broad field of wildlife and fisheries management with a focus on both the human dimensions and wild animal sciences components of the field. The course is intended as a gateway to deeper inquiry and to be formative for graduate student future course selection and research foci. Students will survey the foundations of wildlife and fisheries management, including theories and tenets in the areas of human dimensions of fisheries and wildlife; decision making and adaptive management for fish and wildlife populations; and some key theories and core, basic principles of population, evolutionary, and behavioral ecology of animals in the context of fisheries and wildlife management. A large emphasis will be placed on students learning to “curate” their growing professional knowledge, accessing, critically evaluating, and synthesizing primary literature and case studies as they form and defend their own developing understandings of the field. Students can expect to read primary literature regularly and develop, defend, and reflect upon their ideas in regular writing with frequent opportunity and encouragement for revision.
COURSE OBJECTIVES AND EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES
Upon completion of this course, students will: • Access and curate primary literature and other materials as a basis for managing information in this course and throughout their professional career. • Develop, articulate, and defend in writing their own working knowledge and ideas related to topics in fisheries and wildlife management. • Understand and critically consider key perspectives on human dimensions of fisheries and wildlife management. • Understand and critically consider principles of decision making, adaptive management, and research design to reduce uncertainty. • Understand and critically consider core theories and principles in wildlife population, evolutionary, and behavioral ecology as it applies to research and management. • Understand and critically consider core and emerging issues in wildlife conservation and management including key and emerging approaches to wildlife science.
TOPICAL OUTLINE
•Human Dimensions of Wildlife
-Attitudes, Beliefs, Norms, Values, and Emotion: The Social Psychology of Conservation
-Science, Democracy, and Power: Ethics in Conservation
•Uncertainty, Decision-Making, Adaptive Management, and Scientific Research
-Multi-criteria decision analysis
-Reducing uncertainty through management and experimentation
-Research hypotheses and the hypo-deductive method
•Population Ecology
-Life history theory and life tables
-Population Viability Analyses
-Spatially structured populations
-Management of exploited populations
-Conservation in Managed Ecosystem
-Direct Measures to Sustain, Restore, and Proliferate Species
•Evolutionary Ecology
-What is evolution and why does it matter in wildlife research and management?
-The importance of adaptation and the perils of hyperadaptationism
-Human-driven evolution in managed and unmanaged animal populations
-Conservation and management of evolutionary processes in natural systems
•Behavioral Ecology
-Behaviors at traits
-Comparative, manipulative, and optimization approaches to measure and study animal behavior
-Cognitive ethology and animal use of space and resources
-How human actions affect animal behaviors
This course is intended to expose graduate students to the broad field of wildlife and fisheries management with a focus on both the human dimensions and wild animal sciences components of the field. The course is intended as a gateway to deeper inquiry and to be formative for graduate student future course selection and research foci. Students will survey the foundations of wildlife and fisheries management, including theories and tenets in the areas of human dimensions of fisheries and wildlife; decision making and adaptive management for fish and wildlife populations; and some key theories and core, basic principles of population, evolutionary, and behavioral ecology of animals in the context of fisheries and wildlife management. A large emphasis will be placed on students learning to “curate” their growing professional knowledge, accessing, critically evaluating, and synthesizing primary literature and case studies as they form and defend their own developing understandings of the field. Students can expect to read primary literature regularly and develop, defend, and reflect upon their ideas in regular writing with frequent opportunity and encouragement for revision.
COURSE OBJECTIVES AND EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES
Upon completion of this course, students will: • Access and curate primary literature and other materials as a basis for managing information in this course and throughout their professional career. • Develop, articulate, and defend in writing their own working knowledge and ideas related to topics in fisheries and wildlife management. • Understand and critically consider key perspectives on human dimensions of fisheries and wildlife management. • Understand and critically consider principles of decision making, adaptive management, and research design to reduce uncertainty. • Understand and critically consider core theories and principles in wildlife population, evolutionary, and behavioral ecology as it applies to research and management. • Understand and critically consider core and emerging issues in wildlife conservation and management including key and emerging approaches to wildlife science.
TOPICAL OUTLINE
•Human Dimensions of Wildlife
-Attitudes, Beliefs, Norms, Values, and Emotion: The Social Psychology of Conservation
-Science, Democracy, and Power: Ethics in Conservation
•Uncertainty, Decision-Making, Adaptive Management, and Scientific Research
-Multi-criteria decision analysis
-Reducing uncertainty through management and experimentation
-Research hypotheses and the hypo-deductive method
•Population Ecology
-Life history theory and life tables
-Population Viability Analyses
-Spatially structured populations
-Management of exploited populations
-Conservation in Managed Ecosystem
-Direct Measures to Sustain, Restore, and Proliferate Species
•Evolutionary Ecology
-What is evolution and why does it matter in wildlife research and management?
-The importance of adaptation and the perils of hyperadaptationism
-Human-driven evolution in managed and unmanaged animal populations
-Conservation and management of evolutionary processes in natural systems
•Behavioral Ecology
-Behaviors at traits
-Comparative, manipulative, and optimization approaches to measure and study animal behavior
-Cognitive ethology and animal use of space and resources
-How human actions affect animal behaviors
