The Steering Committee for the 2017 North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference has announced the event's line-up of four concurrent Special Sessions scheduled to follow the Plenary Session on Wednesday, March 8. Following are brief descriptions of the session topics drafted by Special Session co-chairs in coordination with the Program Committee.

The 82nd North American will be held March 6-10, 2017, at the Davenport Grand Hotel in Spokane, Washington.

Native freshwater mussels play a critical role in river and stream ecology by influencing nutrient cycles and macro-invertebrate diversity. Mussels are also sensitive to changes in aquatic habitat conditions including water quality, fish communities, and physical changes in the streambeds, which make them a good indicator of aquatic habitat status. However, in spite of their broad distribution and species diversity, relatively little is known about the life history, distribution, and ecology of these important bivalves.

In July, WMI began conducting a thorough review and evaluation of the Tracking and Reporting Actions for the Conservation of Species (TRACS) system. This review, commissioned by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA) is critical for the continued long-standing support for the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration (WSFR) Program, which administers funds to states from the Pittman-Robertson Act, the Dingell-Johnson Act, and State Wildlife Grants, among others.

The USGS Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit in partnership with the Nebraska Intelligent MoBile Unmanned Systems Lab (NIMBUS) and the Applied Complex Adaptive Systems Lab have designed a drone prototype that drops balls filled with combustible material to ignite fire as part of prescribed fire management. The paper, Smokey comes of age: unmanned aerial systems for fire management, is published in the Ecological Society of America (ESA) Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.