The Program Committee for the 2015 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 11.

In coordination with the Program Committee, Special Session co-chairs have drafted brief descriptions of the session topics. Persons interested in presenting at one of these Special Sessions are welcome to contact the appropriate co-chairs, and should do so as soon as possible.

The 80th North American will be held March 8-13, 2013, at the Hilton Omaha in Omaha, Nebraska.

Conservation Controversies - Avoiding a House Divided

Co-chairs: Chris Smith, Wildlife Management Institute and Ron Regan, Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies

Fish and wildlife conservation is inherently complex and success depends on the convergence of social, economic and scientific elements. Historic achievements of the conservation movement over the past 120 years ? eliminating unregulated commercial exploitation of fish and wildlife, passages of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Acts ? document the power of united conservation interests. However, like much of broader society, our conservation community faces divisive forces. Polarizing issues such as tension surrounding state-federal jurisdiction and arguments over the merits of "conservation biology" versus "harvest-oriented management" have the potential to leave our community a house divided, unable to deal with the major challenges of the 21^st Century: climate change, surging demand for resources, alienation from nature, and inadequate funding to fulfill agency missions.

This session will explore current controversies with the potential to divide our community. Presenters will explore the forces driving wedges between essential allies and the consequences of failure to resolve our differences. They will also provide recommendations for creative conflict resolution and ways to unite conservation in the coming decades.

The Business of Conservation: Converting Consumers to Customers

Co-chairs: Scott Lavin, Arizona Game and Fish Department and Nick Wiley, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

Everyone is a consumer of wildlife. However, only a tiny segment of the human population pays for the public to enjoy healthy wildlife at the state level. As the human population continues to grow at an exponential rate, the negative impacts to our wildlife resources will continue to escalate, likely generating crises for species at a rate that outpaces our ability to resolve them. Public awareness of the impacts of our society on fish, wildlife and habitat and the political and financial support needed to negate those impacts and maintain or promote healthy wildlife will require wildlife professionals to become increasingly innovative in our approaches to communication and funding.

The current model of user-pay, public benefit has served us well, but we need to begin a constructive examination of broadening public engagement in and funding for conservation. This will require both recruiting, retaining, and reactivating greater numbers of our traditional customers, and altering the historic funding model so that the current, non-paying consumers begin paying their fair share.

To effectively convert consumers to customers (both traditional and non-traditional), the community must learn to embrace the modern methods by which they interact and communicate. Social media in its many forms appears to be the common thread that binds younger customers and reaches out effectively to the non-traditional user groups. Embracing technology, reaching out to new user groups, and employing business-minded practices to improve "customer" service will allow agencies and organizations to more effectively spread the conservation message and gain the support of traditional and non-traditional constituents.

This session will explore the strategies, innovations, practices, and potential consequences of re-defining the users of natural resources as "clients," "customers," "consumers" and/or "stakeholders." Additionally, speakers will examine the costs and benefits of broadening the funding base for conservation by recruiting, retaining, and reactivating greater numbers of our traditional customers and altering the model so that the current, non-paying "customers" begin paying their fair share.

Planning for Species Sustainability: Avoiding the Need to List Under the ESA

Co-chairs: Terry Riley, North American Grouse Partnership and Michael Bean, U.S. Department of the Interior

In the past decade, challenges facing state and federal agencies striving to manage species in decline have become more complex, more divisive and more limiting to recovery efforts. Past endeavors to forge partnerships that could sidestep the need for a species to be listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) have been met with only moderate success. Now, as the potential listing of sage-grouse has emerged as the next big ESA battleground, natural resource managers, landowners, and politicians have a golden opportunity to learn from past mistakes and construct innovative conservation strategies that can keep the sage-grouse and other species off of the ESA.

This special session will review the current tactics being employed by state and federal fish and wildlife agencies, conservation NGO's, landowners and others to avoid the need to list sage-grouse as threatened or endangered species under the ESA. In addition, session speakers will examine past successes and failures of interagency partnerships to conserve other declining species (lesser prairie chicken, New England cottontail, etc.) without the intervention of the ESA. Presenters will focus on what multiple agencies and vested entities are doing, have done and might do in the future to avoid the need to list. Additionally, speakers will propose ideas for how agencies can proactively collaborate to avoid roadblocks to sage-grouse conservation, and explore ways to proactively deal with potential ESA listings in the future.

The Evolution of Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research

Co-chairs: Dale Hall, Ducks Unlimited and Jim Martin, Pure Fishing

Since the advent of modern wildlife management in the 1930s, the Cooperative Research Unit program (CRU) has been in the vanguard of contributing to a priority outlined in the 1930 American Game Policy ? experimenting with state-by-state research to find solutions to conservation challenges. The CRU is a unique government research entity in that it is comprised of federal scientists at 40 major universities in 38 states with funding from state fish and wildlife agencies. The breadth of expertise and access to a wide array of university faculty and resources has made the CRU a tremendously diverse and nimble source for applied science. A particular strength of the CRU has been the cooperative setting of research priorities. State, federal and nongovernment cooperators agree to the most important research questions for the CRU to pursue.

This special session will explore the evolution of CRU research from localized conservation problems to global thematic science needs. A vision will be outlined for how the CRU will continue to be the primary source for applied science at the state-by-state level while contributing to national and global science themes.

Learn more about the 80^th North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference.