February 2007

The Wildlife Management Institute is pleased to announce that U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and best-selling author Richard Louv will provide keynote remarks at the Opening Session of the 72nd North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference next month in Portland, Oregon. The opening session will take place Wednesday, March 21, from 8:30-9:45 a.m., in the Grand Ballroom of the Hilton Portland and Executive Tower.

Secretary Kempthorne was appointed to the Cabinet by President Bush. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate and took the oath of office...

The Wildlife Management Institute (WMI) is very pleased to announce that its awarding-winning book, North American Elk: Ecology and Management, is back in circulation. Furthermore, it now is available directly from WMI and at a remarkable savings from the original price.

The book all but disappeared several years ago when its publisher, Smithsonian Institution Press, went under. Only recently was WMI able to acquire the lost (warehoused) inventory and regain full rights to the work.

North American Elk: Ecology and Management, edited by Dale E. Toweill...

There is mixed reaction within the conservation community over policies and conservation funding in the projected federal farm program, according to the Wildlife Management Institute.

While there were some items of concern in the administration's new Farm Bill proposal, which was released several weeks ago, a number of recommendations met with community approval and support. These included an increase in spending of $7.8 billion for conservation programs over the next 10 years, expansion of the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) and incorporation of "sodsaver" language, which would...

The more than 60 state agencies, universities and nongovernmental organizations of the National Cooperators' Coalition (NCC) are asking Congress to look beyond the President's fiscal year 2008 budget request and make greater use of the Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units (CFWRU) in meeting this nation's pressing future natural resource challenges, reports the Wildlife Management Institute.

Looking to implement NCC's Vision and Strategies for the Future of the Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units, the CFWRU partners seek congressional establishment in...

The second edition of Dave Smith's Backcountry Bear Basics, released in 2006 by The Mountaineers Books, is terrific. First published in 1997, the book really is "the most definitive guide to avoiding unpleasant encounters" since Stephen Herrero's Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance (1985) and, in some respects, it is even better.

For one thing, it is small?5 by 8 inches and 159 pages?and has a soft cover, so it is easily transported for reading in bear country, as well as advisedly beforehand. For another thing, it costs only $15.95 retail?a fair price for...