July 2009

The Obama Administration is moving rapidly on renewable energy development and targeting federal public lands and the Outer Continental Shelf for the siting of wind, solar and geothermal plants. The Department of the Interior (DOI) has made several moves in recent months to streamline approval processes and identify lands targeted for development, reports the Wildlife Management Institute. The actions spotlight the difficult balance between promoting clean, renewable energy and ensuring that, in the haste to develop these energy sources, there is not more environmental harm caused in the...

The State of Virginia is moving to reclaim a leadership role in restoring wild northern bobwhites, reports the Wildlife Management Institute. The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF) is launching a new and improved statewide bobwhite initiative. Following a January 2008 resolution by the VDGIF Board making quail restoration a high agency priority, a comprehensive Virginia Quail Action Plan (QAP) was developed over the following year by agency staff and partners. The plan represents the second major quail-recovery commitment.

In 1996, the VDGIF...

Leaders of state wildlife agencies often are thwarted when attempting to initiate change they see as necessary to position themselves strategically to meet the needs of 21st century wildlife management. Although change is occurring, these agencies encounter considerable challenges to strategic transformation as they attempt to respond to the interests and concerns of politicians, nongovernmental organizations and the public. Professional discussion thus far has emphasized the need for transformation of state wildlife agencies, but provided little direction for achieving effective...

Renewable energy development has been a growth industry in recent years, but it accounts for less than 7 percent of the total consumption of energy (8.5 percent of electrical power) in the United States, reports the Wildlife Management Institute. Fifty-one percent of the renewable energy produced is used for electricity; the remainder is largely for transportation and other industrial applications. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that renewable-generated electricity will account for 15.8 percent of total U.S. electricity generation in 2030 fueled largely by incentives...

The book previously reviewed was a really well-written expos? of the awful business of herptilenapping. The worth-reading/review book for this month deals with other wildlife abuses, ranging from poaching walruses for their ivory and bears for their gall bladders to smuggling of Native Brazilian costume and ceremonial garb festooned with parts of threatened and endangered Brazilian wildlife. I wouldn't put Animal Investigators in the "really well-written" category, but the book certainly is readable, and its coverage of various areas of wildlife-related shenanigans is engrossing...