June 2006

The steering committee of the North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference announces the Special Session program for the 72nd North American, which will be held next March, in Portland, Oregon. Below are the session topics and abstracts, along with the names and contact information of the chairs of each session.

Persons who wish to be considered as a presenter in any Special Session, should query the appropriate chair or cochair to determine if that session agenda isn't complete and, if not, to provide a presentation/paper abstract...

The Wildlife Management Institute is very pleased to announce the release of its latest book?Thinking Like a Manager: Reflections on Wildlife Management, by John Organ, Dan Decker, Len Carpenter, Bill Siemer and Shawn Riley.

The 120-page book, with original illustrations by Dan Metz, is a fictional account of six wildlifers, brought together under unusual circumstance, who find common confusion, interest and opportunity in the increasingly important human element in each of their different professional roles and geographies.

The narrative is an entertaining...

Implementation of the Northern Bobwhite Conservation Initiative (NBCI) continues to accelerate on numerous fronts, reports the Wildlife Management Institute.

• The NBCI coordinator position has been extended and funded for another three years. The position started early in 2003 with combined funding from a Multi-state Conservation Grant, southeastern state assessments and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). As of May 2006, the position is funded through 2009 by increased contributions from all 16 states of the Southeastern Association of Fish and...

Nominations may be submitted now for the Wildlife Management Institute's 2007 Touchstone and Presidents awards.

These awards recognize exceptional professional creativity, ingenuity and tenacity in developing programs that have advanced sound resource management and conservation in North America. Nominations can be for programs in any natural resource discipline.

The Presidents Award honors the division, department, office or program of a state, federal, provincial or other natural resource agency or institution. The California Wildlife Conservation Board...

After nearly 10 years of discussion, debate and negotiation, the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the Platte River has been released by the Bureau of Reclamation. According to the Wildlife Management Institute, the FEIS reveals future management plans for the famed river, which originates in Colorado and Wyoming and ultimately flows into the Missouri River, which serves as the eastern boundary of Nebraska.

It features four water management alternatives that were considered and focuses on the protection of habitat for four endangered species?whooping crane, interior...

The Wildlife Management Institute has released Regional Wildlife Habitat Needs Assessment for the 2007 Farm Bill: A Summary of Successes and Needs of Farm Bill Conservation Programs. This 24-page booklet was produced to assist in the development of proposals to refine and otherwise improve conservation provisions for the upcoming 2007 Farm Bill. The assessment utilized published data and information from state Wildlife Action Plans to create regional summaries of current program impacts.

The new booklet is more focused and succinct than its prior two editions (1995 and...

It appears that even the endangered black-footed ferret will feel the impacts of accelerated energy developments on public land, reports the Wildlife Management Institute.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (Bureau) recently sold leases on several parcels of land within the Wolf Creek Management Area in northwestern Colorado. This management area is where black-footed ferrets?considered by many to be one of the most imperiled mammal species in North America?were reintroduced. Nine of 20 parcels offered for lease in the reintroduction area were sold. The remaining parcels remain...

You will really like this one if you qualify as a hunter/gatherer, possess a sense of adventure, don't have a fear of gherkins, and aren't inclined to form some sort of reverse Stockholm Syndrome attachment to captive pigeons prior to their conversion to pigeonneaux crapaudine.

Steven Rinella's The Scavenger's Guide to Haute Cuisine locked me in a grin for 317 pages. Except for the fact that it sports the most delusive title for a book since Canning Moose, it is wonderfully entertaining.

The book is about Rinella's yearlong quest to assemble...

Pat Ruble, for 21 years the Executive Administrator for the Wildlife Management and Research Section of the Ohio Division of Wildlife, will join the Wildlife Management Institute in July, as the Institute's Midwest Field Representative.

Since his retirement from the Ohio Division of Wildlife in 2002, Pat served as program coordinator for the Terrestrial Wildlife Ecology Lab, Ohio State University School of Natural Resources until 2004, and then until present as director of government relations for the Bowhunting Preservation Alliance and Arrowsport foundations.

Pat...