In 1960, Congress established the Sikes Act (16 U.S.C. 670a- 670o) to ensure that natural resources on military bases are conserved and protected. These bases and installations encompass more than 11.4 million acres nationally and 26.1 million acres globally, making the DoD one of our nation’s largest federal landowners. In many cases, the lands that bases and installations occupy are protected from human access and impact. And while they can be impacted significantly by training activities that support the military mission, they often contain some of our nation’s most significant natural resources including large, unbroken expanses of forests, timberlands, grasslands, and marshes. They are also home to hundreds of sensitive fish and wildlife species and their habitats.

Have you ever wondered what makes some fish and wildlife professionals so effective at what they do? Have you ever wished there was some way to help others be that effective? As retirements take their toll on agencies’ institutional memory and the socio-ecological challenges agencies face become more complex, finding answers to these questions has become critical. With support of a multi-state conservation grant from the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA), the Wildlife Management Institute, Cornell University, Michigan State University and the fish and wildlife agencies from Florida, Michigan, and New York are working together to address this need. The project is identifying and analyzing the habits and practices of consistently high-performing fish and wildlife professionals to inform production of professional development materials. Products will include tools individuals can use to assess how closely their habits and practices mirror those of highly-effective professionals and resources that can be used to improve reasoning and judgment.

The U.S. has been rocked by over 500 tornadoes in the past 30 days according to the U.S. Storm Prediction Center. The tornadoes have been driven by larger weather patterns that have also led to widespread rains and flooding across the Great Plains and Midwest. In the end of May, a low-pressure area stuck over the Pacific Northwest while a high-pressure system sat on top of the southern states allowing a stream of powerful winds to slice through the center, drawing energy from the Gulf of Mexico. The resulting rains and flooding have caused significant delays in planting of crops.

The Regional Conservation Needs (RCN) grant program was created as a mechanism to share expertise and funding by northeastern states to address landscape-scale issues, advance collaboration and likelihood of success, and result in more effective conservation of species. The first phase of the RCN program was developed in 2007, resulting in 47 funded regional conservation projects. The current phase, RCN 2.0, was developed in 2017 and work is underway on the three overall identified projects with progress reports available online.

The 85th North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference will be held March 8-13, 2020 at the Hilton Omaha in Omaha, Nebraska. The Conference Steering Committee is seeking ideas and participation from professional conservation interests to help develop the conference agenda. In particular, proposals for the four conference Special Sessions are invited. Ideas for prospective plenary keynote speakers are also welcome.

The Utah Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit is partnering with the Bureau of Reclamation and the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources to protect and recover endangered and imperiled fish species in the Colorado River Basin. Population estimates of razorback suckers are critical to determining the effects of management actions and ultimately lead to decisions on whether the fish can be recovered and/or delisted. However, accurately detecting fish moving through rivers and streams is difficult and costly. The overall goal of this project is to assist with developing methods and analyses techniques to improve survival, population, and movement models for endangered fish species in the Colorado River Basin. Utah Public Radio at Utah State University featured this story by Shauna Leavitt on June 2, 2019.