March 2018

Over the last several decades, the availability, connectivity, and quality of early successional forests has rapidly become the limiting factor for a number of at-risk species across the southern Appalachians. The Wildlife Management Institute has worked with partners in other regions of the country to implement young forest restoration efforts, and is now looking to expand the habitat projects into the southern Appalachians.

A variety of state, federal and non-governmental organizations will host a special session at the upcoming North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference in Norfolk, Virginia. Titled, “The Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy: A Model for Collaborative Conservation,” this session is scheduled for Wednesday, March 28, from 10 a.m. to noon and will address planning wildlife conservation at large scales, particularly across various jurisdictional boundaries.

The role that excise taxes on firearms, ammunition, archery equipment, fishing equipment and motorboat and small engine fuels play in supporting the American System of Conservation Funding is well documented. One aspect of this conservation funding model that is less understood are the import duties collected on fishing, boating, hunting and recreational equipment that is manufactured in other countries and shipped into U.S. markets.

Scientists with the USGS Utah Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit are leading research on Utah’s native fish, the Bonneville cutthroat trout, a fish feared extinct in the 1970s. Researchers have monitored for fish abundance, density, distribution, size and age for nearly two decades. State managers found that the Bonneville cutthroat trout was still in Utah’s rivers and streams, but the sub-species was imperiled and had experienced dramatic reductions in abundance and distribution rangewide.