January 2016

On December 18, Congress passed two pieces of legislation that included pluses and minuses for conservation programs, according to the Wildlife Management Institute. The omnibus appropriations bill, that funds federal government programs through September 30, 2016, provides funding boosts for some conservation programs while not including a number of legislative riders targeting natural resource policies. However, some key programs received reduced funding, and efforts to prevent borrowing for severe wildfires was not included. In addition, tax legislation, known as the...

Wildlife Management Institute (WMI) Western Field Representative Chris Smith, Dr. Dan Decker with Cornell University, Ann Forstchen with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWCC) and Dr. Pat Lederle with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) recently completed the first Wildlife Governance Principles (WGPs) pilot workshop in Florida. The workshop, supported by a multi-state conservation grant with matching contributions from WMI, Cornell, FWCC and the Michigan DNR, was one of two sessions designed to develop ways to assess a state agency's alignment with...

The North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative and its partners recently completed a large, collaborative mapping effort to show the distribution and abundance of marine birds in the Northwest Atlantic. Spatial and temporal information on the occupancy patterns of birds in offshore habitats is otherwise lacking throughout much of the North and Mid-Atlantic. The goal of the mapping effort was to develop and demonstrate techniques to document and predict areas of frequent use and aggregations of birds as well as the relative risk to marine birds within these areas....

Decades of reduced harvest and aggressive fire suppression, coupled with drought and invasive species eruptions, have left millions of acres of federal forestlands in unhealthy conditions. Many of our public forests provide little wildlife habitat diversity, increase risk of severe wildfires, and threaten watersheds that provide drinking water to millions of Americans. A Special Session at the 81st North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference will explore the past and current situation regarding forest management on public lands and address needed...

The relationship between science and management has traditionally been thought of as mutually reinforcing, with scientific investigation and discovery informing management on the one hand, and management helping to guide and focus science on the other. Unfortunately, recent trends suggest a slow unraveling of this integration within the natural resource community. A workshop at the 81st North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference, Barriers and Bridges in Reconnecting Natural Resources Science and Management, will address the issue by engaging the audience to identify...

A workshop at the 81st North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference will provide a snapshot of resource management initiatives in Pennsylvania and highlight how partnerships are supporting conservation actions to address the rapidly changing needs of the Commonwealth's natural resources. This workshop, titled A Foundation for Managing Pennsylvania's Fish and Wildlife:  Partnerships in the Early 21st Century, is slated for Tuesday, March 15 from 8:00 a.m. to noon at the Wyndham Grand Hotel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

In Pennsylvania, as in many other...