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Our study explored current environmental sustainability practices of U.S. camps as well as the motivations and barriers influencing integration of sustainable operational approaches. Using a web survey of camp organizations in Spring 2021, we identified participation in sustainable actions across five broad categories: waste management, sustainability education and communication, natural resource and wildlife conservation, energy and water consumption, and purchasing and procurement. Many camp organizations already engaged in sustainable practices--especially with respect to waste management and sustainability education--but almost all camps wanted to do more. Camp organizations placed higher priority on environmental and social motivations for sustainability than economic reasons. The largest perceived barrier to sustainability was inadequate financial and/or technological resources, though lack of awareness and capacitybuilding assistance were also constraints. Results highlight strong interest in sustainability across the camp industry and reveal multiple ways to realize that potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Diameter, decay class, and canopy cover predicted roost use by bats. • Bats rarely roosted in snags in severely burned areas that lack canopy cover. • Protecting short (<3 m) snags may be a valuable strategy for male bat conservation. • Snag retention is likely more beneficial in selectively logged stands than clearcuts. Wildlife conservation in multi-use landscapes requires identifying and conserving critical resources that may otherwise be destroyed or degraded by human activity. Summer day-roost sites are critical resources for bats, so conserving roost sites is a focus of many bat conservation plans. Studies quantifying day-roost characteristics typically focus on female bats due to their much stronger influence on reproductive success, but large areas of species' ranges can be occupied predominantly by male bats due to sexual segregation. We used VHF telemetry to identify and characterize summer day-roost selection by male northern long-eared bats (Myotis septentrionalis) in a ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forest in South Dakota, USA. We tracked 18 bats to 43 tree roosts and used an information-theoretic approach to determine the relative importance of tree- and plot-level characteristics for roost site selection. Bats selected roost trees that were larger in diameter, more decayed, and under denser canopy than other trees available on the landscape. Much like studies of female northern long-eared bats have shown, protecting large-diameter snags within intact forest is important for the conservation of male northern long-eared bats. Unlike female-specific studies, however, many roosts in our study (39.5%) were located in short (≤3 m) snags. Protecting short snags may be a low-risk, high-reward strategy for conservation of resources important to male northern long-eared bats. Other tree-roosting bat species in fire-prone forests may benefit from forest management practices that promote these tree characteristics, particularly in high-elevation areas where populations largely consist of males. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural resources across the United States are increasingly managed at the landscape scale through cooperation among multiple organizations and landowners. United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service (USFS) agency leaders have widely promoted this approach since 2009 when Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack called for “all lands” management. Landscape scale projects have been undertaken to address multiple goals such as single species conservation, resilience to fire, invasive species eradication, and others. The West Virginia Restoration Venture (WVRV)—one of five landscape scale conservation projects funded 2014-2016 across the Northeast and Midwest and known as “Joint Chiefs’” projects—was evaluated by an interdisciplinary team of USFS employees to gain insight into how cross-boundary landscape scale conservation projects are implemented in the region. In this paper, the team used qualitative interview data from project participants to explore processes related to developing a shared vision for the landscape, implementation priorities, and methods to work across institutional and property ownership boundaries. Grounded in the landscape and collaborative resource management literatures, the report shows how established inter-organizational networks, flexible approaches to management, and a “shelf-stock” of ready-to-implement projects led to on-the-ground success. The authors provide insight about factors that constrain and facilitate the implementation of landscape scale conservation projects that have multiple goals, landowners, and organizational partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wildlife governance principles (WGPs) identify desirable governance characteristics for wildlife conservation in the United States (US). The types of institutional, ecological, and socio-cultural challenges that WGPs are designed to address also affect governance of public natural resources other than wildlife and in places other than the US. This raises the possibility that a similar set of governance principles might help natural resource professionals working in other resource contexts address the particular challenges they face. We describe the process by which we developed WGPs and offer seven practically oriented questions to help natural resource professionals ascertain whether a similar set of principles could improve governance in their context. In some contexts, minor modification of WGPs might be appropriate; in others, the process by which we developed WGPs could serve as a blueprint for formulating appropriate principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zoos and aquaria are controversial institutions, vilified by animal rights activists and championed by those who value their entertainment and educational resources. Examining media frames of these institutions can identify public perspectives. A qualitative content analysis was conducted for print and online magazine articles that discussed zoos and aquaria in North America. Sixty-five articles were analysed, and eight different frames were identified. The diverse frames highlight the differing roles of zoos and aquaria. Most of the articles were positive and supportive of zoos; 11% were negative. Animal welfare was the most common frame, from both positive and negative perspectives. Other frames, such as conservation and education, were less prevalent in the sample than expected, since zoos and aquaria portray themselves to be leaders in these fields. The unbalanced media discourse and small publication rate over the four years sampled suggest opportunities for increased media engagement on zoos and aquaria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State wildlife conservation programs are essential to accomplishing the national goal of extinction prevention. By virtue of their constitutional powers, their expertise, and their on-the-ground personnel, states could--in theory--accomplish far more than the federal agencies directly responsible for implementing the Endangered Species Act (ESA). States plausibly argue that they can catalyze collaborative conservation that brings together key stakeholders to improve conditions for imperiled species. Bills to revise the ESA seek to delegate greater authority to states. We evaluated states' imperiled species legislation to determine their legal capacity to employ the key regulatory tools that prompt collaborative conservation. All but four states possess statutory programs to identify species on the brink of extinction. Most of them include both animals protected under the ESA and wildlife imperiled just within the boundaries of the state. Thirtyfour states legislate imperiled plant protection programs. States generally fail to prohibit habitat impairment by private parties, lack permit programs to minimize incidental harms to species and spur habitat conservation, and do not restrict state agency actions that undermine species recovery. Compared to the key regulatory programs of the ESA that prompt stakeholders to collaborate on conservation, state laws--in general--reflect a more permissive attitude. Though state laws, in the aggregate, only weakly support cooperative federalism, some state legislative provisions are very strong. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin even go beyond the ESA in their protective measures. Major funding increases to pay for conservation measures could overcome weak agency regulatory authority, but prospects for a spending spree are dim. Therefore, some state legislative reform will be necessary to implement stronger cooperative federalism under the ESA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conservation resources are limited, and prioritizing species based on their relative vulnerability and risk of extinction Is a fundamental component of conservation planning. In North America, the conservation consortium Partners In Flight (PIF) has developed and Implemented a data-driven species assessment process, at global and regional scales, based on quantitative vulnerability criteria. This species assessment process has formed the biological basis for PIF's continental and regional planning and has Informed the ranking and legal listing of bird species for conservation protection by state, provincial, and national agencies In Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. Because of Its long time series, extensive geographic and species coverage, standardized survey methods, and prompt availability of results, the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) has been an Invaluable source of data, allowing PIF to assign objective vulnerability scores calibrated across more than 460 landblrd species. BBS data have been most valuable for assessing long-term population trends (PT score). PIF has also developed methods for estimating population size by extrapolating from BBS abundance Indices, allowing the assignment of categorical population size (PS) scores for landblrd species. At regional scales, BBS relative abundance Indices have allowed PIF to assess the area Importance (I.e. stewardship responsibility) of each Bird Conservation Region (BCR) for each species, using measures of both relative density and percent of total population In each BCR. Besides direct applicability to assessment scores, PIF has recently used BBS trend data to create new metrics of conservation urgency (e.g., 'half-life'), as well as for setting population objectives for tracking progress toward meeting conservation goals. Future directions Include Integrating BBS data with other sources (e.g., eBIrd) to assess additional species and nonbreeding season measures, working closely with BBS coordinators to expand surveys Into Mexico, and providing assessment scores at Implementation-relevant scales, such as for migratory bird joint ventures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many marine invertebrate species facing potential extinction have uncertain taxonomies and poorly known demographic and ecological traits. Uncertainties are compounded when potential extinction drivers are climate and ocean changes whose effects on even widespread and abundant species are only partially understood. The U.S. Endangered Species Act mandates conservation management decisions founded on the extinction risk to species based on the best available science at the time of consideration-requiring prompt action rather than awaiting better information. We developed an expert-opinion threat-based approach that entails a structured voting system to assess extinction risk from climate and ocean changes and other threats to 82 coral species for which population status and threat response information was limited. Such methods are urgently needed because constrained budgets and manpower will continue to hinder the availability of desired data for many potentially vulnerable marine species. Significant species-specific information gaps and uncertainties precluded quantitative assessments of habitat loss or population declines and necessitated increased reliance on demographic characteristics and threat vulnerabilities at genus or family levels. Adapting some methods (e.g., a structured voting system) used during other assessments and developing some new approaches (e.g., integrated assessment of threats and demographic characteristics), we rated the importance of threats contributing to coral extinction risk and assessed those threats against population status and trend information to evaluate each species' extinction risk over the 21st century. This qualitative assessment resulted in a ranking with an uncertainty range for each species according to their estimated likelihood of extinction. We offer guidance on approaches for future biological extinction risk assessments, especially in cases of data-limited species likely to be affected by global-scale threats. Incorporación del Cambio Climático y Oceánico en Estudios de Riesgo de Extinción para 82 Especies de Coral [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To facilitate forest planning and management on National Wildlife Refuges, we synthesized multiple data sources to describe land ownership patterns, land cover, landscape pattern, and changes in forest composition for four ecoregions and their associated refuges of the Upper Midwest. We related observed patterns to ecological processes important for forest conservation and restoration, with specific attention to refuge patterns of importance for forest landbirds of conservation priority. The large amount of public land within the ecoregions (31-80%) suggests that opportunities exist for coarse and meso-scale approaches to conserving and restoring ecological processes affecting the refuges, particularly historical fire regimes. Forests dominate both ecoregions and refuges, but refuge forest patches are generally larger and more aggregated than in associated ecoregions. Broadleaf taxa have increased in dominance in the ecoregions and displaced fire-dependent taxa such as pine ( Pinus spp.) and other coniferous species; these changes in forest composition have likely also affected refuge forests. Despite compositional changes, larger forest patches on refuges suggests that they may provide better habitat for area-sensitive forest landbirds of mature, compositionally diverse forests than surrounding lands if management continues to promote increased patch size. We reason that although fine-scale research and monitoring for species of conservation priority is important, broad scale (ecoregional) assessments provide crucial context for effective forest and wildlife management in protected areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The US National Fire Plan (NFP) is among the largest forest-restoration initiatives worldwide, removing wildland fuels on about 11 million hectares and costing over $6 billion. We evaluated the extent to which areas treated under the NFP - from 2004 to 2008, in forest ecosystems outside the wildland-urban interface in 11 western states ("West") - were predicted to need restoration, due to disruption of fire regimes and expected fuels buildup. Fuel-reduction treatments were implemented on about 1% of the West's forested areas. Fortythree percent of the treated area was predicted to have high-restoration need - almost twice as much as expected, given the distribution of these forests. However, an equal amount was in mixed- or uncertain-need forests, and 14% occurred in low-need forests, suggesting that managers need additional information on fireregime disruptions in some forest ecosystems to help prioritize restoration activities. Only one-quarter of the West's forested area shows strong evidence of uncharacteristic fuels buildup, which is often emphasized as the primary cause of current wildfire problems, potentially directing attention away from other important drivers such as climate change and an expanding wildland-urban interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of species priorities for conservation at local or regional scales (for example, within a state or province) poses an interesting paradox. One the one hand, locally or regionally-derived species priorities may lead to greater interest in and resources directed to biodiversity conservation by local or regional institutions. On the other hand, locally or regionally-derived species priorities could overlook national or global priorities. We assessed U.S. state government agency endangered-threatened bird lists to determine the comparative representation of species of global versus local conservation significance on them. State lists tended to be represented primarily by species of low global risk-low global responsibility (range: 15-100%; mean 51%) and high global risk-high global responsibility (range: 0-73%; mean 35%). In 25 states, more than half of the species on the state lists were in the low global risk-low global responsibility category. Most U.S. state agency lists represent a combined strategy of highlighting species of both local and global conservation significance. Even with this combined local-global strategy, most state lists were predominated by species that represent local but not global conservation significance. Such a strategy could have profound negative consequences for many species that are not formally recognized under national endangered species protections but that are also left off of statelevel endangered species lists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dispersal is fundamental to the persistence of wild populations. Historically, swift foxes Vulpes velox of the northern Great Plains of North America have been thought to be poor dispersers. Short-grass prairie is optimal habitat for swift foxes but can be fragmented in the northern Great Plains. We wanted to assess whether wild-born, juvenile swift foxes from two proximate but distinct reintroduced populations had potential to move from one population to the other. We found five animals exhibiting long bouts of dispersal, much further than averages previously reported. One female fox traversed the long distance between the two populations and survived for at least three breeding seasons in the wild. We believe our findings are significant for conservation because they show that swift foxes are not poor dispersers and that patches of short-grass prairie previously thought to be too isolated (> 25 km) for natural movement may be recolonized or be suitable for reintroductions of swift foxes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on U.S. federal policies and management practices that affect the permeability of the U.S.-Mexico border. It identifies the shifting, increasingly impermeable function of the U.S.-Mexico border, through examining the policies and practices over time and in a variety of regions. It discusses environmental concerns along the border, using Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge (CPNWR) as an example. The functions of the border created by policy and created through implementation are explored. It examines the impact of these functions on the border, including the border environment. The paper conclude (CPNWR) as an example.

Some conservation organizations publish magazines that showcase current conservation and research projects, attract new subscribers and maintain membership, often using flagship species to promote these objectives. This study investigates the nature of flagship species featured on the covers of ten representative US conservation and nature magazines, Defenders, National Wildlife, Wildlife Conservation, Zoonooz, Nature Conservancy, Outdoor America, Sierra, Audubon, California Wild and Natural History. Operationally defining flagship species by diet, taxonomic order, body size and IUCN status, we found that magazines tend to use mammal and bird species rather than invertebrate, fish, amphibian, reptile or plant taxa on their covers. Featured birds were mostly omnivorous or piscivorous, large-bodied and of little conservation concern; featured mammals were mainly carnivorous or herbivorous, large-bodied and of considerable conservation concern. These analyses confirm, for the first time, anecdotal observations about conservation organizations focusing their publicity and programmes on large, charismatic species to raise awareness and funds and raise the spectre that the public may be exposed to only a selected sample of conservation problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governance of state wildlife management has been under scrutiny with respect to its ability to change to reflect the values, norms, and cultural beliefs of contemporary society. This article reviews the existing model of governance for state wildlife management; outlines concerns about this model in light of a changing social context; discusses alternative approaches; and offers considerations for how governance could be reformed to meet societal needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article outlines study conducted by Joshua V. Ross on the significance of metapopulation persistence to a dynamic landscape in the U.S. Conservation biologists and ecologists are interested in finding an optimal way in managing and conserving such metapopulations. Researchers found that the optimal strategy for maximizing metapopulation viability with a given fixed budget and costs depend upon on all the parameter values and costs associated with the species under consideration. They found that the optimal strategy in addressing the problem was to protect patches when landscape dynamics dominate metapopulations thar are strongly influenced by the dynamics of the landscape they inhabit including the greater bilby.

Purpose - This paper aims to examine the effects of the use of environmental easements and forest certification on the output of ecosystems services from private forestlands in the USA. Design/methodology/approach - The discussion of the changes in ownership and management of private forest lands in the USA is based on a review of the literature, the degree of recent activity in the innovative changes, and an assessment of the extent of ownership and management changes. Findings - The use of environmental easements, resulting from ownership changes, and forest certification have facilitated, indeed mandated, forest management that is consistent with an increase in the provision of environmental and ecosystem services from private forests. The rapid expansion of environmental easements has been accommodated by the dramatic changes in forest ownership patterns in the USA, as traditional corporate ownerships have sold off large land areas to other private ownership types. Forest certification, which provides for improved management of ecosystem services, also has expanded rapidly in recent years. Practical implications - This study suggests forest management to provide environmental and ecosystem services can be achieve through environmental easements and forest certification. These changes can occur as the result of environmental interests entering forest land markets and affixing easements to the land. This finding suggests an alternative to the approach to establishing separate markets for ecosystem services, as is often suggested, and requires no increased governmental actions or new regulations. Rather these improvements are driven by voluntary forest certification and/or environmental groups entering the private markets for forest lands. Originality/value - This study suggests an alternative to the commonly held notion that separate markets for environmental and ecosystem services are required to increased their outputs. Rather, environmental easements and voluntary certification, in the face of changing ownership can provide the incentives for management changes that increase the outputs of environment and ecosystem services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main question addressed in this research is whether the Forest Service has been able to maintain control over its wildlife conservation program in the face of increased interest and policymaking activity from the president and Congress. Determining who has influence over wildlife management decisions is assessed by examining the development of national forest policies over the past 30 years along with more recent shifts in rulemaking and the allocation of staff and budgetary resources. I conclude that political institutions have been increasingly successful in their efforts to shape wildlife program decisions through both policy and regulatory initiatives. This includes the willingness of public officials to make greater use of positive incentives to obtain agency cooperation as well as the threat of sanctions for agency noncompliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the issue concerning the death of wolves in the U.S., which is considered as against the rules of environmentalists who are working on the conservation of wolves. It is stated that mostly of the reasons why many wolves were killed, was because of attacking livestock. Ranchers choose to kill wolves because of the implemented U.S. Endangered Species Act, which allows citizens to shoot wolves in Idaho and Montana legally for reasons of attacking cattle and sheep on private property. Moreover, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been preparing to enter uncharted territory and allow citizens to have discretionary authority to kill wolves they believe are threats.

Abstract: The Eastern Arc Mountains are renown in Africa for high concentrations of endemic species of animals and plants. Thirteen separate mountain blocks comprise the Eastern Arc, supporting around 3300km2 of sub-montane, montane and upper montane forest, less than 30% of the estimated original forested area. At least 96 vertebrate species are endemic, split as follows: 10 mammal, 19 bird, 29 reptile and 38 amphibian species. This includes four endemic or nearly endemic species of primate – the Sanje Mangabey, the Iringa Red Colobus, the Mountain Galago and the new Kipunji monkey that forms its own monotypic genus. A further 71 vertebrate species are near-endemic. At least 800 vascular plant species are endemic, almost 10% of these being trees. These endemics include the majority of the species of African violet –Saintpaulia, a well-known flowering plant in Western households. An additional 32 species of bryophytes are also endemic. Many hundreds of invertebrates are also likely to be endemic, with data for butterflies, millipedes and dragonflies indicating potential trends in importance. Seventy-one of the endemic or near-endemic vertebrates are threatened by extinction (8 critical, 27 endangered, 36 vulnerable), with an additional seven wide ranging threatened species. Hundreds of plant species are also threatened. Most Eastern Arc endemics are closed-forest specialists and comprise taxa with an ancient history and those of more recent origin, including some possessing ancient affinities with taxa from West Africa, Madagascar, and even South America and Southeast Asia. Mountain block prioritisation for biodiversity conservation shows that Udzungwas, East Usambaras and Ulugurus are the most important blocks, with other important blocks being the Ngurus and West Usambaras. Rankings are correlated closely with the area of remaining forest. Most of the remaining forest is found within nearly 150 Government Forest Reserves, with 106 of these managed nationally for water catchment, biodiversity and soil conservation and where forest exploitation is not allowed. Outside these areas most forest has been cleared, except in small village burial/sacred sites, a few Village Forest Reserves, and inaccessible areas. In most Eastern Arc Mountains the local populations have not encroached beyond the reserve boundaries to develop farms, but forest resources within the boundaries are used for fuel and building materials and some forests are heavily degraded. Fire is also a problem as it enters and destroys forests during the dry seasons. The future of the biodiversity on the Eastern Arc Mountains is closely tied to management policies and capacity of the Tanzania Forestry and Beekeeping Division, Tanzania National Parks Authority, and Kenya Forest Department. Supporting these agencies in their mandated job is an essential conservation investment over the longer term. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Traditionally, exurban lands in Colorado have been subdivided into a grid of parcels ranging from 2 to 16 ha. From an ecological perspective, this dispersed pattern of development effectively maximizes the individual influence of each home on the land. Clustered housing developments, designed to maximize open space, are assumed to benefit plant and wildlife communities of conservation interest. They have become a popular alternative for rural development despite the lack of empirical evidence demonstrating their conservation benefits. To better inform rural land-use planning, we evaluated clustered housing developments by comparing their spatial pattern with that of dispersed housing developments and by comparing their conservation value with that of both dispersed housing developments and undeveloped areas in Boulder County, Colorado. We used four indicators to assess conservation value: (1) densities of songbirds, (2) nest density and survival of ground-nesting birds, (3) presence of mammals, and (4) percent cover and proportion of native and non-native plant species. Clustered and dispersed housing developments did not differ on the majority of variables we examined. Both types of housing development had significantly higher densities of non-native and human-commensal species and significantly lower densities of native and human-sensitive species than undeveloped areas. More rigorous ecological guidelines and planning on a regional scale may help create clustered developments with higher conservation value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ethical, legal, and social significance of the U.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA) is widely appreciated. Much of the significance of the act arises from the legal definitions that the act provides for the terms and The meanings of these terms are important because they give legal meaning to the concept of a recovered species. Unfortunately, the meanings of these terms are often misapprehended and rarely subjected to formal analysis. We analyzed the legal meaning of and illustrate key points with details from “recovery” efforts for the gray wolf (Canis lupus ). We focused on interpreting the phrase “significant portion of its range,” which is part of the legal definition of endangered species. We argue that recovery and endangerment entail a fundamentally normative dimension (i.e., specifying conditions of endangerment) and a fundamentally scientific dimension (i.e., determining whether a species meets the conditions of endangerment). Specifying conditions for endangerment is largely normative because it judges risks of extinction to be either acceptable or unacceptable. Like many other laws that specify what is unacceptable, the ESA largely specifies the conditions that constitute unacceptable extinction risk. The ESA specifies unacceptable risks of extinction by defining endangered species in terms of the portion of a species' range over which a species is “in danger of extinction.” Our analysis indicated that (1) legal recovery entails much more than the scientific notion of population viability, (2) most efforts to recover endangered species are grossly inadequate, and (3) many unlisted species meet the legal definition of an endangered or threatened species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses issues pertaining to the practice of killing predators for wildlife management. Efforts were made to review the such practices such as the appointment of a panel in 1963 to review the U.S. government's branch of Predator and Rodent Control. Yet it seemed that little has changed since in 2006 federal predator control is killing more than 100,000 native predators each year.

The United States Virgin Islands (USVI) are situated along the Puerto Rico Bank near the eastern terminus of the Greater Antilles in the northern Caribbean, and comprise four major inhabited islands and more than 50 satellite cays. The small sizes of the islands, their relative isolation, and unpredictable weather events such as hurricanes make natural populations vulnerable to human-induced impacts of habitat loss and the introduction of invasive exotic species. There are currently 30 extant species of reptiles and amphibians in the USVI, 24 of which are native. Four species have been extirpated from all or part of their former distribution, four species are endangered, one is threatened, and eight are considered data deficient. Five reptiles and amphibians are fairly recent (within the last 150 years) introductions. Species of particular conservation concern are the St. Croix ground lizard (Ameiva polops), Virgin Islands tree boa (Epicrates monensis granti), and sea turtles, and recovery efforts are underway for these species. Habitat protection and reduction of exotic predators are important conservation actions required to protect herpetofauna, combined with ecological studies and population monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) requires designation of critical habitat concurrent with species listing. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service often has not designated critical habitat, based on the legal exceptions in the ESA of “not prudent” or “not determinable.” This lack of habitat designation has led to numerous lawsuits and court orders to designate critical habitat for listed species. Court-mediated implementation of critical habitat is costly and delays listing for at-risk species. Legal, policy, judicial, and biological issues all contribute to the current inability of the law as enforced to lead to timely and cost-effective critical habitat designation. Although increased appropriations and delaying critical habitat designation until recovery planning have been proposed as solutions, we find that it will be essential to change the critical-habitat guidelines to a decision-analysis framework to make critical habitat scientifically and legally workable as a conservation tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Systematic protocols that use decision rules or scores are seen to improve consistency and transparency in classifying the conservation status of species. When applying these protocols, assessors are typically required to decide on estimates for attributes that are inherently uncertain. Input data and resulting classifications are usually treated as though they are exact and hence without operator error. We investigated the impact of data interpretation on the consistency of protocols of extinction risk classifications and diagnosed causes of discrepancies when they occurred. We tested three widely used systematic classification protocols employed by the World Conservation Union, NatureServe, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. We provided 18 assessors with identical information for 13 different species to infer estimates for each of the required parameters for the three protocols. The threat classification of several of the species varied from low risk to high risk, depending on who did the assessment. This occurred across the three protocols investigated. Assessors tended to agree on their placement of species in the highest (50–70%) and lowest risk categories (20–40%), but there was poor agreement on which species should be placed in the intermediate categories. Furthermore, the correspondence between the three classification methods was unpredictable, with large variation among assessors. These results highlight the importance of peer review and consensus among multiple assessors in species classifications and the need to be cautious with assessments carried out by a single assessor. Greater consistency among assessors requires wide use of training manuals and formal methods for estimating parameters that allow uncertainties to be represented, carried through chains of calculations, and reported transparently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international wildlife trade is a principal cause of biodiversity loss, involving hundreds of millions of plants and animals each year, yet wildlife trade records are notoriously unreliable. We assessed the precision of wildlife trade reports for the United States, the world's largest consumer of endangered wildlife, by comparing data from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) with U.S. Customs data. For both U.S. imports and exports, CITES and Customs reported substantially different trade volumes for all taxa in all years. Discrepancies ranged from a CITES-reported volume 376% greater than that reported by Customs (live coral imports, 2000) to a Customs' report 5202% greater than CITES (conch exports, 2000). These widely divergent data suggest widespread inaccuracies that may distort the perceived risk of targeted wildlife exploitation, leading to misallocation of management resources and less effective conservation strategies. Conservation scientists and practitioners should reexamine assumptions regarding the significance of the international wildlife trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a biodiversity credit system for trading endangered species habitat designed to minimize and reverse the negative effects of habitat loss and fragmentation, the leading cause of species endangerment in the United States. Given the increasing demand for land, approaches that explicitly balance economic goals against conservation goals are required. The Endangered Species Act balances these conflicts based on the cost to replace habitat. Conservation banking is a means to manage this balance, and we argue for its use to mitigate the effects of habitat fragmentation. Mitigating the effects of land development on biodiversity requires decisions that recognize regional ecological effects resulting from local economic decisions. We propose Landscape Equivalency Analysis (LEA), a landscape-scale approach similar to HEA, as an accounting system to calculate conservation banking credits so that habitat trades do not exacerbate regional ecological effects of local decisions. Credits purchased by public agencies or NGOs for purposes other than mitigating a take create a net investment in natural capital leading to habitat defragmentation. Credits calculated by LEA use metapopulation genetic theory to estimate sustainability criteria against which all trades are judged. The approach is rooted in well-accepted ecological, evolutionary, and economic theory, which helps compensate for the degree of uncertainty regarding the effects of habitat loss and fragmentation on endangered species. LEA requires application of greater scientific rigor than typically applied to endangered species management on private lands but provides an objective, conceptually sound basis for achieving the often conflicting goals of economic efficiency and long-term ecological sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the National Wildlife Refuge System of the United States. It shows how the refuge system has symbolically maintained a place in nature conservation system of the country for hundreds of years. In this context, the article presents the scenario at two refuge systems, one located at Florida known as Pelican Island, surrounded by residential and commercial areas, and another at the coast of the Arctic Ocean called as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The National Wildlife Refuge System consists of 550 land segments that vary in size, purpose, origin and authorities, but still all work for a common cause of wildlife preservation and is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Oil drilling in the Arctic region refuge has been a long issue of discussion in the legislation. The Pelican Island refuge is oldest of all refuges and is the point of attraction due to the presence of migrant birds. The article further mentions about various policies and regulations passed by the legislation for the betterment of refuge systems.

The Wilderness Act of 1964 is the principal legal mechanism for preserving wilderness in the United States. The law now protects over 100 million acres of federal land, half of which is in Alaska Yet the contested meaning of the term "wilderness" continues to affect the management of those wilderness areas, and the designation of additional lands as wilderness areas. Much current thinking about wilderness emphasizes the ecological and recreational interests that Congress cited when it enacted the law. These justifications for wilderness preservation are important, but they are incomplete. They are best supplemented by a better understanding of the spiritual values of wilderness. Religious conceptions have long informed American attitudes toward wilderness, beginning with the hostility that early settlers gleaned from Old Testament images of wilderness lands, and later appearing throughout the writings of John Muir. More recently, the witnesses testifying on behalf of the proposed Wilderness Act during the 1950s and 1960s repeatedly sounded spiritual themes, including biblical examples of the values of wilderness. The decades since the enactment of the law have produced a substantial theological literature that explores the meaning of wilderness. This article integrates the writing about the spiritual values of wilderness into the discussions of the management of wilderness areas, relying upon the examples of Alaskan wilderness lands to consider how to identify new wilderness areas and how to manage existing areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Receiving financial gains for protecting habitat may be necessary to proactively protect endangered species in the United States. Species conservation banking, the creation and trading of "credits" that represent biodiversity values on private land, is nearly a decade old. We detail the biological, financial, and political experience of conservation banking in the United States. We contacted agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and bank owners and compiled comprehensive accounts of the experiences of current banks. There are 76 properties identified as conservation banks in the United States, but only 35 of these are established under a conservation banking agreement approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). The 35 official conservation banks cumulatively cover 15,987 ha and shelter a range of biodiversity, including more than 22 species listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Financial motives drove the establishment of 91% of conservation banks, and the majority of for-profit banks are breaking even or making money. With credit prices ranging from $3,000 to $125,000/0.41 ha (1 acre), banking agreements offer financial incentives that compete with development and provide a business-based argument for conserving habitat. Although the bureaucracy of establishing an agreement with the USFWS was burdensome, 63% of bank owners reported they would set up another agreement given the appropriate opportunity. Increasing information sharing, decreasing the time to establish agreements (currently averaging 2.18 years), and reducing bureaucratic challenges can further increase the amount of private property voluntarily committed to banking. Although many ecological uncertainties remain, conservation banking offers at least a partial solution to the conservation versus development conflict over biodiversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the role of golf courses in bird conservation. The idea that golf courses could provide quality wildlife habitat elicits a decidedly mixed response among the public. Unfortunately, evaluating the potential conservation value of golf courses is difficult because surprisingly little research has focused directly on the influence of golf-course design and management on wildlife and their habitats. Overall, researchers found surprisingly high species richness, diversity, and abundance on many golf courses. The ability of golf courses to support sensitive species may vary regionally as well. In the forested mid-Atlantic United States, 87 Virginia golf courses had lower densities of species of regional conservation concern than forested reference sites. In fact, the golf courses supported no more of these birds than farmland or residential reference landscapes. Ultimately, the extent to which golf courses add to or detract from the regional conservation picture will depend on the habitats they are replacing. Habitat quality, as measured through reproductive or condition parameters, should be a key consideration for improving conservation value. Most biologists recognize that the successful conservation of wildlife requires managing at the landscape or regional scale.

Abstract: Invading alien species in the United States cause major environmental damages and losses adding up to almost $120 billion per year. There are approximately 50,000 foreign species and the number is increasing. About 42% of the species on the Threatened or Endangered species lists are at risk primarily because of alien-invasive species. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Many different systems are used to assess levels of threat faced by species. Prominent ones are those used by the World Conservation Union, NatureServe, and the Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission (now the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission). These systems assign taxa a threat ranking by assessing their demographic and ecological characteristics. These threat rankings support the legislative protection of species and guide the placement of conservation programs in order of priority. It is not known, however whether these assessment systems rank species in a similar order. To resolve this issue, we assessed 55 mainly vertebrate taxa with widely differing life histories under each of these systems and determined the rank correlations among them. Moderate, significant positive correlations were seen among the threat rankings provided by the three systems (correlations 0.58-0.69). Further, the threat rankings for taxa obtained using these systems were significantly correlated to their rankings based on predicted probability of extinction within 100 years as determined by population viability analysis (correlations 0.28-0.37). The different categorization systems, then, yield related but not identical threat rankings, and these rankings are associated with predicted extinction risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. In 1978 Congress weakened several key provisions of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), which had been enacted only five years earlier. The objective is to compare alternative explanations for this policy reversal. Methods. Probit and multinomial logit models are used to explain empirically how senators voted in both 1973 and 1978, and to investigate why many senators switched their vote from supporting ESA to weakening it. Results. The findings here indicate that party affiliation and policy-maker preferences were not important to the 1973 vote, but they were key variables in the 1978 votes and the vote-switching decision. Proxies for unexpected economic impacts of ESA on individual states have little explanatory power. Conclusions. Ignorance, as measured here, does not appear to explain this policy reversal; rather, an influx of relatively conservative Democrats between 1973 and 1978 presents itself as the leading explanation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents the views of ecologists on conservation in the U.S. Value of private lands for biodiversity, according to David S. Wilcove, of Woodrow Wilson School and Princeton University in New Jersey; Principles presented by Michael J. Bean of the Environmental Defense in Washington, D.C., on how to balance regulations and incentives in the protection of biodiversity; Initiatives proposed by Bob Long, of Bastrop, Texas, for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to take for the protection of endangered species.

Examines the history of US conservation police agencies and notes how changes in social values and recreational activities have increased the demands for the protection of wildlife and other natural resources. This has led to the creation of departments of natural resources (DNRs). DNRs have placed an increasingly heavier burden on conservation police departments and have demanded a wider range of tasks and responsibilities of them. These more general policing tasks have, in turn, cast the formerly law enforcement-oriented conservation police into a more generalist police-like posture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the efforts of the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to study the green sturgeon in Rogue River in Oregon. Threats to the population of the species; Challenges involved in attaching a satellite tag to a green sturgeon.

Presents news briefs related to wildlife management in the U.S. as of September 2003. Negotiation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of an Annual Funding Agreement with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes to contract out certain maintenance functions at the National Bison Range associated refugees within the Flathead Reservation in Montana; Details of a coalition of organizational and individuals in Southwest Alaska to protect fish and wildlife habitat through voluntary land conservation efforts; Efforts to restore wildlife habitat on and around Kodiak Island in Alaska.

Discusses the move of the Nature Conservancy of California to measure and audit its conservation projects. Factor which influenced the move of the conservation agency; Efforts of the organization to measure and audit the results of its conservation projects; Outcomes of measuring and auditing conservation results.

Discusses a collaborative approach used to formulate a plan to reintroduce the grizzly bear to the remote wilderness mountains of the Bitterroot Ecosystem along with Idaho/Montana border. Purpose and need for grizzly reintroduction; Reactions to the plan; Explanations for its failure to win the support of Idaho and the U.S. President George W. Bush administration; Implications for future of species reintroduction.

Evaluates a century of fire patterns in two Rocky Mountain wilderness areas in the U.S. using digital fire atlases. Analysis of changes in fire size, shape, and frequency under different fire-management strategies using time series of fire perimeter data (fire atlases) and mapped potential vegetation types (PVTs); Studies conducted in the Gila-Aldo Leopold Wilderness Complex (GALWC) in New Mexico and the Selway?Bitterroot Wilderness Complex (SBWC) in Idaho and Montana; Comparison of results from studies in both areas; Description of fire-rotation periods as shorter in mid-elevation, shade-intolerant PVTs; How fire intervals in the GALWC and SBWC are currently longer than fire intervals prior to Euro-American settlement; The need for proactive fire and fuels management to restore fire regimes in each wilderness complex to within natural ranges of variability and to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire in upper elevations of the GALWC and nearly the entire SBWC; How analyses of fire atlases provide baseline information for evaluating landscape patterns across broad landscapes.

Concerns that the loss of habitat have greatly increased species extinction rates has led to calls for establishing biological reserves to preserve key habitat. In this paper, we study reserve site selection for terrestrial vertebrates in Oregon using data on species ranges and land values. We find cost-effective strategies that represent a maximum number of species for a given conservation budget. By varying the budget, we find the cost of obtaining various levels of representation. In general, effective conservation decision-making requires integrated analysis of both biological and economic data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the factors that influence the evolution of the triangular subgovernment model used for Florida's wildlife conservation policy. Suggestions that much of the theory about subgovernments that has been developed in the context of distributive policy might also apply to regulatory policy; Events which suggest how professional staff can use formal planning as an instrument of accommodation to pressure for change to guide the transformation of subgovernment.

Discusses the role of captive breeding in wildlife conservation and for restoring endangered species, whether it has been successful, and whether the strategy should be dropped in favor of other measures. Controversy over captive breeding, which is thought be some to be a waste of money that could be better spent on conserving ecosystems, that it detracts from more important conservation work, and that it is of little use beyond trying to save a few critically endangered species; Births of endangered animals in zoos, after which some are introduced to the wild; Opinion that habitat protection and captive breeding do not need to be mutually exclusive or done at the expense of one another; The efforts of zoos to preserve the golden lion tamarin.

Argues that increased public awareness and conservation action are required to preserve natural systems in Hawaii. Management programs of Hawaii Volcanoes and Haleakala National Parks to preserve native biota; Trends in species endangerment and extinction curves; Observation that there has been a growing appreciation of rain forests as watersheds and reservoirs for quality water production for Hawaii's population; Evidence of the prehistoric impact of Polynesian colonists on the native presettlement biota of Hawaii, which can be discerned in the native fossil record; Priorities in conservation, including education about conserving natural systems, game management, endangered species listings, protected areas, and curtailing the introduction of alien biota.

In an effort to explain U.S. ocean policy making, four analytical perspectives are applied: statism, international interdependence, bureaucratic politics, and domestic politics. In each of these perspectives, structures, processes, and actors are singled out that may have an impact on the policy-making process. The statist perspective can explain the importance of security interests and of access to resources, but it cannot account for some of the major changes in U.S. ocean policy during the 1970s. The perspective of international interdependence introduces some of the international constraints and explains the use of linkage strategies. But only domestic politics, which played an increasingly important role during the period, can explain the enactment of the Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976. One of the general conclusions is that the policy-making system is structurally biased toward subnational and parochial interests. For this reason, policies of the world-order type are likely to be frustrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes statistically the main determinants of government decisions about the preservation of endangered species. As explanatory variables, we use proxies that include 'scientific' species characteristics, such as "degree of endangerment" and "taxonomic uniqueness," as well as 'visceral' characteristics, such as "physical size" and the degree to which a species is considered a "higher form of life." These proxies are used to study the government's protection and spending decisions on individual species. Overall, we find that the role of visceral characteristics is much greater than the role of scientific characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]