The urbanization of wildlife management: Social science, conflict, and decision making

Increasing urbanization of rural landscapes has created new challenges for wildlife management. In addition to changes in the physical landscape, urbanization has also produced changes in the socio-cultural landscape. The greater distancing from direct interaction with wildlife in urbanized societies has led to the emergence of a culture whose meanings for wildlife are less grounded in the utilitarian/instrumental orientation of rural agrarian systems. Urban perspectives on wildlife are comprised of more highly individualized emotional/symbolic values. This shift creates two problems with respect to managing wildlife in an urbanizing landscape. First the increased diversity in values and meanings increases the likelihood for social conflicts regarding wildlife management while at the same time making socially acceptable resolutions more intractable. This in turn requires fundamental changes in decision-making paradigms and the research approaches used to inform decision making. Second, as remaining rural communities feel the pressures of urbanization, wildlife conflicts become conflicts not just over wildlife but conflict over larger socio-political concepts such as equity, tradition, private property rights, government control, power, and acceptable forms of knowledge. This paper examines the wildlife management implications of changes associated with increasing urbanization and employs two case studies to illustrate these issues. First a study of a controversy over urban deer management provides insights into how to map conflicting values and search for common ground in an urban culture with increasingly individualistic values for wildlife. Specifically, the analysis illustrates that common ground may, at times, be found even among people with conflicting value systems. The second case study examined a ranching community faced with predator reintroduction. This case study illustrates tensions that occur when the community of interest (i.e. a national public) is broader than the community of place in which the problem occurs. In this latter situation, the debate centers around more than just different views about the rights of animals. It also entailed the rights of individuals and communities to decide their future. The conclusion discusses the need for wildlife institutions to adapt their underlying decision making philosophy including the way science is integrated into decision making processes in light of the changes in social context caused by urbanization.     

Private residential urban forest structure and carbon storage in a moderate-sized urban area in the Midwest,United States

In conjunction with urbanization and its importance as a major driver of land-use change, increased efforts have been placed on understanding urban forests and the provisioning of ecosystem services. However, very little research has been conducted on private property and little is known about the structure and function of privately owned urban forests. This research examines the structure of and carbon storage services provided by private residential urban forests in a moderate-sized Midwestern city. The primary research questions are as follows: What is the structure of private urban forests, and how does it vary across parcels? How much carbon is stored in tree and soil pools of private urban forests, and how does carbon vary across parcels? Ecological inventories were conducted on 100 residential parcels within 14 Neighborhood and Homeowners Associations of varying size and development age. Tree species richness, diversity, density, and diameter distribution were determined on a per parcel basis and for the entire tree population sampled. Further, tree and soil carbon storage were determined for each parcel. Results of this research demonstrated large variability in per-parcel tree metrics. Twelve of the parcels sampled had two or fewer trees, while eleven had greater than 50 trees. Further, tree carbon storage ranged from no carbon to 11.22 kg C m^?2. Alternatively, soil carbon storage was less variable and averaged 4.7 kg C m^?2, approximately 1.9 times higher than the average carbon stored in trees (2.5 kg C m^?2). Management efforts aimed at maintaining or enhancing carbon storage and other ecosystem services should focus on both soil protection and maximizing services in living biomass. Our results demonstrate that sustaining tree-produced ecosystem services requires maintenance of large old trees and species diversity, not only in terms of relative abundance, but also relative dominance, and in combination, species–specific size distributions.     

Chemical Analysis of the Moon at the Surveyor VI Landing Site: Preliminary Results

The alpha-scattering experiment aboard soft-landing Surveyor VI has provided a chemical analysis of the surface of the moon in Sinus Medii. The preliminary results indicate that, within experimental errors, the composition is the same as that found by Surveyor V in Mare Tranquillitatis. This finding suggests that large portions of the lunar maria resemble basalt in composition.     

The power law in particle size analysis for aquacultural facilities

Fine particles tend to accumulate in recirculating aquacultural facilities, which can lead to serious fish health problems. The literature indicated that in many particle systems, the particle size distribution may be accurately represented by a two-parameter, hyperbolic power-law function, dN/dl=Al^−β.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether this observation holds for aquacultural facilities. Particle size distribution data from four research establishments were examined, using 14 data sets, comprising 11 aquacultural systems, and covering three species of salmonids and one of striped bass. In the data examined, the exponent, β, varied from 2.9 to 4.6, with one sample reaching as high as 6.3. Correlation coefficients varied from 0.998 to 0.975. Larger exponents, indicating a greater number of fine particles, appear to dominate recirculating aquaculture systems.

The results strongly suggest that a hyperbolic distribution is valid for aquaculture systems. The usefulness in this technique is that once a worker has established the exponent from the distribution of particle sizes at any given point in his facility, an estimate of particulate contributions by size to the total particle number, surface area and volume/mass concentration can be obtained.     

Genetic variation in resistance of turkeys to experimental infection with Newcastle disease virus.

Seven hundred eighty male and female turkeys representing four genetic lines were challenged in four experiments with the Texas GB strain of Newcastle disease virus (NDV). The lines of turkeys included two randombred control lines (RBC1 and RBC2), a subline (E) of RBC1 selected for increased egg production, and a subline (F) of RBC2 selected for increased 16-week body weight. Mortality in turkeys of subline F (32.5%) was significantly higher than that in turkeys of line RBC2 (15.8%), subline E (17.5%), and line RBC1 (18.4%). At the end of each experiment, surviving birds were tested for antibody to NDV using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and hemagglutination-inhibition (HI) test. Turkeys of subline E and line RBC1 had significantly lower ELISA antibody titers than those of subline F and line RBC2. Subline F had the highest HI antibody titers, followed in decreasing order by lines RBC2 and RBC1 and subline E. No apparent correlation was found between antibody response and mortality after NDV challenge.     

Tables to calculate means in a doubly truncated bivariate normal population

Summary A correlated bivariate normal distribution is divided into four sectors by double truncation. The plant breeder sometimes needs to know the means of the two variates in one or more such sectors. Tables are given to facilitate this calculation and examples of their use are presented.