Faunal Force

Area and Density

Managers talk about animal density. Density is an expression of numbers per unit area. Numbers of animals are difficult to estimate and usually are expressed as some number "between X and Y." There is imagined some invisible fluid fence that determines the boundary of the area for the wild, mobile animals. Estimating the area is difficult.

The number of acres in an area being sampled is needed. The total area is critical. It is usually best to divide the area into relevant units, (e.g., summer and winter range), and sample each separately. If the area cannot be estimated very precisely, efforts to make precise estimates of the other components of the density-estimation method may be a bit irrational. New technology can help (e.g., GPS, GIS) but managers and those who depend upon them have to be realistic about their limitations and express them clearly for greater cost effectiveness and accountability.

Shermans Fox Squirrel: Endangered

Brad Rimbey of Temple Terrace Florida tells of seeing a Shermans Fox Squirrel on a hike, September 22, 2008, in the Withlacoochee Forest, Florida. He said "When I first saw it, I thought it was a ferret based on its size and the way it moved."

Studies on the endangered squirrel are underway. Pictures like these of a rare mammal are very rare. I hope these will not be the last pictures of the animal and that a significant management system (such as for the abundant eastern gray squirrel) can be designed and implemented that will keep the species at safe abundance.  I'm hopeful that images and observations such as shown here may be gathered in NatureSeen a proposed enterprise in Rural System that captures and preserves observations of nature that are no-longer or rarely reported in technical or scientific journals.

The special significance of these creatures to me is their white markings which are (in my view) adaptations for regulating neural temperatures in the high ambient and nest temperatures of Florida. I can only marvel at the parasite loads these animals must sustain.

Photos with permission of Brad Rimbey.

The Other Land Management Factor

In "Science Findings" issue105, 2008, of the Pacific Northwest Research Station of the US Forest Service, the limits of science in land management were discussed. "Science" seems unable or ill equipped to handle "the deep emotional and cultural relationships that society has for forests and landscapes" or for "the inspirational qualities of an old-growth forest" or a looming volcano. Without using the word epistemology, discussants acknowledged there are several ways to know anything, classical science being only one of them.

I think there are innate human reactions to things that can give them ability to do work (in the most fundamental energetic sense). We see this in treasured tools and beautiful functional pottery in tombs documenting persistent human attachment. Similarly there are innate or intrinsic human reactions to dangers, threatening uncertainty, and generally to risk taking. We have and can study these reactions and they can be evaluated in as-yet-limited expressions to scenes, experiences, and challenges by questionnaire, computer, and physiological means. Asserting the difficulty does not deny the need for scientific studies of human demands, values, expectations, and risk taking ... and rapid (neuro-physiological) as well as lasting changes in all of these (akin to ecological succession). "Scientific research" cannot carry this soup. Now surrounded by users of words fuzzily, I call these activities studies. We must press on to know, know it well, and to share what we know. We must not to surrender to poetry and passionate prose.

"People" are now noticed as the other land management factor, other that trees and waters and ecological things. We can learn about people and their attitudes, desires, cultural groundings, and values and can gain support for our enterprises and agencies and their objectives. We can know these things. Surrendering scientific procedures and principles in the face of difficulties and reduced agency budgets will not serve us all very well ... or cost effectively.

Riparian Volume

Riparian means the land and community along the sides of and closely associated with fresh, unbound water. The riparian zone is the banks and adjacent areas of water bodies, rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds, water courses, seeps, and springs, the water of which provides soil moisture conditions greater than in the adjacent areas.

Riparian "zones" are usually addressed as areas but they are sinusoidal volumes with width, depth (of the water and underground), height and length along waterways and sources. Of course areas along rivers influenced by tides create a problem for a precise definition. Occasionally a salinity of 0.5 ppt is used as the dividing content, less being riverine, more being estuarine. The riparian volume usually supports vegetation significantly different from that of adjacent inland areas. It is a distinctively different aggregation of plants and animals from that adjacent to it, more influenced by wetness than dryness. Some people think of them as the ecosystem between the aquatic and terrestrial.

From my Trevey system. 

Ranging

"It took time, but ranging became for me an umbrella word under which the concepts and essential associated activities of managed tourism, ecotourism, and engaging in dispersed outdoor recreation can be well and properly studied, developed, managed, and improved. It became the collector where theories can be developed, analyses made, models created, evaluations made and monitoring done, predictions made, and programs administered.

"Perhaps it is too big, too inclusive, but current divisions are ineffectively small with wasteful duplications and few useful connections."

From my free book on the Internet, Rural System ...Just Dreaming , Chapter 18.

Access

There is a conceptual problem with wilderness game. If it cannot be seen and cannot be reached, is it a resource?  Even if it is called one, then can the game or faunal space agency claim credit for having produced it (or managed it)? If management can be seen as a costly activity, then accountability seems reasonable and then comes the question of how many extra animals or game-related experiences did the manager produce for the money invested in him or her?

I think faunal resource managers have to be very careful about their claims for roles. One standard needed is that of what nature would have produced without the manager being present. Another standard needs to be the demand by the public as well as specific resource users among them. The more difficult demand that needs to be assessed is that of guests, foreign resource users, and nearby system managers somehow dependent upon the nearness of the resource. What will be the demand expressed by future people?

Game produced from using specific funds needs to be accessible to the investors. Knowledge about it or images of it may be one minimum form of such access. Access to existing game, with no increase in the numbers of animals, can still be viewed as successful if the measure of success is defined and counted  as extra or new dependable opportunities, sightings, quality-weighted days afield, etc. A boardwalk (here) can supply access in wet areas year around for faunal system users of all types.

Gaining hunting rights or opening private land to hunters is a conventional game management practice. Much private land is now closed to hunting.

A simple low-cost bridge (built by 2 people in 10 hours) can provide access to research and special areas, reduce down time, reduce animal disturbance, and stabilize riparian conditions. A rail may be necessary for some users and local legal issues have to be faced. Posts for handles were placed on this curved bridge for a trail over a stream that was only occassionally torential.

Conventional logging operations build roads to remove timber and in so doing opens up areas for other users. Roads create problems among users for they are costly to maintain, shed silt into streams valuable within a fishery, and may be hazardous to truckers, hunters, and and other users confronting loaded trucks. Of course they are not allowed within wilderness areas. Often only logging can pay the cost of needed roads that can also be used to gain hunting and other wildlife-related resource benefits.  Country roads (depending on their type and use rates) seem to have influence on animals (e.g., elk) using the areas near them. Closed roads or those only little used can have positive effects on edge-nesting turkeys and ruffed grouse. Roads provide access to poachers and thus create another factor to balance in decision making.

In the nearby picture, the road is sloped outward and an inner ditch is not used to channel water. This is preferred in most cases. When an inside ditch is used (as below), culverts are needed to move rain and storm  water across the road. These add to expense and require long-term management. The soil at the outlet of the culvert needs special attention. Erosion there often has long-lasting, profound effects. The design and management of high quality back-country roads is an essential part of superior watershed management or crescent management. Without it, access is always in doubt, costs are never contained, and the timely control of road use for multiple benefits made difficult. The problems within wildlife or faunal system management are not all biological or ecological.