Wildlife management
[4][5] Wildlife management aims to halt the loss in the Earth's biodiversity,[6][7] by taking into consideration ecological principles such as carrying capacity, disturbance and succession, and environmental conditions such as physical geography, pedology and hydrology.
[14] Gamekeeping is the management or control of wildlife for the well-being of game and may include the killing of other animals which share the same niche or predators to maintain a high population of more profitable species, such as pheasants introduced into woodland.
Aldo Leopold defined wildlife management in 1933 as the art of making land produce sustained annual crops of wild game for recreational use.
[19] The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds was founded as the Plumage League in 1889 by Emily Williamson at her house in Manchester[20] as a protest group campaigning against the use of great crested grebe and kittiwake skins and feathers in fur clothing.
On 1 May 1899, the Trust purchased two acres of Wicken Fen with a donation from the amateur naturalist Charles Rothschild, establishing the first nature reserve in Britain.
Early game laws were enacted in the United States in 1839 when Rhode Island closed the hunting season for white-tailed deer from May to November.
[25] The profession of wildlife management was established in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s by Aldo Leopold and others who sought to transcend the purely restrictive policies of the previous generation of conservationists, such as anti-hunting activist William T. Hornaday.
Leopold and his close associate Herbert Stoddard, who had both been trained in scientific forestry, argued that modern science and technology could be used to restore and improve wildlife habitat and thus produce abundant "crops" of ducks, deer, and other valued wild animals.
[27] Wildlife management grew after World War II with the help of the GI Bill and a postwar boom in recreational hunting.
[28] In 1963, United States Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall appointed an advisory board to collect scientific data to inform future wildlife management.
In the Leopold Report, the committee observed that culling programs at other national parks had been ineffective, and recommended active management of Yellowstone's elk population.
[29] Elk overpopulation in Yellowstone is thought by many wildlife biologists, such as Douglas Smith, to have been primarily caused by the extirpation of wolves from the park and surrounding environment.
[30] Since the tumultuous 1970s, when animal rights activists and environmentalists began to challenge some aspects of wildlife management, the profession has been overshadowed by the rise of conservation biology.
Hunters may be restricted by sex, age or class of animal, for instance there may be an open season for any male deer with 4 points or better on at least one antler.
[36][37] Habitat destruction and fragmentation are major drivers of biodiversity loss in the United Kingdom,[38] however landowners that participate in field sports, particularly hunting and shooting, are more likely to conserve and reinstate woodlands[39] and hedgerows[40] because they are used by quarry species.
[39] Landowners undertake management measures to improve habitats for quarry species, including shrub planting, coppicing[41] and skylighting[42] to encourage understory growth.
[43] However, overall evidence that game shooting is beneficial to wider biodiversity has been inconclusive: high densities of game birds are known to negatively impact ecosystems, resulting in shorter grassland vegetation,[44] lower floral diversity in semi-natural woodlands,[45] fewer saplings in hedgerows leading from such woodlands,[46] and reductions in arthropod biomass attributable to predation.
The rearing of both wild and released game birds requires the provision of food and shelter during the winter months,[47] and to achieve this landowners plant cover crops.
Cover crops are also utilised by a variety of nationally declining farmland birds such as linnets and finches,[48][49][50] providing valuable food resources and refuge from predators.
