Adaptive harvest management: has anything really changed?

摘要

Management of duck harvests has been among the more debated wildlife resource issues during the last 60 years. The controversy was particularly apparent during the 1980s as wetland habitat conditions and populations of ducks reached levels reminiscent of the 1930s. With severe restrictions in harvest opportunity, waterfowl managers were forced to confront long-standing harvest management issues. In 1988, a supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS 88) on the sport hunting of migratory birdsoutlined a preferred alternative involving stabilized regulations and controlled use of "special" regulations (U.S. Department of Interior 1988). A desire for greater input into regulations by states, greater understanding of harvest impacts, increasedhunting opportunity, and regulations simplicity were among the expectations of the flyways by the late 1980s (Babcock and Sparrowe 1989). An adaptive management approach to develop duck regulations (Johnson et al. 1993) is an explicit, information-basedprocess, which advances the credibility and integrity of duck harvest management. A Stabilized Regulations Working Group (later the Adaptive Harvest Management [AHM] Working Group) was established in 1992 to develop guidelines to provide (1) a sport harvest consistent with the long-term welfare of duck populations; (2) greater objectivity and predictability in promulgating regulations frameworks; and (3) greater ability to learn through experience. The AHM Working Group provided a shared technical forumcomprised of state and federal waterfowl managers from all four flyways.