Evolving state agencies, university curricula and wildlife students

摘要

The session topic raises the question: Do young wildlife professionals fulfill the needs of management in today's resource agency? The fact that the question is even posed suggests that there is some concern with the profession that they do not. Toeven superficially address the topic requires answers to the questions: Who are our young wildlife professionals and how are they trained?; and what are the management needs of today's resource agencies? My session colleagues have addressed U. S. (Regan2000), Canadian (Baker 2000), and agency (Janik 2000) perspectives of needs faced by today's resource management agencies and how academia has responded to these needs (Messmer and Conover 2000). Miller (2000) addressed the important, related question ofwhether or not today's agencies know what to expect from young professionals. Also, it is important to consider the opinion of students (Caudell 2000) in order to adequately address the question posed. The North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference has long been an important venue to address the topic of training professional natural resource managers. My presentation is a historical review of the path we have traveled to get where we are. I will present few original thoughts, but insteadwill point out what I believe to be important insights of those who have addressed similar and related topics before me. I will briefly trace the origin of our state agencies, the history of how university curricula have evolved in response to the perceived needs of our profession, and then address the "evolution" of those who aspire to join the ranks of professional resource managers.