Review of Ungulate Fertility Control in the National Park Service Outcomes and Recommendations from an Internal Workshop. Held in Fort Collins, Colorado on February 23-24, 2012.

摘要

Ungulate management in the National Park Service (NPS) has been a consistent and often controversial challenge since the inception of the Service in 1916. The objectives for ungulate management have ranged widely from protection, preservation, and restoration, to limiting adverse effects due to large numbers of native animals and elimination of exotic invasive ungulates. Fertility control may be a useful tool in achieving some of these objectives; however, altering reproduction is not without direct and indirect effects. In some situations, fertility control may be an alternative method to culling individuals within a population when low rates of natural mortality (e.g., predation, disease, starvation) do not allow the NPS to meet population management objectives. Although NPS Management Policy 4.4.2.1 (NPS 2006) allows the use of reproductive intervention as a population management technique, no Service-wide guidance yet exists to assist park managers in determining whether fertility control is an appropriate management tool. Public opinions and values toward wildlife management are evolving, and include an increasing desire to influence decisions made by agencies managing public trust resources. Debates about the humaneness and appeal of fertility control versus killing of wild animals arise from many different viewpoints, often vary by species, and are value-driven.