Techniques for Future Decision-making in Range, Wildlife, and Fisheries Management

James M. Sweeney, wildlife and fisheries specialist, and Gale L. Wolters, range scientist, Forest Environment Research Staff Forest Service.

Commercial and recreational demands for wildlife, fish, and range resources have increased significantly during recent years, and the upward trends are expected to continue. For example, approximately 18 million fur pelts were harvested in the 1979-80 trapping season, 2.6 times that harvested in 1971. Annual salmon harvests reached over 600 million pounds in the late 1970's and early 1980's, considerably above the 200 to 400 million pounds common in the preceding 25 years. The number of hunting and fishing licenses purchased has increased almost 50 percent in the last 20 years. Similarly, the demand for forage on public rangelands has increased about 15 percent since 1980. The legal mandates to protect wild horses and burros and conserve threatened and endangered plants also intensified the demand for rangeland resources, as did the growing concern for an adequate supply of quality water, clean air, and open space.

Loss of Forests and Rangelands

The intensified use of forests and rangelands for production of other goods and services such as urban development, transportation systems, and extraction of minerals and fossil fuels is having a significant impact on our wildlife and fish habitat and range resources.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that as much as 2 million acres of wildlife and fish habitat will be lost annually between now and the year 2,000. Nearly half of the wetlands that once existed in the continental United States are gone, and quality of many of the remaining areas has been seriously compromised.

More than half of the rangeland in the lower 48 States is in unsatisfactory condition and producing less than 40 percent of its natural, potential forage, wildlife habitat, and water. Intensive timber production, which harvests stands at younger ages, reduces plant species diversity and diminishes habitat for wildlife dependent on older, less vigorous forest communities. Approximately 180 vertebrate species in the United States are listed as actually or potentially in danger of extinction, as are nearly 80 species of terrestrial plants.

These numbers may increase drastically unless specific management strategies are implemented to successfully interweave wildlife, range, and fish goals with other land-use objectives.

Multiple-use Management

In the face of increasing demands for all forest and rangeland products, including timber, fiber, energy, wildlife, grazing, fisheries, water, and recreation, and a decreasing land base for the production of these natural resources, managers can no longer afford the laissez faire, single-resource approach to management that was typical in the past. Planning and management for any single resource must include consideration and adjustment for associated resources. This managerial strategy was made binding by a series of recent laws aimed at resource integration: National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, Wild Horses and Burros Protection Act of 1971, Endangered Species Act of 1973, Forest and Rangelands Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974, National Forest Management Act of 1976, Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, Public Rangelands Improvement Act of 1978, and Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1980. As a result, managers are now in an era of coordinated, intensive forest and rangeland management in which interdisciplinary planning is an important element, if not a legal mandate.

Multiple-use is not a new theory, nor is it a difficult concept to grasp. Initiating such a program, however, involves addressing a maze of social, political, and biological concerns and alternatives. This decision labyrinth is so complex and continually changing that it almost defies solution. But this challenge must be met.

Research for Better Management

Research conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service and State agricultural experiment stations is providing an ever-expanding wealth of new knowledge and management guides on the relationships between differing land uses and probable consequences of alternative management prescriptions. For example, they are collecting information on the influences of various forest and range management strategies on short- and long-term timber and forage production, water yield and quality, sediment yield, wildlife and fish habitat value, and local socioeconomic stability. This and other detailed technical information is being compiled and stored in computer systems, making the information readily accessible to managers. In addition, numerous models or computer-based tools are being developed using these newly quantified relationships that allow resource managers to manipulate this new knowledge base and present it in a comprehensive form for analysis of management alternatives.

These models differ greatly in style and complexity. The more complex simulation models rely on a complete understanding of vegetation growth patterns and responses to management to project future plant communities, successional stages, and habitat conditions. STEMS and its microcomputer counterpart, TWIGS, are forest stand simulation models developed to help small landowners predict what will happen to their forest stand if they harvest trees. FORPLAN (Forest Plan Simulator) is a larger, more complex forest simulation model used to predict results of forest management on entire National Forests. By including wildlife habitat capability models in STEMS or FORPLAN, landowners also can predict influences on wildlife such as squirrels, woodpeckers, deer, and turkey.