Certificate of Wildlife Management

Unit 1 – Introduction to Wildlife Management

• What is wildlife management
• Areas of focus and activities
• Approaches to wildlife management
• Preservation and conservation
• Purpose of wildlife management
• Reasons for managing wildlife
• Goals of wildlife management
• Decision making in wildlife management
• Who are the decision makers?
• Making the right decision
• Important concepts and considerations
• Range, distribution and habitat
• Needs of wildlife
• Good wildlife habitats
• Population limiting factors
• Carrying capacity
• Succession
• Habitat fragmentation
• Habitat diversity
• Biological control
• Integrated pest management

Unit 2 – Wildlife Ecology

• Ecology
• Types of ecology
• Population Ecology
• Community Ecology
• Ecosystem Ecology
• Interactions within a community
• Competition
• Predation
• Parasitism
• Commensalism
• Mutualism
• The food web
• The web of life
• Energy flow
• Imbalances

Unit 3 – Wildlife Habitats

• Classification of habitats
• Habitat types
• Location and characteristics of biomes and common wildlife
• Animal use of features within habitats
• Case study – nest boxes
• Logs, surface rocks and ground cover
• Creeks, wetlands and dams
• Case study – bird requirements and uses of habitat
• Requirements of birds in captivity
• Habitat features used by birds
• Trees
• Plants
• Changes to habitats
• Physical changes
• Biological changes
• Air pollution
• Water pollution
• Toxicants
• Water
• Siting water points
• Trees: more or less
• Deforestation and afforestation

Unit 4 – Population Dynamics and Pest Management

• Populations
• Birth or fecundity rate
• Death or mortality rate
• Population growth rate
• Control of pest or undesirable wildlife species
• The objectives of control
• The effects of control on a population
• Mortality manipulation
• Biological control
• Successful biological control examples
• Catastrophes in biological control
• General case studies
• Mosquitoes
• Grasshoppers (locusts)
• Birds and mammals
• Case study: feral animals in Australia
• Case study – total eradication of exotic species in New Zealand

Unit 5 – Carrying Capacity

• Pastoral setting
• Exponential population growth and population dynamics
• What is carrying capacity
• Fisheries – stock management
• Stock identity
• Stock assessment
• Stock biomass
• Stock management methods

Unit 6 – Wildlife Censuses

• Types of censuses
• Total counts
• Sampling
• Sampling accuracy vs precision, and bias errors
• Methods of wildlife censuses
• Aerial surveys
• Trapping
• Mark-recapture
• Transects
• Indirect methods
• Roadside and call counts
• Mapping
• Environmental DNA (eDNA)
• Taxon specific sampling methods
• Animal ethics
• Case study – the Calgary zoo’s swift fox survey
• Census objective
• Sampling plan and techniques
• Results

Unit 7 – Wildlife Management techniques

• Management of native wildlife
• Fire, vegetation management
• Predator control
• Habitat modification
• Habitat modelling
• Population monitoring
• Conservation breeding programs
• Case study – the North American giant salamander
• Translocation of threatened species
• Culling and harvesting
• Case studies culling
• Case studies culling and harvesting
• Fertility manipulation
• Genetic engineering
• Indirect methods
• Case studies cites and conservation (tigers and rhinoceros)

Unit 8 – Wildlife Management Law and Administration

• Policy and wildlife law
• International environmental law
• Making international laws
• Treaties
• International customary law
• Hard vs soft law
• Domestic (national) laws
• Evolving domestic law
• Sources of legislation
• Environmental ethics
• Enforcement of conservation laws

Unit 9 – Problem Based Learning (PBL) Project – Management of Endangered Fragmented Owl