This workshop, organized and sponsored by The Wildlife Society, the American Fisheries Society, the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies, the USGS Cooperative Research Units, and the Wildlife Management Institute, is the third in a series of successful workshops that have convened discussions and presentations on the challenges, opportunities, and need for ensuring wildlife management and conservation decisions use rigorous science. The 2018 workshop will focus on the dynamic changes in social and environmental landscapes currently facing wildlife agencies and wildlife science, and how agencies can build resiliency to address these challenges.
In order to be resilient, the institution of wildlife conservation must be willing to adapt progressively while retaining the core values and beliefs that characterize North American conservation. With many agencies and universities facing reduced capacities, embracing new challenges, maintaining core responsibilities, and striving to be in the forefront of science applications becomes a daunting challenge.
Previous workshops in this series have documented how these dynamic changes have forced apart two key pillars of the institution – management agencies and academia. Potential solutions that can bridge the gap between agencies and academia have been put forward. Special sessions and workshops have also been held at previous North American Wildlife & Natural Resource conferences that focused on increasing agency relevancy through governance models and other mechanisms.
This workshop will build upon previous discussion with presentations, panel discussions, and audience engagement. Agency, university, and non-profit leaders will explore with the audience how agencies can be adaptive to change while incorporating progressive science in management and decision making.