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Introduction To Wildlife - What Are We Talking About Here?
What is wildlife? Is it animals? Fish? Plants? Does it include domesticated animals? Zoo animals? For the purposes of this class, wildlife includes any non-domesticated living creature. That is everything from bears to bluebells, and zebras to zooplankton. The majority of our studies will look at Alberta's wildlife, but there are some opportunities to compare and contrast wildlife from other parts of the world as well.

This wiki is meant to be used as a starting point for the third section of moodle dealing with WLD1050 and WLD1010. The class website at [|www.plrd.ab.ca/public/l/kelly.lewis/website] can also be used as a source for starting research.

Learner Outcomes
This wiki is designed for use with the CTS Wildlife course. It is divided into two parts - the information and assignments for WLD1010(first year) and WLD1050(second year). There are specific objectives, called learner outcomes, that must be met in order to receive credit for the module. For WLD1010, these are the outcomes: 1.develop a definition of wildlife 2. describe interrelationships among ecosystem components and their effects on wildlife populations 3.investigate and describe different attitudes and opinions regarding wildlife management For WLD1050, these are the outcomes: 1.explain the status of Canadian wildlife prior to 1900 2.describe the effects of land use practices on wildlife prior to 1900 3.explore management strategies that enable wildlife and society to exist 4.identify and explain how human activity affected the structure, behaviour and habitat of a Canadian wildlife species before 1900 5. describe the social, economic and environmental significance of wildlife 6.explain how personal needs, wants, beliefs and actions may influence wildlife and wildlife habitats

A great deal of this course is discussing wildlife. You need to develop your own definition of "what is wildlife?" to have the best perspective you can in all of the discussions. This definition will be based on your personal experiences, but also on legislation and research. There are many different organizations which support wildlife in some way. The following organizations all have mission statements, mandates, goals or value sets which include some aspect of wildlife. Look at these groups, read their information, and use it to help formulate your own definition of wildlife.

[|Environment Canada] [|Canadian Wildlife Federation] [|Alberta Conservation Association] [|Alberta Sustainable Resource Development]

So, What Are We Talking About Here When We Say "Wildlife"?
This class is going to focus mainly on Alberta wildlife, but we also need to look at Canadian wildlife mostly from a historical perspective. It is hard to know what animals were here before the arrival of humankind, but assumptions can be made. Our real knowledge can be corroborated only since the arrival of white explorers in the 1400's forward. The first concern with wildlife came in the basic human need of protection - bears, wolves, snakes, insects were all a concern. Shortly thereafter, trade in animal pelts became an interest and trapping began - beaver, otter, muskrat all became trade targets. Another human need crept into play when people got hungry - deer, moose, rabbit became sought out to feed the people. The question needs to be asked, when did they start finding and using other forms of wildlife? This website has a good overview on the history of some forms of wildlife in Canada. [|Canadian Encyclopedia]

Canada as an Ecosystem
Ecosystems are the places where organisms live and interrelate.

When you take a look a these two maps, there are some differences when it comes to the division of zones in Alberta. Why do you suppose this happens? The big question is "what is different between these zones?" The first thing we need to look at is the parts that make up an ecosystem. This short video looks at the parts of an ecosystem. As you watch it, try to draw comparisons between the location and ecosystem components that are shown in this video and location and components that you are familiar with.

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There are lots of parts to every ecosystem and each one plays an important role in the inter-relationships between each.

Over the history of Canada, the ecos ystems which our wildlife live and function in have changed. The unspoiled, uninhabited landscape of a pre-European influenced Canada would have been different that what we have today.

Parts of an Ecosystem and Food Web
There are specific parts to an ecosystem. There are biotic and abiotic parts - biotic being the living and abiotic being the non-living. These go together to make the habitat in which organisms live. There can be several communities within any given habitat. The community is going to be home to a variety of organisms which are all parts of various food webs. These webs will have producers, consumers of various levels and decomposers. When something is taken from a food web, many things are affected in some way.

The food web shown here is from a boreal ecosystem. There are primary producers, like plants, who are utilized by first order consumers, who are utilized by second order consumers, etc. The highest order consumers are called tertiary consumers. These are usually your alpha predators and largest carnivores. Biodiversity Biodiversity is the way a species can be different at a species, genetic or ecosystem level. It is important to have biodiversity in Alberta because it adds to our quality of life and the species which are part of Alberta rely on each other for their survival.

Endangered Species
There are various levels of endangerment that can be tied to a species.  Least threatened - manageable population Species of concern - may become threatened if populations aren't watched Vulnerable - facing serious threat of extinction in the wild Endangered - facing a very serious threat of extinction in the wild Extirpated - extinct in some areas, but a wild population exist in the wild elsewhere Extinct in the Wild - populations only exist in captivity Extinct - there is no reasonable doubt that the last individual has died

The Sustainable Resource Development website has information on it about the various species at risk in Alberta. In some cases, there are species which are under the careful watch of wildlife managers and biologists which are still included in huntable or fishable populations. In most of these cases, it is a decline in a specific habitat or biological situation which are causes for concern.

Species can have different status from province to province, or country to country. The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada is the final and official voice of endangered species in Canada.

//Discussion Points:// What is the most endangered species in Alberta? Canada? Do animals being kept in zoos count? How can a fish like arctic grayling be mentioned in the endangered species conversation, yet you are still allowed to catch and keep them? How are food chains and ecosystems affected by the loss of a species?

**Wildlife Management for Dummies **
What does "management" mean? What does "wildlife management" mean? Is there more than one way to manage wildlife? Who is in charge of managing wildlife? These are all valid questions and something we have to look at.



This land may be profitable to those that will adventure it.[|**Henry Hudson**]

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This quote from Henry Hudson - the explorer who discovered Hudson Bay - is pretty prophetic about not only the land, but the creatures and wildlife that inhabit it. The earliest form of wildlife management was trapping, but there is no doubt that if everything went unchecked - or unmanaged - there would be little to no wildlife for us today.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It is difficult to find actual documents about pre-1900 wildlife management, but what can be found is accounts of trappers, traders, explorers, and settlers. There are lots of questions that can be asked about wildlife during the early years of North America.

Alberta Conservation and Hunter Education Program
The Alberta Conservation and Hunter Education Program is designed to prepare individuals to become responsible managers of wildlife in Alberta. The course recognizes that wildlife is a renewable resource that can be managed, used and enjoyed by everyone. Not all people will become hunters, nor will they be active supporters of hunting, but it is important to recognize that regulated hunting is an excellent management tool for controlling wildlife populations. As society and humankind expands into habitat which is home to different species of wildlife, careful management of these lands and displaced species become very important.

Habitat is where animals live. Human interaction can affect changes in habitat which are far-reaching and can be long lasting. The best place to find wildlife is where habitats overlap or meet. Every type of habitat has benefits and drawbacks, and the places where they meet is where species can have access to an abundance of options. For example, the point in a field where a creek meets a cultivated field on one side and a small woodlot on the other would be able to provide food, water, shelter and a place to hide, all within close proximity. This meeting of habitats is called the //edge effect//.

Any given habitat can only support a finite number of organisms. It only makes sense that if you have a park surrounded by desert, only a certain number of creatures could be supported before food and water run out, and before plant life couldn't replentish itself fast enough. The ability of any given habitat to support a number of wildlife species is called carrying capacity. There are a number of factors which affect the carrying capacity of any given habitat: the amount of food, water, cover and space, the level of predation, weather, the amount of human activity, disease, and changes in birth and death rate. Any change or combination of changes in these factors will have an affect on the carrying capacity of any habitat.

Wildlife managers - who include biologists, scientists, and fish and wildlife officers - are responsible for acquiring all of the information needed to create plans for managing Alberta's wildlife. One of the most important tasks they have is determining a number of a species in a given area. This process is called inventory, much like a retail manager does when determining what stock he has on hand and how to best manage it. However, counting animals in the wild is much more difficult than counting boxes on a shelf. One of the most common ways of determining numbers in an area is by aerial survey. Airplanes or helicopters fly paths, called transects, usually in January or early February. This time of year is used because antlered animals have not usually lost their antlers, and the snow allows for easier identification. They fly the same path at the same time of the year every time an inventory is taken so results can be directly compared from year to year. These inventories are used in conjunction with other sources of information - such as banded waterfowl returns, hunter harvest surveys, carrying capacity surveys, waterfowl census - to develop plans for managing the wildlife resource.

Everyone is responsible for managing Alberta's wildlife. This doesn't mean that every person should take up hunting and habitat management, but everyone should be concerned with government actions which affect our renewable resources. Of course, the best way to get through to your government is through your MLA. If all Albertan's who are concerned with any aspect of managing our province - including wildlife, habitat and wild spaces - voice their concerns to their representative in the legislature, change can happen. When it comes down to actually making the decisions in managing wildlife, wildlife managers use the basic principles of ecology and biology to suggest changes and management approaches. These managers need to make both long and short term plans for the environment which deal with maintaining and supporting habitat for wildlife.

**Environmental Issues** Alberta is recognized world-wide for its magnificent natural beauty, however, this admiration for its landscape may also be contributing to Alberta's greatest crisis. Although humans have roamed the Canadian prairies for approximately 12,000 years, a fleeting moment on the geological time scale, this same period has witnessed the increasingly aggressive exploitation of the lands. However, with the introduction of firearms and increased mobility, the balance between man and nature has been rapidly altered in favor of man and, in many cases, at the expense of nature. Furthermore, the relatively recent settlement and development of Alberta has meant a wholesale landscape modification in terms of agricultural development of the province so that today, only 30 percent of Alberta's natural habitat remains untouched -- that is, in its "natural state".

So, every living thing – and many non-living things – play a part in ecosystems, food webs, detritus webs, as well as being the source and target of many issues and problems. Man, being the only living creature known to “understand” how nature works and supposedly “understand” what is best for the relationship between nature and man, can describe the desired relationship in a few different ways. Conservation, preservation and environmentalism are all bantered about as being the best way to go. There are, however, some very different thoughts on the subject.

The basic definition of conservation is that because man has had such an affect on the environment, he should make every effort to manage as many aspects of it as possible to allow for it to continue to thrive and live on in relative harmony with mankind. Preservationists are individuals who believe the outdoors should be left untouched by humans. Environmentalists also believe in the idea of leaving nature untouched, but often extend their thinking into all animals and all land and living things as being part of the environment and should not be subject to any management of any scale.

The following article was written by the Abundant Wildlife Society of North America, based in South Dakota. It does a fairly good job of explaining the differences between environmentalism and conservation, but the reader should understand that this group views the issue from the standpoint that there is no room for any viewpoint other than their own. Some people may refer to groups like this as a radical organization, but others may see them as just another varying viewpoint presenting their perspective on an issue. As you read it, try to decide where you stand in the discussion. (This will be important later on in this module.)

**ENVIRONMENTALISM vs CONSERVATION: A LOOK AT TWO ROADS** In years past, Conservation, the wise use of natural renewable resources, was supported and understood by a majority of people. It was taken for granted that man, due to his ability to reason, had the power and right to improve, change and utilize the environment.

Irrigation ditches were built, diverting the natural flow of water to man-made ditches, thus making mountain streams live streams year around due to return flow. This enhanced the land for man and animal. Stock reservoirs and dams were built in the semiarid parts of the West allowing the land to support stock and wildlife which, in years past, supported few animals due to limited water.

Man continued to progress, and with that progression he learned new ways to better conserve and use nature. Land in eastern states was often left in a state of little use after coal mining. Learning from those mistakes, man came west to mine coal and now often reclaims the land better than it was in its natural state. Logging, though never very pretty to look at, was found to be the best thing for nature's forests. Instead of dying off of disease, insect infestation, fire and other common tree killers, wood could be harvested and utilized, thus making forests healthier and man had a natural resource to use.

Then along came Environmentalism, a view that nature and natural forces should be the dominating force of change, a concept that Nature is "god" and man no more or less than any other living creature in the natural flow of events. This new philosophy was based upon several tenets:
 * 1.** Nature was perfect until Man disfigured it.
 * 2.** Man invariably disrupts and wreaks havoc in the environment.
 * 3.** The Natural Balance of Nature is the only way to go.
 * 4.** Man must reject all of modern technology and call for a return to a simple, pastoral life free of fumes, artificial chemicals, and any noise but the chirping of birds and the croaking of frogs. (Science News)
 * 5.** Animals have a right to live as much as man and therefore man has no right to eradicate or control any living creature.

This philosophy looks good. After all, who wouldn't like to slow down and get out of the rat race of life? And we have all seen those places on this earth which have been set aside so that the natural beauty and grandeur of nature fills our being with wonder and awe. Just think of what the land must have looked like before man came? And who enjoys killing something for the sake of killing? Besides, go to any major city and you will see places where it seems man has made a mess of everything he has touched.

Ah yes, but the longer one contemplates such a belief system, the more questions come to mind which are quite disturbing.

In spite of his obvious mistakes in the past, man has really improved the land. Agriculture now feeds millions of people utilizing land that was able to support only a few people in its natural state. Without modern technology, man would have to build a fire to stay warm, walk to get anywhere and continually look for food for sustenance. And the Balance of Nature may be natural, but there is nothing more cruel. Animal life prospers for a time, then dies off due to limited food supply, harsh weather, disease or predation and the cycle starts over again only to repeat itself. Animals used to die off by the hundreds in winter blizzards, due to lack of food and shelter. Do we stop feeding the massive herds of elk in the west to let nature take its natural course? Should there be a law requiring farmers and stockmen to tear down their barns and sheds so animals can face the elements naturally?

But what right does man have to take animal life for his consumption or because it is detrimental to his way of life?

One only has to look at the consequences if man should stop his consumption and control on the land. How quick would the rats increase in the cities and carry disease as in the days of the Plague? Or, what would be the consequences if there were no termite control? Should wolves in Alaska and Canada be allowed to regulate game naturally so that the native Indian and Eskimo can starve due to shortages of meat as in yesteryear? Their history speaks of hunger often. And the coyote of the plains, let it increase until disease such as rabies reduces its numbers as in years past. Watch nature at its finest as this animal writhes in pain and agony, slowly going mad. Not to mention the animals and humans it can bite, spreading this fatal disease.

Letting animals such as elk, deer, and moose increase unchecked will also have negative impacts. Moose are habitat destroyers if not kept in check. They ruin their forage and soon start to die of malnutrition or susceptibility to harsh weather and their numbers crash. Elk and deer can destroy crops that would feed the hungry mouths found in many parts of the world.

A serious look at these two philosophies is needed today. Common sense would dictate that we need to get back to Conservation. Man can and should control the extremes of nature through hunting, keeping numbers down and utilizing the meat to feed people. He should control those pests that wreak havoc with his crops and livestock so that he may not only feed himself but others. We need to ask hard questions like how much benefit is a coyote in a city suburb or on a rancher's range? Does the coyote become more valuable after it eats 10 sheep? Just because it is a part of nature, do we let it come in the back yard and attack our child as they have done in California, Yellowstone National Park and in the National Parks of Canada?

Conservation should be everyone's concern. It does not mean elimination of any species, but rather the control and management of all animals for the benefit of man and animal.

<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">Since Conservation, not environmentalism, was important to those before us, we were given a heritage richer than any other nation. We have more to eat, more to see and more to enjoy than most of the world. It didn't just happen, nor will it continue unless we have a common sense philosophy

The Mighty Beaver
This country owes it's existence to the beaver. If it wasn't for rich people in England wanting beaver felt hats, there wouldn't have been as much interest in Canada at that point and explorers looking for other commodities may have explored and claimed territory, changing history as we know it. You can just imagine what it would have looked like if Spanish explorers had pushed up the mid-west from Mexico northward in search of farmable land and settled in what we know as western Canada. Our culture could have been entirely different. As it was, the English and French trappers and traders explored, mapped and built forts and trading posts across the west, leading to the establishment of the railroads, arrival of settlers, and settling of the west. All because they were looking for a rodent whose fur could be used for making felt. Of course there were other animals that trappers targeted - fox, weasel, mink, marten, coyote - but the big money was in the beavers.


 * //Discussion Points://** How were beaver trapped/hunted? How was felt made from beaver hair? What were some of the other animal hides used for? What role did fish play in the early days? Where did buffalo fit in?

Trappers and Traders
The trappers needed traders to buy their furs and provided them with what they needed to survive. It wasn't a question of trapping more and more to build up a bank account so they could retire, it was more about trapping enough to survive from year to year. Holidays were related to their trading - a trip to the trading post was the closest thing most trappers had to a holiday. It was the trading post that provided the trapper with not only supplies, but news, recreation, an opportunity to attend church, and the chance for conversation.

The trading posts were also utilized by the first nation people as their way to trade furs for the few supplies that they needed. Unfortunately, there were unscrupulous traders who mistreated the natives (both intentionally and unintentionally) and exposed them to things such whiskey and disease. Some trading posts became communities and provided religion, education, and access to medicine, as well as a being a trade centre. Many of these trading posts were the start of some of Canada's biggest cities.

There were a variety of goods available to the natives who traded at various trading posts. The following video from the Living History School explains some of the items available to the trappers.

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Discussion Points: What did the natives trade for? How did these new items change their lives? Did the first nations people trade anything else besides furs? Were the goods the native people traded for the same as the ones white trappers would receive?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudon's Bay Company (HBC) is the most important company in the history of Canada. The history of the HBC is in fact the history of Canada, and the from it we can get a pretty accurate picture of the history of wildlife in Canada. The Hudson's Bay Company website provides us with lots of information about not only the history of the company, but the history of Canada, wildlife, exploration, and early life in Canada.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//**Discussion Points:**// There was a point in the history of the Hudson's bay company that they were faced with losses due to overtrapping. How did they handle it? Buffalo, elk, wolves and moose were common on the Canadian prairie at one time, but what happened to them? Are they making a comback? Do we want them to make a comeback?

History of Wildlife Management in Canada
Until Canada became a country, management of wildlife was not practiced. The thinking was that there was an unlimited supply of wildlife, trees, water and resources in general, so everything was used as it was needed. Eventually, settlement in eastern areas of the province led to forests being used up, fish and game being hunted into virtual non-existence, and problems were begining.

There is an excellent article on the history of wildlife mangaement in the Canadian Encyclopedia. It gives a comprehensive look at when, how and who undertook managing Canada's wildlife resource.

The Final Word
The final assignment in this module has been brought to you by the letter W." **W**hy is important to understand the short term and long term history of wildlife in Alberta/Canada? **W**hy should you be concered with the status of wildlife in Alberta/Canada? **W**hat can I do about improving or supporting effective management of wildlife? Answer these three questions by relating to a topic which we have explored during our discussions and present it in a form which is meaningful to you.