Conservation and Management of the Culture of Bears

Mapping Intimacies ◽

10.22541/au.163881121.16278100/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Christopher Servheen ◽

Kerry Gunther

Keyword(s):

National Park ◽

Close Association ◽

Social Factor ◽

Resource Exploitation ◽

Human Influence ◽

Local Resources ◽

Wide Range ◽

Term Management ◽

Careful Management

ABSTRACT: Culture is widely accepted as an important social factor present across a wide range of species. Bears have a culture as defined as behavioral traditions inherited though social learning usually from mothers to offspring. Successful bear cultures can enhance fitness and resource exploitation benefits. In contrast, some bear cultures related to response to humans and human-related foods can be maladaptive and result in reduced fitness and direct mortality. In environments with minimal human influence most bear culture has evolved over generations to be beneficial and well adapted to enhance fitness. However, most bears across the world do not live in areas with minimal human influence and in these areas, bear culture is often changed by bear interactions with humans, usually to the detriment of bear survival. We highlight the importance of identifying unique bear cultural traits that allow efficient use of local resources and the value of careful management to preserve these adaptive cultural behaviors. It is also important to select against maladaptive cultural behaviors that are usually related to humans inorder to reduce human-bear conflicts and high bear mortality. We use examples from Yellowstone National Park to demonstrate how long-term management to reduce maladaptive bear cultures related to humans has resulted in healthy bear populations and a low level of human-bear conflict in spite of a high number of Park visitors in close association with bears.

Download Full-text

Betwixt and Between: Bridging the Gap Between Field and Repository

Biodiversity Information Science and Standards ◽

10.3897/biss.2.27042 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 2 ◽

pp. e27042

Author(s):

Meghan Grizzle

Keyword(s):

National Park ◽

Field Work ◽

The United States ◽

Online Database ◽

Archaeological Collections ◽

Park Service ◽

Set Up ◽

Collections Care ◽

Term Management

All too often, archaeologists have viewed curation as a process that manages, rather than investigates, archaeological and natural history collections. The curation crisis can be understood as the result of a serious imbalance between the continued generation of field collections and a corresponding lack of resources and facilities devoted to accessioning, analyzing, reporting, curating and otherwise caring for these collections. Researchers mistakenly prioritize ‘interpretation at the trowel’s edge’ with emphasis on excavation and field work, without considering the problem of how and where to store the objects they excavate. While legislation, Curation of Federally Owned and Administered Archaeological Collections (36 C.F.R. Part 79), was intended to ensure the long-term management and care of these resources, the absence of funding at the institutional and federal levels, nonexistent enforcement of the legislation through the National Park Service, and lack of compliance from field archaeologists, have resulted in collections throughout the United States being at risk of loss through deterioration, mismanagement, and neglect. I will demonstrate that accessioning, inventorying, cataloguing, rehousing and conserving are meaningful generative encounters between scholars, objects and collections staff, not simply byproducts of research. The need for an online database specifically set up for archaeological collections is suggested as a way to address the curation crisis. Implementing digitization will enhance preservation by reducing damage to the artifacts caused by physical handling. Persons working within the field will gain a better understanding of collections care and the collections transition to the repository.

Download Full-text

Assessing the impact of market logic and long-term strategic plans of top management in share buyback decisions

Managerial Finance ◽

10.1108/mf-07-2021-0336 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Istemi Demirag ◽

Thanamas Kungwal ◽

Yassine Bakkar

Keyword(s):

Short Term ◽

Content Type ◽

Strategic Objectives ◽

Strategic Plans ◽

Wide Range ◽

Corporate Goals ◽

The Impact ◽

Depth Interviews ◽

Term Management

PurposeThis paper investigates stakeholders' perspectives of share buybacks in the context of time-horizons of investment decisions and strategy.Design/methodology/approachWe use in-depth interviews with stakeholders from eight listed UK firms as well as examine their publicly available data.FindingsFindings suggest that share buybacks involve a wide range of stakeholders' rational interests and long-term management perspectives as they enable firms to strategise operational plans towards their long-term corporate goals.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings are based on interviews with a small number of share buyback firms and the findings, therefore, may not be generalised to all firms.Practical implicationsThe results show that share buybacks may be part of the long-term interests of firms and not necessarily used as part of short-term EPS increases as suggested in the extant literature.Originality/valueThe findings contribute to the literature on corporate pay-out policies in the context of short-term financial objectives vs long-term strategic objectives of stakeholders. They show that share buybacks can be an important part of firms' long-term strategic considerations.

Download Full-text

Ruapehu Lahar New Zealand 18 March 2007: Lessons for Hazard Assessment and Risk Mitigation 1995-2007

Journal of Disaster Research ◽

10.20965/jdr.2008.p0284 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 3 (4) ◽

pp. 284-296 ◽

Cited By ~ 24

Author(s):

Harry J. R. Keys ◽

◽

Paul M. Green

Keyword(s):

National Park ◽

Best Practice ◽

Risk Mitigation ◽

Scientific Information ◽

River System ◽

Disaster Mitigation ◽

Transfer Of Knowledge ◽

Wide Range ◽

The Government

A moderately large lahar caused by a collapse of a tephra dam over the outlet of Crater Lake occurred 11 years and 4 months after the situation that led to it was first recognized. This allowed sufficient time for the considerable period needed by emergency managers and the Government to learn from scientists about the hazard, assess risks in pragmatic and robust ways, debate and progressively mitigate them. Early involvement of a wide range of agencies and the media was encouraged, enabling transfer of knowledge, development of interagency relationships and provided fora for a mitigation strategy to evolve in the face of sometimes controversial mitigation options. Decisions about options were based primarily on maximizing public safety and long-term utility in a valley subject to frequent, sometimes large, past and future lahars. These decisions, which had a significant political component also considered option suitability in a national park setting. A best-practice alarm system was installed based on acoustic flow monitors. A training levee structure was built to protect a highway and other vulnerable infrastructure and a river system near-by, and a key highway bridge raised and strengthened. Response agencies each prepared their own emergency plans which were then integrated and practiced over 3-4 years, incorporating an increasing readiness triggered by a Warning Level system linking to rising lake levels. Execution of the plans progressed smoothly on 18 March. The outcome showed that community resilience to lahars was achieved by adopting long-term solutions, rather than short-term ones, and carefully considering cultural, social, and technological perspectives, especially in a national park setting. Decision-making procedures that give weight to impartial scientific information, as well as values and legislation, are required for effective disaster mitigation, including an acceptance of an appropriate degree of residual risk.

Download Full-text

Evaluating wildlife management by using principles of applied ecology: case studies and implications

Wildlife Research ◽

10.1071/wr18006 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 45 (5) ◽

pp. 436 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jim Hone ◽

V. Alistair Drake ◽

Charles J. Krebs

Keyword(s):

Case Studies ◽

Wildlife Management ◽

National Park ◽

Applied Research ◽

Scientific Literature ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

Applied Ecology ◽

Management Objectives ◽

Term Management

Context The broad concepts and generalisations that guide conduct of applied ecology, including wildlife management, have been reviewed and synthesised recently into 22 prescriptive and three empirical principles. Aims The aim of this study was to use these principles to evaluate three on-ground wildlife management programs and assess the utility of the principles themselves. Key results Case studies of long-term management of national park biodiversity impacted by feral pigs (Sus scrofa), and of conservation and harvest of red kangaroos (Macropus rufus) and mallards (Anas platyrhnchos), were selected to provide a representative range of management objectives, spatial scales and land tenures, and to include both native and introduced species. Management documents and a considerable scientific literature were available for all three programs. The results highlight similarities and differences among management activities and demonstrate the 25 principles to differing degrees. Most of the prescriptive principles were demonstrated in both the management and the scientific literature in all three programs, but almost no use was made of the three empirical principles. We propose that use of the prescriptive principles constitutes evidence that these programs meet both societal and scientific expectations. However, the limited use of the empirical principles shows gaps in the three programs. Conclusions The results suggest that evaluating other wildlife management programs against the principles of applied ecology is worthwhile and could highlight aspects of those programs that might otherwise be overlooked. Little use was made of the empirical principles, but the the Effort–outcomes principle in particular provides a framework for evaluating management programs. Implications The effort–outcomes relationship should be a focus of future applied research, and both prescriptive and empirical principles should be integrated into wildlife management programs.

Download Full-text