SHC- It’s time to sell the mule …

For wildlife management, Strategic Habitat Conservation is the wave of the future. Riding that wave will require us to think and plan in ways that may be new to us. But, as with wildlife, the ability to survive and thrive depends on the ability to adapt to a changing world.

Mike Bryant, Project Leader for the North Carolina Coastal Plain Refuges Complex, likens his job today to that of an early 20th century farmer. “You can have two farmers plowing fields that are side by side….,” Bryant explained, “One is driving a shiny new tractor and farming 400 acres; the other is plowing with a team of mules and farming 40 acres. The farmer on the tractor stops and calls over to the other… ‘Hey, why don’t you get yourself a tractor?’ to which the old-style farmer replies, ‘You don’t understand… I don’t have the time or the money to buy a tractor. I have these mules to feed, the harness to repair, shoes to buy for the mules' feet, and the blacksmith to pay. I can’t afford to buy a tractor, and I don’t have the time to even think about it.’ So, the farmer will trudge on, working hard from sun up to sun down to produce his 40 acres of crops.”

“But, if he pauses to consider his situation, he’ll recognize the value of taking a little time off from plowing to sell the mules and use that money as a down payment on a tractor, so he can plow more ground.”

Several years ago, Bryant was faced with a similar decision. “We desperately needed a full-time law enforcement officer for this refuge. The old model of a collateral law enforcement workforce was going away – in seven years the refuge went from five collateral duty officers to one. A law enforcement presence was needed, and we would have seen the results on the ground right away. But, I knew I couldn’t push for getting two positions. So, I chose to make a short-term sacrifice for a long-term gain. We hired a GIS person, because I knew for the long-term that was the most critical need. Now we’re in a much better position to move into this new way of making management decisions. We eventually got the full-time law enforcement officer.”

Moving into the future, wildlife management will require using the best available science and some workforce retooling. Sometimes we’ll have to be willing to bear “short-term pain” for “long-term gain.” To compete in the 21st century and to keep conservation of natural resources relevant, we need to embrace the new technology employed by science, and build capability and capacity to use the new technology, get comfortable with it, and put it to use managing fish, wildlife, and and plant resources and their habitats.

Submitted by Bonnie Strawser, Alligator River NWR, Manteo, NC