Incorporating human dimensions objectives into waterfowl habitat planning and delivery

Abstract

The 2012 revision of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP) explicitly recognized the need to increase recruitment and retention of waterfowl hunters, birdwatchers, and other conservationists to maintain support for wetland conservation. The incorporation of human dimensions objectives within the NAWMP has compelled waterfowl and wetland managers to consider whether and to what extent landscape characteristics such as public land access; the type, amount, and location of wetlands; and site infrastructure will increase support for wetland conservation among user groups. Further, it has forced the waterfowl community to consider the possible trade‐offs between managing land to achieve biological versus social objectives. We used publicly available, long‐term data sets to illustrate a method of incorporating human dimensions into waterfowl habitat planning and management. We used United States Fish and Wildlife Service waterfowl harvest survey data, United States Geological Survey band encounter data, and Cornell Lab of Ornithology eBird data to summarize travel characteristics of wetland bird enthusiasts (i.e., waterfowl hunters and birdwatchers) in the Atlantic Flyway. Greater than 90% of all trips by wetland bird enthusiasts occurred within their state of residence. We used data from New York, USA, to demonstrate how to construct discrete choice recreation demand models to identify factors that influence site selection and participation. We demonstrate how model outputs, such as the expected change in the number and geographic distribution of recreational trips (i.e., hunting or birdwatching), can be used as an objective metric to evaluate the benefits of alternative habitat acquisition and restoration projects relative to the human dimensions objective of the NAWMP. These data and methods show promise for incorporating human dimensions objectives into habitat delivery and understanding potential trade‐offs relative to biological objectives. Published 2017. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

Monitoring the social benefits of ecological restoration

“…Kreitler et al ). One promising approach is to use real‐time data from social media such as Flickr (Wood et al ), Twitter (Wu et al ), or crowdsourced data from eBird (Devers et al ). Participatory monitoring (von Bertrab & Zambrano ) can also be used to engage volunteers in monitoring pre‐ and postrestoration beneficiaries.…”

Meeting harvest expectations is key for duck hunter satisfaction

“…Part and parcel of the emphasis on hunter satisfactions are notions that fulfilling satisfactions will increase likelihood of continued participation and that it is the responsibility of wildlife managers and agencies to provide hunting opportunities that facilitate satisfaction (Hammitt et al , ; Floyd and Gramann ; Manfredo et al ; Brunke and Hunt ). These ideas have taken on a renewed urgency as hunting license sales have declined, prompting a shift in energy and budgetary resources toward recruitment, retention, and reactivation efforts (Ryan and Shaw , Gude et al , Larson et al , Devers et al ).…”

“…Waterfowl hunters have declined nationally despite record levels of breeding duck (Anatidae) populations across North America and the sustained availability of liberal bag limits, generous season lengths, and extra opportunities (e.g., youth seasons, early teal hunts; Case and Associates , Vrtiska et al , Devers et al , Finger et al ). Although the complexity and restrictiveness of regulations has been examined to explain hunter declines (Enck et al , Case and Associates , Haugen et al ), the best evidence suggests other socio‐cultural trends are responsible (Larson et al ).…”

Multi-scale waterfowl habitat conservation planning in Wisconsin, USA

“…To model potential outdoor recreation opportunities around urban areas, we assumed locations with greater human populations have more potential Fig. 3 The 17 Ecological Landscapes (ELs) and boundaries of each associated 12-digit hydrologic unit code (HUC) used for waterfowl habitat conservation planning in Wisconsin, USA recreationists but travel time or distance will limit use of conservation lands (Devers et al 2017). To produce this spatial layer, we obtained human abundance data per census block (U.S. Census 2010), and converted block polygons to points, where we assigned each point a weight based on number of people in the original block.…”

“…Having better data on distribution of ducks during autumn and spring migrations, relative to habitat types used, could enhance these decision support layers. In addition, the conservation opportunities associated with human populations layer assumes locations with greater human populations have more potential recreationists, and travel time or distance will limit use of conservation lands (Devers et al 2017). Work by Devers et al (2017) was based solely on publicly available survey data in the eastern US.…”