A Wildlife Message...About the Message

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” - Plutarch

I ran across this quote from a great Greek historian in a book I am reading on human origins (The Last Lost World: Ice Ages, Human Origins, and the Invention of the Pleistocene) and it sent my mind in a whirl. Unfortunately, my mind does that and oftentimes it spins incessantly. Funny thing is, I relate it to those souped-up hot rods that spin their wheels with blinding speed and simply go nowhere. (I can only hope that one day some of these ideas and endeavors gain traction.)

Let me start by saying I have been blessed with life experiences that few others have attained. It wasn't but a few years ago that I realized my wheels were spinning and I truly was going nowhere. It was the first time in my life I wasn't enjoying what I was doing. I am one of the lucky few that feel that they have never worked a day in their entire life, simply because I so love what I do. That was of course until I stopped managing wildlife and began to manage the most difficult species of all...people.

Management skills are truly a gift, some people have it… I don't. It's not that I could not do the job. I moved up rather quickly in my field so apparently I have the talent, where I fall short is I lack the desire. I would rather roll up my sleeves and get dirty instead of overseeing the work efforts of others. It's simply who I am. However, critical to any task I oversee is the quality and pride that go into the responsibilities at hand. I have standards that I don't easily compromise, one of which is educating others who express the deep desire or blatant need to learn.

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The Difficult Truth

When it comes to wildlife, we live in an ignorant world. This statement is not meant to be derogatory, it's simply truthful. It is also not meant to be accusatory. Our urban-centric society does not expose most individuals to the natural world so there's little chance for people to understand the ways of nature save for a few lessons in their jumbled sea of a childhood education.

Although some desire, most people simply lack the understanding of our natural world. Our greatest need as wildlife professionals is not to focus all of our attention on the animals we dedicate our lives to but to focus most of our attention on the people that ultimately have the greatest impact on those animals. Because of this need, the "understanding" of conservation principals by the general public is critically important for wildlife (and wildlife agencies) since policy is often set by the voting majority. It's the ‘getting people to understand these principles’ that is most difficult.

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A Message Missing the Mark

As great as the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is, that holds our wildlife resources in public trust and binds us to manage by science, the message and responsibilities for these resources are often slanted toward the minority of individuals, thus placing the burden of conservation squarely on the shoulders of the few. A great example of this bias is the fact that federal funding for wildlife conservation comes mostly from the pockets of hunters and fishermen (Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson Acts) with very little funding emanating from the general sector. State wildlife agencies are funded similarly with the financial burden for conservation falling primarily on the consumptive users (license buyers). This needs to change.

But how can this change if wildlife agencies generally speak only to their primary constituents?

In the spring of 2015, I attended the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies North American conference. Steve Williams, president of the Wildlife Management Institute and former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, was the plenary speaker. He was speaking on the future responsibilities of wildlife agencies and what he said so inspired me I immediately wrote it down, tore it off my notepad and secured it in my wallet. His exact words were,

"The information that we as wildlife professionals gather is so critically important that all must hear ...BUT… equally important to that message is its packaging and delivery because without it the world does not know we exist."

As great as this message was where did it go? It went to the individuals who often struggle to get their message out and YES, I am one of them. I am one who was schooled in evolutionary principles, population models and Linnaean nomenclature. I hazard to guess the vast majority of my colleagues sitting in that room majored in those same subjects. Absent from our studies were the lessons in human-dynamics, communications and marketing. Yes, marketing, because finding and creating an audience is just as important as being able to communicate with them. These are skill sets that often require years of upper-level training and award degrees and certificates for their efforts. Yet we believe those skills are somehow inherent. They are not.

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Packaging and Delivery

The first step in correcting a problem is to identify the problem. If we struggle with the general public not understanding basic wildlife principles it may not be that we ourselves don't understand them, rather we simply do not know how to "package and deliver" those principles to our audience. It is our responsibility to provide the public the means for understanding. This conundrum does not require further research into animal biology and behavior, unless of course, your target animal is humans. At this point, my question to many of my colleagues is this:

If the packaging and delivery of our message is so important then why are we constantly wrapping it in camouflage?

Most of the information wildlife agencies provide is not only written for the well-versed outdoorsmen but it is usually marketed in arenas that are frequented by those same outdoorsman. Information on the management of species remains firmly lodged within the realms of peer-reviewed wildlife journals, hunting guides and popular sporting magazines, none-of-which reach the populace. If the statistics we have been fed for decades ring true in that approximately 10% of the population hunts, 10% oppose hunting, and 80% are neither here nor there, wouldn’t one surmise that for every one article that hits a hunting-based publication, there should be at least eight others that hit mainstream media?

Having said all this, I’m no fool. I understand not every Tom, Dick and Harry wants to hear about an endangered clam. However, there are species and issues that do concern the masses. There are keystone species such as eagles and bears that spark awe and excitement in all people. I firmly believe we can thank the great conservationist Teddy Roosevelt for the latter. Then there’s the issue of climate change and although the debate rages on regarding its cause, we are left to not only to adapt as a human race but to figure out how other species are to adapt as well. So needless to say wildlife and our ecosystems remain a priority in many people’s lives.

This may be why in 2011 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife Recreation revealed that over 90 million Americans (38% of the population 16 years of age or older) enjoyed some form of fishing, hunting or wildlife-associated recreation. Those same people spent $145 billion equaling almost 1% of our gross domestic product. To put this in perspective, for every $100 dollars of all goods and services produced, $1 is due to wildlife-related recreation. That’s an issue that is more main stream than most people would ever imagine.

So, if almost one out of every two people DO CARE shouldn’t they be provided information to make them more knowledgeable? Once again, we must begin to turn our attention to the packaging and delivery.

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Addressing the Problem

I have used Mr. William’s statements as my battle cry ever since it became a permanent addition to my wallet. If we do not know how to talk to people and effectively convey what we know about wildlife how could we ever get the public to not only understand, but DO what is necessary to protect and conserve our wildlife? 

As most know, wildlife professionals have done and will continue to do amazing things in the world of wildlife conservation. Unfortunately a few of those actions come on the heels of atrocities from catastrophic events such as major oil spills but those tend to be short-lived and relatively localized. Most widespread deleterious actions against wildlife or the ecosystems in which they live are or were carried out over decades of negligence, such as the effects of over-exploitation or deforestation. Those are issues we continue to face and must continue to rectify but the public is often uninformed on these issues.

We too, as professionals, should even accept the blame for a portion of public misunderstandings since some of the more confounding present-day issues were caused by our own best intentions. For example, for most of the twentieth century the immediate suppression of wild land fire was encouraged. The ultra-effective Smokey Bear campaign created generations of people that viewed wild land fire as detrimental. The belief that all fire was bad was the progenitor to creating fire-dependent ecosystems that are highly departed from their natural conditions. This not only effects forest vegetation but the wildlife within. These issues are now better understood, at least we believe so, by natural resource professionals and we are often attempting to "undo" what we were preaching just a few scant years before.

So can we really blame the public for their present-day ignorance? Hardly, since many have learned from old text books and have not yet received the new information. Even worse, as stated earlier, we have been teaching from the back classroom while the student body waits patiently in the main lecture hall. It’s time we crack the new text books and address the awaiting students.

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Do Not Lecture...Teach!

As a student of nature I have been taught life lessons from a wide variety of resources. Besides college professors and colleagues I have learned equally as much, not only from the plants and animals I study, but from the people who are as passionate about them as I am, regardless of their background or focus. One of my greatest lessons came from Stephanne Dennis, an undergraduate student at Oregon State University who is studying Human-Wildlife Dynamics. She once said, “Your power comes not from your authority or knowledge…it comes from how well you communicate and inspire others to action.”

This prophetic statement reminded me of a painful memory where hordes of interested citizens were concerned there was a cougar roaming their neighborhood. The ever-grainy photo did not reveal the sharp characteristics the less-informed public looks for when identifying a cougar so the question of its identity still lingered. When the news interviewed the wildlife professional in charge of that situation, and with the public anxiously awaiting enlightenment, the moment to instruct was completely deflated by the response, “It’s a dog.” Linnaeus let us down again.

Opportunity missed.

Simply put, our ability to influence is our greatest power. I couldn’t agree more. Let’s begin to collaborate with the folks that are trained educators and skilled communicators, let’s start talking, and let's keep the fire burning.