Monitoring for Fish and Wildlife Management

Monitoring for Fish and Wildlife Management

David R. Smith

USGS – Leetown Science Center

Why Monitor?Why Monitor?

Monitoring is the systematic acquisition of information over time to support management decisions• Determine if management objectives are

being met, • Assess the status of populations or habitats

being managed, or • Reduce the uncertainty that is impeding

decision making.

The “old way” delivery of monitoring design to natural resource managerThe “old way” delivery of monitoring design to natural resource manager

Here’s my report. You’re welcome.

Goodbye.

Um, thanks, I think.

Adaptive ManagementAdaptive Management

Monitoring design comes after• Objectives• Alternatives• Models

First figure out what needs to be measured, and then figure out how to measure it.

Adaptive ManagementAdaptive Management

System Model Prediction

Monitoring ObservationSystem Model*

Learning Adapt

Slide credit: Michael C. Runge & James D. NicholsUSGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

Management objectives

A priori list of managementactions that could affect

populations or habitats and models to predict

consequences of actions

Targeted monitoringfor adaptive

management

Yes

Surveillance monitoringfor sequential evaluation

of resource condition

No

Monitoring Types

Monitoring TypesMonitoring Types

Targeted• Tightly focused on decision

at hand or specific management actions

• Linked to predictive models or specific a priori hypotheses

• Predictive models are conceptual or quantitative

• Monitor measurable attributes determined for specific management objectives

• Designed to be efficient for the decision at hand

Surveillance• Not focused on a particular

decision or management actions

• Can be linked to conceptual models, but not always

• Typically broad geographic, temporal, and taxonomic scope

• Trend detection is often the objective, and power might be low or unevaluated

Monitoring Types (examples)Monitoring Types (examples)

Targeted• Adaptive Harvest Management Program for Waterfowl• Adaptive Management of Horseshoe Crabs and Red Knots

in Delaware Bay • Integrated Waterbird Management and Monitoring• Salt Marsh Management and Monitoring

Surveillance• Breeding Bird Survey• EMAP • NPS I&M Networks• NASA Earth System Research Laboratory: carbon

dioxide monitoring

Targeted Monitoring for Adaptive ManagementTargeted Monitoring for Adaptive Management

System Model Prediction

Monitoring ObservationSystem Model*

Learning Adapt

Slide credit: Michael C. Runge & James D. NicholsUSGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

Surveillance MonitoringSurveillance Monitoring

MonitoringObservation

Significant decline?

Observation

Yes

Active management

Initiate study to determine cause

of decline

Active management

Critique of Surveillance MonitoringCritique of Surveillance Monitoring A time-lag is imposed when active

management is delayed until significant trend

It’s costly to initiate study after decline is detected, and it might not be effective at determining best management action.

“We believe that this approach to monitoring [i.e., surveillance] is inefficient and frequently ineffective.” Nichols and Williams (2006) Monitoring for conservation. TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution 21:668-673.

Discovering ‘unknown unknowns’Discovering ‘unknown unknowns’

Not everything important can be foreseen – there are surprises in life• Emerging diseases and pollutants

Surveillance monitoring might be better at discovering surprises because typically broad geographic, temporal, and taxonomic scale• However, targeted monitoring also has a chance of

discovering emerging and unanticipated issues• And, neither surveillance or targeted monitoring can

guarantee discovery of emerging and unanticipated issues

Discovering ‘unknown unknowns’Discovering ‘unknown unknowns’

Wintle et al. (2010) Allocating monitoring effort in the face of unknown unknowns. Ecology Letters 13:1325-1337

Surveillance monitoring is justified when • it has a better chance of discovering emerging

and unanticipated issues than targeted monitoring, and

• expected benefits from discovery are higher than benefits from targeted monitoring

SummarySummary

Limited budgets requires tradeoffs in what and how we monitor for fish and wildlife management

Targeted monitoring supports decision making by integrating with management• Monitoring design comes after objectives, alternatives, and

predictive modeling Surveillance monitoring is not directly linked to specific

management, but can be justified when• It has a better chance of discovering emerging and

unanticipated issues and• The benefit of discovery outweighs benefit of targeted

monitoring

Recent pubsRecent pubs

Nichols and Williams (2006) Monitoring for conservation. TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution 21:668-673

Lyons et al. (2008) Monitoring in the context of structured decision-making and adaptive management. JWM 72:1683-1692

Wintle et al. (2010) Allocating monitoring effort in the face of unknown unknowns. Ecology Letters 13:1325-1337