WILD SHEEP Spring 2022

CHAIR’S CORNER

by Peregrine L. Wolff, DVM Chair

YOU HAVE DONE A LOT FOR WILD SHEEP, BUT THEY STILL NEED YOUR HELP

I

stepped into the position of chair of the board during the peak of the first COVID wave which immediately required a change in how business at WSF and with the board was done. I didn’t realize it at the time, but we were embarking on an adaptive management journey.

Adaptive management is defined as a “robust decision-making process in the face of uncertainty.” The aim is to reduce uncertainty over time via monitoring your program and then using that information to assess and adjust future objectives and progress.

This process involves ‘Iterative decision-making’ or evaluating results and adjusting your actions based on what you have just learned.

Although adaptive management had its origins in natural resource management, it is not commonly employed in many state wildlife management agencies.

Every hunt that you go on, involves adaptive management. You use it to deal with the uncertainties that you know you will constantly encounter. For example, you plan to get to camp at 10 AM on day one and be on the mountain glassing for rams at noon. A weather front is forecasted to move into the area the night before you plan to leave. By monitoring the updates on the storm, you determine that the route you had planned to take to base camp is no longer accessible and you must use another route. If you still want to be glassing for rams at noon, you now need to leave three hours earlier to

14 WILD S HEEP® ~ SPRING 2022

accommodate the new route.

This process is exactly what WSF staff employed in 2021 and 2022 to deliver two excellent, but different, WSF conventions. The staff and the board studied the best information that was available to deliver a virtual conference in 2021, then used the knowledge gained from that experience, coupled with the latest updates on limits to public gatherings, mask mandates, border closures, emerging novel strains and most importantly, WSF members eagerness for an in-person convention, to bring us Sheep Week® 2022. During the week, staff used adaptive management principles to implement their plan, monitor the results and then use that information to assess and adjust the plan, then implement a new plan, and then start the process all over again.

Let’s now look at why adaptive management is necessary for the conservation of wild sheep.

Conserving or recovering a species is a management effort with a high amount of uncertainty and where adaptive management is highly effective. There are many dynamic, factors, meaning those characterized by constant change, that affect populations of wild sheep. For instance, habitats for wild sheep are impacted by the presence of predators, climate fluctuation, and how human use impacts that habitat. Populations can fluctuate in relation to habitat dynamics, in addition to disease, as well as active

management programs such as hunting or translocations. Another layer of uncertainty is added when we understand that not all populations react the same to these dynamic factors, and that some factors such as the organisms involved in causing disease are involved in their own microscopic adaptive management exercise to ensure their survival.

The effective use of adaptive management requires good data that is monitored and assessed frequently.

Checking local weather updates, or the latest state restrictions on wearing masks, are safe, cheap and can be accessed in real-time allowing an immediate assessment and change in objectives. In contrast, gathering information on mountain ungulate populations can take years, usually involves bureaucracy, large expense, and danger to those conducting the work. Scientists interpreting the information may have varying opinions on what that data means, or by the time it is organized and interpreted and shared the situation on the mountain has changed.

It is hard to set objectives, monitor, assess and adjust, at the pace needed to effectively manage wild sheep populations in the face of increasing impacts. However, we need to employ the nimbleness of an adaptive management process now more than ever before. The challenges facing wild sheep are increasing each year. For decades, disease has been the primary impediment to recovery and conservation of