Management

There are two main strategies for controlling invasive game mammals throughout the Hawaiian Islands: putting up fences and hunting. Hunting for non-native feral pigs, axis deer, black-tailed deer, feral goats, and other introduced game mammals is an important cultural, recreational, and subsistence activity in many communities. However, these species can have negative impacts on the native and endangered flora and fauna of the Pacific Islands.

Come April, white-tailed deer in the northern states have gone through their worst hard time. Prolonged severe winter weather is the most taxing time in a whitetail’s life, particularly at the edges of their northernmost range. Does will soon give birth—if they haven’t starved.

A 700-year-old petroglyph portends the future of a new wildlife management area. If you need a reminder that the world is held together by stone and story, then consider the Marquez Wildlife Management Area and its recent addition, the L-Bar Ranch, with its rocks and rills and temple hills near Laguna, New Mexico.

Coastal wetlands are among the most productive ecosystems in the world providing resting, feeding, and breeding habitat for waterfowl and other migratory birds, and creating habitat for endangered and threatened species that are dependent on coastal areas.

Elk—an iconic species whose bugle inspires hunters and wildlife watchers alike—is a symbol of conservation success. Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky are four eastern states that have recovered elk populations successfully in the last few decades.

Onancock, Va., has been welcoming every kind of boater, from steamship crews and watermen to cruisers, since its founding in 1680. The place is only about a square mile in size and home to around 400 families, but it’s a great location, a couple of miles from Chesapeake Bay by way of Onancock Creek.

The nēnē, sometimes called the Hawaiian goose, is an endemic species found only on the Hawaiian Islands and is the official state bird. Once common, the species declined to only 30 individuals by 1957 due primarily to habitat destruction, introduction of predators, and historic hunting pressure.

The same source of conservation funding—excise taxes paid by tackle manufacturers via the Sport Fish Restoration Act—that pays for scientific fisheries research and management, boat ramps, aquatic education, and fish population surveys has righted an upside down trout stream.

The lesser prairie-chicken is a prairie grouse found in New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Today, the population in southeastern Colorado is rebounding thanks to a conservation partnership between Colorado and Kansas stakeholders and funding support through the State Wildlife Grant Program.

Each June marks both National Fishing and Boating Week  and  Great Outdoors Month. Like many other outdoor recreation activities, boating ownership has increased in recent years giving the boating industry many reasons to celebrate.