Managing fisheries and wildlife resources isn’t only about following the science, it’s also about understanding public perceptions and managing public expectations, according to Steve Williams, president of the Wildlife Management Institute and a former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Williams, who attended Pennsylvania State University and earned his master’s degree in biology from the University of North Dakota in 1979, came to campus in April to speak to students, faculty and alumni about his 40-year professional career in the fish and wildlife field. The event was sponsored by the UND Chapter of the Wildlife Society and the Department of Biology as part of the Glenn Allen Paur Lecture Series.
Williams outlined the changes he’s seen and experienced since the days when he and his wife lived in World War II-era tin huts on campus while pursuing their master’s degrees at UND.
“We didn’t have two dimes to rub together, but somehow we found camaraderie,” he recalled. “We were all kind of in the same boat. It was a wonderful, wonderful two years here.”
Early in his career as a wildlife biologist, the job revolved around protecting and preserving fish and wildlife for anglers and hunters.
“I would collect information, go to my director and say, ‘Here’s the decision we’re going to make because this is what the science tells us to do.’ That’s the way I originally started, and I’ve had quite an education since then.”
Williams described it as a command-and-control approach to managing wildlife resources.
“We really focused on traditional wildlife. We were going to produce more wildlife. We told you that’s what we were going to do.”
Change is inevitable
Although numerous technological changes have occurred to vastly improve wildlife research and data collection, Williams believes the greatest change to how the profession will continue to evolve is recognizing the public’s role in shaping the policies driving the future of wildlife management.
“We used to think that people were always going to want to hunt and fish,” Williams explained. “Now that it’s declining, it’s made a lot of agencies take a look at where they’re headed in terms of funding for their future. We need to start talking about the relevancy of conservation to the American public – to everybody, not just hunters and anglers.”
This means seeing fish and wildlife not as resources to be managed, but as part of a public trust and assets to be preserved for the benefit of all Americans.
“Those assets are held in the trust, and they’re administered and managed by people who are fish and wildlife agency folks, biologists and federal agency people,” Williams said.
“We manage those assets in this trust for the beneficiaries – for everybody in the country.
“It’s those folks that are on commissions or boards or legislatures that are the ones at the highest level policy decisions,” Williams noted.
“They are the ones making the decisions. Our job is to inform them as best as we can. It’s difficult as you work through your profession how to understand and accept that role, but that is the role we play.”
Glenn Allen Paur was a Pisek, N.D., native who graduated cum laude with a B.S. in fisheries and wildlife management from UND, where he served as president of the Fisheries and Wildlife Biology Club, and was a member of the Wildlife Society. He drowned shortly after graduating in 1978 while assisting a UND professor with his research on Leech Lake, Minn. \\\