Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units: How the Program Works and What It Studies

The U.S. Geological Survey's Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units program is a partnership of the USGS, other Interior Department and federal agencies, universities, state fish and wildlife agencies and the Wildlife Management Institute. It is one of the Survey's strongest links to the federal and state agencies that manage land and natural resources.

The program began in 1935, when the young field of wildlife management needed trained professionals. It now has 40 units on university campuses in 38 states, and supports 119 research scientist positions when fully funded. Its mission has three parts:

1. research for the management of fish, wildlife and other natural resources;
2. technical help for managers in applying science to policy and management;
3. training the next generation of natural resource professionals.

Research that crosses state lines

The units' research is meant to answer the management needs of their state and federal partners and inform their decisions. Because the units are spread across the country and work together, the program can take on analyses and conservation at the scale of whole landscapes, beyond what any single state could do. The range of that work is set out in USGS Circular 1427, Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: 2016 Research Abstracts, which summarises more than 560 projects active in fiscal year 2016.

The fact sheet groups the 2016 work under two of the USGS Ecosystems Mission Area's goals, within the Survey's proposed 2018–22 strategy.

Managing resources for thriving economies and healthy ecosystems

Climate and land-use change. In 2016, 18 units ran 43 climate science projects, on animals from caribou to crayfish to quail and topics from carbon storage to forecasting how vegetation will respond and predicting future water supply. The Oregon unit, for example, is studying nearshore habitats along the coasts of Oregon and Washington. Sea level is forecast to rise substantially by 2100, taking salt marshes and the species in them; the project assesses how vulnerable these habitats and their bird communities are, and whether that changes with latitude. It serves the goals of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's climate change strategy, "Rising to the Urgent Challenge."

Change in natural systems. Fifty-four projects across 23 units studied, modelled and predicted change across broad landscapes. With the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, the New York unit is developing a land stewardship strategy for the tribe's existing and newly settled lands in the Northern Forest: mapping where human and ecological values overlap, drawing up a culturally relevant stewardship plan, and producing audiovisual teaching material on sustainable forestry for high school and undergraduate courses. It combines Native American ecological knowledge with scientific understanding.

Conserving fish and wildlife. In 2016, 38 units worked on conserving fish and wildlife and their habitats, across three themes: endangered species (83 projects in 30 units), species of greatest conservation need (60 projects in 31 units), and populations, habitat and harvest management (149 projects in 33 units). Units have led research into what drives populations of species of greatest concern, sometimes providing information needed before a species is considered for listing.

In the Southeast, for instance, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with state agencies and others to assess more than 300 species awaiting listing decisions. The longleaf pine ecosystem supports several of them — the gopher tortoise, striped newt, gopher frog, southern hog-nosed snake and Florida pine snake — and the Georgia unit is gathering population data on them to support a formal analysis of the trade-offs between conservation options.

A gopher tortoise, one of the at-risk species of the longleaf pine ecosystem. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service photo.

Invasive species and wildlife disease. More than half of all units worked on these: 24 invasive-species projects in 13 units and 36 wildlife health and disease projects in 21 units. The Idaho unit is studying whether sylvatic plague — a bacterial disease of wild rodents spread by fleas — is lowering survival of the federally threatened northern Idaho ground squirrel. It complements a 10-year study of whether habitat restoration increases the squirrel's numbers, and should help managers deal with a threat that may be holding back its recovery and removal from the threatened list.

A northern ground squirrel. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service photo.

Energy. Twelve units ran 30 projects on solar, wind, and oil and gas development, studying endangered or threatened raptors and other birds, bats, ungulates and many aquatic species. Much of this work asks how energy projects affect where animals live and how they live, locally and across the continent, to guide where projects go and how they are run. In southeastern and south-central New Mexico, the New Mexico unit is filling gaps in what is known about golden eagles, to predict the risk from proposed wind farms: their habitat and range on Bureau of Land Management land, nest sites, breeding success and survival, how resident and wintering eagles are related, and where wintering eagles come from.

Technology for better decisions

In 2016, 13 units ran 14 projects developing advanced technologies, and 14 units ran 27 projects on decision science tools. The Oregon unit is developing ways to count burrow-nesting seabirds, such as Leach's storm-petrel, without disturbing them. Surface nesters can be counted from aerial photographs or by eye, but burrow nesters on remote islands are much harder. The researchers are using upward-facing remote cameras and sound recorders to estimate numbers, work that could lead to a standard census of burrow- and crevice-nesting seabirds and a long-term programme using them as indicators of ocean conditions and climate change.

Training the next generation

Graduate students, university staff and undergraduates in the units gain real-world experience and valued professional skills, and units' former students now hold leadership positions in nearly every state and federal conservation agency.

Research funding through the units supports more than 600 graduate and postgraduate positions (master's and PhD students and postdocs) and more than 300 university staff each year, and 80 to 100 graduate students earn advanced degrees annually, working directly with agency biologists and managers along the way. Field research is also a way to draw undergraduates of every background into graduate study in fish and wildlife. The program is developing ways to recruit, train and mentor young people from underrepresented groups, so that future managers and scientists better reflect the public they serve; a pilot with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, begun in fiscal year 2017, lets such students do research on National Wildlife Refuges.

Why it matters economically

Unit research is applied, usually aimed at species that are harvested, at risk or commercially important. In the 38 states with units, according to the 2011 national survey of fishing, hunting and wildlife-associated recreation:

• 85.8 million people hunted, fished or watched wildlife;
• they spent $109.8 billion: $68.4 billion by hunters and anglers and $41.4 billion by wildlife watchers.

Over fiscal years 2011–2015 the units received $161.4 million in research funding: $80.2 million from states and $81.2 million from federal sources, including $37.2 million in reimbursable funding from the USGS.

The fact sheet gives 293 projects across 38 units for the conservation themes, but its three theme counts add up to one fewer; this page gives only the counts by theme.

Sources

• Donald E. Dennerline and Dawn E. Childs, Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units—A Model Partnership Program, USGS Fact Sheet 2017–3022. https://doi.org/10.3133/fs20173022
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Census Bureau, 2011 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation. https://www.census.gov/prod/www/fishing.html
• Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: http://www.coopunits.org/