CSC wildlife management program hits the spot

He said the program fits well with the need to find harmony between the growing number of wildlife species that have inhabited the region in recent years and the continuing encroachment by developers into what once was pristine territory reserved primarily for animals.

“We’ve got more wildlife out there than at about any time since white man arrived in this part of the country and we’ve got more people and groups interested in what happens to them than probably every before,” said Butterfield. “Add that to the fact that more people seem to want to live in the hills and valleys that are the natural habitat for wildlife and you can see that it’s going to require more and more management so the animals and the people can live in harmony.”

Butterfield said the CSC program is producing graduates who have been trained with the management skills being sought.

There’s a strong demand for this training among Chadron State students, Butterfield said. In the last rotation of wildlife classes, 27 students finished the minor. During the fall semester, 37 students took the Introduction to Wildlife Management course that is a part of the new program.

Other courses in the program include Rangeland Wildlife Management, Wildlife Research and Management Techniques, Mammalogy, Ornithology and Wildlife Practicum that is involved in some interesting studies.

The courses stress hands-on experiences. For instance, in the past two years, students have been heavily involved in staffing deer check stations to collect samples for chronic wasting disease. In the practicum, CSC students spent two days conducting telemetry work on the newly-released bighorn sheep in the Pine Ridge.

In December, an Associated Press article originating in Colorado said interest seems to be waning among college students in wildlife management and cited numerous statistics to substantiate those claims. The story indicated that a near-crisis situation may soon occur in the field because of a lack of trained applicants for the jobs that are and will be cropping up.

If true, Butterfield said CSC grads who have picked up the wildlife minor should be in good shape and ready to fill these jobs.

The CSC professor, who this past fall was elected president of the Nebraska Section of the Society for Range Management, said those wishing to go into wildlife management usually have three options.

Perhaps the most prominent of the job choices is becoming a game warden, or in modern terms, a conservation officer. Butterfield said this is not a field with a lot of openings because most of those who are hired remain on the job their entire careers. Chadron State students who are interested in the positions combine criminal justice courses with the wildlife management courses.

More openings are available for what Butterfield calls wildlife biologists. They are involved in setting hunting quotas, placement and control of animal populations, disease prevention and control and assessing damage caused by wildlife when it occurs.

Obviously, the positions require a lot of contact with the public. Students interested in this field often take the environmental studies curriculum in biology and pick up the wildlife minor.

Another field is habitat biology. Butterfield believes it will become more and more prevalent as the wildlife and human habitats continue to mingle and may have the most jobs in the field. He said it involves habitat assessment, management and manipulation. It involves raising public awareness of wildlife habitat requirements, domestic and wildlife grazing management, planting and cultivation of feed plots and prescribed fire to maintain or improve the habitat.

Students interested in this area take the Range Ecology option in the CSC’s Range Management program and also pick up the wildlife minor.

Students in all three programs may end up working for agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service and state Game and Parks/Fish Commissions, according to Butterfield.

The growing number of private hunting facilities has also increased the need for persons skilled in managing wildlife, Butterfield pointed out. He suspects that many of the students enrolled in the program last fall will eventually become involved in this field since 20 of them are range management majors who grew up on ranches that they may eventually own and operate.

Butterfield added that conservation groups such as the Nature Conservancy, Ducks Unlimited, Pheasants Forever and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation also frequently seek expertise from wildlife biologists before taking stands on issues that interest them.

He added that the whole gamut of wildlife management has become more sophisticated through the years as wildlife numbers and interest in them have grown. Some 50 years ago, about the only wildlife residing in Northwest Nebraska were relatively few deer and pronghorns, game birds such as pheasants and grouse and migratory waterfowl. It was rare that anyone saw a bobcat and the coyote numbers were much lower than they are today.

Wild turkeys and elk were introduced in the northwest corner of the state in rather recent times. Before that, pronghorns were re-established in the Sandhills. More recently, bighorn sheep are another species that have been introduced while mountain lion sightings have become much more prevalent throughout the region.

Chadron State is involved with several studies involving wildlife in the region, Butterfield said.

A game biologist stationed at Alliance with the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. Todd Nordeen, is receiving master’s degree credit for two research projects that Butterfield is assisting with. One involves determining the causes of hoof deformities found in about six of the bighorn sheep that were reintroduced the Wildcat Hills southwest of Gering. The other looks at the diet and forage intake of the sheep. The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, the Foundation of North American Wild Sheep, Platte River Basin Environments and Safari International are helping fund the study.

Another Game and Parks employee at Alliance, Emily Munter, is studying ways to control downy brome, or cheat grass, in the Buffalo Creek Wildlife Management Area near Scottsbluff. The study is being conducted in conjunction with Dr. Pat Reece at UNL.

Another research project is headed by CSC graduate student Angie Meiergerd, who is looking at the habitat suitability and nesting patterns of cavity nesting birds in the Metcalf Wildlife Management Area north of Hay Springs.

In addition, Jeremiah Vardiman, a CSC graduate student and part-time Game and Parks employee, is applying for grants that will help him look at reasons for the fluctuations in the population of the bighorn sheep at Fort Robinson. Butterfield said the bighorns were introduced at the fort in 1981 and a number of peaks and valleys in the herd size have occurred.

Vardiman will also focus on home ranges, lamb mortality and a diet study similar to Nordeen’s.

Bighorn sheep are a potentially lucrative asset for Nebraska. An Alabama sportsman paid $83,000 for the privilege of bagging a full curl ram at Fort Robinson this fall. However, because of the decline in the herd numbers the past few years, it is doubtful that a hunt will take place in 2006.

Butterfield is quick to point out that he had lots of assistance in designing the wildlife management program. Lending vital assistance were Dr. Ron Weedon, veteran CSC biology professor; CSC graduate student Leslie Stewart-Phelps and former U.S. Forest Service wildlife biologist Greg Schenbeck.

Schenbeck and another Forest Service wildlife biologist, John Sidle, have taught the courses in the program.